Ghost Shrimp

zeke92

zeke92

Active Member
Ok, i want to get this info straight after all this time.
I've heard tons of different things, some say they can't breed in saltwater, some say they can't live in saltwater.
I tried 10 of them in my 6g and they all died after a day except a few (which i moved to a freshwater tank out of fear, they died anyway).
Am i doing something wrong or can they not live in saltwater? I was hoping to breed them for cleanup crew, food for my fish in the 55g and hopefully the larvae could be food for dwarf seahorses.
So, two main questions:
1. Can they live in saltwater and is there anything special while acclimating you need to do?
2. Can they breed in saltwater, and will there larvae be small enough yet noticeable for pony food?
Thanks in advance, want to get this information straight for once
 
joe____17

joe____17

Member
No from what i know they cant live in saltwater. They breed in water with very little salt like 1.05 or 1.010, brackish water.
 
ca161406

ca161406

Member
just get white shrimp and breed them. Penaeus vannamei
i got a 10 gal thats crawling with them. toss them in my DT a handful at a time once a week at night.
 
zeke92

zeke92

Active Member
I'm definatly getting peppermints for there aiptasia eating, but i wasn't sure if those would breed at all.
and are white shrimp very easy to breed? I heard they eat each other..i might look into it then, i have a few 10 gallons i could use
 
ca161406

ca161406

Member
Originally Posted by zeke92
http:///forum/post/2986142
I'm definatly getting peppermints for there aiptasia eating, but i wasn't sure if those would breed at all.
and are white shrimp very easy to breed? I heard they eat each other..i might look into it then, i have a few 10 gallons i could use
i put 10 in my qt a few months ago so it wld motivate me to keep it running all the time, nd they spread like wild fire.
never seen them eat each other but they do always have food.
the fatter the taister
 
zeke92

zeke92

Active Member
Hehe, thanks for the info. Might get some of those then, i'm sure they will work just the same as ghost shrimp, and i bet my puffer would like a nibble at one of those
 
cranberry

cranberry

Active Member
I fed ghost shrimp out everyday for 5 years when WC seahorses were all you could get. Yes, you can convert a freshwater ghost shrimp to full salinity. But success was very variable. Sometimes they would live forever in the saltwater... sometimes there would be massive die-off. No two methods of acclimation seemed to result in consistent outcomes. Sometimes it worked... sometimes it didn't. The best that worked for me was a 24 hour acclimation with a suppressed pH. Once I got the salinity up I would bring up the pH.
I bred them for my seahorse fry, Yes they are cannibalistic but not as bad as mysis shrimp. I would put the berried mom's in a basket and a container and swish out the larvae every morning with a net. I think I have pictures of that somewhere.
I then started catching my own marine variety of ghost shrimp. You have to be careful of them being intermediate hosts to cooties. Sometimes they would have parasitic isopods and worms. But the good thing was they are see through so you could see those that had worms and the isopods were very visible as well.
Peppermint are great. My seahorses love it when they let loose.

 
cranberry

cranberry

Active Member
Here's my "breeder"?
The plastic mesh thing was in the pond section of home depot. I rammed 2 acrylic rods just under the rim.


But the cardboard box represents a deep plastic bin and the basket sat in one side of the bin
 
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