When you get Cherry Shrimps, also known as Neocaridina Shrimps, you expect them to actively explore your tank. If your pet inverts are hiding instead, then you can take a look at this article from Aquarium Blueprints to see how you can get them to go out more.
1. If you just added the shrimps to your fish tank, then we recommend that you give them some time to adjust to the new environment.
If you have an aquarium lighting fixture turned on, we recommend that you turn it off for a full day so that you can make shrimps feel more comfortable.
2. If your Cherry Shrimps are hiding even though they have more than enough time to feel more comfortable with the new environment, then the next step you can take is to make sure that you don’t have any aggressive tank mates.
In general, we recommend that you keep shrimps on their own or with slow moving snails. A vast majority of fish will either eat, attack or scare the shrimp, which will lead to the inverts spending most of the time hiding.
So, if you have aggressive tank mates, then you can try removing then from the tank to see if you can get your Cherries out of hiding.
3. The water flow of your aquarium may be too strong, which may force your shrimps into hiding so that they don’t have to constant fight against the fast-moving water.
In this case, you can try lowering the flow rate of your filter and/or air stone.
4. Doing a water change may also help get your shrimps out of hiding.
By changing water, you may cause the females to molt. The males will usually sense this and should end up actively exploring the tank in order to mate with the opposite gender.
5. Cherry Shrimps should come out of hiding if they sense food. So, if they aren’t coming out during meals, then you can try feeding them something else.
Our Cherries usually go crazy for the Shrimp King Complete. Once they sense the food, they will quickly start heading over to the pellets.
If you want to get a close look at your pet inverts, then we recommend dropping Shrimp King Complete, or another appetizing shrimp food product, as close to the front panel of your aquarium as possible.
We also feed our pets Bacter AE, a product that will grow biofilm all over the surfaces inside of your tank. When we drop the white powder in the aquarium, the shrimps will immediately become very active as they will go after the substance as it falls down the water column.
The biofilm from Bacter AE should gradually grow in your tank over time as well, giving plenty of incentive for your shrimps to come out of hiding to search for food.
6. You can also try adding more hiding places in your tank. While this may feel counterintuitive, having more safe spaces should make your Cherry Shrimps feel more comfortable. As a result, they become more outgoing.
In order to create more hiding places, you can add live plants, build a rock pile and more.
