Breeding ghost shrimp

[juanrivas16]

I'm going to try and breed ghost shrimp so I would like to know:

-how to difference males from females
-how to set up the breeding tank
-the right water parameters needed
-the conditions needed for the shrimp to breed
-raising the larvae

 

[Legit Fish]

males are smaller and smaller hump and smaller bottom tail or like straighter and females get bigger have a bigger hump and have a bigger bottom tail or rounder. you can also look for a saddle behind the head of the shrimp to tell if it is a female. these guys are pretty simple to breed i have a 25 gallon with lots of moss and other plants like amazon swords and driftwood. the parameters and conditions are known to be different because they are so hardy so just if you want them to breed like crazy just make sure water is clean. now here is the bad part. the larvae eat something special in the wild which is unknown for me and i dont know if anyone else knows. but they require this special food to eat and i dont know where to by eat. but the good news is apparently some tend to survive just by eating whatever is in my moss so i would think you need a lot of moss if you want them to survive. half of my tank is christmas and java moss. so i hope wiser can help solve some things i did not mention good luck!!!

 

[juanrivas16]

I did some research and read that the larvae can eat infosuria.

if you want to start a infosuria culture you will need:

- 1 jar ( make sure you can close it tightly )
- lettuce leaves

First you fill the jar with water from your aquarium, it's better if the tank is planted because there will be some infosuria in the water ( infosuria is just the word used to describe a community of microorganisms usually conformed by: phytoplankton, protozoa's, zooplankton, etc ) Then add some lettuce leaves in the jar, close it and put it near a window where sunlight will "hit" the jar. Wait for the water to turn slightly white and cloudy, this will be the bacteria feeding on the lettuce, the zooplankton will feed on the bacteria, the protozoa's will feed on the lettuce, and phytoplankton will be good with the sunlight ( due to the fact that phytoplankton is mostly a "vegetable" life form, so it will turn the energy of the light into chemical energy ), in a few weeks the water will turn pink slightly red or slightly brown, this is simply the infosuria in great abundance once this happens you can simply feed the larvae. A good thing about infosuria is that due to the wide variety of microorganisms the larvae have plenty types of food to choose from

 

[Fishfur]

In the wild, larvae eat anything the right size, which is less than 5 microns. Micro fauna, aka infusoria of some kinds, plankton, single cell algaes.

You can feed them cultured single cell algae, aka green water. It will suit larvae quite well. I've raised a number of them using this. Once morphed, they can take microworms, which are a great food for them, or Golden Pearls, in the 5-50 micron size. Small amounts, they are very, very tiny when first morphed.

Make sure they can't be sucked into a filter. Sponge filter is best. Females and males can be hard to tell apart, but once a female saddles, she'll moult and you'll see eggs very soon after that. Moulting females send out mating pheromones. She'll carry the eggs for a few weeks, and they will get larger and lower down as time goes on.

Eventually it will look like she has strings of pearls on her swimmerets.. and then they fall off and vanish.

Depending on temps, they morph roughly four - five days later. The eggs float to the surface very quickly, where they soon hatch, and that's when feeding is most critical, during the short larval stage.

After they morph, they hang at the surface upside down for a few days, in daytime. Once the lights go out they sink down, looks like they are riding a spider's line. Light makes them rise up again. They don't swim for a while, but if worm or food item gets close you can see the tiny body jerk as it grabs it. You can see the eyes, the hump and sort of see a suggestion of legs and whiskers. They moult often, you'll see shed shells floating and think they are dead shrimp, like I did at first.

Once they can swim, they soon begin to forage like adults. They do best in a tank that is mature with lots of biofilm. Sponge filters are popular feeding sites, as is wood in the tank. Moss is great too.. They tend to stay low for awhile, until they grow a bit more.

Temps around 70-74 are good.. they like it on the cool side.

Edit.. I fed mine about 50 CC of single cell fresh water cultured algae twice a day until they got to the stage where they could swim. Used a big plastic syringe to just inject it along the surface of the water. I get the alage from a lab, Florida Aqua Farms grows them, and while they are not cheap, you can reculture over and over again from one disc. The bottled or bagged type is usually in salt water, which will not work. Has to be fresh water. You want Japanese chlorella, aka Nannochloropsus.

 

[Khuligirl93]

Ghost shrimp seem so much more complicated to breed than shrimp that hatch without a larval stage- why are they so much cheaper???

 

[juanrivas16]

Thanks for the reply
Here's another question, do the adult shrimp or the larvae need brackish or will they be ok in freshwater?
And, will the adult shrimp eat the larvae or should I raise the larvae in another tank?

 

[Fishfur]

If they are the American shrimp, palaemonetes, they are fully fresh water for all stages. Some other shrimp, caridina species like amanos, fan shrimp etc., do need brackish water for the larval stage, though the eggs can and do hatch in fresh water, they come from river estuaries where they reach salt water within a few days and grow there, and once morphed,swim back upriver to fresh water where they live their lives.

There are basically two types of shrimp. Low order and high order. Low order shrimp have larval stages. High order shrimp have babies that are just like adults in miniature. These include the Neos and Crystal shrimps.

It's just the way they evolved. And mother shrimp will eat their kids, so I always remove the moms from the brood tank once I see their eggs are gone. Higher rates of survival that way.

Ghost shrimp are cheaper because they are native species that can be raised in vast numbers in ponds, or wild caught in large numbers, and their primary use is as feeders for other creatures. Feeders have to be cheap or they are little use as feeders.

 

[GodFan]

Personally Ive nevernunderstood why we use ghosties as feeders. Why not neos? The breed so fast and readily. Especially since you are not concerned about color. They could breed from any randomn neo you just threw in the bucket and they would be hardier because of the wide gene pool.

 

[Fishfur]

I suspect simply because the Ghosts are american natives and have been used this way for a long time now, so it's habit, as much as anything. And they can be wild caught in numbers, cheaply.

And for larger fish, they go farther, being larger.

You can buy them much more cheaply than we can here.. just shipping them adds a fair chunk to the price, but they are still sold as feeders, along with rosy minnows, guppies and goldfish.

 

[GodFan]

I suspect simply because the Ghosts are american natives and have been used this way for a long time now, so it's habit, as much as anything. And they can be wild caught in numbers, cheaply.

And for larger fish, they go farther, being larger.

You can buy them much more cheaply than we can here.. just shipping them adds a fair chunk to the price, but they are still sold as feeders, along with rosy minnows, guppies and goldfish.

Hmmm odd. I would rather the neos as feeders but they are smaller......

 

[Fishfur]

As the market stands now, at least here, unless someone is selling cherry culls, they always cost quite a bit more than Ghosts do. I can get 10 Ghosts, old enough to be carrying eggs, for $4.50.. where ordinary cherry shrimp at the same store are $3.99 each.

It's my closest local store.. I can get painted fire and fire reds for about that price from other places or local hobbyists, usually for less than this, but unless the price of ordinary cherry shrimp comes down substantially, they're still a bit costly for feeders. Though once you have a good colony, culls do make good feeders if nobody wants to buy them as cherry shrimp.

Granted, it's a lot easier and less effort to breed cherries or any neo really, compared to any shrimp that has larval stages first.

 

[GodFan]

As the market stands now, at least here, unless someone is selling cherry culls, they always cost quite a bit more than Ghosts do. I can get 10 Ghosts, old enough to be carrying eggs, for $4.50.. where ordinary cherry shrimp at the same store are $3.99 each.

It's my closest local store.. I can get painted fire and fire reds for about that price from other places or local hobbyists, usually for less than this, but unless the price of ordinary cherry shrimp comes down substantially, they're still a bit costly for feeders. Though once you have a good colony, culls do make good feeders if nobody wants to buy them as cherry shrimp.

Granted, it's a lot easier and less effort to breed cherries or any neo really, compared to any shrimp that has larval stages first.

Thats why I dont understand why they dont breed them as feeders. I would think the cost would drop dramatically.