My Shrimp

[omen666]

I have had my shrimp for about 2 years now and she is continuously laying eggs and fanning them but I never have any babies. I have 2 other shrimp in the tank who are much smaller than her and I assumed they were males. After closer inspection I think they are a different type than her. Can anyone identify what kind she is so I can get her a mate?

 

[omen666]

No one know?

 

[Shrimper]

To be honest i'm not certain. Looking at her long arms she is a Macrobrachium species but i couldn't tell you which one.

As far as i know shrimp only get eggs if they have bred, I can't find the website i was thinking about to prove myself right but I don't think they would hold eggs unless they have been mating which would mean the other 2 shrimp are either the same species or one that can hybridise with her.

If your not getting babies it means 1 of 2 things... 1) She is releasing microscopic larvae who need brackish water to grow before growing up to be freshwater shrimp or 2) She is releasing baby shrimp but something in the tank is eating/killing them before they grow.

The easiest way to tell if the baby shrimp need brackish water or not is the size of her eggs. If she has hundreds then they will need brackish water to survive, if she only has 15-30 bigger eggs they will hopefully survive in fresh water.

 

[ollyhtafc]

It's a ghost shrimp...

And the eggs won't develop without brackish water...and even with i think they go through planktonic stages!Tricky.

 

[Shrimper]

Unfortunatly Ghost shrimp is a bit of an ambiguous name covering a few species. The ones i bought as ghost shrimp don't have long arms like the one in omen's picture.

 

[ollyhtafc]

Unfortunatly Ghost shrimp is a bit of an ambiguous name covering a few species. The ones i bought as ghost shrimp don't have long arms like the one in omen's picture.

Aaah.Apologies!

All the shrimp i've bought labelled as ghost shrimp (from P@H) have looked identical to these, except one...which has a straight body rather than slightly bent, which i believe to be an amano shrimp.

 

[three-fingers]

Yeah, pet's @ home sell a few different species under 'ghost shrimp' and 'freshwater shrimp'...

I've seen at least 4 different Macrobrachium species there, but only 2 I actually recognize from the web: Chameleon Shrimp and M.rosenbergii.

 

[omen666]

It's taken me awhile to get back to this. Thanks for the help guys but are we saying we still don't have a clue what she is? lol

She does produce eggs every couple of months. She carries them and fans them but we never see any signs of babies.

Then all of a sudden you will see her with no eggs .........It's strange.

My tank is a Guppy tank with salt and they thrive and so do my platties.

If I knew her type I would definately get her a male. Would it be beneficial to set her up in her own tank?

 

[fish-aholic]

Do you use marine salt?

 

[~T~]

Ghost shrimp dont need salt to reproduce, thats amano shrimp. But they do go through a slight planktonic stage and the other fish are probably eating the babies.

 

[omen666]

No I do not use marine salt. I use Aqua Tonic Salt.

So u think she is an amano shrimp? It's been a few weeks and she has not produced any eggs.

 

[ollyhtafc]

No I do not use marine salt. I use Aqua Tonic Salt.

So u think she is an amano shrimp? It's been a few weeks and she has not produced any eggs.

As you've seen previously, i've already been wrong once, but from my reckoning it's not an amano shrimp.

 

[omen666]

I just did a search on Ghost Shrimp images and she sure looks the same to me, but this one has some red on it's tail, is that a trait of a ghost?

 

[fish-aholic]

Nope not a ghost. Even though many different species are sold under this name, you have some sort or macro there.

 

[fish-aholic]

Ghost shrimp dont need salt to reproduce, thats amano shrimp. But they do go through a slight planktonic stage and the other fish are probably eating the babies.

Nope not an amano. I was saying that only marine salt produces any salinity reading that GHOSTS need. Ghost have been documented breeding in freshwater but only on very rare occasions. Amanos have been documented breeding in freshwater on countless times.

P.S- Marine salt is the only salt that you can use to get any salinity. Any freshwater salts are just hogwash.