Ghost Shrimp Thriving

Never had good luck with these. I think the problem I had before was using Seachem's Flourish Excel. After finding out it's poisonous nature I dropped it from my supplement arsenal. I now use minute amounts of iodine and the shrimp seem to respond well to it. I see molted shells and and no less shrimp in my tank so apperently they are molting successfully.

Next I would really love to have one of those freshwater sponges. I am taking a weeks vacation next month. Going to trek the creeks in PA, MD, and DE to try to find one.

do you have to have iodide salts to keep these guys alive? i know they are sold as freshwater but i always read they are brackish.

I haven't messed with shrimp much. But one of the people in our local aquatic plant club kept barious types. He told me that nearly all of them require some form of dietary iodine. He supplied it by feeding shrimp pellets--which, I guess, were made from marine shrimp and contained iodine.

do you have to have iodide salts to keep these guys alive? i know they are sold as freshwater but i always read they are brackish.

The common ghost shrimp sold in stores is Palaemonetes paludosus, which is definitely a freshwater species, thought it may tolerate brackish water. It is found in freshwater along the Atlantic Slope from NJ to south Florida. Another freshwater species, P. kadakiensis, is found in the interior drainages (Great Lakes and Gulf Slope), often many hundreds of miles from the sea. There are also several brackish/euryhaline species in the genus along our Atlantic and Gulf coasts.

Lots of animals require iodide for proper development. It is not an indication of a need for saltwater. The amounts needed are usually quite small.

Good luck finding sponges, Lozgod!

That's the unfortunate thing about ghost/grass shrimp. There are a few species, and they all look pretty much alike. So unless you collect them yourself, it's not always possible to know which species you have. There's even a species in the upper Potomac, around riverbend park. No one is really sure what it is, but it's believed to be an introduction.

The common ghost shrimp sold in stores is Palaemonetes paludosus, which is definitely a freshwater species, thought it may tolerate brackish water. It is found in freshwater along the Atlantic Slope from NJ to south Florida. Another freshwater species, P. kadakiensis, is found in the interior drainages (Great Lakes and Gulf Slope), often many hundreds of miles from the sea. There are also several brackish/euryhaline species in the genus along our Atlantic and Gulf coasts.

Lots of animals require iodide for proper development. It is not an indication of a need for saltwater. The amounts needed are usually quite small.

Good luck finding sponges, Lozgod!

P. paludosus is pretty easy to ID on sight- it has orange bands on the legs and antennae. For the rest, you've got to get them under some magnification and look at the rostrum and antenna bases.

I've kept the some before the saltier part of the Leipsic River. They all died rather quick in my freshwater tank and became a catfish snack, but are extremely hardy in my brackish tank.

I've had wild caught saltwater grass shrimp live a long time. In a saltwater tank. But, their store bought freshwater twins, don't seem to last long.

I'd love to know if anyone has tried culturing these. I know P. paludosus(and apparently the ones I see at my LFS, irregardless of species) produce large larvae that have been raised. They seem like they might be more trouble then they are worth, however.

Freshwater shrimp do need iodine, but they get plenty from their food. They do NOT need iodine SUPPLEMENTS. My source is a husband/wife team, both of who are marine biologists, and they both raise shrimp in their home as a hobby. FINALLY, I found a good source for this.

Too much iodine may also be harmful to FW shrimp/inverts as it forces them to molt. If they molt too much, the stress will kill them.

I have been raising several species of FW shrimp since 2006 without iodine supplements and the red cherry shrimp breed just fine.

Saltwater shrimp DO need iodine supplements in the water column.

Edited by bulrush, 15 June 2010 - 10:18 AM.

A few months late...but as someone who HAS raised ghost shrimp successfully, I might have something to offer the thread. The "larval" (not sure they're true larvae)stage remains suspended in the water column, looking more or less like a tiny version of the adults, hanging head-down. These "danglers' don't have the legs for walking, but they will occasionally grasp plats or the sides of the aquarium to rest and/or hide. They need microscopic food, but I've occasionally had some survive in a clean planted tank, so infusoria and/or small particles of flake food are apparently sufficient. That said, I had the best results simply moving females that were carrying eggs into tanks of green water. The young CAN be fed with things like powdered fish food or suspensions of yeast, or eggs, but productivity suffers - such foods tend to cause water quality to deteriorate, and one ends up with much fewer shrimplets than in an aerated green-water tank. I haven't really kept track, but about 2 weeks seems to be the timeframe for the switch from "dangler" to a benthic shrimplet. I'm sure feeding and temperature will have an effect on the rate.

The single most important thing to remember with these shrimp is that they must have GREAT water quality. As a kid, I always assumed that inverts were happy in crummier water than fish, but as a rule, the opposite is true.

I thought I’d just add my experience here with ghost shrimp. Perhaps someone will find it informative. Anyway, several years ago I had a ten gallon weakly brackish tank with ghost shrimp. I’m not sure what species they were, but they had little orangey-red bands on their antenna. So, given Newt’s comment, I guess they were P. paludosus. The tank had drift wood, play sand, java moss, and two three inch hogchockers. Also, the tank had a small penguin hang-on filter. And, I remember that the water had an insanely high pH, like close to 9. I bring this up because, in this tank, the shrimps bread like crazy. I always had lots of little shrimps even though I’m sure the hogchockers ate some.

Hogchockers likes too eet breaded shrimps.