Red Nose Shrimp (Caridina gracilirostris) Species Profile & Care Guide

The Red Nose Shrimp is an intriguing animal and a great though somewhat uncommon addition to a home aquarium. The combination of their strange swimming style, the weird-looking appearance as well as their cleaning skills puts Red Nose Shrimp between one of the most exciting ornamental species of freshwater and brackish invertebrates.

Red Nose shrimp can make a pleasant and worthwhile pet for a dedicated shrimp keeper as they have a relaxed disposition, making them perfect for housing with other types of freshwater Shrimp, fish and snails in your aquarium. They can peacefully coexist with any other inhabitants and are not aggressive.

Like all dwarf Shrimp, the Red Nose shrimp are very social, and they prefer to cluster with other members of their species. These Shrimp make an excellent addition to the community aquarium as you will not have any territorial disputes in your tank. Usually, they are not shy, and in large numbers, they become very active and bold no matter what time of day it is.

You should note that these Shrimp are more challenging to keep and should not be tried by beginner shrimp keepers or breeders.

The Red Nose shrimp has a slender semi-transparent body that sometimes has hints of green or yellow. Their body displays a yellow stripe on the back, and red line along the sides and they have a very long red beak called a rostrum that is slightly angled upwards. These Shrimp also has a distinctive hump in their body, which differentiates them from most other dwarf shrimp species.

Natural Habitat of the Red Nose Shrimp

The Red Nose Shrimp is widespread throughout Kalimantan, Lesser Sunda, Indonesia, peninsular Malaysia, Sarawak, Sumatera, Palau, Singapore, Sulawesi, Cambodia, Papua, Taiwan, Thailand and Japan in Southeast Asia as well as Madagascar, India and Fiji.

This Shrimp inhabits slow-moving, lower parts of lakes, mangroves, streams, marshes and rivers that are covered in either emergent, submerged, or floating aquatic plants and vegetation.

Other Caridina of interest

Diet

Red Nose shrimp are omnivorous scavengers and are unfussy when it comes to what they eat, consuming any food they manage to find on the bottom of the aquarium.

In a well-established aquarium, they can usually find enough supply of food algae and biofilm on their own. The Red Nose shrimp is one of the most excellent algae eaters, and they frequently eat algae other shrimp species do not touch.

However, to keep Red Nose Shrimp most healthy, it will be a good idea to supplement them with common shrimp foods. They will also be grateful for a varied diet of algae wafers, lettuce, blanched zucchini, cucumber, spinach and carrots. Red Nose shrimp also enjoy the occasional treat of mosquito larvae. They are very versatile when it comes to feeding.

Sexing the Red Nose Shrimp

It is somewhat straightforward to determine male from female Red Nose Shrimp. The females are usually larger, their abdomen is more expansive, and they display longer pleopods. In contrast, males are smaller and slimmer, and sometimes their stripes are slightly brighter than the females.

Breeding the Red Nose Shrimp

Breeding Red Nose Shrimp isn't the most straightforward task. They become sexually mature around six months old and like other shrimp species, they go through a larval stage. Although the larvae should be able to survive and moult successfully in brackish water, they are still very fragile and can be challenging to keep alive.

The Red Nose shrimp eggs are oblong and a slightly greenish colour during early fertilisation. At the late stage, they then turn into a yellow-green colour. These Shrimp depending on their size can have up to 700 babies per hatching.

Red Nose shrimp do not have rapid development. When the small eggs hatch, initially they are not just small bottom-dwelling shrimplets but instead pelagic larvae.

These larvae need to pass an additional five to six stages before transforming into an adult specimen of the Red Nose shrimp. Unfortunately, these steps prevent easy breeding.

Your aquarium will possibly not be dirty enough to provide the larvae with the essential microscopic foods they require. To resolve this problem, you can try raising them in green algae water or feed them with commercially available micro foods.

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