Instructions
Decide which species of shrimp you would like to your aquarium. Some shrimp feed off algae and will help keep your tank clean, while others are strictly ornamental. Determine which types you would like to add to your tank and decide if you can provide the right living conditions for them.
Research any existing fish in your aquarium to ensure they will not eat the shrimp. Larger fish often feed on shrimp, so it is important to make sure none of the fish you currently have will eat the newly added shrimp. Some species of shrimp can cost more than $50 per shrimp, so you want to make sure your investment won't be eaten the moment it enters the tank. If you have fish that do feed on shrimp, you should consider setting up a separate tank for your freshwater shrimp.
Cycle your aquarium. Shrimp are incredibly sensitive to ammonia and nitrates, as well as some of the medications commonly added to tanks. To ensure their survival, you should only introduce shrimp into a mature, cycled tank.
Create hiding places for your shrimp. Shrimp grow by molting their exoskeleton and then growing a new one. They are extremely vulnerable to predation during the molting process, so you should provide plenty of hiding places in your aquarium too small for the fish to get into. This will allow the shrimp a place to hide out while their new exoskeleton is being generated and aid in their survival.
Look for hidden dangers in your tank. An aquarium is much different from a shrimp's natural environment and may contain threats not encountered in nature. One such threat is the filter intake. Most adult shrimp should have no problem with the standard filter intake in an aquarium, but baby shrimp can be sucked into the filter and get stuck or be killed. There are a couple of inexpensive ways to prevent your baby shrimp from being sucked up. You can cut a piece of stocking material and secure it around the end of the intake with a rubber band or you can cut a hole in a piece of sponge and stick it over the intake. Another solution is to switch to an air-driven sponge filter.
How to Keep Live Shrimp
Shrimp are aquatic swimming crustaceans with ten legs. They are found in salt and freshwater, live in schools and can swim backwards. Adult shrimp are benthic filter feeders, which means they live at the bottom of a body of water and feed by filtering food particles suspended in the water through a filtering mechanism. There are several species of shrimp that thrive in freshwater aquariums, including ghost shrimp, cherry shrimp and Amano shrimp. Before you decide to raise an aquarium full of shrimp or add shrimp to an existing freshwater tank, there are a few steps you should take to guarantee success.