NOOOOO my Ghost Shrimp fry died!!!

[Lars1985]

I just assumed it died. I do not know where it went. Bought 2 ghost shrimp last week that were pregnant and just this morning I noticed they were not pregnant anymore.

Check around the plants and can not find little critters anywhere. Safe to assume they got sucked up by the filter or ate by other fish? Am I looking in the wrong places for the eggs?

 

[neilanh]

It's possible the filter/fish ate them. It's also possible they're just so tiny you can't find them.

 

[Johnny Tuttle]

Did I read somewhere that ghost shrimp fry need brackish water? Could that be the problem here?

 

[JohnPaul]

Did I read somewhere that ghost shrimp fry need brackish water? Could that be the problem here?

The most common ghost shrimp species sold in pet stores in the USA don't need brackish, they can survive in full fresh. The problem is the larvae are so tiny, they need lots of micro-foods in the water column--more than you would normally find in a well-maintained home aquarium. In essence, doing proper tank maintenance keeps your tank water "too clean" for 99% of the ghost shrimp larvae to survive. In certain very old, well-aged, highly overgrown with lots of plants & a fair amount of algae tanks, that also was lacking in terms of significant fish to predate on the larvae, you might be able to see some survive. But it's pretty rare. Should you be able to get the larvae to survive the first few days until they develop into fry (smaller versions of the adult shrimp), then they should be fine in any tank with conditions good enough to keep the adults in. Again, presuming either there are no fish to eat the fry, or there is so much plant cover that they fry have a halfway reasonable chance of surviving.

 

[bs6749]

If they are hatched they will be hovering about 2 inches off of the surface with their heads down or they will be on the surface of the glass or something else in the tank. I know cause I just saw some about 4 weeks ago in my tank. They are small and are hard to spot.