baby ghost shrimp

[endparenthesis]

I have a tiny tank with two pregnant ghost shrimp in it and one of them just released some hatchlings.

I grabbed a couple pics of the mother, who is apparently prepping the last baby or two to be released (wish I could tell for sure... if she's done I want her out of there). Figured I'd post her too in case you're interested. Same shrimp, different places:

And here's one of the babies... the only one I could manage to get close enough to. It's 2-3mm in length, so as you can imagine this wasn't an easy picture.

It's hanging out in some java fern plantlets (so you can get a feel for the scale). The second pic is a closeup (close as I could get, anyway).

 

[cutecotton]

wow, i got 3 pregnant ghost shrimps in my tnak, but i heard the babies are really hard to raise do you know how long they're supposet to be pregnant for? i really want to try and make them stay alive

 

[bunjiweb]

Wow great close ups of those babies!

Ben

 

[endparenthesis]

wow, i got 3 pregnant ghost shrimps in my tnak, but i heard the babies are really hard to raise do you know how long they're supposet to be pregnant for? i really want to try and make them stay alive

Supposedly the babies need tiny food for a while (infusoria) and enough iodine in the water to do frequent moltings. I have Wardley's Liquid Small Fry food I'm putting in there... no idea if it'll do the trick or not. As far as iodine, I've put in some tablesalt (iodine/iodide is one of the ingredients). Again, no idea if that will be enough.

Some people can't keep them alive and some people get tons of them on accident, so who knows. It's more of an experiment than anything else. We'll see how they do.

I don't know how long they hold the eggs. They were carrying eggs under them when I bought them and they've been in this tank for about a week. I knew the eggs were fertilized already because I could see tiny eyes forming.

 

[silver]

WOW.....you have one AWSOME DIGITAL there!!!!!! How many mp is it???

Very cool pictures!! I love macro!!

 

[cometcattle]

Great pics!

 

[endparenthesis]

WOW.....you have one AWSOME DIGITAL there!!!!!! How many mp is it???

Very cool pictures!! I love macro!!

4 MP.

I should have upped the picture quality even more for the closeup but the card was almost full and I was in a hurry.

 

[cutecotton]

cool, i can see tiny eyes developing too! i dont' know whether or not i should seperate the 3 females nad stick them in a conatiner or if i should leave them in the tank with the bettas. they're strange things but if it's nto too much troulbe i'd like to raise them (thought it's probably easier to just buy them at hte lfs for like 20 cents each)

 

[endparenthesis]

They should probably be on their own. Sometimes even the adult shrimp will eat them. And I'm positive my bettas would do it.

 

[Sorrell]

My goodness! How did you even find those babies?! They are so tiny! Congrats!

 

[Arashi]

Mama's gorgeous and the babies are adorable! Congratulations on your new babies!

 

[Max]

umm... sorta off subject but i was wonder if you (arashi) could get me a pic of the purple beta in your sig. the one flaring towards the camera?

 

[endparenthesis]

It's the next day and they're already 4-5mm now. Crazy.

As long as they survive I'm going to try to take a picture every week or two to show how they're developing. I had a lot of trouble finding information online about it (it was mostly "well, I had a bunch of shrimp hiding in my plants, and now I have a lot more shrimp"), so I figured it might be helpful to people.