Mass Order of Ghost Shrimp?

[HeatherB]

Anyone know where I can get a mass order of ghost shrimp for a good price? I was thinking/hoping around 100-150?

[CassieLEO]

Petsmart usually has a whole tank full of them, I bet you could get that many out of one of their tanks!

[Dave66]

Make sure the ones they dip out have the clear shells. Discard any with white or creamy shells since it means they are sick.

Dave

[Lady Hobbs]

You could probably buy 10 berried females and have your 100 in no time. Pet stores will charge for each one and I don't think I'd like to pay $5-6 for each one x 100.

Have you checked AquaBid? Sometimes they have large orders.

http://www.aquabid.com/cgi-bin/auction/auction.cgi?fwinverts

[dragoonwoman]

You could probably buy 10 berried females and have your 100 in no time. Pet stores will charge for each one and I don't think I'd like to pay $5-6 for each one x 100.

Don't know about where you are, My Lady, but Petsmart near me charges only 40 cents each for ghost shrimp.

Five or six dollars each had better be something fancy, like high-quality Crystal Red or Orange-Eyed.

Agree completely on the berried females, but I've read that the ghost shrimp fry don't have a very good survival rate because they're so small.

[Lady Hobbs]

LOL Can you tell I've never seen ghost shrimp for sale? I figured they ran about what the cherry runs. DOH!

[Sarkazmo]

Used to be able to get them 10 for $1 as feeders. You'd have a lot of die off but get a few that made it for a while. RCS online from Epicfish are $1 each, min 20, $2 for packaging, postage included, so $22 for 20 RCS. There's no way in hell I'd pay that much for RCS or GS. They're just too easy to breed to pay such high prices.

Sark

[Lady Hobbs]

Is that was the ghosts are for, feeders? That would explain the cheapie price of them.

[DrNic]

I've actually never seen any breeding shrimp at any of the retail or LFSs around here. I've always gone to aquabid. If you look at the sellers many of them literally have HUGE tanks of shrimp breeding away. I'm sure if you email a few with a big order they would setup some kind of a deal.

On the other hand, like Lady Hobbs said you could probably start with 15-20 of them in a 20G or so you'd have 200 in no time.

[Sarkazmo]

The thing with Ghost Shrimp is that there's several species with the common name of Ghost Shrimp. Ya never really know which is which unless you're studied at telling the tiny differences. But yeah, good luck with them. I really enjoy watching the little guys. Amazing animals and fascinating to watch grow (in the case of RCS) from egg, to miniatures of the adult, to full adulthood and reproduce.

I recommend trying them out, Hobbs. They're easy and enjoyable. Just take into account that GS are what's called "long arm" shrimp and they will take fry and sometimes even nip at slow fish. RCS are completely harmless though and IME much hardier than GS.

Sark

[Lady Hobbs]

Sounds good. Thanks for info.

[korith]

Many shops sell them as feeder shrimp. They get a huge bag of them at a time, which I think has a 1k+ of them. Usually lots of die off in the first few days, and even when they first open up the bag. I would hit up a small lfs, and see if you can work out a good price for a 100-150 of them. $1 a dozen or so for them usually around here. Sometimes $2 a dozen.

[Lab_Rat]

Agree with just getting them from a LFS. Mine sells them for $1/dozen and I use them as occasional feeders for my american cichlids.

[HeatherB]

I'll have to give my LFS a call. I just really like them, for all tanks. But they are kinda pricey at 40cents a pop to be buying all the time. I won't buy any other kinds though- they are really expensive!! I like to keep them with betta's too- but don't want to care if they get eaten.... I was hoping if I could find somewhere to buy them in bulk, I would cut down on my LFS trips. Also, the LFS does not stock alot of them- but if I buy from Petsmart/Petco they seem less hardy- I seem to lose alot of them in the first 2-3 weeks.

[i_am_511]

Yea i get GS for .25cents each and im gonna start asking around to LFS how many i have to buy to get a deal on them