# how to breed ghost shrimp/"pest" snails?



## BeavisMom62 (Feb 28, 2010)

Can't seem to find a related thread, so I thought I would start a new one. I started a 10 gal tank with the intention of breeding ghost shrimp and pond/"pest" snails to feed my figure 8 puffer. Seems like everyone else has problems getting rid of pond snails, while I can't seem to get them to breed. And what about ghost shrimp? So far, I've just been buying a couple dozen at a time and putting them in the tank, but no breeders yet. Any suggestions?

Its a new 10 gal tank but it is cycled. I feed them algae wafers and spirulina flakes. There is a sponge covering the filter intake so as not to suck any potential babies up there. Help?


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## sparkysko (Jun 11, 2004)

I've had berried ghost shrimp several times, tend to have green eggs. On one occasion I decided to separate out the shrimp from the rest of the tank mates (It was an African Cichlid tank). The shrimp gave birth to a bunch of things that looked like vampire bats. They just hung upside down on everything, starved and then died.


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## bulrush (May 7, 2007)

Freshwater ghost shrimp babies have a larval stage of 2-3 days long. During this stage they cannot swim, they just float around and bump into food, so they must live in thick green water. They only eat food they can bump into, they cannot seek food at this stage. Plus they must eat massive amounts to grow. So if your tank is not full of green water, then the shrimp larva will not survive. 

This is the same for nerite snail larva and a few other invert larva.


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## BeavisMom62 (Feb 28, 2010)

Thanks, bulrush. I guess I don't need to clean the algae off the walls anymore, huh? Actually, the last two water changes, I only cleaned the front glass, but I guess I'll stop that as well.

Any other suggestions from any one? I really appreciate the help.


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## Fishly (Jan 8, 2010)

I've successfully bred GS several times. I put a berried female in a breeder net with a lot of fake plants or Java Moss. When she wasn't carrying the eggs anymore (since you don't really see them hatch), I fed the baby shrimp with powder fry food. Put about a BB-sized amount in a Dixie cup of tank water, stir well, and pour into the net with the babies. I think I fed them two or three times a day. If you don't want to use a breeder net, stuffing the tank with Java Moss and a floating plant (Frogbit, Hornwort, floating Water Sprite, etc.) should help, too.

As for the snails, is there any reason why you're using pond snails? If you're having trouble with one species, you might want to switch to a different one. I have Ramshorn snails and I'm breeding them in drinking cups and small Gladware containers. Here's how I do it: Take 2 snails and put them in a cup filled with tank water. Feed them every other day and change the water at least twice a week. The egg masses look like off-color gel patches with little dots in them stuck to the sides of the container (can be hard to tell in a dark cup). When you see some of these, you can take the adults out and gently rinse out the mulm. The egg masses can survive exposure to air, but put them back under water as soon as possible. Within a month the eggs should hatch (more like 2 weeks, but I haven't kept accurate records) and you might want to move the babies to a larger container, like a plastic shoebox (anything will do, so long as you can do water changes without pouring out the baby snails). After that, you can treat them like adult snails, just be careful not to squish them.

If you don't want to switch species, try adding some crushed coral or Aragonite sand to the tank. If you don't have some already, add a few rocks, driftwood, or ceramic ornaments for them to crawl on. If you have carbon in your tank, take it out since it might be absorbing minerals the snails need to grow. On the other hand, if you don't have carbon in your tank, try putting some in and see if anything changes within two weeks. It could be that something airborne like air freshener got in the tank. And make sure there's no copper sulfate or other forms of copper in their food.


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## cjp999 (Nov 18, 2008)

bulrush said:


> Freshwater ghost shrimp babies have a larval stage of 2-3 days long. During this stage they cannot swim, they just float around and bump into food, so they must live in thick green water. They only eat food they can bump into, they cannot seek food at this stage. Plus they must eat massive amounts to grow. So if your tank is not full of green water, then the shrimp larva will not survive.


Actually they can swim, but they mostly just hang out upside down waiting for some food to float nearby, then they quickly swim to it when it gets close enough. Pretty neat to watch. After a few days that start to look like regular shrimp, and will hang out on plants or on the walls.

I fed them brine shrimp food. Green water is not needed. Anything you can ground into a powder will probably work.

Your best bet is to get a small tank to put the pregnant female in, and remove her once she gives birth. I'm surprised you haven't seen any berried females yet. Maybe it's because they are store bought, and not very healthy. If you give them some time to acclimate to your tank, they'll probably start producing.


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## SBPyro (Dec 15, 2009)

*Pond snail*

I'd suggest getting some java moss from a pet shop. That is how I ended up with a bunch of them. I thinned out the tank a little yesterday and there were egg clutches everywhere.


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## Erloas (Dec 14, 2009)

If you are having trouble breeding snails and they have plenty to eat then the only option is that something else is eating them. I've heard that ghost shrimp will eat snail eggs (maybe even very small snails), so that might be the problem.

In my 55g I started with just plants and gave them about a month to establish (and for me to get the CO2 stabilized and timed right) before adding anything else. In that time I noticed ramshorn, pond snails, and MTS in the tank. There were always lots of tiny ramshorns everywhere and a fair number of pond snails. A few weeks later I added some ghost shrimp, a few weeks after that I added some ottos, serpae tetras and some amano shrimp. I haven't seen any baby MTSs, and very few ramshorns or pond snails since then. Seeing as how the snails were living off of just the algae/plants (since I had no reason to feed) and thats all still there as well as some food now, they should have the same amount to eat and assumable reproduce at the same rate. So I can only assume the shrimp are eating the eggs or baby snails.

I also have a RCS tank that had a few pond snails appear in it (from moving plants around) and I'm not ever seeing more then a couple, even at night, so I can only assume the shrimp are keeping the population in check. If that is because of competition for food or eating the eggs I couldn't say.


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## rasetsu (Oct 11, 2007)

I have a 29 gallon tank that is stuffed with some plastic plants, water sprite, and wysteria to try to breed RCS. Well, all the RCS died so I put about a dozen ghost shrimp in from Petsmart to see if there was something wrong with the tank. I also added about a dozen white clouds. The ghost shrimp bred like crazy and continue to breed. I have a UV running on it so no green water.


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