rm
Passport
- Family
- Shrimp and Yabbies
- Grows to
- 10 cm (3.9")
- Lives
- 2–3 years
- Temperament
- Peaceful
- Care
- Intermediate
- SwimsSuggested
- Mid-water
- Keep
- One is fine
- Water
- 22–28 °C (72–82 °F)
Sri Lanka
Care requirements
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On record for Bamboo Shrimp: adult size, lifespan, minimum tank, temperature, ph, hardness, carbonate hardness, minimum group, diet, care level, swim level.
Not on record for Bamboo 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 6–8
- Hardness 6–8 dGH
- Carbonate hardness 2–6 dKH
- Diet detritivore /omnivore
Care notes written from general aquarium knowledge, not from the cited sources.
About
Bamboo shrimp don't have claws. The first two pairs of legs end in feathery fans instead — four of them altogether — which they hold open into the current to strain food out of the passing water, then fold into the mouth one at a time. Watching one feed is the reason to keep them.
They're big, placid and completely harmless, and they change colour. A bamboo shrimp shifts through tan, brown, red and cream over hours, with a pale racing stripe down the back that's boldest in young animals. Keepers regularly lose track of them entirely against wood.
In the wild they cling to rocks in the fastest parts of forest streams, facing directly into the torrent. Everything about keeping them follows from that.
Tank setup
Give your bamboo shrimp flow, and give it to them at a height. They want to perch somewhere the current is strongest — the top of a piece of wood, a rock near the outlet — and a tank with no such spot leaves them wandering the floor looking for one.
Point a powerhead or the filter return across an open perch. That single piece of aquascaping is the difference between a shrimp that feeds properly and one that slowly starves.
Keep the tank mature and stable. They're sensitive to swings and to a tank that hasn't settled, and they're too expensive to lose to impatience.
Cover the tank. Like most large shrimp they will climb out given the chance.
Feeding
Bamboo shrimp are filter feeders, and this is where most of them die. A clean, well-filtered tank contains almost nothing suspended in the water for them to catch, and the animal starves slowly over months while looking fine.
Feed the water column deliberately. Powdered shrimp food, crushed flake, spirulina powder or green water, squirted upstream of them with a pipette, is what they actually need.
Watch for a shrimp that has given up fanning and started picking at the substrate with its fans folded. That's a hungry animal, and it means the water isn't carrying enough for it.
Avoid: copper in any form, and avoid assuming they'll scavenge like other shrimp. They can, badly, and only when desperate.
Filtration and flow
Run more flow than you would for other shrimp. They evolved in torrents and a well-circulated tank suits them.
Filter heavily but feed the column anyway. There's a tension here that you have to manage deliberately: good filtration removes exactly the particles they eat.
Guard intakes. Their fans are delicate and a strong intake will damage them.
With plants
Bamboo shrimp are entirely safe with plants and never touch them. They have no claws to damage anything with.
Plant to create flow patterns rather than for the shrimp's benefit. What matters is that a strong current reaches an open perch, so keep planting clear of that line.
Moss on wood near the outlet is ideal — it holds the perch and catches particles that drift past.
Health
Failed moults are the usual cause of death, and hardness is usually the reason. A shrimp this size needs a real mineral supply to rebuild a shell.
Starvation is the other, and it's more common and much harder to spot. A thin, translucent abdomen and inactivity are the signs, and by then it's often too late.
They're sensitive to copper, to sudden chemistry changes and to being moved. Acclimatise them slowly over hours rather than minutes.
Breeding
You won't do it at home. Bamboo shrimp release larvae that require brackish water to develop, then need to migrate back to fresh water as juveniles — the same trap that makes amano shrimp effectively unbreedable in a tank.
A female carrying eggs is a normal sight and won't lead anywhere. The larvae hatch and die within days in fresh water.
Everything in the trade is wild-caught from Southeast Asia as a result, which is worth weighing when you buy them. They live a long time if kept properly, so a well-run tank is the least you owe them.
Tank mates
Avoid14
- Convict Cichlid Convict Cichlid reaches 15 cm and will eat adult Bamboo Shrimp.
- Jewel Cichlid Jewel Cichlid reaches 15 cm and will eat adult Bamboo Shrimp.
- Kribensis Kribensis reaches 8 cm and will eat adult Bamboo Shrimp.
- Oscar Oscar reaches 35 cm and will eat adult Bamboo Shrimp.
- Panda Garra Panda Garra reaches 9 cm and will eat adult Bamboo Shrimp.
Only with care33
- Chinese Algae Eater Chinese Algae Eater is aggressive and Bamboo Shrimp is peaceful.
- Least Killifish Least Killifish is small enough to leave adult Bamboo Shrimp alone, but will still take shrimplets.
- Scarlet Badis Scarlet Badis is small enough to leave adult Bamboo Shrimp alone, but will still take shrimplets.
- Agassiz's Dwarf Cichlid Agassiz's Dwarf Cichlid is a risk to Bamboo Shrimp: shrimp and yabbies and sth american cichlids - dwarf are a pairing to watch.
- Angelfish Angelfish is a risk to Bamboo 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.