Have you noticed that your shrimp are being eaten in your aquarium?
Are you worried that your Mollies are eating your shrimps?
In this article, I will explain all you need to know about raising Mollies and shrimps together.
Do Mollies Eat Shrimp? Yes, Mollies will eat all shrimps that are kept with them, irrespective of their species. As long as the shrimps are small enough to be torn apart easily, the Mollies will eat them.
Do Mollies Eat Amano Shrimp
Mollies will eat Amano Shrimps as long as they are inhabited together in the same aquarium. As much as Mollies are not one of the most aggressive fish species globally, however, they are omnivorous animals.
This implies that they eat both plants and other animals, as long as the animals are smaller than they are.
For this reason, Mollies will eat Amano shrimps, as they are easy to chase and kill for food. Some of the other kinds of shrimps that Mollies will eat apart from Amano shrimps include:
- Red Cherry Shrimp
- Blue Tiger Shrimp
- Blue Bolt Shrimp
- Snowball Shrimp
- Crystal Shrimp
- Glass or Ghost Shrimp
- Caridina Babaulti Shrimp
If you wish to have an aquarium of Mollies and shrimp, it is always best to have two separate aquariums. Put Mollies in one and your shrimps in the other. This way, you will have your Mollies and shrimp living healthily.
Do Mollies Eat Ghost Shrimp
Mollies will eat Ghost shrimps just like they will eat all other shrimps. This is because they are not good companions with Ghost shrimps or smaller animals put together with them in an aquarium.
Some reasons why you don’t put shrimps together with mollies includes:
- Ghost Shrimps are pretty smaller than Molly fishes
- Feeding your Ghost shrimps is challenging when mollies are around
- Breeding Ghost shrimp is almost impossible with mollies in the tank
If you plan to have an aquarium of Mollies, and you need a mate to keep them company, ensure you choose compatible mates like fishes and snails for your molly fish.
Also, if you want to enjoy your shrimps, put them in their separate aquarium or put them together with friendly fishes and snails. This way, they will grow safely and healthily.
Some peaceful fishes that you can put your shrimps together with if you need tank mates for them include:
- Guppies
- Celestial Pearl Danio
- Ember Tetras
- Endler’s Livebearers
- Pygmy Corydoras
- Harlequin Rasboras
- Sparkling Gourami
- Bristlenose Pleco
- Kuhli Loach
- Otocinclus
How To Stop Mollies Eating Shrimp
If you have Mollies and shrimps in your aquarium living together and your mollies are eating your shrimps, you can separate them from each other by creating two separate aquariums.
Ensure you put your mollies in one and your shrimps in the other.
With this, your mollies don’t have to come in contact with your shrimps, and you don’t have to worry about your shrimps being eaten. This is by far the best way to stop your mollies from eating your shrimps.
However, if you insist on keeping your mollies and shrimps together in the same aquarium, and you want to stop your mollies from eating your shrimps, you can create hiding places in your aquarium.
This is a valuable way of maintaining a balance in the aquarium and stopping your mollies from eating your shrimps.
In the game of chase and attack from Molly fish, shrimps can protect themselves by getting into hiding spots.
These hiding places will come in handy for your shrimps to hide from dangers like an attack from your mollies or any other uncomfortable situations because they are tiny, and it would be difficult for mollies to get in.
Once your shrimps can get into their hiding spot, they will feel safe and relieved. If you want to create hiding places for your shrimps in your aquarium, ensure you create them away from the open space that live plants heavily surround.
However, creating hiding places for your shrimps is only a temporary solution. This is because your shrimps can’t stay in this hiding place forever, thereby, leaving the responsibility of staying alive in their own hands.
Whenever your shrimps come out of their hiding place to feed, they will have to try as much as they can to evade attacks from the mollies. Thus, creating hiding spots in the aquarium to protect your shrimps from Mollies is not an effective way of stopping your mollies from eating them.
Can You Keep Red Cherry Shrimp With Mollies?
You can’t keep Red Cherry shrimps with your mollies because your mollies will eat them up. This is the fate of every other shrimp species you put with mollies. Therefore, it is best not to have both mollies and shrimp in the same aquarium.
However, you may want to put your mollies with your shrimps for several reasons.
If you have serious algae growth in your aquarium and need to reduce the algae population, introducing shrimps will do a great job. They are used to control the algae population in an aquarium because they are excellent eye-catchers and will always do a great job at it.
Also, shrimps are easy to breed and keep. As much as this is disheartening to see them being eaten by the mollies, it’s just the way the food chain is designed to go.
Just as the mollies eat the shrimps, also, the shrimps eat algae and other microorganisms in return.
If your purpose of breeding your shrimps is not to control the algae population, you should altogether avoid having them in the same tank as your mollies. Some of the reasons why your mollies will eat your shrimps almost immediately you introduce them into the tank include:
Reasons Why Mollies Love Eating Cherry Shrimps
- Cherry Shrimp are delicious and nutritious meals for your molly fish
- Cherry Shrimps have a bright red color that is immediately noticeable by molly fishes and attracts the mollies to them.
- Cherry Shrimp are tiny, making it easy for Mollies to chase, catch, and tear them apart
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