Most Cost-efficient Shrimp To Breed?

[MoonstruckMuse]

We've got a few larger fish in our tanks, and most of them prefer a nice live snack every so often. (Sorry, all you shrimp lovers! I do really like shrimp wandering around my planted tanks, so I swear I'm not just being barbaric or something...) So, rather then running to our LFS on such a regular basis, I was wondering what types of shrimp are the easiest to raise to adulthood for breeding.

We have some ghost shrimp meandering around downstairs, but since they're feeders, a lot of them die by the time we get home. And I've also heard that they're hard to breed - they may eat their young, the young several months to grow up, and they have a short life span. Is that so? It sounds sorta as if they're more trouble then they're worth.
As for other types, I have no idea what would be good or not. I'm not really interested in buying the fancier shrimp, like the bamboo ones or anything that costs a decent chunk of money. I'm a collegebound student - I don't have spare cash really in the first place, and my dad doesn't believe in buying anything for over $5, haha. ^^"

I've got 2 10gallons & a 5gallon that I can devote all to shrimp, and all of them are decently planted right now. Algae wafers, fish flakes, etc... all of those I have as well.

Does anyone have a name or something of a reliable& decent priced shrimp-seller?

 

[~T~]

Red cherry shrimp appear to be the easiest to breed.

 

[dizzied]

I ditto the cherry red. They'll breed easy if kept by themselves. They're also not that expensive to begin with.

 

[MoonstruckMuse]

Sounds excellent, thanks! I'll pick 'em up asap.

 

[fatboy]

Red cherries for me too. They are able to breed at 6-8 weeks and after that will produce about 30 babies every 4-5 weeks.

The 5 gallon would be fine, the 10 gallon better as it will be easier to maintain water quality with 100+ shrimp. To be honest they don't need a landscaped tank and the plainer is better as it's easier to clean up after the little poo factories. Personally I would keep the bottom bare in a breeding tank as it's easier to vacumn up the poo with some airhose. Using a regular gravel vac will inevitably catch babies too. Floating plants, like java moss or egeria (anacharis) will give them cover and stuff to eat. I'd still add some flake or wafers to eat though. If you don't see them cluster round the food you're probably over-feeding. Most of their food will be bio material they scrape of the glass or other objects.

What are you using as a filter? A power filter needs to covered with something sheer to keep the tiny newborn shrimp out. Stockings/pantyhose are fine, or sponge if the filter inlet can be properly covered. An air-driven sponge filter is also good and the shrimp will pick food off it.

Edit: the more I think about this, the less sure I am cherries would be much better than growing some brine shrimp, which are very easy to grow. I don't know what the nutritional value of cherries is. I know adult brine shrimp are very low nutrition so I'm sure cherries are a better option. I still wonder if they're good enough to be worthwhile.

Also, I forgot about gammarus shrimp, something I've seen used over here for freshwater rays and other big fish. I have no idea how to breed those though. I suspect it's pretty easy, probably easier than cherries and perhaps even brine shrimp. I accidentaly grew some in a bucket I left outside...

 

[MoonstruckMuse]

Oof, late reply, sorry. Thanks for all that info! I'm not really interested in brine shrimp, I highly doubt my arowana, bichir, and catfish would be all that interested since they're so tiny. Heh, it actually would probably be more of a nuisance then anything.
I've actually never seen the Gammarus shrimp around here, I suspect they don't like in the USA, haha. I'm pretty sure that again, it'd be too small for some of my larger fish, but hey, sounds like a great food for my smaller fish. =) I'll try some out soon, thanks for that suggestion.

I'll be using a covered power filter and possibly a second sponge filter, just in case. It's got java moss and some other plants. Heh, I'm not sure the nutrition will be that great either. However, I figured a bit of roughage in the diet is always good, they get to hunt a little bit, and who knows, since they're red, they may even be a good source of carotene or whatever, giving my fish stronger pigmentation which is always nice.