Culturing Glass Shrimp

I found a local source for a glass shrimp species. I would like to start a culture of them to feed my fish, and for display in my aquarium. Does anyone have any experience or advice? Also would it be possible to culture scuds or isopods with them?

I have had different results with paleomonetes shrimp in different setups.

1st: 10 gallon tank, 1 male betta, natural colored pea gravel bottom, one aponogeton plant, no filter or overhead light. They jumped out and died.
2nd: 55 gallon planted tank. Swordtails and platies. Substrate was mixed gravel and kitty litter (clay). Waterfall filter, overhead lights. They liked to eat the physa fontinalis snails and probably also the flake food detritus. They don't jump out when there are plants covering the surface. They bred in this setup.

I don't think you can breed them for cheaper than you can buy them. They cost pennies each at the stores near where I used to live in Ohio. You could buy dozens and dozens of them for cheap. The opportunity cost alone for the aquarium space to breed that many shrimp makes me think that you would be better served to buy than breed them. But if you don't have any stores like that near you, I guess breeding them makes sense. Maybe you could get one of those big opaque sided stock tanks pre-owned and breed the shrimp in a setup where it wouldn't be easy to view fish, so there wouldn't be an opportunity cost like if you were breeding the shrimp in a glass sided tank. You could put some cheap shop lights over the big tank, fit it with full spectrum bulbs, and grow ceratophyllum demersum, physa fontinalis, and paleomonetes shrimp. It would probably be a water change free tank. You'd need a source of water movement (pumps/powerheads/wavemakers are cheap, turn it for circular rotation flow) and a source of protein. Table scraps would work.

Summary:
Tank: multi hundred gallon round stock tank, used, waterproof, potable.
Light fixture: shop lights. Home Depot has a four foot two bulb T8 fluorescent for $20. Walmart has the same thing for $10. You can rest them right on the tank or suspend them above.
Light bulbs: Daylight Deluxe four foot long T8 fluorescent bulbs, $9 for two at Home Depot. Great for growing plants.
Plant: Ceratophyllum demersum (coontail/hornwort)
Water flow: A powerhead. They're $15 on ebay, look for 'gph wavemaker'. Position it so the water flows in a circle.
Occupants: glass shrimp, physa fontinalis snails
Food: Table scraps. Fish food. Anything you want. Don't cloud the water.
Maintenance: test water for nitrate occasionally, increase feeding if drops to 0 ppm. Should stay below 30 ppm (and will, with this setup). If reaches 30 ppm, do water change. Or don't feed for a few days and test again.

I think they'd breed in that setup.


http://gallery.nanfa.../stock tank.png

Edited by EricaWieser, 22 November 2012 - 11:29 PM.

Those shrimp are at least as interesting as fish. I'd consider the opportunity cost very low if I could get a breeding colony.

Red Cherry shrimp are cheap, easy to find on Aquabid, and breed much easier. The release fully formed young. Glass shrimp release larval shrimp, so in order to breed glass shrimp in any quantity you need a lot of plankton or green water. A 30 gallon stocked with 50 RCS will become thousands in a couple months.

I used to catch Ghost shrimp(same thing as Glass Shrimp?) in canals around me in pretty good quantity and even had some females berry but with a filter running and fish in the tank the young never had a chance. I'd love to do a tank with just them but I don't have an available tank and no room for a new one.

i tried for a while to raise the larvae of palaemonetes with very limited success. i set up several small tanks with a berried female each. each had a bubbler and a light on it, and each were fed a different food. the only tank that had any survivors was the tank that was fed nothing at all.

on another occasion, i found 20 or so small ghost shrimp in a tank that i left half full with green water. there was no aeration, filtration, or lighting on it. it got about four hours of light from a nearby glass door and nothing else. when i got ready to set the tank up for another project, i poured the water through a net(odd habit of mine) and found them. i know there were shrimp in the tank as some time before i set it aside, but i have no idea when they hatched out.

I agree that the easiest and most productive little shrimp for use has a live food are the cherry shrimp. I keep a ten gallon tank with just a sponge filter and hornwort has the setup. I feed them broken up algae wafers and do partial water changes just like any other tank. They do like a warm tank so they are the only tank that gets a heater. The more you start with the sooner you see some useful production so get a large group. Breaking up the wafers and scattering them lets the little ones eat. I also feed any sinking fish food I can get cheap. Only tip is make sure the food is all gone before you feed them again. They never produce enough to be a full time food but the fish love them. You can also dump a few adults in tanks were the fish are too small to eat them, like pigmy sunfish, but will be happy to eat the young.

I have only been able to get baby ghost shrimps outside in unfiltered "pond" and though I read they like it cooler, I have only found the opposite, they breed and thrive at 80 degrees plus.

I agree that the easiest and most productive little shrimp for use has a live food are the cherry shrimp. I keep a ten gallon tank with just a sponge filter and hornwort has the setup. I feed them broken up algae wafers and do partial water changes just like any other tank. They do like a warm tank so they are the only tank that gets a heater. The more you start with the sooner you see some useful production so get a large group. Breaking up the wafers and scattering them lets the little ones eat. I also feed any sinking fish food I can get cheap. Only tip is make sure the food is all gone before you feed them again. They never produce enough to be a full time food but the fish love them. You can also dump a few adults in tanks were the fish are too small to eat them, like pigmy sunfish, but will be happy to eat the young.

Would adults cherry shrimp ever bother the tiny pygmy sunfish?

Would adults cherry shrimp ever bother the tiny pygmy sunfish?

They eat the microworms that I fed to my baby Elassoma gilberti. Without shrimp the food lasted alive and wiggling on the bottom for two days. With shrimp the worms were gone within hours. It was just easier to maintain the pygmy sunfish without shrimp in the tank, regardless of whether or not the shrimp and fish interacted.

They eat the microworms that I fed to my baby Elassoma gilberti. Without shrimp the food lasted alive and wiggling on the bottom for two days. With shrimp the worms were gone within hours. It was just easier to maintain the pygmy sunfish without shrimp in the tank, regardless of whether or not the shrimp and fish interacted.

Thanks ,that makes perfect sense and never thought of it.