Do Guppies Eat Shrimp: Create a Safe Environment to House Guppies and Shrimp

When stocking a new aquarium, it’s important to choose species that can safely cohabitate. Guppies (Poecilia reticulata) are popular for community tanks because they’re small, peaceful, and easy to breed. They also bring a great deal of color and vibrant activity to the tank. But can they get along with freshwater shrimp, do guppies eat shrimp?

It’s possible to keep guppies and shrimp in the same tank but you’ll need to take certain precautions. Here’s what you need to know.

Will Guppies Prey on Shrimp?

Guppies are hardy livebearers that originated in South America but have become one of the most widely distributed tropical fish in the world. Captive-bred species come in a wide array of colors and patterns that have been achieved through selective breeding. They’re prolific breeders, known to reproduce quickly with little involvement from the hobbyist.

In the wild, guppies feed on a variety of foods, and they don’t tend to be picky in the home aquarium. A balanced diet for guppies includes commercial flakes and pellets as well as live, frozen, or freeze-dried small foods like bloodworms and brine shrimp. Guppies may graze on algae in the tank from time to time.

Like many fish, guppies are opportunistic feeders and may eat small invertebrates in the tank like shrimp. Though adult shrimp may be too large to fit in a guppy’s mouth, baby shrimp might not be. Whether your guppies will eat shrimp in the tank depends on how well-fed the guppies are and whether the shrimp have places to hide.

Tips for Creating a Safe Environment

The first step in housing guppies and freshwater shrimp together is choosing species that have similar tank requirements. Captive-bred guppies are fairly adaptable but thrive best in hard water with a pH of 7.0 or higher. Hard water is preferable to soft water for many freshwater shrimp because the mineral content helps support healthy molting.

Here are some shrimp species with similar tank requirements to guppies:

•  Neocaridina shrimp
• Amano shrimp

Once you’ve decided how to stock your tank, set it up and give it plenty of time to cycle. It’s safe to add your guppies once the nitrogen cycle has been completed and ammonia, nitrite, and nitrate levels drop back down to 0 ppm. You may want to wait another few weeks before adding your shrimp, however, make sure there’s time for algae and biofilm to accumulate on the tank surfaces—these are key food sources for freshwater shrimp.

When it comes to keeping your shrimp safe from hungry guppies, it’s all about how you arrange and decorate the tank. Here are a few simple tips:

• Planted tanks are best for shrimp, so decorate your tank with a variety of hardy plants that are suitable for your tank parameters.
• Grow carpet plants on the bottom of the tank that your shrimp can hide in—dwarf hair grass, monte carlo, dwarf baby tears, pearlweed, and java moss work well.
• Use driftwood and rocks to create arches or caves to shelter your shrimp and to provide additional surfaces where biofilm can accumulate.
•  Install under-substrate tubes or tunnels your shrimp can hide in or use to safely travel from one area of the tank to another.

Remember, guppies are surface-dwelling fish, so they’ll naturally spend most of their time in the upper levels of the tank. Choosing a tall aquarium over one that is long and shallow can help put some distance between your guppies and shrimp. Just be sure to choose your lighting setup wisely—deeper tanks may require more intense lighting to grow carpet plants. Without adequate light, carpet plants may grow upward instead of spreading.

It may also help to add medium and tall plants to act as a barrier between the upper and lower levels of the tank. Your shrimp will be able to move freely but the aquarium plants might discourage your guppies from straying toward the bottom of the tank.

Proper Feeding is Key

Keeping your guppies well-fed is the key to minimizing the risk that they’ll prey on your shrimp. Guppies or notorious for begging at the surface, however, so be sure not to overfeed. Your shrimp will help clean up some of the extra fish food that sinks to the bottom of the tank, but overfeeding can negatively impact water quality.

Freshwater shrimp will feed on natural algae and biofilm accumulation in the tank, but you may still need to supplement their diet—don’t assume leftover fish food will cut it. Offer your shrimp commercial shrimp pellets or sinking wafers a few times a week. They may also enjoy blanched vegetables.

To help ensure supplemental shrimp food makes it to the bottom of the tank where your shrimp can get it, consider installing a feeding tube and dish. Position the tube vertically in the tank with the top opening above the surface of the water. Place a wide, flat dish under the other opening of the tube on the bottom of the tank. To feed your shrimp, simply drop food into the opening of the tube and let it sink into the dish. Using this feeding method helps keep the shrimp food safe from your guppies.

Additional Tips and Tricks

• Choose freshwater shrimp species that will be too large for your guppies to eat—amano shrimp or ghost shrimp may be good options.
•  Monitor your shrimp for breeding activity and remove egg-carrying females to a separate breeding tank until the baby shrimp hatch. You can raise the baby shrimp to adult size and then reintroduce them to the guppy tank.
•  Don’t forget to test your tank water weekly and perform water changes as needed to maintain high water quality in the tank.

If you choose to keep guppies and shrimp together, know that you may not be able to prevent predation entirely. You can minimize the risk by keeping your guppies well-fed and by offering your shrimp places to hide, but nature may still take its course.

Contact us today to start your perfect freshwater aquarium.