Ghost Shrimp

[TEES_91]

My son is interested in having a couple of these. What do they do well with? We have among 5 tanks (10gal -55gal) Zebra Danio's (in all 5 tanks), X-ray tetra's, HiFin Tetra's, goldfish (their own tank), Pleco's, sword tails (2 of them) and a Moonlight Gourami.

[OrionGirl]

Ghost shrimp will do well with all but the goldfish and potentially the gouramie. They are scavengers, and will pick through the substrate/decorations/plants for algae and uneaten food. They will do better with moderately hard water, and occassional additions of iodine will help when they molt. They will need places to hide when they molt, so plants, rock or wood structures, or other decorations offering lots of niches should be provided.

[wataugachicken]

two of my plecos don't care about the shrimp, but are sometimes scared when they're eating and the larger shrimps come over to investigate an algae tablet. not a big problem. however, the bulldog pleco i have hates the shrimp, and would always flick her tail to get it away from her. it would go straight up into the water, then come down again in the same spot, only to have her flick her tail again. eventually she actually smashed it and it died. didn't eat it though.

[Dunluce2]

Hey Peoples,
Was very excited when i heard you bred your mystery snail. I had 2 mysteries that i hoped would breed but didnt and one died. so i gave up. I had some stowaways in some plants that breed like crazy and now populate the tank. I'm suspecting that they eat their own eggs as well as the mystury eggs when they get a bit of size as i had hundreds when they first got in the tank but as they got bigger they thinned out and there havent been any more smaller snails. Speed snails i call them, I've never seen snails move so fast around the tank. I was told to kill them as often as i saw them but they dont seem to have damaged my plants and they are getting into any algae around the tank. does anyone know about Amazon Sword plants. mine have had their roots rotting away. dont know if i should have kept them above the substrate. its pretty coarse gravel 3-4mm
thanks Dunluce

[wataugachicken]

mystery snails are either male or female, unlike ramshorns which are hermaphrodites and exchange sperm. you may have had two of the same sex. if you want to try again, i would suggest getting three or four of them. i've had several losses, though, and it's taken 4 or 5 months to finally get eggs. i thought that they just like to escape, but my theory now is that the ones that got out, got lost, and died were actually all females. they lay their eggs in large obvious peach-colored clutches above the waterline, and i think they were looking for a surface to lay on when they fell out of the tank. make sure that there aren't any openings. mine finally laid eggs on the inside of the lid. the one i have left has two new partners now, a black one and a very small albino, and he mates with them as if he has five minutes left to live.