While placing turtle traps, I collected 3 specimens of this curious creature from a Marais des Cygne River flood water pool in Miami County, KS on Sunday with a dipnet. Also netted were orangespotted sunfish, a black bullhead, gambusia, and lots of baby bluegills.
I am keeping them in my 5 gallon tank.
I hope to have more photos eventually, but since my camera doesnt have manual focus I am finding it difficult to focus on them because of their color. This is the smallest one I caught, he sat next to the plants for a while which allowed the camera to focus on.
Neonshrimp wrote:How big is it and has it changed colors?
The one pictured is about 1 inch long. The largest one is about 1.5 inches long.
They seem to still be somewhat clear, although I am getting much better at seeing them fast when I look in the tank.
This tank has been up and running for about 6 months. I started it with fairy shrimp, then had a fish for a while, now its just been ostracods and alage for about a month. I was hoping these shrimp would eat the ostracods, but from what Ive seen they grab them and then drop them.
Nice pics. Given your location in KS that's probably Palaemonetes kadiakensis. If you can get a better pic of the carapace spines it'd help confirm/repudiate this species ident. from the USGS survey: 7 spines on top/2 on bottom (carapace "f" below) [?]. These are fun/gregarious shrimp. Can raise larvae in ~3wks. I've noted that older/bigger Palaemonetes taken from wild tend to have poorer survival than younger/smaller shrimp.
Most of what Ive read said that glass shrimp wont eat other creatures in your tank.
I still have the same camera that will only autofocus, and out of the 50 pix I took of this shrimp eating a snail, this is the clearest.
This is the first time I have seen these shrimp picking up a snail. Of course the snail may have already been dead, and the shrimp may be eating algae off the shell, but I found in interesting. The snail is not adult size, so its possible the shrimp may have killed it.
IME, once they learn they can eat pond snails, they can wipe hem out fairly quickly. My current batch of ghost shrimp doesn't seem hip to that, yet. I've also seen them go after mosquito wrigglers (!).
Ghost shrimp are opportunistic feeders and will eat anything they think they can tackle. I've bred them in the past and found them to be quite fascinating, but not very good tank mates.
I've seen them eat snails, baby RCS, young adult Bee shrimp, and even each other. It must depend on the shrimp though, as most people report them as being very peaceful.
I've read that they can go violent when its hot because of increased metabolism. I'm not sure I believe it (Probably fake) but it seems worth mentioning......
