# South American shrimp



## Mustang Boy

I was wondering what kind of fresh water shrimp originate from South America


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## djrichie

Mountain or Rock Shrimp are found thur out Asia, South America and Africa. Also there are crayfish from South America, but use caution with cray fish as they will fish nip and kill any fish they can catch.


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## Mustang Boy

well this is going into a 10gal with tetras and from what i have read most crayfish get too big for a 10gal but if i can fit one in there i am pretty sure tetra can outrun one although it may be overcrowded with a crayfish because i plan on putting 2 schools of 5 tetra in the tank


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## djrichie

Was just talking south american inverts. Yes you are correct in a 10 gal that would be to small..... I do want to say that most tetras do better in schools of 7 or more. Also you might want to add a few otto cats to help control algea and instead of 2 small school a large school 10 and maybe 3 pygm cory's.... The cory's and otto's will help you keep a cleaner tank but the bio load is small. Add a peace a drift wood and rock with some (live) plants. and other than water changes you have a nice relaxing tank.... very little maintence 2 gal weekly water change... with a nice rotated gravel vac....

Water Quaility would be easy to maintain... and that would avoid a lot of headaches for you... but that just my thoughts. I think evey the mountain ship maybe to large for a ten, unless it just for shrimp. It's a known fact that fish eat shrimp,,,, and tetras will kile and eat a large shrimp if the shrimp just can't hide from them


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## Mustang Boy

i was trying to keep this an all South American tank to look kinda natural and i was hoping to use shrimp as the cleaners of the tank but if i cant find any small species of shrimp from the SA region ill have to outsource them from somewhere else then


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## djrichie

otto's and cory's come from south america......


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## Mustang Boy

well if i use cory's or otto i will have to limit my of tetra and i was hoping of doing 2 small school of tetra and ive been really hoping to get some shrimp in the tank


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## Ulli Bauer

You could keep ghost shrimp, they are found in parts of Central and South America.

Cheers
Ulli


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## danieleric

While Uli is somewhat correct in his statement, it is not quite that simple!

“Ghost Shrimp” is a generic term given to a large group of similar looking shrimp species. In North America the most common is the American Glass Shrimp and in South America it is the South American Glass Shrimp.

The South American Glass Shrimp is fairly rare in the hobby here in North America, so it will be a very difficult find. 

Other shrimp from South America include Macrobrachium spp, but most of them are large and aggressive!

If you went with the American Glass Shrimp, it would be very close to its southern cousin and would not look unatural


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## Ulli Bauer

Yeah, I'm aware of that. I was referring to Palaemonetes paludosus, but the variants or maybe even subspecies are rather difficult to discern, for the layman it's nearly impossible. So "Ghost Shrimp" seemed close enough...
By the way, I'm a "she" .


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