Ghost Shrimp

Treefork

Treefork

AC Members
Oct 20, 2010
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Northeast Indiana
pets.groups.yahoo.com
Real Name
Joe
Decided to try my hand at shrimp today. Setup is a 10 gallon tank with a massive chunk of java moss, sponge filter, (and a hob filter not turned on for mechanical filtration every few days, otherwise the current is a little too strong.) So a few questions:

How many ghost shrimp can a 10 gallon support? (I have 12 in there now)

My daughter sweet talked me into buying her some young guppies, will these be a problem in the future in this tank?

Are there any shrimp specific foods out there or are they fine cannibalizing shrimp pellets and fish food scraps?

Thanks!
 
well there are several species sold as ghost shrimp. 12 would be a good number to start with if they breed in fw. some do not breed in fw. they are also known to be hunters and might kill any guppy fry in the tank. on the other hand if the shrimp are too small or they breed the guppies might eat the shrimp. they will eat about anything. they are scavengers. mine get flakes pellets and other type foods like that.
 
Ok, well I have this NLS Fry food I got for my krib juvies a while back that's small enough for the guppies which are probably .5" to .75" and I figure they'll pick up the sinkers the guppies don't get. So how do I find out what species mine are? They are basically clear bodied shrimp with beady black eyes.
 
If you got them from the Jefferson Pointe Petsmart then they don't eat fry. They do kill and eat ramshorns but that's no biggie. I have one left from a batch I bought over a year ago and it's going strong in the 29g. It's maybe an inch long. When I had more, they would get berried but I never saw any babies since they go through a plankton stage or something similar. I just didn't have the tank set up for babies to survive.

Overall, I think you will enjoy them. When you feed they become very active and buzz all over the tank. Just a really neat creature to watch.
 
I ended up getting them from Petland because Petsmart closed at 6 yesterday. Below are pics of them and the tank I have them in. I'd like to get more, I might stop at Petsmart today. How many would you say would be ok in a 10 gallon? I also have guppies in there, 5 of them. They're pretty small right now. (daughter made me get them, if they start pecking the shrimp I'll let them swim with my african butterfly fish. :) )

So, what species is this? Will they breed in freshwater? If I could get a sustainable population I definitely have fish that would enjoy making their aquaintance.

ghostshrimpid.JPG ghostshrimpid2.JPG ghostshrimptank.JPG guppyid.JPG
 
One difference I see between yours and mine is mine has little red bands near the base of the antennae.
 
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