Ghost shrimp behavior

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Drayven

Aquarium Advice Activist
Joined
Jun 26, 2009
Messages
177
Location
Ann Arbor, MI
I was just wondering if anyone had any ideas about my ghost shrimp's behavior. About 2 weeks ago I started stocking my tank and put in 6 danios and 7 ghost shrimp. After the first few days I fished out a couple dead shrimp. I kept checking the tank several times a day and finally saw a shrimp, every now and again I'd see two and on one very fortunate occassion I also saw 3 at a time. This left 2 unaccounted for and I looked all over the tank trying to find their corpses.

This takes us to yesterday, I was at the store and picked up a small bristlenose to eat up the plethora of algae I have growing around my tank. It only took an hour or so until she was out exploring and eating. What suprised me the most though was that as soon as she started doing her thing I saw 3 shrimp out at the same time. Then a little later I noticed there were 4 that I could count at the same time. For the past day there has always been at least 2 of them out and visible and quite a bit of the time 3 of them.

I guess what I'm curious about is whether or not this is just wierd timing or if there's something with the bristlenose that is making the shrimp more active. The only things I can think of are that either because she's going through all the nooks and crannies she's getting them out of their hiding spots or her algae eating is dislodging chunks of it for the shrimp to eat. It's not a bad thing because I love seeing the shrimp and they all appear happy and are eating like crazy, just curious about the reasoning behind it.
 
its possible its disturbing their hiding places. what are you feeding the pleco?
 
For now she's dining on all the green algae she can eat. I'm also going to be putting some sinking algae wafers in once that gets a bit thin.
 
Ghost shrimp are great at finding little nooks and crannies. They will stay in one position for a long time munching on algea or eating a little morsel. So if they are not in view, don't worry, they are in there somewhere. They don't necessarily hide unless they are molting in which case, you might have to try hard to find them then. If you have live plants or even fake plants, they love scaling the leaves and picking off pieces of food that fall in them and pick off algae.

They are quite hardy, and who knows, if you still have 4 or so and have different sexes, they may eventually set up a colony, and then you will be seeing alot more of them.
 
They are quite hardy, and who knows, if you still have 4 or so and have different sexes, they may eventually set up a colony, and then you will be seeing alot more of them.
just depends on what kind of ghost shrimp they have. there are many different ones sold under that name. some need bw to breed others dont.
 
just depends on what kind of ghost shrimp they have. there are many different ones sold under that name. some need bw to breed others dont.
I was referring to their ability to thrive in a range of water conditions and find food, such as algae. They are very adaptable. The breeding is very conditional, and of course there are shrimp that are really not ghost shrimp sold under that guise....so many variables....but really, I am merely speaking about true ghost shrimp and getting lucky with a colony.

To be honest most baby ghost shrimp would be quickly eaten by most fish, as they are very delicious it seems. I got lucky with my ghost shrimp and they randomly made more and more babies. Most were eaten, but the population slowly grew and some did survive :D. Now I have some of Brians (bs6749) snowball shrimp. I am hoping for the same luck.
 
yea i was just talking about the breeding not about how hardy theyare. there are no true ghost shrimp though. like i said there are many different species "ghost shrimp" sold under that name. all of them are correct under the common name.
 
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