11 replies to this topic

[Leo1234]

Are there any native brackish water shrimp that are easy to find? Is Palaemonetes vulgaris, Shore shrimp brackish water? My salinity is 1.005, but I might increase it to 1.010.
Thanks

[Betta132]

I'd suggest going out to a brackish area and shuffling around in the plants and reeds. You'll probably find some form of ghost shrimp.

[zooxanthellae]

I have caught them in brackish areas, but they are generally closer to the salty end of the spectrum.

 

This is covered decently well in the following paper:

http://www.nwrc.usgs...s/82_11-035.pdf

[Leo1234]

I'd suggest going out to a brackish area and shuffling around in the plants and reeds. You'll probably find some form of ghost shrimp.

I only looked online for about 1 minute, but the ghost shrimp here seem to be endangered.

[Doug_Dame]

To paraphrase greatly, the paper says that (brackish water gulf) shrimp are typically going to found most densely in vegetation, where they get more protection from the many predators that find shrimp tasty. 

[gzeiger]

I've never seen a brackish habitat where there were not some sort of shrimp.

[Betta132]

I only looked online for about 1 minute, but the ghost shrimp here seem to be endangered.

I have never heard of an endangered ghost shrimp, and since they're quite low on the food chain, I don't quite see how that's possible. You may want to look a bit further into that. 

[Leo1234]

I looked it up again and I don't see it being listed as endangered, but it is a burrowing species and lives in the sand on the beach.

[Dustin]

I did an undergraduate research project on this, determining the preference of P. vulgaris and P. pugio in regards to salinity.  We collected in creeks from well up river out to the near the coast and took salinity readings along the way.  I don't remember at this point the specific results of the study, but the gist of it was that both species are found commonly all the way from very nearly fresh water out to nearly full sea water and vulgaris was much more common than pugio across the range.  I will say that they seemed to be more abundant in brackish to full salt.

[gzeiger]

Finding shrimp in brackish water with a net will be far easier than finding good ducomentation of which species are where. Just look for a spot with some vegetation in the water and drag your net through it.

[Betta132]

Ah, you're talking about the 'ghost shrimp' that are weird and floppy and live in burrows. You don't want those, they'd never come out. They live in a different habitat, anyway, you have to dig for them. 

The 'ghost shrimp' I'm talking about are also called glass shrimp or grass shrimp, little bitty transparent fellas. There are quite a few varieties of them, and those three names are used for just about all varieties. Shuffle around in the seaweed with a net and you should get something of the sort. 

[gerald]

If you keep the salinity around 1.005 (roughly 1/4 seawater), even the common eastern freshwater grass shrimp (Palaemonetes paludosus) sold as "feeder shrimp" in most pet shops will do OK.  They can tolerate full seawater for a day or two, and will survive long-term in 25% seawater.  They are an exotic species introduced in CA, so I'm guessing they're not a protected species there.

 

Syncaris pacifica is the endangered shrimp in CA.  It's in the family Atyidae, along with cherry shrimp, Amano shrimp, bamboo shrimp, and fan shrimp -- not related to the ghost/grass shrimp (family Palaemonidae).  There used to be a 2nd species of Syncaris in CA but it went extinct in the 1930's due to urban development.  Being low on the food chain confers no protection against being obliterated by human activities.