I have Ghosts and Cherries.

Suzie Q · Post by **Suzie Q** » Tue Apr 03, 2007 6:30 pm

Hi everyone...I am new to the forum, and new to the Shrimp obsession...a few things about myself...I can not spell very well, so forgive any "easy" words that are misspelled (sp ck is my best friend! LOL)...I am very hard headed, and will test your patients...and I have fallen head over hills for shrimp!

I have 5 ghost shrimp that I rescued from Walmart...3 females (berried when I purchased them), and 2 (hopefully males). I have yet to learn to sex shrimp. I do have surviving young from 2 of my females (friend gave me 4 juvie RCS, so ghosts moved to community tank). Now my question is...can I put the surviving young ghost shrimp in with the Cherries? I don't want to cross breed. I am not planning on breeding the ghosts, but I was told that "I could not raise them...they are too hard"...well as stated above...I am hard headed and so I am out to prove them wrong

and I am trying to raise these babies (even if for communtily tank). I am now being a "bad shrimp mommy"...I have them in a small bowl (about 30 babies at capture...have lost a few, I can find 4), with what is left of the "air" tablet that the cherries came with...I have carefully changed the water every other day...1/3% and if I can not put these 2 types together, I will have to feed them to my Betta. Any suggestions? I would really like to prove to my self that I CAN do this, but like said...I am "cruelly" keeping them in a small bowl (1g).
I am going to try not to be so hard headed on this forum.

Thanks.

Newjohn · Post by **Newjohn** » Tue Apr 03, 2007 6:50 pm

Suzie Q
Hello and Welcome to the Forum
It is nice to know that someone else spend more time using SP CK than Typing.

Raising Baby Ghost Shrimp are not as hard as people think.
But if you keep them in a community tank the Young will be eaten for sure.

Most Shrimp Hobbiest try to Keep Shrimp Only Tanks. There are only a few fish that are consider Shrimp Friendly, See earlier Post.

If you want to try to Breed and Raise Ghost Shrimp there are several good threads on this topic.

Keeping Shrimp in a small bowl is not recomended. Water paramiter can go bad really quick.

Young Ghost Shrimp and RCS " Red Cherry Shrimp" can be kept in the same Tank.

If you have been bitten by the Shrimp Bug
There is no cure, except to buy more tanks and fill them with Shrimp
The pain goes away with every tank you fill.

There is alot of good information here in the pages of this Forum.
It just take some time searching and reading

John

TKD · Post by **TKD** » Tue Apr 03, 2007 8:44 pm

Reading the rules and the shrimp variety pages would help a lot too.

TKD

Suzie Q · Post by **Suzie Q** » Wed Apr 04, 2007 6:39 am

I did a search on "ghost shrimp"...and there were quit a few helpful thread/posts that I read through last night. I could not get my work computer to do much on the forum, so I don't know if it was the computer or me needing to wait for my membership to be activated.

Anyway, I could not find anything on keeping ghosties (my word...is it a real word?) and cherries together. Ghosties are not a popular shrimp, I know, and it is hard to find info on them...I love the section for "shrimp varieties"...that helped alot, and was the main reason I joined this forum...this is only the 4th forum I have joined (I don't count Yahoo Answeres!!!).

.

OH the Pain!

, my hubby hates my 10g cherry tank...it was not until I told him that to have cherries in our 150g (have not actually gotten it yet, but putting a deposit on it in 2 weeks), that we would have to establish a breeding colony to replace older/dying ones...I also want CRS!!!...see obsessed! Anyway, I will be lucky if he allows another 10g to breed CRS in.

I had 2 guppy fry in the 10g (betta breeding/fry rearing tank to begin with) and had to add them to the communtiy tank, because I could not figure out why they always had full bellies...then I saw the baby ghosties floating around in the tank. I added the ghosties to eat the leftover microworms I feed the guppy. Guppy fry grew pretty fast! I added them to the communtiy tank at 3 weeks old...I remember when I bred Swordtails, it would take months for them to get big enough to go in with the adults...sorry totally off subject.

"Reading the rules..." have I messed up already?...if I did, sorry...it takes a few times of reading them to get them to sink in! I am so used to the other forum rules, that I may have missed something. I plan on reading every shrimp thread/post on here before I post any more questions...I was just getting desperate (sp?).

There is a thread/post I want to comment on (don't yet know the rules about old/dead threads)...the one about a "white ribbon" inside the ghost shrimp. Mine had that after her eggs hatched. I had had trouble with nematodes (sp?). I was not sure what it was, and posted on 2 of the forums I am on...one said tapeworm and to kill the shrimp (few other posts that were not so cruel), and on the other forum, possible "nerve" stimulation...anyway, the next day it was gone, and I never saw a worm in the tank...still had guppy fry in the tank at this time...the female is still alive w/o this ribbon, and no signs of the other 4 being infected (I ck daily). I also have 2 of the 3 females with what looks like a green "english" saddles right behind the head (is she saddled?..have yet to "breed" shrimp..berried females at purchase)...one is huge, and the other is just bearly noticable...If they berry, I will feel successful about breeding these guys! Yeah me!!!

Thanks John and TKD!

Suzie

badflash · Post by **badflash** » Wed Apr 04, 2007 8:37 am

My expperience is that I keep few baby cherry shrimp in tanks that I keep ghosts in. Some others have differening opinions on this though. I've see ghosts eat baby shrimp, but that could be a fluke. I do know this. I set up two very similar tanks. One with just cherries, and one with ghosts and cherries.

After 4 months the cherry only tank is going strong and I've sold over 100 cherries outof that tank, but in the ghost tank I have only adults.

Suzie Q · Post by **Suzie Q** » Wed Apr 04, 2007 9:12 am

I will only have baby/juv. Ghost in the cherry tank. My goal is to raise Cherries and CRS. I just want to see if I can get these Ghost babies to adult hood. I have a friend that can take those that I raise. Everything I have read says that Ghosts eat their young, so no adults in the Cherry Tank!

Post by **Mustafa** » Wed Apr 04, 2007 10:23 am

I have never actually seen a ghost shrimp catch and eat a baby red cherry, but I did notice that there were fewer red cherry babies in the tank with the ghost shrimp after a while. It just took a while to notice this because the whole bottom of the tank was covered with java moss and the ghost shrimp might have had a hard time actually catching the little guys. If you have enough hiding spaces, and a large enough tank, ghost shrimp should not be able to eliminate your colony after a while by catching and eating a few offspring.

badflash wrote:My expperience is that I keep few baby cherry shrimp in tanks that I keep ghosts in. Some others have differening opinions on this though. I've see ghosts eat baby shrimp, but that could be a fluke. I do know this. I set up two very similar tanks. One with just cherries, and one with ghosts and cherries.

After 4 months the cherry only tank is going strong and I've sold over 100 cherries outof that tank, but in the ghost tank I have only adults.

Suzie Q · Post by **Suzie Q** » Wed Apr 04, 2007 10:28 am

OH!!! I forgot to mention...in the small bowl is a lot of java moss...that is why I can only find 4...the rest are hiding in the moss.

Edit:

This is my RCS tank set up...I am also new to plants...Java Moss, Pennywart, Hornwart (read that it really is not good for baby shrimp), Naja (ditto), and lace fern. I am going to add Mayalaza? wood to tank to bring pH down...7.6 tap...anyway, here is my tank:

not sure what that white stuff is on the right side (back) of the tank is...I plan on lowering the water level, and cleaning it off, then add the water back...substrate? is Eco-Complete...rock/Java Moss...was just called "green rock" at the lfs...it creates a natural cliff for the shrimp to hide.

ToddnBecka · Post by **ToddnBecka** » Wed Apr 04, 2007 8:20 pm

A pH of 7.6 is fine for cherry shrimp, you don't need to lower it for their sake. I use crushed coral mixed with gravel for a substrate to maintain a steady pH of 7.6, and have moved out hundreds of shrimp from the tank over the last 8-9 months.

Suzie Q · Post by **Suzie Q** » Thu Apr 05, 2007 5:40 am

ToddnBecka wrote:A pH of 7.6 is fine for cherry shrimp, you don't need to lower it for their sake. I use crushed coral mixed with gravel for a substrate to maintain a steady pH of 7.6, and have moved out hundreds of shrimp from the tank over the last 8-9 months.

In that case, I will leave the tank as is...I was afraid I would drive my self nuts trying to maintain a lowere pH...although the wood would look cool with more Java Moss on it.

I moved my Ghosties into the tank last night after several hrs of acclimation! I only have 6-8 Ghosties left. When I added more salt to get it a little brackish, I had major die off (added salted water, not just salt...I know that will burn and kill). I think the others ate the dead ones. I found one Ghostie this morning foraging on the sponge filter.

I appriciate everyones help. I love this forum! It is really helpful.

Oh another question...should I start a new thread?...there is a fallen cottonwood branch outside my work...it is a lovely branch and would look great in my tank!, how safe is it to use local tree branches?...I would boil it for 20-30 min., so that is not a problem...just how safe is it? Would you put it in there? I am so afraid it will harm my little Cherries and Ghosties.

badflash · Post by **badflash** » Thu Apr 05, 2007 6:25 am

I would avoid wood and salt. Cherry shrimp can tolerate very little salt, and some ghosts have trouble with it. If you add salt, be sure it is meant for the aquarium.

Pugio · Post by **Pugio** » Thu Apr 05, 2007 6:20 pm

I think that this nematode parasite in ghost shrimp is very interesting and I've tried to contact a few researchers to ID it. It seems to be a member of the Nematomorpha phylum but the exact (aquatic) species seems variable and numerous. Perhaps juvenile Nectonema agile if seen in shrimp shipped from the south-east coasts sent to our LFS. It's odd that something so common to amateur hobbyists is so poorly described in the scientific literature.

Also, for me its been hard combining algae eating shrimp - like RCS - with bottom-feeding shrimp like Palaemonetes in the same tank. They both have very different nutritional requirements. My approach has been to feed the bottom-feeding Palaemonetes with fish flakes such that they ultimately excrete the nitrates needed to support the growth of algae - needed for the RCS.

Neonshrimp · Post by **Neonshrimp** » Thu Apr 05, 2007 6:47 pm

Hi Pugio,

Thanks for the information on our ghost shrimp parasite

My approach has been to feed the bottom-feeding Palaemonetes with fish flakes such that they ultimately excrete the nitrates needed to support the growth of algae - needed for the RCS.

What has your approach yeilded so far?

I would think that the nitrate/waste would add to poor water quality more than promote the growth of algae. I would focus on use of light myself to produce the algae.

I could be wrong and would be interested to see what you have found

Pugio · Post by **Pugio** » Thu Apr 05, 2007 7:38 pm

Good question neonshrimp - I wish I could tell you my conclusions but I'm still learning. My main effort has been to breed Palaemonetes shrimp that can live and breed in 100% freshwater but my main tank has been a hodge-podge of species. The problem is I really enjoy heavily planted tanks with DIY CO2, but plants compete with algae...so I added a compact fluorescent retrofit (6700K) to put out more light for the algae eaters - and the plants grew more and reduced the algae growth. So I added more Palaemonetes (paludosus and pugio) to boost the nitrates to compensate for the increased nitrate sink into the plants - but that means I now have to feed the Palaemonetes more flake food to make up for the nitrate drain by the plants. They seem to be more dependent on flake food in heavily-planted tanks.

So if anyone can tell me how to promote plant and algae growth simultaneously and provide enough food for the algae- and bottom-feeders - then please let me know. It's been hard trying to raise multiple species of shimp in one tank. Is there such a thing as a shrimp community tank? My impression is that shrimp hobbyists tend to have a different tank for each species/clade/breed but I can't do that so I'm trying to find a compromise.

badflash · Post by **badflash** » Fri Apr 06, 2007 1:50 am

All you need is more light. You'll get all the algae you could ever hope for. I use a pair of shoplights with daylight bulbs set for 12 hour days. I have several invert community tanks. If needed I suppliment with spirulina flake and sinking spirulina pellets. Be sure to read the ingredient list. If the 1st ingredient is fish meal it isn't spirulina flake, it is spirulina fake.