Why are shrimps not kosher?

Will cherry shrimps live on only plants?

• I have a 10gallon tank with1betta, 4 corys and 10 shrimps.. the tank is lightly planted with hornworts.. when I put sinking pellets in the tank the corys always gets to the food first, and it takes a while for the shrimps to realize that the food's in, so by the time they start coming out the pellets are almost depleted, and if they ever get hold of a pellet the corys just bump them and grab the food.. the betta is very docile and won't even look at the shrimps and he doesn't like the shrinking pellets so I've got zero problems with him.. my question is.. will the shrimp live with just the plants as their source of food? please don't lecture me on overstocking, the tank is spacious and the fish are happily swimming.. I just want to know about the shrimps..

• Answer:

  If you have algae in your tank, they might be able to live by scrapping when they have low numbers. They will also eat any leftover fish food. Even just some debris of it. I highly recommend you get at least a little Java Moss for them to hide, and their offspring will not survive at all without it since you got a betta in there. I have first hand experience breeding Yellow shrimps, which is the same species as red cherry shrimps. They increased from 13 to 150+ in 3~4 months in a 10 gallon with huge Java Moss. I actually feed them with Omega One shrimp pellets. In my other 10 gallon, there were 14 red cherry, they never increased in number because of no Java Moss. They got no food either because I only feed pellets in there, fish grab them all before they can even sink half way down. In my 40 gallon, I transferred 50 Yellow Shrimps over from that Yellow shrimp tank. They were just fine in Java Moss without even coming out.