Colored ghost shrimp????????

G

Ghostshrimp55

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Sep 30, 2005
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Hey all. Even though I use Ghostshrimp55 as my username, I actually don't know all there is to know about these little guys.

Lately, I've been noticing that my ghost shrimp aren't clear anymore. Some are a whitish green and one or two are a redish/pinkish color. I've seen them get whitish before and I figured it had something to do with the need to molt since, in a day or so, it appeared that I had new shrimp in the tank. But, I've never noticed color before.

Also, one of them was/is in berry (can't find her now). She was not colored, although she appeared to have just shed since she was sporting a crystal clear and nicely marked exoskeleton.

Does this coloration have something to do with mating as opposed to them simply turning cloudy near molting time? I haven't really changed the food available in the tank. The only new thing I've started using was frozen blood worms, but I've only used them 3 times in the past month.

Thanks all.
 
Hmmmm... you just gave me an idea. PAINTED ghost shrimp! I'll be rich!

(just kidding, of course)

--Mike
 
If you could come up with glow-in-the-dark ghost shrimp that would be amazing.

But seriously......anybody have an answer? Anybody? Nobody? Somebody?
 
Where did you buy your ghost shrimp? A lot of ghost shrimp are caught out of ponds and you will find a lot of different animals in the tanks with them. My guess is that you have gotten hold of some different type shrimp or pawn that was in the pond with the ghost shrimp and as the mature they have started looking different. cherry shrimp; several species of grass shrimp look similiar to ghost shrimp until they mature. I have heard of people getting giant pawns in with their ghost shrimp. Hope this helps
 
I thought that I could have gotten a different species but that's a no go. I got them from my LFS and they were already pretty much at adult size, maybe around 7/8 inch or something like that. They go through cycles of being clear then cloudy all the time. Once they molt, they're clear again. So, the cloudiness was nothing new. I had just never noticed any color to go alon with it before. It was pretty cool. I was hoping that someone would be able to verify whether or not this had something to do with mating since, shortly after I noticed the color variants, I had a crystal clear female walking around in berry.

About that petshrimp site, pretty freakin' cool. I ordered 10 cherry shrimp from them on sunday and got them on tuesday. I wasn't prepared for how small they would actually be though. So, I took a 1 liter seltzer bottle, drilled a bunch of small holes in it (over a hundred) and put some moneywort stems in it with the shrimp and dropped the whole thing into my community tank. Now, the moneywort, like all of my plants right now, had some algae on it, mostly hair algae. Overnight, the 3 stems were picked clean. They look like I just got them from the LFS. Unbelievable. I don't want them to starve so I threw in some dried spinach and they're chowing down on that now. Anyone know how long it will take them to get to a size where I don't have to worry about my fish eating them? I have some juvenile angels and honey gouramis. They all seem to leave my ghost shrimp alone so, when these guys get bigger, I don't see why they'd treat them any different.

I would like to breed them eventually and possibly sell them to my LFS since they only carry ghost shrimp and the occasional bamboo shrimp. I think they'd love another great algae eater. So, a little further down the road, I plan on making use of my old 10 gallon tank. I'm thinking of turning it into a heavily planted shrimp-breeder/quarantine tank or something like that.
Thanks all.
 
Ghostshrimp55 said:
Hey all. Even though I use Ghostshrimp55 as my username, I actually don't know all there is to know about these little guys.

Lately, I've been noticing that my ghost shrimp aren't clear anymore. Some are a whitish green and one or two are a redish/pinkish color. I've seen them get whitish before and I figured it had something to do with the need to molt since, in a day or so, it appeared that I had new shrimp in the tank. But, I've never noticed color before.

Also, one of them was/is in berry (can't find her now). She was not colored, although she appeared to have just shed since she was sporting a crystal clear and nicely marked exoskeleton.

Does this coloration have something to do with mating as opposed to them simply turning cloudy near molting time? I haven't really changed the food available in the tank. The only new thing I've started using was frozen blood worms, but I've only used them 3 times in the past month.

Thanks all.
Click to expand...

you probably got a hybrid ghost shrimp-red cherry shrimp. they do show up.
 
are the shells actually colored or just their insides and you are seeing thru the exoskeleton? i noticed some in the store that seemed like some had reddish or greenish or white but it was more just their insides were these colors so i was thinking it was something in their diet.
 
Actually I have noticed that mine change color depending a lot on the substrate...my one plant tank has blue and black mixed sand and the shrimp tend to take a more bluish tent to them where as in my other tank i have flourite and they tend to be more brownish/redish. And my amano(spelling) shrimp tend to be more green b/c they eat most of the algae...could it be something dealing with the food they tend to eat more?
 
Vtwin, I have flourite mixed with my gravel, as well. They could be taking on some of that pigment, I guess. Pretty cool stuff, whatever it is. The shrimp are doing fine so I'm not worried about it.
 
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