Hunting Puffers...

[zookey]

..... appear to be playing the old game of "Red Light, Green Light"

About a week ago I finally caught the ghost shrimp that had hitchhiked home with a plant I bought at the LFS about 4 months ago, well before I even had a puffer. I decided he might be a good snack for the puffer so let it go in the puffer's tank. After adding the shrimp I had looked for him everytime I was feeding my puffer, just to see if he would be a smart shrimp. After about 3 days I could no longer find him, so thought that he had become a puffer snack.

Tonight as I sat across the room I notice some odd movement in my puffer tank. Normally my puffer has retired behind his rock/plants by this time of night for an after supper nap. But tonight he was swimming oddly through the plants. Swim....... Stop.... Swim ... Stop.......... Sim...Stop I started really watching and tried to get closer to the tank without my puffer noticing me. Then I saw the flash of the shrimp and the puffer swim up to it and stop.... then the shrimp would scoot and the puffer would swim. It was so cute!!! Swim (Green light) Stop (red light) [for any of you who remember that old childhood game]

I grab a camera.... batteries dead
I grab the camcorder.... batteries missing
Cell phone.... sofware issue!!!

ARGH this has got to be the cutest thing I have seen him do in the month and a half I have had him and I can not get it recorded!! Well cutest thing next to his begging for snails. But this has made up my mind that he will have a supply of ghost shrimp in his tank for his pure entertainment .... or maybe they are playmates ..., I don't know, but that game of Green Light Red Light had to be the highlight of my night! (Shrimp is still in the tank, so he didn't make a snack out of it yet.)

[Pufferpunk]

And also a supply of fresh batteries!

[Flutter]

Cherries can easily be bred at home and can provide a few healthy friends to play with or eat

[zookey]

And also a supply of fresh batteries!

Batteries are on the shopping list for purchase tomorrow!!

Cherries can easily be bred at home and can provide a few healthy friends to play with or eat

I have never seen those available around here. Have seen them on Aquabid though... may have to order some when the weather warms up.....
Do shrimp eat snail eggs? Or could they be bred in the same tank without conflict?

**Should probably note... the shrimp I put in his tank intentionally for food when I couldn't get the puffer to eat as he would hide if anyone was near the tank. That one is still in the tank. He cleans up well after the puffer and has gotten pretty big for a shrimp... my husband has dubbed that one "Jumbo"... but he hides pretty well most of the time..... may not have to replace the shrimp friends very often at this rate!)

[Mac Myers]

Some Ghost Shrimp are extremely crafty.

Cherry Shrimp (Neocaridina heteropoda) are extremely easy to breed. I just like them too much to use them as feeders.
You can get them off of Ebay or Aquabid. Get the cheapest you can find as color won't matter and even the lamest will kick out a few very red individuals. In a separate tank you'll have a lot of shrimplettes very quickly. Betcha can't feed them to the Puffer however.

[puffermichigan]

I found a bright, electric-red hitchhiking cherry shrimp in a plant and got excited to feed him to my puffs when he got a little bit bigger . . .guess I waited a little too long; my fiance named him "Bubba Gump" and totally forbid his being made a midnight snack.

[zookey]

For those of you who know shrimp....

Will shrimp eat snail eggs? This little shrimp was in the tank I have my snails in and as of late the snails are laying bunches of eggs but I don't ever seem to see any sign of baby snails. I am wondering if the shrimp had been eating the eggs or if there may be another reason for it.

[xrayjeeper83]

yep they sure do, they eat everything.

[Srkoe]

I HAD 7 ghost shrimp in my DP tank, they make an excellent cleanup crew! I had to treat for ip's and they all died . The shrimp were awesome they were always first to the top of the tank for feeding time hanging from the dropper until they got their fill of worms. The puffs actually waited for them to finish...lol!!! I often saw the puffs hunting them and they would chase the puffs swinging their arms wildly at them!!! The puffs would retreat quickly!!! I want to get more once all the meds are out of the water for awhile. I love watching them just as much as I do the puffs. One ghost shrimp just hatched babies in another tank last night but I can't find the shrimpletts, think I took too long removing her from the breeder net and she ate them . There is no way I could put my cherry shrimp with the puffs...I'm too attached to them!

[zookey]

The cherry shrimp sound quite cute. May have to try my hand at them after the weather warms up and they can be safely shipped. My LFS does not carry anything other than wood shrimp and ghost shrimp.

Thank you all for the information!

[fugu99]

That is incredibly cute. I almost cant wait till we have little shrimps to put in the puffer tank. But at the same time, hearing all these comments... and I love critters like shrimp and crabs... argh. Will I be able to feed them to the puffers? T_T I guess Ill just have to save some and let them get big. I think theyll do fine in the quarantine or the guppy tank. Ive noticed my guppies pecking at my snails.. its annoying because I want the snails to breed, not get eaten... grr.

[c333davis]

I hesitate to buy ghost shrimp from my LFS because they always want to give me more shrimp than the 10 for $2 deal. I can't put that many in my gsp tank at once... he'd eat them all and explode. I end up having to house the shrimp in my spare tank, and the act of feeding them and changing out their water makes me feel maternal toward them. A few days in, I have to decide to just distribute all of the remaining shrimp among all of our tanks... and I have to leave the fish room while everyone chows down.

This "live food" thing isn't easy to do!

[Srkoe]

I just changed the water in my 20 gallon and finally saw shrimpletts in the breeding net!!! I counted about 10...they are so tiny and cute...all eyeballs!!! I just hope that I can keep them alive now. I have another ghost that is berried and should be hatching in about 1 1/2 weeks. I just hope the shrimpletts are big enough by then to put the new mama shrimp in the breeding net with them to hatch her babies. I've heard it's hard to keep ghost shrimpletts alive so we'll see! One of my female RCS was berried only once about a month ago. I didn't notice it until I saw her dropping her eggs baby RCS are sooo cute! She hadn't been berried since or even saddled for that matter

[Mac Myers]

I've never had any luck with Ghost Shrimp Shrimplettes.

As for the Red Cherries... I'm actually thinking about getting more for my Puffer Tank. I can just dump them in before I get attached to them. I've watched mine for too long to feed them. How weird is that?