Got My Ghost Shrimp Now What?

[josh63762]

hey all I got 6 ghost shrimp yesterday they are about 2 cm long very small and cute lol now my question is the sellers told me not to feed them for the first 24 hours is this correct and they said I should boil peas and mash them then freeze them and give that to them is that fine I will give them that along with blood worm there is 6 of them in a 30 L now is that finE? and the tank is totally bare should I include some plants and substrate or do they prefer is plane is there anything else they Like? and when will they start breeding? thanks

 

[Baccus]

I would certainly be adding plants all shrimp feel safer with plants and the plants will trap foods for the shrimp to clean off. Substrate will also help them settle in and it will give them something else to pick over and clean.
Not sure about not feeding them for 24hrs, I would check their poo line (the dark thin stripe that runs down their back and what you remove if your eating prawns), if you can not see a poo line then my guess is that their digestive system is already empty and they will need some food. Shrimp eat almost nonstop, so the last thing you want to do is starve them unless you are purging them for some reason. Mashed peas would be ok, but really there should be no need to go to so much trouble, they are omnivores and should except all manner of foods that you would normally feed your fish.
Only being around 2cm sounds like they are still quite young and I would think they wont be ready to breed until full grown at around 4cm, females should reach 4cm while males will tend to stay smaller around 2.5cm.

 

[Mamashack]

They will soon seem to be munching all the time. I wouldn't feed them mashed pea unless you are about to do a water change as it makes the water very cloudy indeed! I give mine a bit of crushed tropical flake once a day and the rest they forage for themselves. They really do keep the tank clean and add negligible amount to the bio-load.

 

[snazy]

Don't mash the pea, just blache it and peel it. They'll bunch up on it just like that. They'd eat any other veggies too, but I suppose they'd need other shrimp food to give them everything they need to grow.