Ghost Shrimp Question...

S

Skillet

New Fish
#1
May 15, 2006
4
0
0
Central Texas (Williamson County)
#1
Hello all!

Hey, I like the thought of having ghost shrimp permanently in the tank... bound to make for a cleaner bottom and I don't have any predatory fish, BUT, they don't seem to live for very long...

Is this normal, or are there things I can do to improve survivability, some salt to the tank maybe?

I wish these interesting little critters would last longer!

Skillet
 

SkwidsLair

SkwidsLair

Large Fish
#3
May 17, 2006
316
1
0
Not nearly far enough west
www.skwidslair.com
#3
what do you mean by not living very long? How long have they been living for you?

they should last a year or more if all goes well. If you got bigger ones from the LFS, they may have already been fairly 'old'.

I have four shrimp..two ghost/glass and two zebra red algae eaters. Though I can't really tell them apart. I know I've lost a ghost shrimp (started with three) but never did find any trace of him.
 

N

noncentric

Large Fish
#5
Feb 18, 2006
196
0
16
WA state
#5
Methylx said:
Here's a neat thing about ghost shrimp, every few months they shed their carapace to grow. So you may see "corpses" in the tank but they are just shed older skins of the ghost shrimp.
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Yep, this is the "molting" process. Means they are growing. They will often eat the old exoskeletons, which is just fine as it provides nutrients that help their new shells grow.

For the first day or two after molting, the ghost shrimp are more susceptible to injury - because their new shells are soft.

:)
 

FishLuvr

FishLuvr

Large Fish
#6
Jun 19, 2005
406
1
0
50
Pittsburgh, Pa
#6
i had 3 of them, and they all just up and disappeared one day. i assume that they were eaten by some other inhabitant of that tank. which includes longfin leopad danios, sterbai cories, and neon tetras, i assume that it was the leopard danios that did it. call the fish police we have a murderer amongst us
 

T

tessalion

Large Fish
#15
Jun 4, 2006
421
0
0
38
PA
#15
yahoofishkeeper said:
do ghost shrimp cost a lot there? i seriously saved my pocket change and picked them up every friday. they cost $0.25 here.
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hmmm...i dont remember how much they were at my LFS, im going back up there today too look at some other things so ill take a look...if theyre that cheap then i might just be acquiring some sooner than i thought....
 

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