Can these shrimps be kept together?

Freshwater shrimps are so cute, yet, small. Why don’t you put different types of shrimps together to make a nice alive color mix in your aquarium?

Some shrimps require distinct water parameters, besides this, your different shrimps could interbreed or crossbreed in one tank. Interbreeding between different species or different color morphs of the same species will give hybrids which doesn’t keep colors of their parents. They will be something new.

Is it cool to create a new creature? It’s usually not, most these shrimps will look like a wild version of their species. They will be smaller and lost colors. These shrimps are usually pale, gray, brownish and more transparent. I don’t have a personal experience with ‘hybrids’, but people say that they just ugly.

The simplest way to indentify will two shrimps interbreed is to find their scientific names and compare them. Beginning of a scientific name holds genus and species. For instance, scientific name of well-known red cherry shrimps (RCS) is neocaridina heteropoda var. 'red'. Neocaridina heteropoda is its genus and species. Another popular freshwater shrimp is crystal red shrimp (CRS) called caridina cf. cantonensis 'Crystal Red'. Its genus and species are caridina cf. cantonensis.

Shrimps with the same genus and species will interbreed and give you hybrids. Sometimes, but not always shrimps will the same genus name will interbreed.

As you might see red cherry shrimps (RCS) and crystal red shrimp (CRS) have different genus, so they will not interbreed for sure. Another example is yellow shrimp (neocaridina heteropoda var. 'yellow') and blue pearl shrimp (neocaridina cf. zhangjiajiensis var. 'blue'). They will interbreed.

Good news is that shrimps with different genus will not interbreed for sure and can be safely housed together.

There is a chart that simplifies your task of selecting species that can live in one aquarium. Look at the link below.

This perfectly done and comprehensive chart from shrimp-attack.com web-site covers all available in the hobby freshwater shrimps. 

The reason why creating hybrids is senseless is that shrimps do not breed like other organisms, where you can cross two species and combine the best characteristics. You cannot take a Yellow Shrimp and cross it with a Blue Pear Shrimp to create a "Green Shrimp." Unfortunately, selective breeding is the only way to create a colorful strain. In selective breeding a shrimps with interesting color strain should be taken from wild shrimps. Then desire color can breed out among generations.


In opposition to written above, I have to mention that in some cases creating hybrids make sense and a result can be a gorgeous shrimps with a stable genus. Look at KingKong shrimp and Panda shrimp if you are interested in this.

Other Crossbreeding Charts

www.planetinverts.com presents their chart here: Shrimp Compartibility Chart

www.theshrimpfarm.com version is here: Dwarf Shrimp Compatibility Chart