Can you keep mysis in freshwater?

[Lcc86]

Hi all

Bought some mysis shrimp as live food for my betta, they came in saltwater so I've left them in their container for now. I was wondering if they can live in freshwater? I have another peaceful tank and was thinking of putting some in there potentially? A lot of the information I've found online is conflicting. Any advice would be helpful!

 

[Donya]

If they for certain came in saltwater, it'll be best to keep them in saltwater or whatever salinity it actually is if you want to keep them alive/healthy. I'm not recalling my shrimp taxonomy very well right now but I believe there are some freshwater shrimp in the same genus or family (or maybe it's the "true" mysis that are fw and it's something else in the group that's sw? I forget unfortunately). I've never gotten mysids as a live food or seen them for sale personally; I've only had various mysids arrive as hitchhikers on live rock for saltwater and the like.

 

[TwoTankAmin]

I have never even seen a live mysis. Howevcer, I have been feeding frozen mysis to my fish for at least 20 years. I also feed both frozen BBS and adult brine shrimp. These need brackish/sw to develop even though born in fresh. I used to have a fish friend who was working on breeding brine and she would come here and tale my berried ones home and she did get babies. When she would return to get more berried females, she would bring back some of my adults and a few of their babies.

So, it seems to be safe to feed these shrimp to our fish. I know the mysis I get are
Frozen Mysis
(Mysis relicta) Canadian Mysis

From Wiki:

Mysis relicta is a shrimp-like crustacean in the Mysida order, native to lakes of Northern Europe and to the brackish Baltic Sea.........

The distribution of Mysis relicta is restricted to previously glaciated regions in Northern Europe, including northwest Russia, Finland, Denmark,[1] Sweden, southeast Norway, and parts of Germany, Poland, and Lithuania.[2]

Previously M. relicta was treated as a circumpolar taxon also present in North America and the Eurasian Arctic. A revision in 2005 divided these circumpolar freshwater Mysis populations into four distinct species. Apart from the North European M. relicta, these include Mysis diluviana in lakes of the United States and Canada, Mysis segerstralei in the circumpolar Arctic, and Mysis salemaai in some European lakes and the Baltic.[3][4]

 

[Colin_T]

Saltwater for Mysis shrimp, especially if they are already in it. They tend to die pretty quickly (within minutes) of being added to a freshwater aquarium.

If you keep them in a saltwater aquarium, they jump at night and get stuck to the coverglass.

 

[Lcc86]

Okay thanks, I bought them as food for my betta with the idea of adding them in so he can hunt for them, but he's obviously in freshwater so I guess I will just have to take one out at a time and target feed. Lesson learned, won't buy them again!

 

[Fishfur]

Just fyi, there are fresh and saltwater Mysis and also Mysid shrimp.

Frozen mysis shrimp come from freshwater lakes mostly here in Canada.

For your shrimp, It’s safe to assume that if they came in saltwater, they won’t fare well in freshwater.