# Questions on Ghost/grass/glass shrimp



## HDBenson (Sep 24, 2014)

Palaemonetes sp. to be bred successfully need seawater/brackish water for larval development, correct? Could a brackish/sea rearing tank be set-up with sponge filter for these guys? Is breeding these that hard or, just not worth the trouble of the extra tank? Just curious as to why they are so widely collected but not bred?


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## HDBenson (Sep 24, 2014)

103 views - and no comments lol?


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## AEWHistory (Jul 6, 2008)

I have kept these at times but never put much effort into breeding them simply because they are so cheap and usually so short lived. I've heard the same thing about brackish water, but I've also seen that disputed. I recall reading that Amano require brackish water as well and I wonder if the info for these two has been mixed up over time given that the two have some superficially similar characteristics.

Not sure if this helps much, but I figured I'd offer up my $.02.


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## Karl M (Jul 15, 2013)

I have also heard the brackish water disputed. What I understand is that the larvae are very tiny and have very small mouths and that they cannot feed well in a typical aquarium. I have had ghost shrimp and have seen many berried females but have never seen any young survive. Even in an aquarium that has a lot of mulm they haven't survived. That being said, all of those tanks also had fish that would gladly eat any shrimp small enough to fit in their mouths. I have thought about using my current 5 gallon as a ghost shrimp tank after my betta calls it quits just to see if young would survive in there.

When I lived in southeast Texas there were a lot of what we called grass shrimp that you could catch in ditches etc. Don't know if they were the same shrimp (though they look similar) or not but many of them were in water that was not brackish and they reproduced fine.


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## HDBenson (Sep 24, 2014)

See, that's why I was curious. Here in Mississippi and when I lived in Florida there are shrimp that are similar if not exactly identical LOOKING to the ghost/grass/glass shrimp in the hobby that have no access to brackish/salt water, living in ditches, streams and, lakes. How are they reproducing if they aren't getting there? I too with my past ghost shrimp have had females constantly berry and that be it. Maybe it should be something to look into. I'm setting up a 55g paludarium soon it will have A LOT of hiding places with cryptocoryne lots of branches with moss some leaflitter and floating plants as well as terrestrial vines(pothos/philodendron/marantha) draping into the water. The fish will be T. pumilus, T, heteromorpha, and some sp. of microrasbora. Maybe with a large enough population going BEFORE the fish are added I may see results?? If not I may do like you and try them in a species tank. I recently read a book "The Alternative Aquarium," the author basically takes Walstad a step further by adding a bottom to the food chain through microorganisms, invertibrates, isipods etc. long before adding fish. These also serve the same purpose as fish in a Walstad just on a smaller scale. But this initial colony of microorganisms/invertibrate provide a "natural" food source for the live stock with only minimal supplementation by food. I would suppose, though, in this set-up many of the essential nutrients will be limited by the lack of commercial fish food critical in a Walstad set-up. I like the idea of it though. The Elassoma in my 10g feed like this though, baby snails/snail eggs, any microworms etc. They are pretty plump considering I never actually see them eat any of these. But, a new egg cluster will be there in the morning and gone by that afternoon.


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