Rabbit Snails With Neocaridina Shrimp: How to Keep Them Together

Can your Neocaridina shrimp share a tank with a Sulawesi rabbit snail (Tylomelania sp.)? Yes, as long as the snail sets the temperature and the shrimp stay a small group. Neocaridina are usually kept up to 78°F (26°C) and a rabbit snail tank starts at 79°F (26°C), but that usual range isn’t their limit. In a published 90-day study they grew and bred best at 82°F (28°C),¹ and they live and breed in some of our own Sulawesi tanks, which run up to 86°F (30°C).

Do rabbit snail and Neocaridina water ranges overlap?

They overlap on chemistry, and on temperature more than the table suggests. Side by side, the shared ground is pH 7.5-8.0, GH 6-8 dGH, KH 3-6 dKH and TDS 150-250 ppm. In other words, a mineral-rich, alkaline rabbit snail tank is already water Neocaridina can use.

Temperature looks like a gap, and mostly isn’t. The 65-78°F (18-26°C) we list for Neocaridina is where they’re usually kept, not the limit of what they’ll live in. They grow and breed at 82°F (28°C), so the bottom of a rabbit snail tank, 79-82°F (26-28°C), suits them on published data. Above that, the support is our own tanks, which run up to 86°F (30°C). Hardy still doesn’t mean any heat, though: breeding fails at 90-91°F (32-33°C).¹²

How do Neocaridina do in a warm rabbit snail tank?

Hardy Neocaridina can live and breed there. That’s what we see in our own tanks, and it’s why we’d call this pairing workable, not off limits.

We’re not the only ones keeping the two together. One keeper has had rabbit snails and cherry shrimp in a 12.5 gallon planted tank for about two years.

Still, our tanks aren’t yours, so treat all of this as what’s possible, not a promise. Your shrimp are living above the temperature they’re usually kept at, so watch them closely for the first few weeks. A group that grazes, molts and stays out in the open is settling in. Shrimp that hide all day or keep dying need moving to cooler water.

Should you cool the tank down for the shrimp?

No. Keep it at 79-86°F (26-30°C), because the snail can’t come down to meet the shrimp. No published study gives an aquarium range for rabbit snails, so nothing shows a cooler tank is safe for them. If you want to go easy on the shrimp, hold the heater toward the cool end of that range and keep it steady.

Rabbit snails are found only on Sulawesi,³ and species of the genus have been described from the Malili lake system.⁴ Lake Towuti, the largest of those lakes, commonly has surface water at about 82-84°F (28-29°C) and a water column of about 82-88°F (28-31°C).⁵ Those are measurements of a deep wild lake. They’re useful as background, not as a setting for your heater.

The target in your own tank stays the 79-86°F (26-30°C) in the table above. Everything else in Sulawesi rabbit snail care still applies once the shrimp are in.

How do you set up a tank for rabbit snails and Neocaridina together?

Build the tank for the snail first, then add a small group of Neocaridina once it’s ready. Check each of these before either animal goes in:

• Fully cycled, with ammonia and nitrite at 0 and an established biological filter.
• Temperature, pH, GH, KH and TDS inside the rabbit snail range from the table above, and holding there.
• A visible film of algae and biofilm on the rock and glass, because that film is what both animals graze.
• An inert substrate and hardscape, with no active soil that pulls pH down.

Start the shrimp as a modest group, not a colony you’re trying to grow fast. Neocaridina that breed well will multiply, which is half their charm and most of the problem here: every extra shrimp grazes the same film the snail depends on. Are the rock and glass starting to look bare? Move some shrimp out before you reach for more food. Prepared food doesn’t make up for a young or overgrazed tank. Rabbit snails eat biofilm off the same surfaces, so every shrimp you add is a share the snail doesn’t get.

When should you keep rabbit snails and Neocaridina apart?

Keep them apart when the shrimp are the main event. If you’re breeding Neocaridina for color, numbers or sale, give them their own tank, ideally around 78-82°F (26-28°C) or cooler, where you set the temperature for the shrimp instead of the snail.

A tank that’s still young, or one where the film never builds up, is also a poor place for both. And Bee and Crystal shrimp don’t belong with rabbit snails at all. They’re kept in cool, soft, acidic water, the opposite of what the snail needs. Among Caridina, only the Sulawesi species share the snail’s water, which is why rabbit snails with Caridina shrimp means Sulawesi shrimp in practice.

If a warm, alkaline tank is the one you’re building, our Sulawesi rabbit snails are tank-bred by Shrimp Aquatics, not collected from the wild. The snail itself is moderate to keep. The tank is the demanding part: it has to be warm, alkaline, mineral-rich and mature before the snail arrives, so it isn’t an easy way into Sulawesi keeping or a good first tank.

References

5 Sources

1. Tropea, Stumpf and Lopez Greco, Effect of Temperature on Biochemical Composition, Growth and Reproduction of the Ornamental Red Cherry Shrimp Neocaridina heteropoda heteropoda (Decapoda, Caridea), PLOS ONE 10(3): e0119468, 2015.
2. Balina, Temperoni, Lopez Greco and Tropea, Losing Reproduction: Effect of High Temperature on Female Biochemical Composition and Egg Quality in a Freshwater Crustacean with Direct Development, the Red Cherry Shrimp, Neocaridina davidi (Decapoda, Atyidae), The Biological Bulletin 234(3): 139-151, 2018 (abstract).
3. A snail perspective on the biogeography of Sulawesi, Indonesia: origin and intra-island dispersal of the viviparous freshwater gastropod Tylomelania, von Rintelen T, Stelbrink B, Marwoto RM, Glaubrecht M, PLOS ONE, 2014.
4. Three new species of the freshwater snail genus Tylomelania (Caenogastropoda: Pachychilidae) from the Malili lake system, Sulawesi, Indonesia, von Rintelen T, Glaubrecht M, Zootaxa 1852: 37-49, 2008 (Zenodo record).
5. Geomicrobiological features of ferruginous sediments from Lake Towuti, Indonesia, Vuillemin A, Friese A, Alawi M, Henny C, Nomosatryo S, Wagner D, Crowe SA, Kallmeyer J, Frontiers in Microbiology, 2016.