Shrimp Suprise

[Zombies]

For last Chinese new years, I decided to give my two little GSP's a treat. I bought them 2 small ghost shrimp and threw them in the tank. I saw that they were having trouble catching them but I figured the brackish water would shock them and make them easier to catch. Today when I was doing a water change I saw some darting. I saw one of the ghost shrimp! He's managed to live in the brackish tank with two GSP's for over 6 months. It's the first time I've seen him and he looks pretty fat and content. Is that amazing or what.

 

[Little Fish]

Yes, it is amazing that your puffers would let the ghost shrimp alone for so long. I dropped 2 ghost shrimps into my heavy planted tank with 3 F8s last night. My smallest and my biggest puffers did not show any interest. The medium size one tried to catch them but the ghost shrimps bounced and hid in the plants. This morning when I checked the tank, both shrimps were gone and my biggest puffer has a bulging belly.

As for ghost shrimps living in brackish water; one post that I read said there are freshwater and brackish water ghost shrimps. Another article said there are only one kind of ghost shrimps but they can be acclimated to either fresh or brackish. Seeing your post, it seems like the second argument is more believable. The survivor must has been acclimated to the salinity of your puffer tank. You have GSPs so your tank's salinity is at the higher end, right? What is the SG of your tank?

 

[Fry Lady]

That's funny my GSP's hit the shrimp within a minute of the shrimp landing on the bottom.

Shrimp don't last long with mine, down they go.

 

[penguinpimp1990]

thats funny, as i breed ghost shrimp as feeders for my fish and my f8 as never let one go, within 30 seconds that ghostie is eaten right up. also ive heard ive ghosties tolerating semi-brackish setups for long periods of time, but a full brackish tank for 6 months in ridiculous, that must ghosty must have been made of iron

 

[ananda1]

I put a dozen ghost shrimp in with green-spotted puffers well over 18 months ago. They were *supposed* to be puffer treats.

The shrimp have survived two moves and a tank upsize.

And the shrimp are breeding. When I upsized the tank, I counted 15 ghosties.

I'm thinking that the puffs eat the young ghost shrimp, and get most of them -- just not all of them.

And some of the ghosties are *still* bigger than one of the puffers.

 

[Flumpus]

I've only had my Figure 8 and Knight Gobies for a few weeks now, and I gave them some ghost shrimp for the first time today. Three were killed immediately. Two by the puffer (although the puffer only ate one, the gobies shared the other), then the gobies ambushed the other shrimp that was killed. One slowly backed it into a spot where the biggest could dart out of a hole in the rock and grab it. It was such fun to watch! I'm definitely thinking about setting up a tank so I can keep ghost shrimp to feed to my puffer and gobies now. They're only 10 cents each, so I don't care about breeding, just need a place to keep them so I can buy a whole lot and don't have to go to the LFS everytime I wanna give them a treat!

 

[Zombies]

You have GSPs so your tank's salinity is at the higher end, right? What is the SG of your tank?

The Salinity of my tank it 1.007. I have never seen the shrimp again since that day, but I believe he's still in there since he lived for 6 months already...he's probably under a rock plotting or something.