Does anyone have any info on ghost shrimp? I just bought four of them for my tropical tank. They are so cute and fun to watch.

One thing I noticed though on two of the larger ones it looks like there are eggs inside of them. Will these survive if they are laid (and not eaten by my fish)?

How long do they live?

Thanks in advance!

Stacey

We did have a ghost shrimp once. It was sooo very cute. But it didn't live long at all. Back in those days I didn't know about kokos of course, I'm sure you'll do much better with yours . Hope someone can give you more info soon. They really are very cute and fun to watch walk across the tank bottom and those little eyes!

Well lets see...

Ghost shrimp like hard, alkaline water, but usually are able to adapt okay to others, but they are very sensitive to changes in their water, especially presence of ammonia or nitrite. They don't live very long, maybe 6ish months? The babies will grow and survive if there is enough microscopic debris in your tank. The adults can eat sunken flakes, but the babies can not.

I hope that helps

Thanks Kissy and Trinket. I do have hard water, so hopefully they will be alright. I don't have a lot of microscopic things in the water so I don't think the babies will survive. But, you never know! They seem to be happy right now, picking at the rocks for food and such.

It kind of stinks that they only live about 6 months.

Thanks again!

they are fascinating little creatures, I never grow bored of watching them. I had them successfully breed in one of my tanks once, I did absolutely nothing to encourage them or assist them(not that I would know how, anyways ) but they kept up their population very successfully. at one point, the tank was about carpeted in ghost shrimp sitting at the bottom. Anyways, they reporduce quite profusely, at least to my knowlege, so that would contribute to the short lifespan, I assume.

They have always seemed to do better in my snail tank, which has a higher PH.

Wow, thats really cool that they bred in your tank!! I have never heard of them actually surviving in tanks like that because I guess the fish eat the tiny larvae.

Did you have fish in that tank or only snails?

yep, only snails, and sometimes a pleco, if he got too rowdy for the goldies

Aww I loved the ghost shrimp that I had in my ten gallon goldie tank. They were so funny they would have ghost shrimp rumbles over food. It does stink that they have such short life spans. Someone told me when they died that once they reach about an inch long they've pretty much lived their life. Enjoy your shrimp they are halarious little guys!

Where do you find ghost shrimp? I've never seen them at our local petco.

I ususally got them at a local place here, I rarely see them anymore at the chain stores

Mmmkay. I'll look around, I suppose.

my petsmart, lfs, and wally world have ghost shrimp. my grandma loves them and with each one being only 30cents it was no big deal when i had to replace my first batch that died due to old age. have fun