When building a tank for your Cherry Shrimps, you may be wondering whether or not you should add real plants. To see what the benefits are when it comes to using live flora, you can take a look at this article from Aquarium Blueprints.
Ammonia, Nitrites and Nitrates Reduction
The biggest benefit of using live plants in your shrimp tank is that they will help consume ammonia and nitrates in your water column.
Like all other objects in the tank, the plants will provide surface area for beneficial bacteria to grow on. These will consume ammonia and nitrites, which are toxic compounds that come from organic wastes produce by your shrimps and other fish tank inhabitants.
Furthermore, the live plants will consume both ammonia and nitrates on their own. For the uninformed, nitrates can cause issues with Cherries at a high concentration.
Biofilm
When you see your shrimps picking at seemingly nothing in your tank, they are actually searching or microscopic organisms from bioflim.
Like the aforementioned beneficial bacteria, the biolfilms can grow on all surface areas on your tank, including the leaves, stems and roots of a living plant.
Hiding Spots
If you are keeping fish with your Cherries, then there is a possibility that your fish may start eating your shrimps even if they show no desire to do so initially.
In order to prevent as much loss of life as possible, we recommend giving your pet inverts plenty of hiding spots in the tank so that they will be able to get away from the potential predators.
If you add a plant with a lot of nooks and crannies, then it should be able to add a lot of protection of your Neocaridinas.
Coloration
Depending on the color of the plant and your Cherries, the live plant may be able to bring out the bold coloration of the shrimps.
We keep our Red Cherry Shrimps with Java Fern and Java Moss. Both of these plants are dark green, which helps highlight the redness of this variant.
Recap
We highly recommend adding live plants to your Cherry Shrimp tank as it will keep the ammonia, nitrite and nitrate levels low. Not to mention that your aquatic pets will most likely spend a lot of time hiding and picking food off of the greenery.
In some cases, live plants may bring out the bold coloration of your shrimps as well.
