Shrimp and Discus

[vgamer575]

Hi, I'm new to the site. I have been thinking about getting Discus lately, but I haven't set up the aqauarium setup. I was just wondering in advance, in your opinion, what shrimp are compatable with Discus and which ones are the best algea eaters.
Thank you very much in advance,
Mike

[Merrilyn]

Hello Mike, and welcome to the forum. What part of the world are you from?

It's not common in Australia to keep shrimp with discus. I guess it's because of our import laws, that we don't see the popular ones, like the Amano shrimp. All we seem to have here are glass shrimp, and I've never kept them with Discus.

They seem to be sold here mainly as a food for larger fish.

Wait for some more replies from our international friends. I'm sure lots of people have experience with keeping shrimp.

[bushie]

only place for a shrimp is on the barbie!
on ya hoges.......

[Waldo]

Discus are not well adapted for top or bottom feeding but feeding from sticks and leaves in the wild. This does not leave much for what a fish would naturally consume as food other then water insects, shrimp, snails, slugs etc. Any shrimp that would be invulnerable to your discus is going to present a problem to the discus itself. Crayfish and lobsters would be more then happy to nibble on your fish.

One possible solution would be the bamboo shrimp. It's is a large water sifter that are save with any other fish and typically do better fending for themselves. There are a few varients of the fan shrimps however I don't even know if they are in the same genus.

If you are going to do shrimp though there are a few things one should know. I would suggest reading up on shrimp as they do need minerals for their regrowing of the shells. They also often have different water parameters that they would prefer to live in (Temp) being the first that comes to mind.

[vgamer575]

Thanks for all the help. I live in the Dallas/Fort Worth area of Texas so I do have shrimp avaliable, but I'm considering at least trying the idea with a few shrimp and if it doesn't work then oh well. I well make sure that I do have the correct water chemistry for the shrimp before I attempt adding shrimp[/quote]

[fishball]

currently keeping 3 amano shrimp with 3 discus in a 72 gallon tank along with other loaches and tetras. everyone's doing fine, although i just got these discus 4 days ago.

[Vtwinfanatic]

i wouldnt suggest keeping shrimp w/ discus. I breed cherry shrimp and their (along with most other shrimp) preferable water conditions vary greatly from that of my discus. I keep my shrimp at room temp, pH of about 7.7, and fairly soft water (the only thing in common w/ my discus tank) and dose iodine about 1 to 2 times a month. I placed a few of my cherry shrimp in my discus tank a few weeks ago to gamble and they became a fairly quick snack for my discus. You can try it but I wouldn't spend too much on my shrimp. The bamboo shrimp that was mentioned above might be okay.