Can Crystal Red Shrimp Live With Guppies?

Guppies are popular in community aquariums. However, a common misconception is that they can’t live with shrimp. Is this true?

Crystal Red Shrimp can live with guppies. Both guppies and Crystal Red shrimp can thrive together when the right diet, pH level, and water temperature are met. Make sure to keep your guppy and Crystal Red shrimp population balanced to ensure neither species lacks food or space.

This article discusses whether or not Crystal Red Shrimp are compatible with guppies. It’ll also discuss how you can set up an environment suitable for both of these aquatic creatures. Keep reading to learn more about it.

Can Guppies and Crystal Red Shrimp Share the same Tank?

For all their differences in appearance, guppies and shrimp share many similarities. They’re both small, peaceful creatures that are happiest when they have plenty of room to swim around and hide from predators. Guppies and Crystal Red shrimp are omnivores, meaning that they’ll happily eat most food.

Considering their similarities, is it possible for the two to live together in the same tank?

Guppies and Crystal Red shrimp can share the same tank under the right tank conditions. These creatures are compatible because they’re unlikely to clash and hurt one another. Guppies are docile fish that can get along with hard water-tolerant species, including Crystal Red shrimp.

Can Crystal Red Shrimp Live With Guppies?

How To Prepare a Tank for Your Guppies and Crystal Red Shrimp

It would help if you had some preparations for your Crystal Red shrimp to live in peace with the guppies in the same tank. It includes maintaining good water quality, pH level, and diet.

Here are simple ways of preparing the tank for your guppy and shrimp to live well:

Ensure the Water Hardness Is Suitable for Both Species

When preparing your guppy and shrimp tank, you need to understand the water requirements. Both guppies and crystal shrimp prefer hard water.

The water hardness of the guppy is generally in the range of dGH 8-12. The pH should be between 6.0 and 7.5.

Crystal shrimp require water hardness in the range of 6 to 8. The pH should be between 6.0 and 8.0.

Pay attention to their original habitat environment before purchase; if you can’t figure out the specific requirements, you can use shrimp’s general environment as a reference.

Ensure the Water Temperature Isn’t Too Low or High for Both Species

When you get guppies and Crystal Red shrimp, you must provide them with a suitable water temperature. It’s the most crucial factor affecting their growth. If the water temperature is not suitable, it will lead to many problems, such as poor diet or fish death.

The water temperature for the Crystal Red shrimp is generally suitable, around 25 to 28°C (77 to 82.4°F). And the water temperature for the guppy is generally proper at 22 to 24°C (71.6 to 75.2 °F).

Provide Enough Food to Your Guppies and Crystal Red Shrimp

If you have a couple of guppies living with the shrimps, the shrimps will eat any food that hits the bottom of the tank. But if you have many guppies but only a few shrimp in the tank, chances are the guppies will eat all the shrimp food before the shrimp can get to it. As discussed earlier, guppies and Crystal Red shrimp are omnivorous animals.

So it would help if you fed them with Brine Shrimps or Bloodworms. You can also use guppy flakes, available in fish stores or your nearest pet stores.

You can have two groups of food for your tank:

Plant: They can be anything from spinach leaves, lettuce leaves, kale leaves, and even boiled peas! Or you can buy algae pellets.
Meat: The meat group includes live brine shrimps, bloodworms, and tubifex worms.

How Do I Acclimate Crystal Red Shrimp to the Guppy Tank?

Crystal Red Shrimp are very sensitive to changes in temperature. The slightest change can affect their behavior and kill them. To keep them alive for a long time and prevent disease or parasites from killing them, you need to acclimate them properly when first introducing them into your tank.

You can acclimate your Crystal Red Shrimp to the guppy tank by drip acclimating them. This method is considered the safest and most stress-free way of introducing new shrimp to the tank.

You’ll need the following tools:

Airline tubing
Glass bowl or plastic cup
Timer to drip acclimate

Follow the steps below to acclimate your Crystal Red shrimp to the guppy tank:

Place the Crystal Red Shrimp in the cup/bowl. Make sure they have enough water to keep them comfortable while waiting for the process to finish.
Clip one end of the airline tubing on the rim of your existing aquarium’s tank. Clip the other end to the rim of your Crystal Red Shrimp’s cup/bowl.
Turn on your air pump. Then, start your timer for 30 minutes.
Set the air tubing close enough to the water’s surface so that it can drip at about one drop per second. You want to make sure that no air bubbles are visible in the water. If this happens, adjust your air pump settings and ensure no air bubbles enter your aquarium’s water column.
Introduce your Crystal Red shrimp slowly to their new environment. Do this only when they’ve been in the container and adapted to the new temperature for a few days. Let them settle in the tank for a few hours.

Conclusion

Crystal Red Shrimp can certainly live with guppies as long as the water conditions are similar. Both prefer hard water and similar pH levels. Providing suitable pH levels for Crystal Red shrimp can easily be done through acclimation.

Since both guppies and Crystal Red shrimp are peaceful creatures, they’re unlikely to attack each other. You may feed your guppies and Crystal Red Shrimp the same food.