The Puffer Forum

are there any brackish water shrimp that i can put in my 10 gallon brackish tank to try and get them to breed to give a steady supply of hard food for my figure eight when i get it? i know i can get red cherry shrimp, amanos, bamboo, and ghost shrimp at the stores around here. can any of those live in brackish water and possibly breed to give the puffer a variety of food (snails and shrimp) when i finally get it? any info would be great, thanks.

I was told by one of my LFS's that ghost shrimp thrive, and breed better in brackish water, I was asking the guy why all my ghost shrimp carrying eggs tended to die off. Correct me if that info is wrong, but this guy has not led me astray yet. Might be a little expensive at his place, but his information has been spot on for everything else I have asked him.

ok thanks, i can get ghost shrimp for about 40 cents a piece at the local petsmart. how many do you think i should get to have the best bet that they will breed in large enough numbers to feed a figure eight?

Amano algae eating shrimp thrive and breed in brackish water, though they remain perfectly healthy, simply out of breeding condition, in fresh.

Ghost shrimp have bred in my brackish tank, but all disappeared thanks to the archer and puffers. I have lots of fry in my 10 gallon freshwater tank, I brought about 20 ghost shrimp home and didn't want to feed them all to the the puffers at once so I dropped them in the 10 gallon, by the time I fed all the adults to the puffers the littles where everywhere. I figure I'll just keep feeding them till they reproduce again, then I'll start feeding the adults to the puffers.

how fast to amano shrimp breed? and ghost shrimp breed pretty fast right?

From my experience ghost shrimp are hard to breed. I never had any luck at all with them. Then I got some Red cherry shrimp, they were breeding out of control! I actually moved them to a larger tank, and about 2 months later I decided to clean the old tank and found more rcs in about 1/4 in of water. I couldn't believe my eyes. They lived in very little water no water changes, no airstones, no filtration. Well you get the idea.

do you think some RCS would be able to live in a 1.5 gallon tank with weekly water changes? no filtration needed? i found a couple of the little guys at the lfs and would love to get them and try breeding them but i want to make sure they would in what i have.

They would probably live, but it wouldn't be worth the hassle. Such a small tank would severely limit their population grow, plus there's always a chance it would crash and they'd just die.

If you're looking for shrimp to feed your puffers, try to locate some Marbled Crayfish. They reproduce asexually (they don't need a partner) and actually just clone themselves. They also grow VERY quickly (from very very small to 3 inches in like 1 month or something).

As an alternative, you could just go buy a $10 rubbermaid bin and set it up with gravel and a sponge filter. Cherry shrimp don't jump or anything, and it's a lot less expensive than even a 2-5 gallon tank.

thats actaully a good idea, my parents have a bunch of old rubber maid tubs lying around from when me moved. i could just grab some gravel from the store and a sponge filter like you said. i never thought of that before. haha thanks i think i'll try setting that up tomorrow after work if i can get my hands on enough gravel by then.

Wow, I didn't know they grow that fast. I thought about getting a few to breed for my puffers once they get larger. I saw some on aquabid for sale. I don't think the lfs in my area has them. I might go ahead and order a few.

You can also toss a light in the rubbermaid bin by cutting a hole in the top and putting a piece of glass or plexiglass over it (so the condensation doesn't hit the light).

I plan on doing this Monday. ^_^