rm
Passport
- Family
- Shrimp and Yabbies
- Grows to
- 6 cm (2.4")
- Lives
- 2–3 years
- Temperament
- Peaceful
- Care
- Beginner
- SwimsSuggested
- Everywhere
- Keep
- In a group of 6 or more
- Water
- 18–28 °C (64–82 °F)
JapanTaiwanSouth Korea
Care requirements
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On record for Amano Shrimp: adult size, lifespan, minimum tank, temperature, ph, hardness, carbonate hardness, minimum group, diet, care level, swim level.
Not on record for Amano Shrimp: tank length.
A figure that is not on record is left out rather than guessed. One marked Suggested comes from keeping knowledge rather than a page.
- Minimum tank 38 L / 10.0 US gal
- pH 6.5–8
- Hardness 5–15 dGH
- Carbonate hardness 1–8 dKH
- Diet algae eater/omnivore
Care notes written from general aquarium knowledge, not from the cited sources.
About
Amanos are the ones you buy to do a job. Where a cherry shrimp grazes politely at algae, an amano tears through it — hair algae, thread algae, the soft green film on everything — and a handful of them will visibly change a tank inside a fortnight.
They're bigger than the ornamental dwarf shrimp, translucent grey with a broken line of reddish dots down each side and a pale stripe along the back. Nobody keeps them for their looks and everybody keeps them for their appetite.
Being larger has a second advantage: they're too big for most community fish to swallow, so they survive in tanks where a cherry colony would quietly disappear.
Tank setup
Give your amanos a mature tank with plenty of surface. They need something to work over, and they'll patrol wood, rock, plants and glass all day looking for it.
They're escape artists. A tank without a lid will eventually give you a dried shrimp on the carpet, especially in the first days after they're added.
Water chemistry is close to a non-issue. Amanos handle a wider range than any other shrimp in the hobby, from cool to genuinely warm and from soft to fairly hard, and they're the shrimp to pick when your tap water is awkward.
Keep them warm and you'll get a more active animal with a shorter life. The cooler end of their range suits them better long term.
Feeding
Amanos eat algae properly, and in a tank with any to speak of they need nothing else. The problem people run into is the opposite one: a spotless tank starves them.
Feed them once the algae runs out. A sinking shrimp pellet, blanched courgette or spinach, and the occasional protein wafer will keep a group going.
They're aggressive feeders and will shove smaller shrimp off food, which is worth knowing before you mix them with a cherry colony. Put enough in that everyone gets a share.
Avoid: copper in any form. It hides in fish medications and some plant fertilisers, and it kills invertebrates at doses fish never notice.
Filtration and flow
Guard the intake or use a sponge filter. Adults are too big to be drawn in, but they will climb into an unguarded pipe and get stuck.
They tolerate more flow than most shrimp and don't mind a well-circulated tank.
Watch your carbon dioxide if you run a planted tank on it. Amanos are more sensitive to a heavy dose than fish are, and a shrimp gasping at the surface while the fish look fine is the sign you have overdone it.
With plants
Amanos are safe with healthy plants and are one of the best things you can put in a planted tank. They clean algae off leaves that nothing else can reach.
They'll strip a dying plant, though, and people mistake that for damage. A shrimp demolishing a melting crypt leaf is eating something already dead.
Moss is worth adding for them. It traps detritus and gives them somewhere to work.
Health
Failed moults are the main killer, and they trace back to hardness rather than to disease. Shrimp need minerals in the water to build a new shell, and very soft water produces animals that get stuck halfway out of the old one.
They can look alarming after a moult. The discarded shell is a perfect translucent copy of the animal and gets mistaken for a dead shrimp constantly — leave it in, they eat it back for the minerals.
Sudden death across a group almost always means a chemistry swing or a contaminant rather than illness. Check what went into the tank recently.
Breeding
You will not breed these in a freshwater tank, and it's worth knowing before you try. Females carry eggs readily and the larvae that hatch are not miniature shrimp — they need brackish water to develop and then freshwater to return to, a cycle that almost nobody reproduces at home.
So a berried female is a normal sight and a dead end. The larvae hatch, drift, and die within a few days in fresh water.
Every amano in the trade is either wild-caught or raised by the small number of breeders who bother with the saltwater stage. That's why the price never falls the way cherry shrimp prices did.
Tank mates
Avoid14
- Convict Cichlid Convict Cichlid reaches 15 cm and will eat adult Amano Shrimp.
- Jewel Cichlid Jewel Cichlid reaches 15 cm and will eat adult Amano Shrimp.
- Kribensis Kribensis reaches 8 cm and will eat adult Amano Shrimp.
- Oscar Oscar reaches 35 cm and will eat adult Amano Shrimp.
- Panda Garra Panda Garra reaches 9 cm and will eat adult Amano Shrimp.
Only with care33
- Chinese Algae Eater Chinese Algae Eater is aggressive and Amano Shrimp is peaceful.
- Least Killifish Least Killifish is small enough to leave adult Amano Shrimp alone, but will still take shrimplets.
- Scarlet Badis Scarlet Badis is small enough to leave adult Amano Shrimp alone, but will still take shrimplets.
- Agassiz's Dwarf Cichlid Agassiz's Dwarf Cichlid is a risk to Amano Shrimp: shrimp and yabbies and sth american cichlids - dwarf are a pairing to watch.
- Angelfish Angelfish is a risk to Amano Shrimp: angelfish and shrimp and yabbies are a pairing to watch.
No conflict is recorded with the other 61 species in the database, so nothing to flag.