Ghost shrimp & quarantine...

[manytanks]

We have 3 altum angels and need a cleaning crew to come in to help deal with some algae. SP recommended a 5-6 day quarantine for the shrimp for before adding them, but my question is:

Q: how will I really know if/when the shrimp are safe to introduce to the tank?  We're intending to quarantine them in a smaller tank with some guppies - will the gupps be the proverbial canary in the mineshaft? What else is there to look for?

//Manytanks

[fishycanuck]

Dunno about specific diseases in ghost shrimp, but when I put mine in the qt, the guppies had a fabulous meal of them.... :oops:

[Ron]

I've never found ghost shrimp to have any effect on the algae growth in a tank. Caridina japonica, sold around here as "algae eating shrimp" work great, but at four or five dollars each, few of us could afford the one to two shrimp per gallon or so Takashi Amano uses to help keep algae at bay.

Apparently Amano was shocked when he found out what we pay for these shrimp here in North America. They are much cheaper in Japan, making them a viable means of helping keep tanks algae free there.