If you are keeping ghost shrimps for a long time, then you may have seen the Ghost Shrimps eating a dead fish if any dies in your tank. Seeing this scene did you ever wonder will Ghost Shrimp eat your live small fish?
Ghost shrimps generally don’t eat small fishes. They only eat a fish if it is dead as they are natural scavengers.
Ghost shrimps eating live small fishes is totally a misconception. Let’s dig into this topic more and understand what Ghost Shrimps actually eat!
What Do Ghost Shrimps Eat?
Generally, Ghost shrimps eat everything they find in the tank as they are natural scavengers. Observe them for some minutes and you will see them picking bits from the water. They mainly eat algae, dead plants, and detritus.
Algae naturally grow if you have enough shrimps and fishes in your tank. They spend hours grazing on the tank wall and other places to eat Algae. If algae don’t grow naturally you can simply give them algae wafers that are available in the market.
They also eat Shrimp pellets and uneaten food bits. You may also see them eating their fallen tank mates.
Now, Do Ghost Shrimps Eat Living Fish?
Ghost shrimps never eat living fishes, not even the small ones. Eating live fishes is not their nature. They only eat the ones that are dead.
There have been some cases where some people said their ghost shrimps attacked small fishes but this is very rare. You will hardly find any shrimp keeper saying this.
Shrimps are very peaceful and scared species. They hide most of the time when other fishes roam around in the tank. They feel unsafe when other fishes are around.
If you have 10-15 shrimps in your tank, you will hardly see 2-3 ghost shrimps roaming in the day time if the tank has enough hiding places. They feel safe and secured when they are hiding.
Can Fishes Eat Ghost Shrimps?
Big and aggressive fishes like Angelfish, Oscar loves to eat ghost shrimps. Also, those that have a big mouth can end up eating your Ghost shrimps. So if you don’t want your fishes to eat the Ghost Shrimps keep them separately in another tank. But if you want to feed your fishes something nutritious, Ghost Shrimps are a very good option.
Ghost shrimps are widely used as feeders for other fishes. Ghost shrimps are very nutritious and besides that, they are relatively inexpensive. This is why many fish Keepers use ghost shrimps as feeders. They keep the ghost shrimps in a separate tank and twice in a week feed other fishes with these ghost shrimps.
Do Ghost Shrimps Eat Each Other?
Ghost shrimps usually don’t kill and eat others. They don’t even attack or harm each other. They only eat the dead body if any ghost shrimp dies as they are scavengers.
If you ever see two shrimps attacking each other that is a very rare case. They can get a little aggressive towards each other if you have too many ghost shrimps in a small tank.
What Are The Best Tank Mates For Ghost Shrimps?
| Good Tank Mates | Bad Tank Mates |
|---|---|
| Other shrimp species | Any fish that are aggressive such as Barbs, Mollies, Serpea Tetra, Betta, etc. |
| Dwarf suckers | Cichlids |
| Small rasboras | Discus |
| Small Tetras | Angelfish |
| Snails | Fishes with a large mouth to gulp the shrimp in a single instance |
As ghost shrimps are very peaceful species, they feel safe if they are kept with small peaceful species like them. Two best fishes that are best tank mates for ghost shrimps are Tetras and Barbs. They don’t grow too big thus won’t attack or do any harm to the ghost shrimps.
Snails are also good tank mates to the Ghost Shrimps. You can keep any type of snails with the ghost shrimps.
You can also keep all the ghost shrimps together in a tank if you have many. They feel very secure when there are no other species with them. They are seen most active when there are no other species.
Conclusion
Now that you are at the end of this article you have a clear idea that ghost shrimps do not eat fishes. Rather if you keep them with other big fishes, they can eat the ghost shrimps.
However, if you ever see your ghost shrimp trying to eat any small fish that’s a very rare case. But generally, they don’t do it so do not worry about it.
