Ooooop's.......Pregnant Ghost Shrimp Bought!

Have a 5 gallon w/a male betta, a male Ghost Shrimp and 4 live plants. Wanted to get two more.

Went to LFS and asked for two large Ghost Shrimp, not knowing that the large ones were females! Wound up with two and one (if not both) pregnant! When I looked at the shrimp closer, it did seem like the one had eggs in it. I asked the Petsmart fish/aquarium clerk if they were females and pregnant and her response was "heck, I don't know". We bought them anyway. After putting them into tank, I could definitely see that they were bigger than the one we had in there. Within one day, we had a baby ghost shrimp swimming around! Lucky for us, our male betta pays virtually no attention to any of these shrimp.

So, the one female shrimp was taking up a lot of the space where our betta likes to swim and my wife didn't like that. He would just swim around it, she wanted it taken out. So, wound up taking both of the females out. Now have one male and a baby in the tank AND, now that we know the difference between male and female, will buy another male.

Since this tank is only a 5 gallon, and we feed the very small HikarI Betta Bio-Gold pellets along with a "now and then" small piece of frozen Bloodworm or Brine Shrimp, there is very little food waste for these shrimp to eat. Because of this, I drop a flake of fish food in every few days for food.

One thing FOR SURE............we didn't want a tank full of ghost shrimp and, since our betta ignores them, we'd end up with quite a few ghost shrimp. My wife distinctively told me "no way"!!

Have you ever bought a pregnant fish, be it a Ghost Shrimp or something else and didn't want that?

 

Ghost shrimp eggs become larva when they hatch and usually die. They need green water algae to eat immediately upon birth. If you have a "baby" ghost shrimp, it was just in the bag when you bought the others. They will not take over your tank as the young are extremely difficult to raise. Many "ghost" shrimp even require brackish water to breed, so there's that as well.

You should also know that quarantine for anything new you put in your tank is a good idea. Even for shrimp. Those shrimp have been in tanks with fish, so there's no telling what you're putting in your tank when you add one in.

 

Ghost shrimp hatch as larvae, so the betta might go after them. Other types like red cherry shrimp will hatch in little "mini-me" forms of the parents. They still get eaten, but the ghost shrimp larvae would look more appealing to the betta. So, you might only get one or two that survive, if any.

 

As far the "quarantine" thing goes, don't a person have to have another aquarium for that? I've also read comments saying "take the media out of another tank" and "take some gravel out of another tank", when it comes to cycling a new tank. Well, what if the person only has one tank???? And, none of the LFS will give gravel or media from their tanks.........against company policy.

Ghost shrimp eggs become larva when they hatch and usually die. They need green water algae to eat immediately upon birth. If you have a "baby" ghost shrimp, it was just in the bag when you bought the others. They will not take over your tank as the young are extremely difficult to raise. Many "ghost" shrimp even require brackish water to breed, so there's that as well.

You should also know that quarantine for anything new you put in your tank is a good idea. Even for shrimp. Those shrimp have been in tanks with fish, so there's no telling what you're putting in your tank when you add one in.

 

Well, didn't see a small baby size one in the bag that we brought home from the LFS. I think we would have noticed it, b/c we see it in the aquarium now!

Anyway, don't have to worry about a bunch of "little ones" being born into our aquarium anymore......both females are gone!

 

As far the "quarantine" thing goes, don't a person have to have another aquarium for that? I've also read comments saying "take the media out of another tank" and "take some gravel out of another tank", when it comes to cycling a new tank. Well, what if the person only has one tank???? And, none of the LFS will give gravel or media from their tanks.........against company policy.

A QT doesn't have to be a complete tank setup. Just get yourself a large/XL Critter Keeper (largest one is 8 gallons, but 3 or 5 would work fine for shrimp) for about $12-15, then a Tetra Whisper 3I filter for a sub-5g QT or a Tetra Whisper 2-10I for a larger one, hook it all up and you're set with a QT.

It's also a good idea to purchase a Fluval/Aquaclear aquarium sponge and keep some in your filter. Bacteria will grow on it over the course of a month or so, and you've got an instant cycle if you need to set up a new filter.

If you're not planning on adding any new fish or inverts for a while, you don't need to go out and purchase the Critter Keeper and Filter, but buying an aquarium sponge and cutting it into pieces to place in your running filter is never a bad idea. The biggest one is a little under $5, iirc.