My ghost shrimp and their setup!

[Matt724]

I'm not sure, but i think that the daily water changes are taking too much beneficial bacteria from the tank water. I suggest either limiting your water changes to one or two times a week and/or adding commercial bacteria such as Cycle by Nutrafin. This works well with my tank for I also have ghost shrimp.

 

[Matt724]

I think the reason why your ghost shrimp are dying are because you are performing too many water changes and taking away too much beneficial bacteria from the system, since it is such a small tank. I suggest limiting the number of water changes to maybe every other day or even once a week and add commercial bacteria such as Cycle by Nutrafin in order to keep your shrimp healthy. Tell me if this helps =) !

 

[Matt724]

okay, im new at this so i didnt know how the forum works so i accidently posted the same thing twice, my mistake.

 

[Noto]

Some deaths are pretty much inevitable with animals intended as feeders; they're not as carefully handled as animals intended for pets. Just weed out the sick ones. Also beware shrimp with a long white worm coiled up inside; this is a horsehair worm, and it will lay eggs and spread to others if the infected animal is not removed. Infected shrimp are harmless to fish, so feel free to feed it off.

By the way, your guys are the Florida native Palaemonetes paludosus. The red bands on antennae and legs are diagnostic.

 

[Zinq]

How long does it take for the eggs to hatch, they were prego since 12/13?

"Prego" meaning there was a green mass inside of her head or can you see the little eggs under her tail. If they are under her tail it will probably take around 2-3 weeks for them to be released, may be sooner.

Make sure you look out for little upside down shrimplets hovering around 1 inch from the water's surface. If you have trouble hatching/acquiring brine shrimp, you can try frozen brine shrimp.

 

[Zinq]

Alternatively, I've been experimenting with the egg yolk (the yellow part) with pretty good results (very high survival rate). What you do is the following:
- Pinch off this much Egg yolk ))
- Hold the pinched egg underwater and slowly squish it side to side
- A cloud of egg yolk will appear and the larvae will feed on the cloud (as will the adults)
- You can use this to feed fish fry too (which was originally my primary use)
---CAUTION---do not overfeed otherwise it will pollute your water

How to prepare the egg (for those who don't know):
- Boil the egg (egg + cold water --> Heat till boiling --> Turn off heat--> Let sit for 10 mins in hot water)
- Take the egg out and let it cool till you can touch it
- Strip off shell and eat the egg white (or feed it to another person)
- Now you have the boiled egg yolk, which you can keep it for 1-2 weeks in the fridge in a small sealed container. Don't keep it for any longer, it won't stink but I'm thinking the bacterial levels+associated toxins are beginning to rise to a dangerous level. It kills some angel fry when I feed old egg to them.

 

[FavCatfish]

Alternatively, I've been experimenting with the egg yolk (the yellow part) with pretty good results (very high survival rate). What you do is the following:
- Pinch off this much Egg yolk ))
- Hold the pinched egg underwater and slowly squish it side to side
- A cloud of egg yolk will appear and the larvae will feed on the cloud (as will the adults)
- You can use this to feed fish fry too (which was originally my primary use)
---CAUTION---do not overfeed otherwise it will pollute your water

How to prepare the egg (for those who don't know):
- Boil the egg (egg + cold water --> Heat till boiling --> Turn off heat--> Let sit for 10 mins in hot water)
- Take the egg out and let it cool till you can touch it
- Strip off shell and eat the egg white (or feed it to another person)
- Now you have the boiled egg yolk, which you can keep it for 1-2 weeks in the fridge in a small sealed container. Don't keep it for any longer, it won't stink but I'm thinking the bacterial levels+associated toxins are beginning to rise to a dangerous level. It kills some angel fry when I feed old egg to them.

VERY VERY Helpful! I was looking of a alternative!

12/13 is when i started seeing the green inside her. One has had eggs under her for several weeks now.. there are even white eggs? Is that bacteria or something?

 

[FavCatfish]

Oh and about the water changing, out of ten gallons i change 2 qts every other day.The water is from my catfish tank. I got lazy lol. There are like 20 or so in tank snd havent had a death in forever.

Problem. I put all the shrimp in a 5 gallon and a 5 gallon bucket and completely cleaned there tank of the sand i had. It was nasty with the algae and everything. I moved the females around a bit when i did that.. Do you think it will affect them?

There kinda pets now lol. I havent feed any to my fish. I like them. I have bought other shrimp to feed cause there so cool to watch swim and eat!

 

[Zinq]

VERY VERY Helpful! I was looking of a alternative!

12/13 is when i started seeing the green inside her. One has had eggs under her for several weeks now.. there are even white eggs? Is that bacteria or something?

White eggs? Eh...I don't think I've seen white eggs before. I've seen green to light yellow but not white. Could you describe it in more detail? Like white circular eggs? They get somewhat clear though before release so that may be it.

Be patient, they'll hatch eventually. The hatching speed is probably fairly dependent on temperature but it's fine. DON'T bump up the temp or anything though to make things faster, it's unnecessary stress.

 

[Zinq]

Oh and about the water changing, out of ten gallons i change 2 qts every other day.The water is from my catfish tank. I got lazy lol. There are like 20 or so in tank snd havent had a death in forever.

Problem. I put all the shrimp in a 5 gallon and a 5 gallon bucket and completely cleaned there tank of the sand i had. It was nasty with the algae and everything. I moved the females around a bit when i did that.. Do you think it will affect them?

There kinda pets now lol. I havent feed any to my fish. I like them. I have bought other shrimp to feed cause there so cool to watch swim and eat!

Be very careful with your water changes though. The main reason I do it very infrequently is because I always end up capturing babies when performing the changes. It will become more and more problematic as you continue breeding, you'll see. So make sure that you're not accidentally dumping babies with ur changes. Instead, I recommend massive amounts of plants (floating ones do very well, they like to hang upside down from them too and it eliminates the algae problem)

The females should be fine even if u stress them slightly. When I first bought mine a long time ago from the lfs, they were berried and they still released the babies. (Though they died since I didn't know how to care for them)

The shrimp really are very entertaining though. I've created quite the little ecosystem in there actually, full of cyclops, snails, paramecium (you can see them as tiny dots, about the half size of the dot on this "i"), plants and of course the shrimp. Very fun to watch.