Ghost shrimp

[brendan]

Holly cow!! I just noticed that my ghost shrimp has eggs!! Has anyone every seen this? What are the odds of the babies surviving?

TIA

 

[KaiserFish]

Depends whats in the tank to eat them!

 

[Lance M.]

Baby survival rate would most likely be 0%. Female ghost shrimp (if kept with other shrimp) are almost always with eggs.

 

[hashbaz]

If you take everybody out of the tank, including mom, they might have a chance. I have at least 11 fry that are a week and a half old. On the other hand this is my first time and they are not adults yet, so...

 

[youronlysin]

Remove the female and put her in a seperate small tank untill she downloads (excuse the expression). Keep the small tank warm and feed the newly hatched babies some spirulina, or other commercial food for fry, like liquifeed or even baby brine shrimp. You can crush some flake food very fine, like talcum powder and feed that as well, but they will do much better with an algal type of food like the spirulina, or a derivative.
If you use a filter, use something safe, like one of the foam filters powered by an airstone. A planted tank is best to breed the ghost shrimp in. Lots of floating plants work wonders; A nice chunk of java moss floating at the surface and warm water, around 80 degrees. The tank should be mature, or use some water from your main tank to fill the small one. Some breeders like a dark tank, with all of the sides wrapped in dark paper and kept lit from above. The babies are tiny!!! they are like plankton, hence the need for the really small food. They look like insect larvae, not shrimp. Once the babies look like the adult shrimp, its safe to feed them as you would the adult shrimp. You could probably place them back in the main tank at that time also, but it would still be a good idea to have some decent plant cover for them. Java moss works great!

If you leave the females in the main tank to breed, then youll need to provide a lot of plant cover for the babies to hide and grow. The other shrimp and fish WILL eat them.

 

[Felf]

i started a heavily planted 3 gal (shrimp only) tank a couple months ago and they keep having babies. i dont put in anything special for the babies but there's quite a bit of algae on everything. i just fed the parents regularly and they returned my $3.50 investment in no time

 

[youronlysin]

Thats the key right there...its heavily planted. The best way to do it.

 

[Wolf]

Can't they live in SW?

 

[Felf]

idk about the ghost shrimp in the mainland US but over here they're actually mountain shrimp but people call them ghost shrimp. they spend their larval stage in the ocean/estuaries, swim up the mountain streams as they mature, then come back down to mate as fully matured adults. we do have sw ghost shrimp here though

 

[Veneer]

idk about the ghost shrimp in the mainland US but over here they're actually mountain shrimp but people call them ghost shrimp. they spend their larval stage in the ocean/estuaries, swim up the mountain streams as they mature, then come back down to mate as fully matured adults. we do have sw ghost shrimp here though

The "ghost shrimp" (Palaemonetes) of the mainland United States complete their life cycles entirely within freshwater; the "mountain shrimp" you speak of - Atyoida bisculcata (`opae kala`ole; mountain 'opae) - are amphidromous Atyids, related to the Asian and African fan shrimp ("wood/bamboo/Singapore" & "vampire" shrimp) of common experience. Hawai'i possesses indigenous Macrobrachium spp. as well, though they are increasingly marginalized by the non-native M. lar and, to a lesser extent, M. rosenbergii.

 

[thanew]

hrm, mine just laid eggs too... im not really sure how to care for fry, one of my johannis is carrying eggs too im just overwhelmed with reproducing fish right now.. trying to sort it all out

 

[Felf]

that's cool thanks for the info