Petshrimp.com Discussion Forum

Hi everyone,

I was wondering how many kinds of shrimp I could put comfortably in my 15 Gal.

So far I have:
3 cherries
2-3 Bumble Bees
1 Red-nose
1 Wood

(Trying to get the last 2 Black Neons out of the tank)

I was at Pet Smart today and they had Palaemontes Spp (Ghosts) for 0.89$ CND

I was wondering if adding another kind of shrimp would be alright them and what my odds would be that they are the fresh water kind given the time of year and the store.

Thanks,

TKD

I have about 15 amanos and 25 cherries in a 10 gallon tanks and they have been fine for a while. I also have 2 Briggs snails in there. A few ghosts would not load up your tank at all.

One warning, while quite peacefull, they are opportunists and will make off with a baby shrimp if the opportunity comes up.

I'd say chances are about 99% these are freshwater shrimp.

I moved my wood shrimps to another tank with about 20 ghost shrimps and a bunch of small guppies. The Wood shrimps like higher flow than I was comfortable with in the little shrimp tanks. I have 4 wood shrimp in a 10 gallon tank with an undergravel filter discharging in the top for flow to them. They are all filtering and have good color, especially the big male, but he is very shy. The girls are out & about most of the time, but he only ventures out after the lights go out.

Hi badflash,

Well, I guess I have a ways to go before I get to that density. lol

My may concern though the number of species of shrimp that my 15 can handle with out any problems.

The ghost shrimp eating the baybies does have be concerned (need to have babies though).
This is contrary to what is said on the Shrimp Varieties page for Ghosts though.

Thanks,

TKD

Coincidence or what! I was just going to start a thread on my observations of ghost shrimp being carniverous. A few months ago, I had some young zebra muscles attatched to some collected plants. I liked the looks of them and decided to purposley collect a bunch. When I dropped them in the tank, the ghost shrimp swarmed them. At first I thought they would just be picking the debri from the outside of thier shells, but soon realised they were somehow OPENING them, and eating them. I have a lot of homemade rock in the tank and put as many as I could on the rocks. It seemed that after the muscles attatched to something, they were safe. Today, I notced the population of some of my snails declining so came to the conclusion that I would segregate the ghosts over to another tank. After reading the above posts, I think that would be a good idea if I want my other shrimps, muscles and snails to propigate.
Another side note. Last night I was pleased to find a new species of snail in my tank. Planorbella scalaris, they come from Florida but other than that, I know very little about them. Any info would be appreciated.

I was right. These "ghost shrimp" (not sure what species) have been eating my snails. Within minutes of transfering them over to another tank, I saw one with what looked like a snail in his mouth. I scooped him out snail and all to get a closer look. It was a common pond snail that the shrimp had pulled right out of his shell. I feel a lot better with the ghosts in another tank as I have suspected them for months.

Ok... so not getting the ghost shrimp.
I don't want baby cherries and Bubble bees to get eaten by them.

Thanks for you input everyone

TKD

A note - Canadian "ghost shrimp" are sometimes (brackish) native Palaemonetes or small Macrobrachium spp.

I know for a fact that I have freshwater ghost shrimp. I received egg laden females, observe the hatch and watch at least 3 molts until they either went into hiding or died. I suspect they went into hiding as it took 4-5 days for them to vanish and they got progressively bigger before that.. Once they go to the bottom you just have to wait for them to get big enough to see them.

From 1st hand observation of these normally peacable animals, I've seen them swim after & catch daphnia. I've seen them catch, kill and eat baby red cherry shrimp, and I've seen them virtually eliminate all of my pond snails. They catch these and worrk them until they can pull them out and eat them. They don't seem to harm guppies or larger shrimp as the adult cherries and Amanos had no problem.

I'll be moving a few amanos into my Bamboo shrimp tomorrow and see how things go. I'll not put anything in with them that produce anything they can eat unless I want it eaten. These guys eat anything, so keep that in mind. They are not agressive, but they are sly.