Ghost Shrimp Tanks or Bowls

[hotmama0416]

My husband has had his ghost shrimp in a 10-gallon tank with an air pump. As I have been reading on-line it says that they can live in bowls. Do we need to have the air pump and the heater on for the shrimp or can they survive in stagnant cool water? Also, we have a pregnant ghost shrimp and it says to remove her while she pregnant until she has the babies and then put her back in the tank once she delivers, if we put her in a bowl does it need to have a plant (and does our tank need real plants if we don't use the air pump). Please get back to us.

[troy]

About how many ghost shrimp are in the 10 gallon.

[hungryhound]

I am not sure about a lot of what you asked but I will try and answer what I can. i raise cherry shrimo which are similar.


My husband has had his ghost shrimp in a 10-gallon tank with an air pump. As I have been reading on-line it says that they can live in bowls. Do we need to have the air pump and the heater on for the shrimp or can they survive in stagnant cool water?

I have no first hand experience trying this, but I believe it can be done. There are a couple diy threads where members turned a lightbulb into a bowl. As long as you do regular water changes it should work.

The big question is not whether they would live, but if they would thrive. I would doubt that without an airstone or heater the shrimp will reproduce and grow as well as they could in the ten gallon.





Also, we have a pregnant ghost shrimp and it says to remove her while she pregnant until she has the babies and then put her back in the tank once she delivers, if we put her in a bowl does it need to have a plant (and does our tank need real plants if we don't use the air pump). Please get back to us.

My guess is that you have been told to remove the shrimp to keep the babies from being eaten after they hatch. IF you do not have fish in the aquarium I would not worry about removing the pregnant female as a good majority should survive, especially if they have plenty of hiding places.

If you do chose to remove the female I would put some moss in with her. This will do two things. It will make the female feel more secure and provide nice hiding spaces for the babies once they hatch. The moss will also provide surface area for moss and other organisms to grow on for the babies to eat.


as to whether you tank needs the real plants if you do not use an airpump. That depends on the filter. IF you have a HOB with a water fall effect that should provide enough surface turbulence to oxygenate the water.

[hotmama0416]

We have a total of 5 ghost shrimp (including the pregant mama). We don't have any fish, just shrimp. Thank you. You answered my questions. We started off with a new tank and we bought a bunch of different types of fish that were compatible. We put too many in at once and they ended up all dying. But before they died we had also added the shrimp. When we bought the shrimp at the Walmart pet department, we had no idea they were feeder shrimp. The lady told us that the fish we had in our tank wouldn't eat the shrimp and we told her "good." She gave us a funny look. After all the fish died, we only had two shrimp (out of four left). So we had our 10 gallon tank with two tiny ghost shrimp. We wanted to buy more shrimp, but the two Walmarts in town no longer carried fish (or shrimp). When we went looking at the Pet Stores we asked for Ghost Shrimp and they asked us, "what kind of fish do you have." We said, "we don't have fish," and they asked us, "well why do you want feeder shrimp." We then realized we were raising fish food as pets. :c5: However, we like them and we don't want to get any fish that will eat them. Our daughters like to watch them. To our surprise, one day we discovered three baby shrimp, hence we now have 5 and the newest surprise is that the mama is pregnant again:malelovies: . We can't wait to have more soon.

[hungryhound]

In that case I would just leave the shrimp in the tank and let them do what they do naturally. Shrimp will cannabilize their young, but only when their numbers are greater than what the tank can sustain (100 or more). This isn't to say you won't have a few eaten, but I would suspect that you should have anywhere from 5 to 12 survive from each clutch.

Good luck and keep firing away with questions :) It's always nice to discover another shrimp keeper on the board!

P.S. if you want to see what the cherries look like, check out the link in my signature for my blog.