# Ghost Shrimp Eggs????



## FireWolf (Jul 8, 2013)

well hello everyone....

here I am just wondering about Ghost Shrimp and them reproducing....

today as I fed them frozen blood worms, I notice one that had some weird colouring just a bit back from the middle section...

upon closer inspection it seems like it is carrying eggs.... I have never bred shrimp and usually have only got them for cleaners and to be eaten by the bigger fish, I have set up a 35 gal tank in which there is not really much of a predatory fish for the ghost shrimp as I only have 2 blue crays, 4 glass cat fish, 7 harlequin, and about 10 guppies....


now my questions are...

could they be eggs? or something else? 
as I tried taking pics the little one kept on hiding or getting out of a clear view of the camera, so the pictures arent that great, but give a good idea of what I am looking at. 

anyone have bred them before? how easy/difficult is it to breed ghost shrimp?

thanks in advance


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## colio (Dec 8, 2012)

That is eggs. My ghosties get them from time to time, though I ave never had babies. I read a few forums claiming ghost shrimp are easy to breed, though I have never found it so. My cherries and CRS's drop eggs like nobodies business though.


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## FireWolf (Jul 8, 2013)

aa thanks colio for the reply. seems that compared to my main tank this guys have a better chance at breeding. well here is to hoping they do start having babies and reproducing  

but as I said before, never bred shrimp, so not sure what to expect, and well I hope they dont get sucked into the filter


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## randy (Jan 29, 2012)

There are different types of ghost shrimps, some can breed in straight fresh water some need brackish. I don't have enough experience to tell you which kind you have but good luck !


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## FireWolf (Jul 8, 2013)

Hey Randy,

the ones I got came from Big Als in Mississauga. just surprised that they have lasted this long and are now breeding


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## colio (Dec 8, 2012)

FireWolf said:


> Hey Randy,
> 
> the ones I got came from Big Als in Mississauga. just surprised that they have lasted this long and are now breeding


Yeah, I bought 30 ghosts from big als miss, and even with careful acclimating I found at least 7-8 corpses in the next few days. now my tank has to much cover and I can hardly ever see them.


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## FireWolf (Jul 8, 2013)

buying more than 10 is the only way to make sure to keep some on the long run, I tend to buy 20-40 every now and then, and like you, they do tend to dissappear in my tanks every now and then. I just dont even bother looking for them anymore


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## Fishfur (Mar 4, 2012)

If you like, I can give you the whole spiel on raising ghost shrimp. The ones from Als are fresh water only, their eggs hatch soon after the female lets them go, and become zoeys, which take roughly four days to morph into a tiny shrimplet.
I've raised several broods of them to adult size, it is not that hard, but they are vulnerable to being eaten, sucked into filters and so on.
I have not yet managed to see any eggs before hatching, they float up and hatch pretty fast, nor have I seen zoeys, also very, very small. But it's totally possible to raise them with a wee bit of effort.

I try to buy them when the store is quiet and ask politely if they would mind grabbing mostly females, if they are old enough to be berried. Often it looks like more than 80% of the shrimp are berried, but sometimes they are a bit too young when they first come in, and then I have to take my chances. The eggs that don't survive probably are eaten by my fan shrimp, which is ok with me. I've had a number of them survive to adulthood in my 30G community tank, despite the danios and other fish, filters and all. Not a great many, but some.


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## FireWolf (Jul 8, 2013)

Thanks for the info Karen. its really helpful since I have never bred them before. do you know how long does it take for the female to let her eggs lose? 

hopefully I get to breed them, I do hope that they do survive the current fish on the tank, as the one that had the eggs was on my small 35G tank... might have to add more plants for them to use as hideouts as right now I only have a handful spread around. 

I have not seen any of the ones I put on my main tank with eggs, but then again, I rarely see them around, only the few that hide well and not get eaten appear once in a while but its probably a handful if not less. 


I currently have in the 35G, glass catfish, harlequien rasboras, couple male blue crays, couple cory cats, some neon and a bunch mix of guppies and endlers, seems that there is not hunting for the ghost shrimp as they have lasted quiet a bit from first time I added.. 

on my 75G I got a wider variety of bigger fish, different color gouramis, lambchop rasboras, cory cats, tiger barbs, platty, cherry, a few different tetras... (aside from algae eaters, plecos and snails) 

seems that these guys tend to feast on them rather quick.


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## bettasandbeads (Aug 18, 2010)

*ghost shrimp*

Just noticed one of my females all berried up too, last week.
Have moved her to a smaller tank, with a sponge filter and hiding places.
Would be neat if the eggs hatch and survive.
Catherine


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## Fishfur (Mar 4, 2012)

Well, if the tank is mature enough, they have a shot. Once you notice the eggs have vanished from the female, remove her. I am fairly sure they will eat some of their babies up until they get to be maybe 1/4 to 3/8 " long.

I think it takes 3 or 4 weeks for the females to let their eggs go, but I am not sure of that time frame. When I tried raising Ghosts, they had arrived already pregnant, which was why I wanted to try it. So I really hadn't any idea how long they'd been that way. Even the ones I'd kept who got pregnant again, I did not always notice they were berried until the eggs were larger, so I'm just not sure of how long it takes.

But you can tell the time to release is approaching by a few signs. The eggs grow larger until she starts carrying them lower down, under her belly. She'll fan them and clean them like any shrimp, and slowly they keep dropping lower and lower. For the last few days it almost looks like she's got short strings of pearls dangling under her belly. Then they all are gone.

I haven't yet managed to catch one in the act of dropping eggs, I'd love to get pics of it. I also have not seen zoeys or eggs floating.. I think they may hatch quite quickly once they reach the surface, and the zoeys are minute, so I suspect a microscope, or other strong magnification would be the only way you might see them. I suspect they are probably transparent, which would make them super hard to see. I hope one day I get a chance to confirm my suspicions on this, for now, I'm guessing, based on how transparent they are even as adults.

If the tank is mature enough, so it has enough bacteria and other micro organisms in the water column to keep the zoeys alive for the four or five days it will take them to morph, there is a good chance of raising some to maturity. They prefer cooler temperatures and I got much better survival rates at temps between 70 and 74 than I did when it was warmer.

I used greenwater to feed the zoeys, because the tank I used for a hatchery was literally set up overnight at first, so no biofilm to speak of. I used wood & rocks & plants from the main tank, so that at least the wood and rocks would have biofilm, and put in a sponge filter. It was not very mature the first time, but by the third round of hatchings it was mature and working very well. Best survival rates were after the sponge matured a bit, and by then the tank had some biofilm as well, though it should have had more.

I culture pure Japanese chlorella as greenwater, to feed my fan shrimp. It also used to feed clams, but the last one, poor guy, passed on recently. He lived for nearly 18 months in my tank, longer than a lot clams manage. Don't think I'll get clams again.

But anyway, once I saw the females that had arrived pregnant had all dropped their eggs, [ 5G tank], I started pouring about 100cc of greenwater in the tank at the surface twice daily. I had a 50cc syringe, just shot it horizontally under the surface of the water. Picked the amount very arbitrarily.. but it seemed to work.

I continued feeding greenwater until I saw the shrimplets start to move around freely. It gets filtered out quite soon, caused no issues with the tank or filter. It actually seemed to help grow biofilm pretty quickly, a nice side benefit.

You could probably use spirulina powder mixed with water until it's a nice dark green as a substitute for greenwater. Also I've used liquid Phyto sold to feed marine corals, and the spray dried algae powder they sell for corals, but it's expensive. Lasts a really long time though.

Now I have Golden Pearls in the 5-50 micron size too, and that would also be good for shrimplets, but in very, very tiny amounts. NLS fry powder might work too, it's very, very fine textured.

But they really need live food after morphing. I started feeding them micro worms they day they morphed, tried to drop worms close to the shrimplets as possible. For the first few days they only move vertically, and don't appear to hunt for food. More like anything that gets close enough, they grab. You can see their tiny little bodies jerk suddenly when they grab for a food item. Banana worms would work, any worm that size range would be ok. BBS are too big for them right after morphing.

They almost seem to appear from nowhere, and stay very close to the surface. They hang vertically, head down, nearly motionless. They moult often, you'll see tiny shells sometimes, which look a lot like dead shrimplets, so don't panic like I did . They stay just below the surface when the lights are on.

When the lights go off, they sink straight down and vanish. Looks like they are riding on ropes fine as spider web.. though there is no actual line, it's just how they swim at first. Straight up, straight down, pretty weird. When lights come on next day, you suddenly see them rising up to hang near the surface again. Can't recall just how many days they did this, but less than a week.

Shrimplets on day one are not much over an eighth of an inch, not counting legs and whiskers. Eyes are clearly visible, back hump is very clear, you see a suggestion of whiskers.

Soon they start to move more freely. Shortly after that they stay mostly on the bottom, where they spend most of their time. They behave a lot like the adults, but seem to remain in the lower levels for some time. They appear to eat biofilm, but also go for the worms and anything else, like the adults.

Microworms live a long time in the water. I've kept track of how long they remain active, it's at least four days, so I'd feed 2 or 3 times weekly with worms until they were moving around quite freely. Then cut the worms back to once a week. I gave them ground up shrimp pellet, algae tab or sometimes fine crushed fish flakes.

Now I'd use the Golden Pearls, because I have them. A food made specially for feeding shrimp and fish on the farms. Artificial foods are not good for the entire diet. Immature shrimp don't survive well if given only artificial foods when they are babies. They really need live or frozen food items untll they're juvies, to get reasonable numbers of them to grow up.

If your tank has algae, they will eat some of it, they like picking on mosses and other plants too. The day I first saw morphed shrimplets I had a silly grin from to ear to ear all day long.


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## FireWolf (Jul 8, 2013)

thanks for all that info  will have to keep an eye on them. so far I have found 3-4 females carrying eggs, kind of hard to remove the females after they let the eggs go as there are other 10 ghost shrimps in there and 1 cherry (might have to get some more cherry's so he isn't the only one)

do you think that the other fish we try to eat the newborns as they see them swimming? most of the fish there are just guppies, glass cat and some rasboras)


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## Fishfur (Mar 4, 2012)

Oh yes. If they have a mouth large enough to fit around the newly morphed shrimp, chances are good they will eat them. It is one reason I was quite surprised to find any Ghost shrimp young had survived in my 30G tank.

It has danios, which are surface feeders by preference and they love live foods. But still, some few of the baby Ghosts did manage to avoid being eaten. The more hiding places the better. Good floating plant cover will help, something with roots they can hide in, like frogbit or Water sprite. Even guppy grass or hornwort would likely help.

Guppies can be voracious feeders, and would eat them easily. The glass cats probably wouldn't notice them, but then, I have never kept glass cats, so I can't say for sure.

I have Galaxy Rasboras, [ aka Celestial Pearl Danios], and I'm fairly sure they would probably not bother new morphed shrimp too much, because they swim and feed at mid levels. Might go for them when they are rising or sinking, I suppose, but they are not big feeders, so likely not. Chili rasboras are probably small enough they might not be able to eat them. One needs a bit of luck .


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