I think I actually have a baby ghost shrimp!!!

[david052856]

I dont understand the whole "they never survive thing". I bought 15 Ghost shrimp and placed them in a tank with 15 neon tetras - as well as three guppies.
Now I have plenty of ghost shrimp babies everywhere.

 

[jawasnack]

My female ghost shrimp are always berried, but this was the first time I actually found surviving babies (8-10 of them I think)

 

[Khemul]

I dont understand the whole "they never survive thing". I bought 15 Ghost shrimp and placed them in a tank with 15 neon tetras - as well as three guppies.
Now I have plenty of ghost shrimp babies everywhere.

Ghost Shrimp is a blanket common name referring to any shrimp with a clear body. It can refer to shrimp that are native to any water type ranging from fresh to salt (although saltwater Ghost Shrimp are often called Grass or Glass Shrimp). It is pretty much impossible to identify them by sight so it is anyones guess what type a store gets in. Compounding this, stores usually get them locally meaning that the ones you have may not be the same type someone else has.


This is also why some people have nice peaceful ghost shrimp, and others have mean aggressive (towards other shrimp) ghost shrimp.

 

[pixl8r]

Ghost shrimp sold in N. America are almost always Palaemonetes paludosus. They will reproduce at room temperatures 70 to 80 degrees. I don't know where the cold water information came from, I've never read that. They are a very hardy species. Your picture is of a fully developed shrimp, so it was probably a few days old. When they first hatch, they are free swimming ( but don't look like an adult shrimp) and go through one or two larval stages. I've only been able to confirm one. Since I don't have a good microscope (or any for that matter), I can't say more than that. I've kept this species in treated tap water in So Cal, Utah, and Arizona. They are fun to watch and breed.

There have been instances where people have purchased 'Ghost Shrimp' and received one or more shrimp that grew over a few inches. These are cases where a Macrobrachium species was inadvertently included some how. They can be extremely aggressive, but usually are something like M. lamarrei lamarrei (a docile species of Macrobrachium shrimp, that grow to just under two inches). I have heard of one horror story where the shrimp turned out to be a M. rosenbergii or M. dacqueti. They are closely related species of Macrobrachium shrimp, difficult to distinguish, that are extremely aggressive and grow well over a foot long.