# do ghost shrimp eat hair algae?



## andwutt (May 1, 2012)

simple question. do ghost shrimp eat hair algae?


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## Bananariot (Feb 28, 2012)

nope


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## DennisSingh (Nov 8, 2004)

ghost shrimp die way too easily, whats the secret behind them? I bought a bunch of berried females, dropped all their eggs already and dying slowly one by one too.


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## Bananariot (Feb 28, 2012)

Ghost shrimp are usually wild caught and stored in terrible conditions because they are feeder shrimp. There are many species of ghost shrimp and some require brackish water to spawn. Some have larvae stages that die easily without greenwater. Some don't. 

Honestly ghost shrimp come in a grab bag of species, they are also aggressive to other shrimp. If you want a nice shrimp that willl take care of algae I recommend amano shrimp. If you want one to reproduce and is easy to care for, I'd recommend cherry shrimp.


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## GEM 35shrimps (May 1, 2012)

For me they do the job quite fine, not as fast as Yamato and sometimes they hit the fish.

I usually make a trap which contained meat base pellet food and drop in the steam back of my home, usually get 20-30pcs of them each time. 
A lot cheaper than buying Yamato at Jattujak for 20bath each.


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

Amanos are the shrimp you want to eat hair algae


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## moosenart (Feb 18, 2012)

+1 Amanos.


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## jeremyTR (Mar 21, 2012)

Nope ghost shrimp won't not that I noticed and Amanos move on to hair algae as a last resort. Also I've never seen my ghost shrimp attack any other shrimp in my tank not even once. They even leave the baby rili alone

Sent from my HTC Evo 4G


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## ElBoltonero (Jan 18, 2012)

GEM 35shrimps said:


> A lot cheaper than buying Yamato at Jattujak for 20bath each.


You said it!


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## jasonpatterson (Apr 15, 2011)

StrungOut said:


> ghost shrimp die way too easily, whats the secret behind them? I bought a bunch of berried females, dropped all their eggs already and dying slowly one by one too.


It's all about being sure you get a peaceful species of ghost shrimp and get them from a source that is keeping them well. Alternatively you can buy a ton and hope that some survive. As the others noted, they are often wild caught and treated terribly prior to sale. If you can get them to survive a month then they should last a couple of years. I wouldn't worry about getting berried shrimp in particular either. Unless you're putting them into a tank that is mature, the initial batch of eggs will produce larvae that are most likely going to starve to death.

As far as aggression goes, it seems like the smaller the claws are, the less aggressive the shrimp will be (with obvious exceptions for things like fan-clawed shrimp.) For shrimp typically sold as ghost shrimp, you can sometimes get red-clawed macro shrimp, they've got large, heavy claws and can be extremely aggressive. There are also ghost shrimp that have moderately large claws that can be territorial and will kill and eat weak or injured shrimp. Finally, there are ghost shrimp whose claws are more or less the same as the feeder claws that any other shrimp we keep has, and they are no more aggressive than any other dwarf shrimp. Honestly, my amanos are far more aggressive than my ghost shrimp; they chase other shrimp away from food, for instance. My ghost shrimp don't even scavenge dead shrimp, let alone hunt live ones. Another factor might be that I keep them well fed, so they have no need to work to find food. Ghost shrimp do not feed on algae or biofilm except as a last resort, so people who keep them in the same way that they would keep something like an amano shrimp might find them to be more aggressive, since they're very hungry.


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