Vampire shrimp

Water parameters

Tolerated range for this species. Aim for the middle of each band rather than the extremes.

Tank and habitat

Substrate: any.

Behavior

Plant interaction: plant safe.

Typically wild-caught; acclimate slowly.

Feeding

Filter feeder that captures suspended particles from the water column. In tanks with good current, they position themselves facing the flow and extend their fan-like maxillipeds to trap passing food. Powdered food (spirulina powder, crushed flake dust, baby brine shrimp), green water (microalgae suspension), and very fine particulate matter suspended in the current are the diet. Squirt powdered food upstream of the shrimp using a pipette or turkey baster and let the current carry it to them. They don't eat from the substrate like cherry shrimp or Amano shrimp. In tanks with strong biofilm and particulate-rich water, they find enough food on their own. In clean, well-filtered tanks, targeted feeding 2-3 times weekly is necessary.

Nocturnal feeder; drop food after lights out.

Compatibility

• Peaceful filter-feeding shrimp that catches suspended particles from the water column using fan-like appendages. The feeding behavior is the main attraction: they sit in the current and wave their fans to trap food.
• Safe with everything. They don't threaten any tankmate and are too large (8–15 cm) for most fish to eat. Avoid housing with aggressive cichlids that might harass them.
• Needs current. The fan-feeding behavior requires moderate to strong flow that carries food particles past their position. In still-water tanks, they can't feed properly and starve.
• Reclusive and nocturnal. They hide during the day and emerge at dusk to find a current-facing spot for feeding. Expect to see them mainly in the evening.

Origin and habitat

Atya gabonensis, the vampire or African fan shrimp, is a large filter-feeding shrimp in the family Atyidae, native to fast, oxygen-rich rivers of West Africa from Senegal to the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Older reports of it in South America are mistaken and refer to a different species, Atya scabra. Despite the dramatic name it is entirely peaceful; vampire refers to its imposing look, not its habits. It is one of the largest freshwater shrimp in the hobby, reaching up to about 15 cm, and its colour is famously changeable, shifting between blue, grey, brown, white, and pink over the year. It feeds by parking itself facing a current and spreading feathery, fan-shaped appendages to strain suspended particles from the passing water, so it depends on flow and does not graze the substrate like cherry or Amano shrimp. It is nocturnal, hiding under rock and wood by day and coming out at dusk to feed. All trade animals are wild-caught from African rivers, and IUCN lists the species as Least Concern.

Breeding

Vampire shrimp are not bred in home aquariums. Their life cycle is amphidromous: females carry eggs under the abdomen, but the hatched larvae need brackish to marine water to develop over weeks to months before the juveniles return to fresh water. Reproducing that salinity transition in a tank is technically possible but not done at any practical scale, so every vampire shrimp in the trade is wild-caught.

Common problems

Starvation is the leading cause of death, because the filter-feeding strategy is so different from how other shrimp eat: dropping food on the substrate, as one would for cherry shrimp, leaves a vampire shrimp with nothing to catch. It needs both moving water and fine suspended food, fed by squirting powdered food into the current upstream of the shrimp. Like other large shrimp it must molt cleanly, which takes enough calcium and a reasonable hardness, and the shed should be left in the tank for it to eat back the minerals. It is sensitive to copper, so copper medications are out. Daytime hiding is normal; a shrimp that never comes out even at night is the one to worry about.

Bioload

Further reading

• How to cycle a fish tank
• Stocking ideas by tank size