Amano Shrimp

The Amano shrimp is a clear, gray-tinted algae eater named after Takashi Amano, the aquascaper who popularized it in the 1980s as a working cleanup animal for planted tanks. Reaching about 4 to 5 cm, it is noticeably larger than a cherry shrimp, with a row of broken reddish dashes along each side and a faint white line down the back. Females grow bigger and carry longer dashes, while males stay smaller and dotted. The species comes from fast-flowing streams in Japan, Taiwan and Korea, which is part of why it stays busy and tolerates a fairly wide range of conditions.

In the aquarium these shrimp graze almost constantly, working through plant leaves, wood and substrate for soft algae and biofilm. They are among the few invertebrates that will tackle hair algae and even black beard algae once they are hungry enough, though they happily switch to fish food if it is easier to reach. They do not crossbreed with Neocaridina cherry shrimp or Caridina bee shrimp, so they are safe to add to an established colony. Calm and entirely peaceful, they suit community tanks with small, gentle fish such as tetras, rasboras, corydoras and other shrimp; only fish big enough to eat them are a real problem.

Amano shrimp stay healthy in roughly 18 to 28°C with a pH near 6.5 to 7.5 and moderately hard, mineral-rich water that supports clean molts. Like all shrimp they are extremely sensitive to copper, so check that any medication or plant fertilizer is invertebrate-safe. A secure lid matters too, since they are well-practiced escape artists. One quirk shapes their whole life cycle: although a female will carry eggs under her tail, the larvae need brackish or salt water to develop, so an ordinary freshwater tank will almost never raise surviving young. That makes them a safe pick for anyone who does not want a population boom, and a relatively long-lived one at two to three years.