Breeding Ghost Shrimp

[nc_nutcase]

Has anyone here ever successfully bred ghost shrimp?

If so could you let me/us know how you did it?

If it is possible/practical I'd like to set up a 10 US Gal tank dedicated to this. If it works out I will later introduce large numbers (100+)of ghost shrimp into my cichlid tanks for a dual purpose of cleaning and feeding. I do this from time to time but at anywhere between 20 to 30 cents each it's not so realistic for me to add them in the numbers I want. In smaller numbers (20-40) they just become a mid day treat.

Also if I went with a slightly larger tank (15-20 US Gal) could I do a combo breeding tank with ghost shrimp and guppies?

Is three any way I could colonize them in a cichlid tank if I added 'just the right" decor / cover / food / etc? If so... tell me how!

Thanks in advance...

 

[pica_nuttalli]

all i know about it is that i used to get feeders all the frickin' time that were just covered in little shrimpy eggs... i doubt you could have both guppies and shrimp breeding in the same tank. my guppies will try to eat anything once and would probably make short work of any shrimp larva that hatched.

 

[Synirr]

I've got no idea how to breed the little buggers, but I'd like to know. I always buy females loaded down with eggs, but they never hatch/ are eaten after they hatch

 

[nc_nutcase]

Just as an experiment... I think I'm going to set up a 10 Gal… cycle it... load it to the gills with fake plants... then put 100-200 ghost shrimp in it... I would think dull lighting 8 hours a day would be good…

will ghost shrimp like healthily on flake food? I'm sure that will be easy enough to research. Worse comes to worse... I end up with a cycled 10 Gal...

 

[pica_nuttalli]

whatever i fed them, i would load with vitamins. if you have some extra-nutritional food that your fish just aren't interested in, use that. shrimp are scavengers so they'll eat anything. you just want them to eat things you later want to feed your fish.

i wouldn't chunk 100+ in there if you're seriously thinking of breeding them. you could never get that many shrimp not to cannibalize their smaller/shell-less mates. i'd try at most 50 if you're wanting to colonize. even that feels a bit crowded to me.

also, while i'm thinking about it, shrimp are like all crustaceans and periodically must shed their outer shell in order to increase in size. thus you'll want to provide things like sea-shells and gapped-apart rocks for the naked shrimp to hide inside until their new shell hardens. otherwise they're easy pickings.

 

[Jen]

Here are a few links for you. If you type 'Breeding Ghost Shrimp' into Google, tons of sites will come up.


Breeding Ghost Shrimp

Breeding Ghost Shrimp

Breeding Ghost Shrimp

 

[SConrad]

everytime that i buy ghost shrimp soem are covered in eggs...i filled a ten gallon tank halfway and had a florescent light behind the tank on a lot...not trying to breed or anything but it happened and i had hundreds of tiny little shrimps and stuff, the water was clear but there was a large amount of green algae growing on the sides of the tank...idk if my pH was good or what, they just did it...i also had some baby gourami in there at the same time