Seafood News - Industry Events - Seafood Market

The Journal Gazette    3/04/2005 19:06:26

Denise FlaimStop thinking scampi.

“When I talk to people about putting shrimp in their fish tanks, they think it’s a joke – like, ‘Oh, can I eat them?’ ” says Frank Greco, senior aquarist at the New York Aquarium in Brooklyn and the owner of www.franksaquarium.com , which sells these freshwater invertebrates – very much alive and garlic-free, thank you very much.

Popular in Germany and Japan, freshwater shrimp never quite caught on in the U.S. That started to change several years ago with the popularity of EcoSpheres, enclosed aquariums whose somewhat ascetic setup includes algae, shrimp and invisible micro-organisms cavorting around branch-like material called gorgonia.

While Greco isn’t a fan of the self-contained spheres – he thinks the buildup of waste products can eventually do in the toxin-sensitive shrimp – he notes that shrimp can thrive in small desktop tanks. And with a little coaching, these extroverted invertebrates will come to the surface and take food out of your hands.

But not every member of this crustacean family belongs in a community tank. Larger, long-armed species, such as the Macrobrachiums, are unrepentant nippers, and so need to be kept without fish.

But the diminutive algae-eating varieties are as peace-loving as they are colorful. Particularly helpful in planted tanks, they keep the green stuff under control without damaging leaves or fronds.

Greco, who founded the 600-member FreshwaterShrimp e-mail group at Yahoo Groups.com, says his most popular shrimp is the Amano, named after the Japanese aquarist who introduced it to hobbyists.

“It’s an adorable little shrimp,” Greco says of the translucent, black-spotted creatures, which grow to about 2 inches long. Native to the brackish marshes of Japan, they can adapt to freshwater, although the less-than-optimal conditions mean they will likely not breed.

Not so with inch-long cherry reds (named for their brilliant color, they are excellent cleaner-uppers in the algae department), Green Midgets (about the same size, the intensity of their color can vary) and bumblebees (striped like their namesake and a half-inch long, they prefer scavenging to algae-eating). Given the right conditions these algae-eaters will reproduce like, well, bunnies.

Freshwater shrimp cost about the same as most freshwater fish and live for two to three years. But they make an easy target for large fish, limiting your choice of companions to small, benign species such as neons, zebras and white clouds.

Periodic molts, in which the shrimp shed their exoskeletons, make them particularly vulnerable to swim-bys. “Just like we humans love soft-shell crab,” Greco says, “fish like soft-shell shrimp.”

Deborah Slack of Henderson, N.C., doesn’t trust any species of fish with her cherry reds and crystal red bees, a relatively rare red variant of the bumblebee shrimp. So for the last year, she has kept a shrimp-only tank where her carefree crustaceans – which started out with a population of 16 and now number around 100 – are the main attraction.

“Once you get them, you get really fascinated, because they’re such hard-working little creatures,” she says. “They’re constantly looking for food and picking at stuff. They’re so industrious, it’s almost like watching an ant farm.”

Elbow room isn’t usually a problem: Even a modest 10-gallon tank with fish could accommodate 15 or so shrimp.

Because most pet stores do not stock freshwater shrimp, Web sites such as Greco’s are a primary source.

Shrimp are by no means the only freshwater “inverts” available to hobbyists.