Three crustaceans are called ghost shrimp. The encyclopedia calls this one a feeder
Wikipedia lists three groups of animal under the name: Thalassinidea, which live in deep burrows in the intertidal zone, Caprellidae, amphipods better known as skeleton shrimps, and Palaemonetes. Its label for the third group is not a species name. It is Feeder shrimp (glass shrimp).
This record is that third group, and inside it one species: Palaemonetes paludosus, which the same source calls common to the aquarium trade. It is the first animal on this site native to North America, found in southern states east of the Appalachian Mountains, in fresh or slightly brackish water and usually in lakes.
The confusion is worth clearing because a real aquarium keeps a different animal under the same name. The Monterey Bay Aquarium's bay ghost shrimp is Neotrypaea californiensis, a marine animal from Alaska to Baja California that reaches 4 to 5 inches, tunnels through sediment to a depth of as much as 30 inches, and can survive without oxygen for as long as six days. None of the figures on this page apply to it.
What makes this record unusual is not the name. It is that ghost shrimp are sold as food, and that the published lifespan reflects that: Aquarium Care Basics states it can be anywhere from a couple of days to a year. Station 02 is about the days.
Why this record was written now
- The gap
- It is the largest single search term left in the whole keyword map at 31,000 a month, and our shrimp silo held one record. That silo has had the fewest internal links on the site since it was written.
- What it changes
- The site gains a second invertebrate that is not a snail, a second record at the 5 gallon floor the calculator starts from, and its first published figure that we refuse to carry.
- What it does not
- One field stays blank. Three sources publish something in the hardness row and not one of them publishes a general hardness figure, which station 05 sets out.
A lifespan that starts at a couple of days
Every other record on this site has a lifespan that reads like biology. The ghost shrimp lifespan reads like a supply chain instead, and all five sources are describing the same animal.
- Aquarium Care Basics. A ghost shrimp lifespan can be anywhere from a couple of days to 1 year, and in some cases under good conditions and with a little luck, a little longer than a year.
- Aquarium Source. Ghost shrimp have a very short lifespan of only one year.
- Build Your Aquarium. 1.5 years, and separately: avoid buying ghost shrimp that have started to turn white, they will be dead shrimp within hours.
- FishLab, which names the white. On average they tend to only live for about a year, and it describes a condition called Vorticella where the usually clear body turns white and moldy. It also names a bacterial infection that shows as a small pink spot, and states plainly that it is fatal.
- Wikipedia. Not a duration at all. The shrimp will die after the spawning season is complete, which is a life history rather than a number.
Read those together and the low end of the range explains itself, with two sources supplying one half each. Build Your Aquarium tells you not to buy a ghost shrimp that has turned white and never says what the white is; FishLab names it as Vorticella, a clear body turning white and moldy. A shrimp that is already turning is a shrimp that will be dead within hours, and a source that warns about it at the point of sale is telling you how often the animal arrives that way. The days in that range are not a property of the species. They are a property of how it is caught, shipped and held.
Two of our sources say what the animal is for, in almost the same words. Aquarium Care Basics: ghost shrimp are often purchased as feeders for larger more aggressive fish. Aquarium Source: for many seasoned aquarists, these small shrimp are used as live feed for much larger creatures. Build Your Aquarium lists feeder shrimp as a common name and notes they are usually so cheap to buy.
This site does not take a position on feeding one animal to another, and it is worth saying that ghost shrimp are kept as pets far more often than they are used that way. It does take a position on printing a figure without its reason, and a one year lifespan published without the couple of days beside it would be that. Our oscar record is where the other half of this sits: its own source warns about disease transmission from feeder fish, which is the same trade seen from the predator's side.
The rarest thing on this site: three sources that agree
Ghost shrimp tank size is the one figure three of our sources publish identically, and the pH is the other. Thirteen records in, this is the first time three care sources have agreed on a water figure to the decimal, and they have done it twice. The tank size is unanimous and so is the pH. Then one of them publishes a figure this record will not carry.
Published bands: 72 to 82, 65 to 82 and 65 to 80. This is what all three contain.
Identical in three independent care sources, with one condition: no sudden shifts.
- Three sources give the same tank figure. 5 gallons at Aquarium Source, Aquarium Care Basics and Build Your Aquarium. Two of them add a density rather than a floor: three to four ghost shrimp per gallon, which Wikipedia states a third way as up to 20 individuals in a 5 gallon tank. Four per gallon, arrived at twice independently. FishLab is the only source to go lower, and it splits the question rather than disagreeing: 5 gallons if you keep a few ghost shrimp, as little as 2 gallons for one.
- Two sources take the ghost shrimp temperature floor to 65 °F and neither says why. That is cooler than any tropical record here and only three degrees above what our goldfish record calls a coldwater fish. The record carries 72 to 80 because that is what all three bands contain, not because the cooler figures are wrong.
- The pH floor is at neutral, which puts this record in a small group. Three other records here have a pH floor at or above 7.0: the guppy, the nerite snail and the goldfish. A soft acidic tank set up for our ember tetra is not ghost shrimp water.
- One figure is refused rather than carried, which is new. Aquarium Source states that ammonia and nitrate levels should be kept between 5 and 10 ppm. Every other source this site holds puts acceptable ammonia at zero, or at 0.25 ppm as a practical reading. The full disagreement is printed on the record above rather than dropped, and the figure is not on any row.
The full record
| Field | Recorded | Where it comes from |
|---|---|---|
| Minimum tank | 5 gal | Aquarium Source, Aquarium Care Basics and Build Your Aquarium all give 5 gallons, the only figure on this site three care sources have published identically. Aquarium Source adds a density instead of a floor: aim for a ratio of three to four ghost shrimp per gallon. Wikipedia states the same thing a third way, that a group of up to 20 individuals can be healthy in a 5 gallon tank, which is four per gallon. FishLab is the one source to go lower and it does so by splitting the question: 5 gallons if you own a few shrimp, and something as small as 2 gallons if you keep a single ghost shrimp. |
| Temperature | 72 to 80 °F | The band all three care sources contain. Aquarium Care Basics publishes 72 to 82 and adds that some suggest a slightly wider range is acceptable, Aquarium Source publishes 65 to 82, and Build Your Aquarium publishes 65 to 80. Two of the three take the floor down to 65, which is cooler than any tropical record on this site, and none of them explains why. |
| pH | 7.0 to 8.0 | Aquarium Source, Aquarium Care Basics and Build Your Aquarium publish this band identically. Three sources agreeing to the decimal on a water figure has not happened anywhere else on this site. Aquarium Care Basics attaches the condition that matters more than the number: fine anywhere between 7.0 and 8.0 provided there are no sudden shifts. |
| Hardness | Not recorded yet | Blank, because three sources give three kinds of non-answer. Aquarium Source publishes 3.72 to 6.75 and never says what unit that is, which is an oddly precise number with nothing attached to it. Build Your Aquarium publishes 3 to 10 dKH, which is carbonate hardness, a buffering figure rather than the mineral figure this row holds. Aquarium Care Basics says only that the water should be on the hard side. No source publishes a general hardness figure for this species, so the row stays empty rather than borrowing one. |
| Adult size | 1 to 1.5 in | Build Your Aquarium gives 1 to 1.5 inches and is the only source to split it: males three quarters of an inch to an inch, females up to an inch and a half. Aquarium Source and Aquarium Care Basics both give about 1.5 inches without a split. Wikipedia gives up to 2.5 cm, one inch, as the maximum for the species. Our reading, and it is ours rather than any source's, is that the sex split is where the one inch and the inch and a half figures both come from. Aquarium Care Basics offers the most useful description instead of a number: about the diameter of a pencil eraser when fully grown. |
| Diet | Omnivore and scavenger | Wikipedia describes omnivores that mainly consume algae and aquatic insects, along with diatoms. Aquarium Care Basics lists algae, dead plant matter and detritus, and adds that they love fish or shrimp pellets, flakes, algae wafers or any otherwise uneaten food. Build Your Aquarium says leftover flake food, sinking pellets and wafers, and general bottom detritus. No source states a feeding frequency, and all three describe an animal that eats what is already in the tank. |
| Water column | Substrate | Ours, from what all three care sources describe it eating: dead plant matter, detritus and uneaten food that has already fallen. Build Your Aquarium names general bottom detritus outright. It is the same derivation as our cherry shrimp record and the same answer. |
| Lifespan | Days to 1.5 years | The goldfish record carries a wider band in years, 5 to 30, but this is the only lifespan on the site that starts in days, and it is not a biological range so much as a statement about the trade. Aquarium Care Basics publishes it plainly: a ghost shrimp lifespan can be anywhere from a couple of days to 1 year, and in some cases under good conditions and with a little luck a little longer than a year. Aquarium Source gives a very short lifespan of only one year. Build Your Aquarium gives 1.5 years. Wikipedia describes the life history rather than a duration, saying the shrimp will die after the spawning season is complete. |
| Growth rate | Young are tank safe at about 5 weeks | Build Your Aquarium, which also gives the interval between molts as one to two weeks and states that the young are nearly invisible at first and need micron sized food. It is the fourth growth figure on this site and the only one measured in weeks. |
The same nine fields for every animal on this site are in the A to Z index.
Where our sources disagree
Every record here names a disagreement. This one names a figure we think is wrong, which is a different thing and needs saying plainly.
Aquarium Source
Ammonia and nitrate levels should be kept between 5-10 PPM.
What the rest of this site holds
The Goldfish Tank: the only acceptable level of ammonia is 0 ppm, and no more than 40 ppm of nitrate. Aquarium Science, cited on our water and health topic, accepts 0.25 ppm of ammonia as a practical reading and no higher.
What we record: we do not carry the figure. An ammonia reading of 5 to 10 ppm is not a target any other source on this site would recognize, and this record will not repeat it as though it were one.
It is printed here rather than quietly dropped, because a reader who found that page first deserves to know that three other sources we hold disagree with it, and because pretending we never read it would be the dishonest option. The nitrate half of the same sentence is inside the range other sources allow; the ammonia half is not.
Three sources answer the hardness question. None of them answers it
What each one actually published
Aquarium Source gives 3.72 to 6.75 and never says what unit that is. It is an oddly precise pair of numbers with nothing attached, and two decimal places on a hardness reading is not something any other source on this site has published.
Build Your Aquarium gives 3 to 10 dKH. That is carbonate hardness, which measures the water's capacity to hold its pH steady, not the calcium and magnesium the hardness row on our records carries.
Aquarium Care Basics gives no number for ghost shrimp at all. It says the water should be on the hard side, which is a direction rather than a target.
So the row is blank. A figure could have been assembled from those three, and it would have been ours rather than anyone's.
The third time this has happened
The general hardness against carbonate hardness confusion is now on three records here. Our cherry shrimp record carries GH as the field the animal molts on, because a molting animal needs the minerals. Our angelfish record has one source publishing dKH where another publishes dGH, and refuses to average them.
This record is the third and the worst, because here the unit is missing from one figure entirely. It is worth saying what that means in practice: a keeper who buys a GH test kit and aims for 3.72 has not followed any of these three sources, and a keeper who buys a KH kit and aims for the same number has followed one of them by accident.
What all three do agree on is the thing that is not a number. Aquarium Care Basics puts it best: fine anywhere between 7.0 and 8.0 provided there are no sudden shifts. Stability is the figure, and it is the same conclusion our water and health topic reaches from a different direction.
The tank you keep ghost shrimp in, and the hazard nobody else names
The filter is the danger
One source raises it and it is the most specific piece of husbandry on this record. FishLab states not to use a filter rated for a larger tank, because these small shrimp are likely to be pulled into the intake, and gives the fix: a sponge intake filter, or a sponge insert over the filter you already have.
That is a hazard created by the equipment rather than by the water, which is why none of the water figures on this record would catch it. It applies to any small invertebrate, and our cherry shrimp record does not carry it either, because its own sources never raised it.
The other equipment note points the same way. Ghost shrimp eat what has already fallen, so a current strong enough to hold detritus in suspension is working against the animal's whole feeding strategy. Neither of those is a figure, and both are things you buy before the shrimp.
Substrate, plants and hiding places
FishLab answers the substrate question by refusing the usual advice: you do not need sand substrate to keep ghost shrimp, despite it being the floor covering in their natural habitat. What it recommends instead is about seeing them rather than about their health, something dark like black sand or pebbles if you want the most visible tiny shrimps.
On plants it is general rather than specific, asking for plenty of places to hide in either decorations or live plants, and naming java moss only when it turns to breeding tanks. That is the whole of what our seven sources say about plants for this animal, and it is less than any of them says about water.
Java moss now has a record of its own, and it is the plant this site names most often: six of our records cite it, more than any other. That record answers what FishLab does not, which is what the moss is for in a breeding tank. Modest Fish describes loose tangles of java moss put in breeding tanks and moved to another tank once the fish have spawned, and both it and Aquarium Breeder name the food the moss grows for newly hatched shrimplets, biofilm and infusoria.
How big do ghost shrimp get? One inch or one and a half
Four sources publish a ghost shrimp size and they give two answers, one of which contains the likely reason for the other.
| Source | Figure | What it describes |
|---|---|---|
| Build Your Aquarium | 1 to 1.5 in | The species, and the only source to split it |
| Build Your Aquarium | 0.75 to 1 in | Males |
| Build Your Aquarium | Up to 1.5 in | Females |
| Aquarium Source | About 1.5 in | Stated as the size they do not get much larger than |
| Aquarium Care Basics | About 1.5 in | Adds: about the diameter of a pencil eraser when fully grown |
| Wikipedia | 2.5 cm (1.0 in) | The maximum length for the species |
- The gap is 50 percent, on an animal this small. A ghost shrimp at an inch and a ghost shrimp at an inch and a half are different animals to a fish looking at them. An inch against an inch and a half is the difference between a shrimp a betta could swallow and one it could not, so it is not a rounding on a record that has to answer tank mate questions.
- One source explains it and we are labeling the explanation as ours. Build Your Aquarium is the only source that splits the figure by sex, and its male figure of three quarters of an inch to an inch is exactly Wikipedia's maximum. Our reading is that the two published answers are a male figure and a female figure. No source says that, and it is printed as a reading rather than as a finding.
- This is almost exactly our other shrimp. The cherry shrimp record carries 30 to 40 mm, which is 1.2 to 1.6 inches. The two animals are the same size, they occupy the same layer, and one of them is sold as food.
- The description beats the number. A pencil eraser is a better unit than an inch for anyone standing at a shop tank, and it is the only figure of its kind on this site.
Ghost shrimp and betta, and ghost shrimp with cherry shrimp
Ghost shrimp with a betta
This is the second most searched question about the animal and no source on this record answers it directly. What they do state is enough to answer it anyway, and the answer matches what this site already holds.
Two of our three care sources say ghost shrimp are bought as feeders for larger, more aggressive fish. Aquarium Source says to avoid pairing them with any aggressive fish. The animal is 1 to 1.5 inches, which is the same size as the cherry shrimp our betta tank mates guide already refuses, on Aquarium Co-Op describing bettas as notorious for going after shrimp.
So the verdict is never, for the same reason and with one source fewer. Our cherry shrimp record reaches it from a breeding argument, because the young hatch at about a millimeter. This record reaches it from the shop, because the animal is sold for the purpose.
Ghost shrimp with cherry shrimp
Aquarium Source names cherry shrimp and amano shrimp among suitable tank mates, along with tetras, barbs, kuhli loaches, freshwater snails and cory catfish. Four of those are records we hold.
It is worth noting what the question behind the search actually is. Ghost shrimp are Palaemonetes and cherry shrimp are Neocaridina, two different genera in two different families, so they cannot interbreed and no source suggests otherwise. That is the opposite of the situation our shrimp silo describes between Neocaridina and Caridina, where the concern is crossbreeding.
The one figure that complicates the pairing is water. Both records want pH 7.0 to 8.0 at the floor and the cherry shrimp record tolerates 6.5, so the shared band is the narrower of the two. Temperature is easy: 72 to 80 here against 59 to 86 there.
The thing all three sources warn about, and it is not water
Every care source on this record raises copper, and one of them names the medications that carry it. This is the clearest agreement on the page after the tank size and the pH.
- Aquarium Source. Copper is found in some fish medications. Unfortunately, it is fatal to ghost shrimp.
- Aquarium Care Basics. Avoid copper, as copper can be fatal to aquarium shrimp.
- Build Your Aquarium. Copper is extremely toxic to invertebrates, and fish medications like methylene blue and malachite green can easily kill ghost shrimp.
- What it means for a mixed tank. Treating a sick fish in a tank that also holds shrimp is the failure mode all three are describing, and none of them gives a safe alternative medication. This site does not print treatments, so it will not name one either.
The same warning is on our nerite snail record, where Aquatic Arts states that snails are highly sensitive to copper and that it is often present in tap water and in some aquarium treatments. That makes two records here that carry it, and it exposes a gap in a third: our cherry shrimp record does not mention copper anywhere, because none of its three sources raised it. Two sources on this record state the hazard for aquarium shrimp and for invertebrates as a class rather than for this species, so the omission on that record is a gap in its sources rather than a difference between the animals. It is named here rather than quietly fixed there.
Molting is the other thing all three sources describe and none of them quantifies except one. Aquarium Care Basics says they molt as they eat and grow, so as long as they are actively feeding and moving about it is normal for them to molt often. Build Your Aquarium puts an interval on it, one to two weeks. The breeding topic holds what our sources say about the stages after that.
Baby ghost shrimp, and two egg counts that do not match
Breeding ghost shrimp is where the sources separate again, and this time the two figures are not even in the same unit.
| Figure | Value | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Eggs | Up to 85 per clutch | Wikipedia |
| Eggs | Upwards of 30 a week | Aquarium Source |
| Berrying | Roughly once a month | Build Your Aquarium |
| Hatching | As long as three weeks | Aquarium Source |
| Young | Nearly invisible, need micron sized food | Build Your Aquarium |
| Molts | Every 1 to 2 weeks | Build Your Aquarium |
| Safe to move | About 5 weeks old | Build Your Aquarium |
| Difficulty | Difficult | Build Your Aquarium |
- Up to 85 per clutch against upwards of 30 a week. One is a count per spawning and the other is a rate, and neither source gives the figure that would connect them. Read together with berrying roughly once a month, the two are not obviously compatible and this record does not force them to be.
- The source that calls it difficult is the one with the most figures. Build Your Aquarium is the only source to describe the young, and what it describes is the reason: nearly invisible larvae that need micron sized food and about five weeks before they can safely go in with the adults.
- Wikipedia's life history is the missing frame. The shrimp will die after the spawning season is complete. Set that against a published lifespan of one to one and a half years and the aquarium figures start to look like a single season rather than a life.
- Compare the other shrimp we hold. The cherry shrimp record carries one male and one female for a colony, because its sources describe a colony that maintains itself in a tank. Nothing on this record describes that, and the difference between the two animals in the trade may be exactly this.
What this record will not answer
Four questions our six sources do not settle.
- What hardness to aim for. Nothing, in the unit this row holds. Station 05 sets out what the three sources published instead.
- How long a ghost shrimp actually lives. Days to a year and a half is the honest span of what is published, and it is a range about handling rather than about biology.
- Whether the ammonia figure is a typo. Aquarium Source states 5 to 10 ppm for ammonia and nitrate together. We think the ammonia half is wrong and we have said so on the record rather than deleting it, but we cannot tell you what the page meant to say.
- What colors ghost shrimp come in. It is a search people make. Every source we read describes a transparent shrimp, which is where both of its common names come from, and Build Your Aquarium warns that one turning white is one about to die. Nothing published gives a color variety, so this record gives none.
Ghost shrimp questions, answered from the record
What is a ghost shrimp?
Palaemonetes paludosus, a small transparent freshwater shrimp native to the southern United States east of the Appalachian Mountains, also sold as glass shrimp and known scientifically as eastern grass shrimp. Wikipedia's own heading for the group it belongs to is feeder shrimp.
Two other animals share the name and neither is this one: the burrowing marine Thalassinidea and the amphipods called skeleton shrimps. The Monterey Bay Aquarium's bay ghost shrimp is a 4 to 5 inch marine animal from the Pacific coast, and none of the figures on this page apply to it.
How long do ghost shrimp live?
Anywhere from a couple of days to a year and a half, and that span is what our sources actually publish rather than an evasion. Aquarium Care Basics gives a couple of days to 1 year, sometimes a little longer with good conditions and a little luck. Aquarium Source gives one year. Build Your Aquarium gives 1.5 years.
The low end is a handling figure, not a biological one. Build Your Aquarium says to avoid buying ghost shrimp that have started to turn white because they will be dead shrimp within hours, which is a warning nobody writes about an animal that usually arrives healthy.
How big do ghost shrimp get?
1 to 1.5 inches. Aquarium Source and Aquarium Care Basics both give about 1.5 inches, Wikipedia gives 2.5 cm which is one inch as the species maximum, and Build Your Aquarium is the only source to split it: males three quarters of an inch to an inch, females up to an inch and a half.
Our reading, stated as ours, is that the sex split is where both published answers come from. Aquarium Care Basics gives the most useful description of all: about the diameter of a pencil eraser when fully grown.
What size tank do ghost shrimp need?
5 gallons, and this is the only figure on this site that three care sources have published identically. Aquarium Source, Aquarium Care Basics and Build Your Aquarium all give it.
Two of them add a density rather than a floor: three to four ghost shrimp per gallon at Aquarium Source, and Wikipedia states the same thing as up to 20 individuals in a 5 gallon tank. Both work out at four per gallon, which is the closest thing to a stocking rule this site holds for any animal.
Can ghost shrimp live with a betta?
Our verdict is never, and it matches what this site already holds for the cherry shrimp. No source on this record names the betta, so the reasoning is set out in station 08: two of our three sources state that ghost shrimp are bought as feeders for larger aggressive fish, Aquarium Source says to avoid any aggressive fish, and at 1 to 1.5 inches this animal is the same size as the shrimp our betta tank mates guide already refuses.
That guide reaches the same verdict from a different source, Aquarium Co-Op describing bettas as notorious for going after shrimp, and it prints the one source that disagrees rather than hiding it.
Can ghost shrimp live with cherry shrimp or neocaridina?
Aquarium Source names cherry shrimp and amano shrimp among suitable tank mates, so the answer from our sources is yes, and our amano shrimp record now says the same thing back from a different source. They are different genera, Palaemonetes against Neocaridina, so crossbreeding is not the question here, unlike the Neocaridina and Caridina problem our shrimp silo describes.
The figure to check is water rather than behavior. This record wants pH 7.0 to 8.0 and our cherry shrimp record carries 6.5 to 8.0, so the shared band is 7.0 to 8.0. Temperature is not a constraint: 72 to 80 here inside 59 to 86 there.
Do ghost shrimp shed their skin?
Yes, and all three care sources describe it. Aquarium Source: once they outgrow their current exoskeleton they will shed or molt it to grow another one. Aquarium Care Basics: they molt as they eat and grow, so as long as they are actively feeding and moving about it is normal for them to molt often.
Build Your Aquarium is the only source to put an interval on it, one to two weeks, and that figure is for young shrimp. Our cherry shrimp record is where molting has a water figure attached, because for that animal the minerals in the water are the shell.
What do ghost shrimp eat?
Whatever is already in the tank. Aquarium Care Basics lists algae, dead plant matter and detritus, and adds that they love fish or shrimp pellets, flakes, algae wafers or any otherwise uneaten food. Build Your Aquarium says leftover flake food, sinking pellets and wafers, and general bottom detritus.
Wikipedia describes the wild diet instead: omnivores that mainly consume algae and aquatic insects, along with diatoms. No source on this record states a feeding frequency, which is the only field where all six are silent together.
Are ghost shrimp really sold as feeders?
Three of our sources say so and one of them uses it as a name. Aquarium Care Basics: often purchased as feeders for larger more aggressive fish. Aquarium Source: used as live feed for much larger creatures. Build Your Aquarium lists feeder shrimp as a common name and notes they are usually so cheap to buy. Wikipedia's disambiguation heading for the genus is feeder shrimp.
It is on this record because it explains the low end of the lifespan and because it is the reason the animal is stocked, shipped and priced the way it is. Our oscar record holds the other side of the same trade, where a source warns about disease transmission from feeder fish.
What water parameters do ghost shrimp need?
Temperature 72 to 80 °F, which is the band all three care sources contain, and pH 7.0 to 8.0, which all three publish identically. Aquarium Care Basics attaches the condition that matters more than either: fine anywhere between 7.0 and 8.0 provided there are no sudden shifts.
Hardness is blank and station 05 explains why: one source publishes a number with no unit, one publishes carbonate hardness rather than general hardness, and one says only that the water should be on the hard side. On ammonia, Aquarium Source publishes a figure of 5 to 10 ppm that this record refuses to carry, against sources on our other records that put acceptable ammonia at zero or at 0.25 ppm.
How many baby ghost shrimp will I get?
The two figures published do not match. Wikipedia states that a female is able to lay up to 85 eggs per clutch. Aquarium Source states that females will produce upwards of 30 eggs a week, and that hatching can take as long as three weeks. Build Your Aquarium says females berry roughly once a month.
The same source calls breeding difficult and describes why: the young are nearly invisible, need micron sized food, and are about five weeks old before they are large enough to go in safely with the adults.
Are ghost shrimp good for beginners?
Wikipedia says they are recommended for those just starting their aquariums. Our sources also say the animal is cheap, sold as food, and can be dead within days of purchase, and that copper in a fish medication will kill it. Both of those things are true at once.
What this record can tell you is which figures are solid and which are not. The tank size and the pH are as well supported as anything on this site. The hardness figure does not exist, the lifespan starts in days, and one published ammonia target is one we refuse to repeat.
Where does this record disagree with the rest of the site?
In three places. It is the first record here to refuse a published figure outright rather than print a disagreement between sources. It is the first animal on this site native to North America. And it is the first record whose hardness row is blank because of units rather than because nobody published anything.
The shrimp silo now holds two records, the full index lists every record we hold, and the method page says what happens here when a source and this site do not agree.
What a ghost shrimp tank needs and a fish tank does not
Three things every source on this record asks for, none of which is a gallon figure.
- No copper, and no copper based medicationthree sources call it fatal
- Food already on the floordetritus, wafers, leftovers
- Stability rather than a numberpH 7 to 8 with no sudden shifts
Every item our records ask for is gathered on the tank setup topic.
Nothing here is a paid link. It is the shortfall between what this record asks for and what a boxed kit contains.
How this record was compiled
- By
- Verified
- Sources
Aquarium Source, Aquarium Care Basics, Build Your Aquarium, FishLab, Wikipedia, Palaemonetes paludosus and Monterey Bay Aquarium, bay ghost shrimp
- Conflicts
Printed above: one source publishes an ammonia target this record refuses to carry
- Blanks
Hardness stay empty until a source we trust states them
- Not recorded
A general hardness figure, because no source publishes one in a unit this row can hold, a feeding frequency, which none of the seven sources states, and any figure at all for the marine animals that share the name