How can I raise/breed ghost shrimp in mass quantities?

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Carefree_Dude

Piranha
MFK Member
Feb 4, 2011
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Portland, OR
I have fire eels that will only eat ghost shrimp. I'd like to breed them so that I can get their food for free. Are there any tips on doing this? I've tried to breed them in the past, but all the ghost shrimp slowly died off and had no babies. Actually, thinking back i've never been able to keep ghost shrimp alive, even when they weren't feeders.

So, two questions.

What is the trick to keeping ghost shrimp alive? I have pristine water conditions, so I don't understand why they die on me. Is it high PH? PH in my tanks is about 8.4

Assuming the suggestions in question 1 work and i'm able to get them to stay alive, how can I get them to mass produce? Do I need to add Infusoria? I have two big seeded sponge filters i plan on adding to the tank i'll be using, which is a 55 gallon. If that's not big enough, I have a 180 I can use. My goal is to feed these guys 100 ghost shrimp a week.
 
second that. rcs will breed like mad. i had 3 females give birth to almost 80 babies. just buy 10 or 15 on aquabid with free shipping and set up a 10gal with just some moss on a rock or driftwood and yer good. use a cheap 5 dollar sponge filter. amazon.com has em. honestly the most expensive part will be the hood. i bought a complete aquarium 10gal starter kit at walmart for 29, an air pump, air stone, and air line for 8 bucks, and a sponge filter at amazon.com for 10dollars with shipping. so 37 for a complete aquarium. you might be able to do better.
 
fire eels love earthworms. you can wean them onto crawfish and cocktail shrimp. its bigger bulkier and easier. and they get huge. dont waste your time with the little shrimp its like feeding an oscar flakes
 
The trick with breeding Ghost shrimps is that you need to acclimate them very slowly. Once their acclimated to your tank, you can feed them whatever. Mine used to eat leftover food from my cichlids, then when the cichlids got bigger, the ghost shrimp became food.

I suggest you just skip using shrimp though. Try to get your eel onto pellets. It will be better for your eel in the long haul.
 
Trust me, i've been trying. I have 3 fire eels... the largest is about 18", the smallest is at 14"... I've tried earthworms, market shrimp, multiple pellets, bloodworms, krilll, live blackworms.... ghost shrimp are the only thing they seem to want to touch. I have gotten them to eat NLS pellets by stuffing them inside of dead ghost shrimp though. They will happily eat out of my hand, but if the item in my hand isn't a ghost shrimp, they will look at me like they are saying, "WTF IS THIS?!?" I've tried starving them, but to no avail. I'd like to try crayfish, but i can never find any small enough.
 
Ghost shrimp have a larval stage so you need to go with low volume sponge filters and let the algae build up a bit I have accidentally bred some in a 75G but only a few and I mostly find them in the canister filter when I clean it
 
It is definetely less time/energy/money just to buy them at your LFS. Raising ghost shrimp is not economical. I believe they are pretty much all wild collected in mass quantities but I could be wrong and they may be farming them in ponds. Either way it is cost prohibitive to raise them from larvae in tanks.
 
same mines used to die also evening living in a community tank. They would die like a week or 2 later and thats the longest ive kept them alive
 
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