Alessa

Is it just me or ghost shrimp are hard to keep alive? I have had 2 batches of 4 shrimps each but they seem to die after a while...

I just lost my last shrimpy the other day and made me really sad. Is there anything that I am missing? I often feed spirulina pellets and hikari algae wafers for my otos and the shrimp eat from it (iodine) is there anything else?

looking at my bad luck with ghost shrimp my bf asked about bamboo shrimp. Are they harder to keep? is their bioload particularly big or the same as ghost shrimps?

Thanks

clinton1621

Have you used copper medications, or do you have copper pipes in your house?? Copper is highly poisonous to shrimp... all invertebrates to be exact.

Allie

Ghost shrimp disappear randomly..hence their name.

Alessa

Nope, no copper... (sigh)

And yeah Allie, I figured that was the reason of their name...


so... bamboo shrimp?

mrsmuffin

The first time I tried ghost shrimp in my 30 gallon I started out with 4 and it seemed like I lost them all - just poof they were gone. This last time I started with a dozen and of course it is hard to count, but I still have close to that many if not more and it is obvious that I have new ones in there, too!

Alessa

so... should I add like a lot of them? if they seem to survive in large numbers... for a 28 gallon how many would be ok without adding a lot of bioload?

mrsmuffin

That was my thought Alessa. I think you could add a dozen without throwing your bio-load off, but you might see what everyone else says. I enjoy having several in there, they are so much fun to watch!