Breeding My Shrimp

[n3ont3tra]

I'm looking to breed a few of my shrimp and have a few questions.
1: Which ones need brackish to sucessfully raise the young?
2: How do I tell the different 'ghost shrimps' apart, because I've seen a few topics of them being mislabeled. Here's a pic of mine, if it helps.

3: How big of a tank will I need? I'm currently keeping all the shrimp in a 10g, but there's a few fish in there, so I don't think it'll work. I can separate the shrimp into a 2.5g, though.
4: Do you think the shrimp will be okay with the fish in my sig, minus the silver tip tetras?

I appreciate any help I get.
-neon

 

[Invader Xan]

Let me see...

1. The two commonly available shrimp that need brackish for their larvae are amanos and bamboo shrimp. Some ghosts apparently like brackish too, but these could be brackish shrimp that've been mislabelled as freshwater. Lots of people seem to diagree on the subject...

2. Your shrimp there is quite pale in colouration, so it's a little tricky to tell, TBH. From the eggs and general shape, I'm fairly sure it's a palaemonetes (ghost shrimp) of some kind, and not a mislabelled macrobrachium. I think it could be palaemonetes ivonicus (the amazon ghost shrimp), but I'm not sure.

3. Again, an issue under debate. Shrimp don't need much space, but I think a 2.5g might be too little for ghosts. Cherries or amanos could be ok if you only have a handful of them, but I think your tank might be too small in the long term. Some people advise no less than 5g.

4. I don't know much about fish, but I do know that a khuli loach will happily eat any shrimp they can catch.


Hope that's some help. You may want to get some other answers on a few of those though...

 

[n3ont3tra]

The ghost shrimp I have are transparent in coloration. I meant to add that the shrimp will be moved to the 29g once they're full grown.... whether they get eaten or not.

So it should be easiest to raise the cherry shrimp, because I won't need brackish? But they're also probably most likely to get eaten.... I guess I'll just try and find out what happens.

Another question - Is there anything specific to do to breed and raise cherry shrimp? Will they just breed on their own? Can I feed the babies flake food?

 

[Liam]

It’s the usual rule that if it fits in a fish’s mouth it will eat it. Cherry shrimp babies are tiny, think daphnia size. If you breed them with the fish and have lots of moss then some of the babies may survive, the loaches might be the best at finding them. They breed pretty easily in my experience. A well cycled tank with clean water and no fish that will harass them and they will be fine. The babies don’t need to be fed they live for the first few weeks on the micro food growing in the tank, when they are big enough they will eat just about anything a fish will eat, only they need veg in their diet. People have bred them in 2.5 gal tanks but its far more risky than a tank of five or ten gallons. When they are happy they breed faster than guppies.

 

[n3ont3tra]

All right then, I guess I'll give it a shot in my 3g once I get a filter. Thanks for the advice, everyone!

 

[Invader Xan]

Good luck man. Hope it works out for you.