Keeping Corydoras Catfish With Neocaridina Cherry Shrimp And Amano Shrimp For Years!
I want to quickly share my experience keeping corydoras catfish with shrimp, because this is something a lot of aquarium hobbyists worry about when choosing tank mates.
For the longest time, I’ve kept Albino Corydoras aeneus, and the group I currently have has been with me for around three years. More recently, over the past six months, I’ve also been keeping pygmy corydoras alongside both neocaridina shrimp (like cherry shrimp) and amano shrimp in my planted aquariums.
Overall, my experience has been very positive and I’ve rarely had any problems.
A lot of people worry that fish will try to eat shrimp, especially baby shrimp, but in my tanks I’ve never seen my corydoras attempt to hunt or eat shrimp. Even when there are tiny shrimplets around the tank, the corydoras mostly ignore them and continue doing what corys do best—sifting through the substrate looking for leftover food.
In fact, I’ve been able to breed large colonies of neocaridina shrimp in tanks where corydoras are present, which shows that the shrimp feel safe enough to reproduce successfully.
The only small issue I’ve noticed actually comes from the amano shrimp. They’re incredibly confident and bold, and when I drop food into the tank they’ll often walk right over and grab food directly from the corydoras. The funny thing is the corydoras usually just let it happen and move on to find another piece.
Neocaridina shrimp behave very differently. They tend to keep to themselves more and spend most of their time grazing on algae, biofilm, and microorganisms around the tank. I usually hide their shrimp pellets in plants or hardscape so the corydoras don’t immediately find them.
Overall, in my experience, corydoras and shrimp make excellent tank mates, especially in planted aquariums. They occupy different areas of the tank, have very similar water parameter requirements, and both contribute to a peaceful community aquarium.
If you’ve been wondering whether you can keep shrimp with corydoras, my experience suggests that it can work really well.
