Ghost shrimp, if you haven’t seen them before, are small 1-2 inch shrimp that live in freshwater. They’re commonly sold as feeder shrimp. Meant to be purchased as food for predatory fish, the price can range from 10 for a $1 to 3 or 4 for $1. In my local area they average about $30 cents each. While these shrimp make great feeders, they also make great pets!
These cheap characters are great for tanks without predators also. In a community aquarium, they act as scavengers, eating any leftover food or fish waste. For a few dollars you can add a clean up crew to your tank that’ll rival the best of cleaners.
They’re hardy once adapted to your aquarium. They can live in cool water and tropical temperatures. They can adapt to any pH between 6.8 and 7.8 range. They can be taken outside of these ranges with more care. Unfortunately, acclimating them to your aquarium can be slightly difficult. They are kept in overpopulated tanks from the time they leave the pond they’re bred in. It’s not uncommon for them to be sharing a tank with thousands of other ghost shrimp. Most stores will simply scoop up the number you request. Select picking the shrimp is not offered at the “feeder” shrimp price. It is best to buy a few dollars worth. In my experience I have a 75% living rate on the feeders. The great thing is, the ones that were unfortunately too weak to make the change are now great food for the remaining shrimps. The only thing the ghost shrimp require is a little bit of calcium in their diet. This can be accomplished by offering them some “crab bites” or other high calcium aquatic foods.
Now to the best part, these shrimp are hilarious! They have big enough arms to pick up shrimp pellets and walk around with them. They also swim gloriously through the water with fluttering arms. On the ground the stalk around foraging the depths of your tank for food. When startled, they dart backwards like a squid returning to the deep sea.
These little gems often go unnoticed by the community tank hobbyist. As “feeders” are generally not needed in these setups. If you picked up and enjoyed some White Clouds I recommended in a previous article, you’ll be sure to love these little gems. Many advanced keepers also enjoy the company of ghost shrimp. Usually they just need to see them to remember how they haven’t had them in a long time. Then they promptly order $5 worth and talk about their funny ghost shrimp stories.
Do yourself a favor and pick up some of these shrimp. In my opinion it’s the best money to fish ratio out there and are tons of entertainment for your couch change!
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in that last pic, is she preggers?
I love these things! I have a thing for “clear” fish (glass cats, anyone?) so when I discovered ghost shrimp, I knew I had to have some. They can be pretty entertaining, especially around feeding time for my African Dwarf Frogs. The shrimp will steal away with a long bloodworm and play tug-of-war with them. They’ll eat those things up like they were spaghetti.
Mark, I know you asked your question eight months ago, but in case you see this, yes, the female pictured is berried. You can see little black dots in them, which are their eyes. One of mine is berried right now, and her eggs are a bright green (probably from the peas I put in the tank last week, but one never knows). Hope this helps!
Well, 8 days ago, me and the wife was looking at the loan survivor of the great gold fish gladiatorial game of 2010, the one gold fish out of the three we got each of our rugrats. and decided we need tog et more fish, that tank looks bare, we got a teng allont ank and was told tog et some other goldfish and minnows and let them get the tank ready for the other fish we were actually wanting, in a teng allon tank, the tank is now read, we ended up getting one dozen goldfish and one dozen minnows, all from the “Feeder” section, to get the balance of the tank working and moderatley planted 6 plants in it to. now we are down to 6 minnos, all extremely small and 4 goldfish, it was yet another fight to the death, we had two silver minnows with thick black stripe from head to tail that were overly agrssive and we changed them to the old gold fish bowl of the survivor and have him in the tank with the new ones. what do you suggest adding to this tank? after reading this article and the amount of poop the gold fish produce i am thinking of getting the ghost shrimp and white cloud minnows and adding it to the mix, is this too much?
hope you can understand my half alseep gibberish, sheesh.