Neos as dither shrimp for Sulawesi ?

[Elo500]

In researching Sulawesi set ups, I came across several posts that mentioned the addition of neos to a Sulawesi tank to encourage the shy shrimp to come out of hiding and also to get them to eat commercial food. One commented that the cardinals avoided the shrimp food until the neos were added as they readily ate the prepared food.

Anyone try this? The posts never mentioned if they were at 7 or 8 ph. Will neos be okay in salty 8.5?

[Soothing Shrimp]

I've kept neos up to 8ish, but not past.

[ctaylor3737]

I have a cherry in mine. Didn't matter, they stop,being shy after they start breeding. I can touch mine now and they don't move. They don't eat prepared food though, not even snowflake. I do feed powder just in case once a week. Cycle your tank good they eatmostly biofilm.

-Chris

[Shrimpy Daddy]

In researching Sulawesi set ups, I came across several posts that mentioned the addition of neos to a Sulawesi tank to encourage the shy shrimp to come out of hiding and also to get them to eat commercial food. One commented that the cardinals avoided the shrimp food until the neos were added as they readily ate the prepared food.

Anyone try this? The posts never mentioned if they were at 7 or 8 ph. Will neos be okay in salty 8.5?

 

Surprisingly, it does work in some sense, provided the Sulawesi shrimp treat the Neo (or tiger, I tried with tiger) as one of them. The natural wild instinct of Sulawesi shrimp always keep them at high alert. If one shrimp comes out, the rest will follow. And if one shrimp hides, all will hide. This behaviour is commonly shared among schooling fishes and even primate.

 

If all your Sulawesi shrimps are newly bought, the chance of such behaviour is less likely to happen. 

 

The behaviour of my tank is pretty weird, the Harlequin will follow Cardinal but Cardinal will not follow Harlequin.

 

However the best way to prevent them hide is to place the tank in a place where no one will frequently walk pass, especially wearing black clothing (creating shadow flashing effect, like predator swim pass). I made this mistake by putting them next to a corridor entrance and they were always in high alert when I first keep them.

[Louie]

The Sulawesi shrimp will not breed with Neo's?

[Soothing Shrimp]

Sulawesi to knowledge so far will not breed with neos.

[Louie]

Soothing,

                 Thanks good to know . I might try them .

[OblongShrimp]

I had cherries in with my Brown Camos (not on purpose but I couldn't catch all the cherries before the Brown Camos arrived).  They are kept with Salty Shrimp Sulawesi 8.5 and the cherries are breeding in those parameters fine.  The Brown Camos did seem to come out more then the other Sulawesi tanks (who didn't have neos) but it could also have been because there was more moss which shaded some of the substrate.  All my Sulawesi are all over the tank when the lights are off but when the lights come on they retreat to the corners or other hiding places within 5 minutes.  They also preferred to stay on the large rocks I had in the tank as well.

 

The only thing I have fed my Sulawesi's has been GlasGarten Bacter AE and SL-Aqua Snowflake Food.  They are eating the snowflake food, not as readily as my other shrimp but at least enough to prevent the fungus from being visible.

 

I am getting a bunch of Sulawesi in today and will try and make more careful observations about them over the next month.