rm
Passport
- Family
- Shrimp and Yabbies
- Grows to
- 2.5 cm (1")
- Temperament
- Peaceful
- CareSuggested
- Advanced
- SwimsSuggested
- Everywhere
- Keep
- In a group of 15 or more
- Water
- 26–30 °C (79–86 °F)
Indonesia
Care requirements
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On record for Cardinal Sulawesi Shrimp: adult size, minimum tank, temperature, ph, hardness, carbonate hardness, minimum group, diet, care level, swim level.
Not on record for Cardinal Sulawesi Shrimp: lifespan, 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 19 L / 5.0 US gal
- pH 7.3–8.5
- Hardness 4–12 dGH
- Carbonate hardness 3–10 dKH
- Diet algae eater/omnivore
Care notes written from general aquarium knowledge, not from the cited sources.
About
Cardinal shrimp break every rule the rest of the hobby's shrimp follow. They come from the ancient lakes of Sulawesi, where the water is hot and distinctly alkaline, and they need both — the opposite of the soft, cool, acidic conditions a crystal shrimp demands.
They're worth the trouble to look at. Deep red bodies scattered with white dots, some ringed in blue, and startling white front legs that flicker constantly while they feed. Nothing else in a freshwater tank looks like them.
They're also a specialist's animal, and the honest advice is not to make them your first shrimp. Even as the hardiest of the Sulawesi species they're less forgiving than anything else here.
Tank setup
Heat your cardinals properly and never let the tank drift cool. This is the one shrimp where a heater is compulsory rather than optional, and cool water stresses them to death rather than merely slowing them down.
Keep the water hard and alkaline. Their lakes are mineral-rich and well above neutral, which means the buffering substrates sold for shrimp tanks are exactly wrong here — an active soil will pull the pH down and kill them. Use an inert substrate instead.
Give them porous rock. They graze rock surfaces by preference, and a pile of textured stone with algae growing on it is both their food supply and their habitat.
Go dark underneath. The red deepens against a black substrate in a way that's genuinely striking.
Feeding
Cardinals graze algae and biofilm off rock all day, and an established, lit tank with plenty of stone surface provides most of it.
Supplement with a good shrimp food, blanched vegetables and the occasional protein wafer. They're small and slow to find food, so put it near them rather than trusting them to search.
Keep a decent-sized group. They feed socially, following each other to food, and a handful of them in a big tank behave far more nervously than a proper colony.
Avoid: copper in anything, and avoid the buffered shrimp substrates that suit every other species in this catalogue.
Filtration and flow
Keep the flow gentle and the oxygen up. Warm water holds less oxygen, so an air stone or a sponge filter running briskly earns its place here more than in a cooler tank.
Guard every intake. They're small enough to be drawn in at any age.
Stability is the whole game. Their lakes barely change through the year, and these animals have no evolutionary experience of the swings a home tank produces. Small, frequent, temperature-matched water changes rather than large ones.
With plants
Cardinals are safe with plants, but plants are not the point of their tank and most of the popular ones dislike the conditions they need.
Choose species that tolerate hard alkaline water. Java fern, anubias and vallisneria will manage; the soft-water carpet plants will not.
Prioritise rock over greenery. Surface area for algae is what actually feeds them.
Health
Moulting is where they fail, and the causes are usually temperature or a chemistry swing rather than the mineral shortage that catches soft-water shrimp. Their water is already hard.
They're extremely sensitive to being moved. Acclimatise over hours, matching temperature first and chemistry slowly, and expect losses on any batch that has been shipped badly.
A cardinal hiding permanently and not feeding is usually cold or newly arrived. Check the heater before you look for anything else.
Breeding
They breed in a tank that genuinely suits them, and that's the reward for getting the conditions right. There's no larval stage — the young emerge as miniature adults, as with cherry shrimp.
Broods are small. A female carries a handful of large eggs rather than the dozens a Neocaridina produces, so a colony builds slowly and a few losses set you back a long way.
The shrimplets need the same heat and the same alkaline water as the adults, plus a lot of biofilm to graze. A mature, rock-heavy tank left alone is what produces them.
Tank mates
Avoid14
- Convict Cichlid Convict Cichlid reaches 15 cm and will eat adult Cardinal Sulawesi Shrimp.
- Jewel Cichlid Jewel Cichlid reaches 15 cm and will eat adult Cardinal Sulawesi Shrimp.
- Kribensis Kribensis reaches 8 cm and will eat adult Cardinal Sulawesi Shrimp.
- Oscar Oscar reaches 35 cm and will eat adult Cardinal Sulawesi Shrimp.
- Panda Garra Panda Garra reaches 9 cm and will eat adult Cardinal Sulawesi Shrimp.
Only with care33
- Chinese Algae Eater Chinese Algae Eater is aggressive and Cardinal Sulawesi Shrimp is peaceful.
- Least Killifish Least Killifish is small enough to leave adult Cardinal Sulawesi Shrimp alone, but will still take shrimplets.
- Scarlet Badis Scarlet Badis is small enough to leave adult Cardinal Sulawesi Shrimp alone, but will still take shrimplets.
- Agassiz's Dwarf Cichlid Agassiz's Dwarf Cichlid is a risk to Cardinal Sulawesi Shrimp: shrimp and yabbies and sth american cichlids - dwarf are a pairing to watch.
- Angelfish Angelfish is a risk to Cardinal Sulawesi 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.