# Pregnant ghost shrimp



## Sadist (Jan 1, 2015)

I haven't found a whole lot of info online. I bought some ghost shrimp today, and I noticed at acclimation that one had eggs in her tail feeler things. Do they need any special food/care if they manage to hatch and hide from the tank mates?


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## RussellTheShihTzu (Mar 19, 2013)

As long as your tank is established and has that stuff whose name I can never remember...biofilm?...and algae they'll be fine.


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## Sadist (Jan 1, 2015)

Thanks so much! They should be good to go.


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## Sadist (Jan 1, 2015)

I just noticed a second one has eggs, too. Now, I would like to know how many is too many? I've read on one site that too many can cause aggression, but another place said they need 12-15 to feel safe. 

10 gallon filtered, established cycle for 4 months, planted for 1+ months
78 degrees
8 ghost shrimp, 2 with eggs
1 male betta


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## Csimpso22 (Jun 27, 2014)

one ghost shrimp can lay up to 35 but that doesn't mean they all will survive do to the fact that your betta will probably eat a few and I believe the adult ghost shrim might as well.


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## Strawberry12 (Mar 6, 2015)

In my reading, it seems like there's a good chance your male betta will eat the babies, and keep the population in check.


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## Sadist (Jan 1, 2015)

Okay. I was trying to prepare for a few to live to adulthood. I figured they would have to be the best hiders to survive.


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## Csimpso22 (Jun 27, 2014)

Is your tank heavily planted ?


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## Sadist (Jan 1, 2015)

I would call it medium planted. The plants are all still small, but there's 9 of them in the tank and a bunch of tall silk plants. There's plenty of places to hide, and the adult shrimp always have stuff in their digestive tract. I do plan on replacing the silk plants with live plants, but for now they're growing some algae that the shrimp seem to like and making shade for the low light plants.

One set of shrimp hatched! I watched Mr. Fish chase around a spec, then the spec darted into the gravel where he couldn't reach it.


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## Csimpso22 (Jun 27, 2014)

Then you shouldn't have to much of an issue. I'm planning on getting back into shrimp for my tank as well. I'm going to "hopefully" get about 4 of them. tomorrow and try to get them to breed.


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## kjg1029 (Jun 14, 2014)

make sure the filter cant suck them up


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## Sadist (Jan 1, 2015)

Thanks! I've got sponge over the filter intake so no one gets hurt by it.


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## kjg1029 (Jun 14, 2014)

well I was kinda figuring since you have shrimp, but you never know, that would be really sad!


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## Sadist (Jan 1, 2015)

Sometimes, the fish likes to laze around on the filter intake, too. I put sponges over them all!


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## Csimpso22 (Jun 27, 2014)

I need t do that for mine what kind of sponge did you get will one from Walmart work or should I try to find something at petsmart ?


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## LolaQuigs (Mar 28, 2010)

Just to be safe, I always buy aquarium sponge from the pet/fish store. You never know what kinds of chemicals have been added to cleaning sponges and whether those chemicals are fish safe.


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## Sadist (Jan 1, 2015)

For the intake, I found something called a "prefilter sponge" which is just an aqarium-safe sponge shaped to fit over the filter intake of a hang-on-back filter. It was around $1-3. I also buy the rest of my sponge material from pet stores like LolaQuigs. It's pretty cheap, less than $5 for a pack of 3 if I recall. I wouldn't buy any sponges from the cleaning isles of Walmart, as I've noticed they often have soapy stuff added to them.


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## Csimpso22 (Jun 27, 2014)

Any update on your shrimp have you seen any of the baby ones swimming around ?


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## Sadist (Jan 1, 2015)

I haven't seen any more of the babies, though an adult one just trimmed one of the plants. Mr. Fish attacked the leaf as it floated through the water. I do see a very small shrimp, about 1.5 cm long. Do they grow that quickly? There could be some survivors that I just can't find in there.


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## pftrex (Feb 27, 2015)

If you have pregnant ghost shrimp in with your betta, you will need to remove the females to another tank if you'd like to raise the babies. In the original tank, the baby larvae will either get eaten by the betta or sucked into the filter because they're so tiny. So move them to another tank with a safer sponge filter. Also, you will need to purchase microorganism food from the pet store to feed them until they become a little bigger.


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## Kyle15 (Apr 22, 2015)

Hey Sadist, 
I have a 30 gallon with a few floating plants, bare bottom,
Some plastic plants, a sponge filter and 60 shrimp...


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## Sadist (Jan 1, 2015)

Sadly, I wasn't able to keep my shrimp alive. Even with multiple little 10% water changes over the week, one died every week until they were all gone. I've decided to stick with fish, though I really miss having shrimp.


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## PocketAce (Oct 15, 2015)

Ghost shrimp are nice starters but because they're often used as feeders, pet stores really don't take care of them. I've had a couple that lived a while but on average they tend to die after 2-3 months and I've had runs where the whole bunch died in under three weeks.

Also, it's incredibly hard to breed them at home because (and the information is pretty sketchy) it's thought the fry need brackish water to grow.

The good news is that there are many good shrimp options now! I actually started with shrimp and then moved on to adding fish companions 

Cherry's are a fantastic starter shrimp. There are several grades of colors with Cherry being the cheapest (and palest) and Painted Fire Red being the most vibrent red. They also come in other colors like orange and blue. Be careful to only stock one color per tank though because when they interbreed the offspring tend to revert back to the wild type brown.
http://www.plantedtank.net/forums/88-shrimp-other-invertebrates/159785-grading-system-cherries.html

I've purchased from these sellers and they're really good. All my shrimp arrived alive and were very happy. They usually thrown in an extra one too. The other nice thing about Cherries is that if you have a population of about 10, they'll breed and you'll never need to buy another one. Of course, if you have a betta or other fish in the tank, the fish might eat the fry (or get sucked into the filter if you don't have foam around it).

http://www.amazon.com/Sakura-Cherry-Shrimp-Neocaridina-davidi/dp/B00F2KZMHE/ref=sr_1_8?ie=UTF8&qid=1445482655&sr=8-8&keywords=cherry+shrimp&refinements=p_89%3AInvertObsession

But there are also Amano shrimp which I've had and are a joy to own. I wouldn't mix a tank of Amanos and cherries or ghosts because the Amanos are voracious and tend to bully the other shrimps out of their food (and they eventually starve to death). It's said that in their Native Japan Amanos can shoal in the thousands though the data is not firm. I did notice that they did better in groups of 5 or more.
http://www.amazon.com/Shrimp-Caridina-multidentata-Yamato-shrimp/dp/B00JX1AZ1Q/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1445482937&sr=8-1&keywords=amano+shrimp

And finally, if you have a HEAVILY planted tank and a LID, there are bamboo shrimp. They're sometimes also referred to as Singapore Flower shrimp. They're filter feeders and quite large (sometimes bigger than two inches). They need a lot of plants to produce the free floating algae, some place where they can stand in the current to catch their food, and preferably a sand substrate (mine seemed to have some difficulty navigating their small gravel substrate. Also, did I mention a lid? I had one in a tank with a lid but the lid had a hole in the center and poor Leonard crawled out and all the way to my front door before I found him under the doormat. Most of them in pet stores are starved and you'll see them brushing the bottom gravel to try to get enough to eat. I wouldn't have them in anything less than a 15 gallon, preferably 20. 
http://www.amazon.com/Freshwater-Singapore-Flower-Atyopsis-moluccensis/dp/B00IRI4CAG/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1445483188&sr=8-2&keywords=bamboo+shrimp

Shrimps are pretty low maintenance but if you're keeping them with fish you'll need to be careful if you have to medicate the fish. Again information is sketchy but a lot of people have found that the nickle present in most fish medications will kill off invertebrates.


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## aselvarial (Feb 21, 2014)

+1 on the red cherry shrimp. I like them and my bettas seem to mostly ignore them. Ghost shrimp I couldn't keep alive to save my life.


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## Sadist (Jan 1, 2015)

Okay, it makes more sense now that I couldn't keep ghost shrimp alive. I was buying them from chain pet stores instead of breeders. I might order some when the weather warms up. It's hard for me to justify expensive animals and shipping when they have cheap ghost shrimp around the corner.


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## RussellTheShihTzu (Mar 19, 2013)

FWIW, Ghost Shrimp are all wild-caught. Because they need the brackish water to reproduce it is prohibitively expensive to breed them in captivity. Combine that with the relatively low price of wild-caught and you can see why people don't breed them.

I've not had problems with Amano and other shrimp in the same tank. But I occasionally supplement feed and they eat the Phytoplankton, powdered Spirulina and other supplements I feed my Bamboo and Vampire Shrimp.


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## Sadist (Jan 1, 2015)

I wasn't too clear; I meant I'd buy the red cherry shrimp next spring when the weather is better. Maybe. So far, I've seen them on amazon for $5-7 each even as a group. Add special live animal shipping (and winter heat packs) and it's not so affordable. I do miss seeing shrimp swarm to the surface at feeding time and steal bloodworms.


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## PocketAce (Oct 15, 2015)

Sadist said:


> I wasn't too clear; I meant I'd buy the red cherry shrimp next spring when the weather is better. Maybe. So far, I've seen them on amazon for $5-7 each even as a group. Add special live animal shipping (and winter heat packs) and it's not so affordable. I do miss seeing shrimp swarm to the surface at feeding time and steal bloodworms.


You can google craigslist or perhaps a local aquarium club or even a LFS. Once people have a colony of cherries set up they breed like crazy and people are usually desperate to unload a few. When I got my from the LFS they only costed 1.50 each. Of course, that means they have to be stocked or orderable


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## PocketAce (Oct 15, 2015)

I've also had success on eBay for batches that are cheaper.


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## Sadist (Jan 1, 2015)

Thanks!


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## RussellTheShihTzu (Mar 19, 2013)

If they're going in a Betta tank make sure the seller isn't sending peewee shrimp. Been there; done that and it was an expensive lesson.

I believe JDAquatics has Orange Sakura for really reasonable prices.


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## Sadist (Jan 1, 2015)

If I got any, they would have to go to the oto/guppy tank, which is 10 gallon super filtrated but will be overstocked by Spring. I vacuum it twice a week as it is. My bettas are both in cycled but not mature 5.5 gallon tanks. They've also both shown that they don't tolerate tank mates. 

I do have my 2.5 gallon hospital/nursery tank. I feel that it's too small to maintain good parameters for shrimp, though I've seen several people recommend shrimp for small tanks like it. What are your opinions on having shrimp in it eventually?


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