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One question I'm frequently asked is can red cherry shrimp live with goldfish
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In this video I'm going to answer that question and share my experiences of keeping these two
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species of aquarium inhabitants together. Hello friends, welcome back to the channel
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If you're new here, my name is Richard and I'm the owner of the fishkeepinganswers.com website
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where I have nearly 300 articles all about keeping freshwater fish, shrimps and plants
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The question of whether or not red cherry shrimp can be kept with goldfish is one that comes up a
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lot. I have to say, based on the 40 gallon tank I currently have in my fish room, which houses
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four fantail goldfish, and a booming colony of red cherry shrimp, I would have to say yes
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this is a combination that can work. Now, I say that yes it can work with two large caveats
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Firstly, I'm talking about fancy goldfish here. I've never tried it with so-called common goldfish
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Common goldfish are a lot faster than fancy goldfish and they typically grow much larger
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I would imagine common goldfish have the speed and power to mow down any red cherry shrimp they come across
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The second caveat is that the aquarium needs to be set up correctly to give the red cherry shrimp the best possible chance not only to survive but to thrive If you add some red cherry shrimp to a bare bottom sparsely decorated goldfish aquarium
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the shrimp will last about 10 minutes. Before we look at how to set up the aquarium let's consider why we might want to add red
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cherry shrimp to a goldfish aquarium and what the benefits might be
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cherry shrimp make a fantastic clean up crew for the goldfish aquarium. Although the shrimp
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themselves also need to be fed properly they will spend much of their time consuming the
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uneaten food that makes it past the goldfish. Any food that lands in a rock pile or gets caught in
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plants or falls behind a filter will be quickly consumed by the red cherry shrimp helping keep
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your goldfish aquarium water cleaner and safer. Red cherry shrimp will also break down the goldfish
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poop making it easier for the filter to remove it from the aquarium
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The third benefit to adding a colony of red cherry shrimp to a goldfish aquarium is that
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the shrimp will help keep algae at bay. Now I'll be the first to admit, red cherry shrimp will not solve an algae problem if
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your tank is already overrun with algae, but they will eat the small algae starts, helping
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prevent it from becoming a problem in the first place Before we look at the best possible way to set up an aquarium please take a moment to tap the like button It shows support for these videos and helps spread them to other like people
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So when it comes to setting up the aquarium so the red cherry shrimp can thrive, it's
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all about hiding places. Red cherry shrimp can move incredibly quickly and they can easily
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dart away from a goldfish. However, they can only move in short bursts, whereas a goldfish
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can swim for many minutes before it tires, we need to ensure that when the shrimp shoot
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away from the no doubt hungry goldfish, they have somewhere to go that the goldfish can't
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reach them. Personally, I favour piles of rocks and live aquarium plants to provide hiding places
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Piles of rocks create gaps that the red tree of shrimp can squeeze into but the goldfish can't
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Piles of rocks also provide safe havens, where baby goldfish can grow and feed for a couple
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of weeks until they are large enough and fast enough to venture out into the main parts of the
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aquarium. In my experience live plants are also excellent at offering the red cherry shrimps
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shelter and they also create line of sight blocks. When it comes to goldfish trying to eat red cherry
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shrimp out of sight is out of mind If the goldfish can see the red cherry shrimp they have little interest in trying to eat them I had great success using water wisteria pogo stem and erectus and java moss in my red cherry shrimp and goldfish aquariums
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Each of these plants has fine foliage and creates a mass of green leaves
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They all also grow to form thick clumps providing an almost infinite number of places the red cherry
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shrimp can hide. In the description below I have included some links to the plants I mentioned
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feel free to check them out after the video. There is another advantage to adding live plants
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to a goldfish aquarium and that is the fact that the plants absorb some of the waste from the fish
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as they grow, making the water cleaner and safer for the fish and the shrimp
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In fact I add live aquarium plants to almost every tank in my fish room
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So to answer the question, yes I believe red cherry shrimp can live in the same aquarium as
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goldfish, provided the aquarium is set up to give the red cherry shrimp the best possible chances of
