The Puffer Forum

I sort of want to start breeding some shrimp as food for my puffer. but I don't know what type of shrimp is the easiest to breed. I know Cherry and Ghost shrimp are common feeders. And how would i go about doing it? Is it smiliar to snails? how big of a tank would be required? any useful links to read? any help would be greatly appreicated. Thanks

Cherry shrimp are ridiculously easy. Get a 5g tank, cycle it, and add some hardy plants if you'd like. Shrimplets love java moss and moss balls. Add shrimp. Feed them. Wait. Feed puffers.

Sweet, already got a 5gal tank sitting around.. What about temprature? my room gets cold so it will definately need a heater. I'm assuming somewhere in the high 70's like most things?

Low- to mid-seventies, actually. They do okay up through the mid-eighties, IME - my room stays hot. But they'll probably breed better and live longer in lower temps.

Awesome, thanks for the info. Last question, how many shrimp should i buy to put in the tank for breeding?

I started with like 4 cherry shrimp. But you'll want to buy new shrimp every once in a while to keep the gene pool varied. The more you buy at one time, the faster you'll become overwhelmed! Plus, most places give discounts for more, thus making them cheaper per shrimp. At higher temps, cherry shrimp become more active, and I've even read that they can become aggressive around 80 degrees... I keep mine around 76, and they grow and swim like crazy.

-Rob

I wont get overwhelmed if that happens I'll go drop some in my brother's reef tank for his fish to rip apart. Thanks, think this week I'll start setting up the tank.

The most important thing is stablity. pH, temp, all that - stable! And they need perfect water quality, just like puffers.

You'll see them molt a lot, by the way. Don't remove the exoskeletons. They'll eat them to get calcium back into their bodies, to harden the new exoskeleton.

Thanks, I would prolly have removed the molts if you didn't tell me that

Pretty soon you'll have something like this!



That's just what one section of my shrimp tank looks like when the young ones come out to eat.

-Rob

Sweet, whats a better bottom for them, gravel or sand?

Either is fine.

Is breeding ghost shrimp the same? Cherry shrimp here are $2 each whereas ghost shrimp are 30-60c.

Can you breed cherry/ghost shrimp in the same tank as snails or should they be divided?

Flutter wrote:Is breeding ghost shrimp the same? Cherry shrimp here are $2 each whereas ghost shrimp are 30-60c.

Can you breed cherry/ghost shrimp in the same tank as snails or should they be divided?

From what I know ghost shrimp would be about the same as cherry shrimp. No they don't have to be divided. Supposedly shrimp are known to eat snail eggs and possibly snails might go after the shrimp babies but I doubt the could catch one anyways . I had ghost, cherry and snails together. The snails bred fine. I have a hard time keeping multiple shrimp alive. Cherry and amanos were over $2.00 each here. The amanos need brackish water to breed. They have survived the longest for me. I've only been able to keep 1 ghost and my 3 amano shrimp alive for over a year. All 5 of my cherry shrimp died within a few months, my 5 ghost that I know were babies all died. I don't know if the are selling old cherrys or what the deal is. The ghost are normally raised as feeders and not raised in the best conditions so I sort of expected them not to make it. I had half the shrimp including my ghost in a fw 10g tank w/ weekly water changes. I then tore down the 10g and put them all in my live fw planted 20g.

The more shrimp you start with the better to get them breeding IMO.

Apparently there are a couple of different kinds of fw shrimp commonly sold as 'ghost' shrimp. They're really american grass shrimp. If I recall correctly (yeah, I don't remember when or where I read this), most shrimp sold as ghost shrimp require salt in the water to breed. I don't know the parameters, but I do know that mine have never bred in fresh water(they'll develop eggs and carry them for a while, then just drop 'em), but my cherry shrimp do. There are some ghost shrimp who will breed in freshwater, but I think that's all luck of the draw, and exceedingly rare. Or, I could be miserably misinformed myself... That's why I consider cherry shrimp the easier of the two to breed. Although, I have heard multiple stories of people buying lots of cherry shrimp from their LFS and them never breeding because they got all females. There's some definite sexual dimorphism in cherry shrimp, and the females are the bigger, brighter ones, so I could see that happening... If there's anyone in my area needing shrimp I'll happily save you a few bucks, and just give you a half dozen or so babies. Sorry, but I'm not prepared to ship shrimp (especially in this cold weather).

-Rob