# Ghost shrimp in planted tanks?



## mwuf15 (Aug 3, 2010)

well, my guppies love eating them. but when i put in cherry red shrimp, they seem friendly and uninterested in them as food. so i say they are good for food? lol


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## Sharkfood (May 2, 2010)

A guppy can seriously eat a ghost shrimp? Not an adult shrimp I wouldn't think. Then again, I've never kept guppies or ghost shrimp, so maybe I'm wrong.


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## mordalphus (Jun 23, 2010)

Guppies wont eat an adult ghost shrimp, nor an adolescent one... They'll eat baby ones though.

And the benefit they pose is they eat detritus and leftover food chunks, and they also groom plants occasionally. Not to mention they are good lookin shrimp.

And the bad thing about ghost shrimp is that they'll eat anything they can catch as far as fry is concerned... They also will eat pond snails, though not as much as I'd like, lol.

They do great in a planted tank, however plan on buying maybe 2 to 3 times as many as you want to end up with, for some reason they don't do all too well when you first get them home from the store. Also your fish will bother them into hiding most of the time.

But they don't harm anything.

Most people prefer amanos for their planted tanks because they eat so much algae.


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## nemosreef (Oct 19, 2007)

Do ghost shrimp ever eat small fish? Like black neon teras and white cloud mountain monnows? Will they eat algae like bba off of plants?


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## mordalphus (Jun 23, 2010)

Nope, nope and not likely.

They wont eat fish that big, I'm talkin about fry here, like 1-10mm. And they'd rather eat any fish poop or leftover food than touch BBA, but they're constantly foraging for food, and I've seen them chomp on some hair algae before.


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## nemosreef (Oct 19, 2007)

Thanks for the info.


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## Jarek Strzechowski (Feb 7, 2013)

I've been reading that they are classified under "long arm shrimp" and that they can snatch smaller fish and mutilate them. I have a handful in my tank and worried about my smaller bottom skippers (pair of scarlet badis) I pulled out my largest ghostie (2in and berried) and sliced her up and fed her to my koi (hey they're meant as feeders too) but I'm worried about my 2 one inchers. They've walked over my pleco which got irritated but no harm yet. Just wondering if my concern is valid or what? :help:


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## seuadr (Feb 20, 2013)

Jarek Strzechowski said:


> I've been reading that they are classified under "long arm shrimp" and that they can snatch smaller fish and mutilate them. I have a handful in my tank and worried about my smaller bottom skippers (pair of scarlet badis) I pulled out my largest ghostie (2in and berried) and sliced her up and fed her to my koi (hey they're meant as feeders too) but I'm worried about my 2 one inchers. They've walked over my pleco which got irritated but no harm yet. Just wondering if my concern is valid or what? :help:


now, i am only speaking from limited experience here, so YMMV but..

i've had 4 (just recently became 3  ) of them in a planted tank for a little over 3 weeks now. they have been fantastic at cleaning up the tank, (although they definitally do not seem to eat as much algae or dead plant matter as my amanos) they have not even looked sideways at my dwarf puffer which is a little less than half an inch in size. he has inspected them on several occasions with basically no reaction from them.

again, just my limited experience, but given the behavior i have seen from them, i don't see them snapping at any but the tinyiest of fish, as others have mentioned.


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## Peccator (Oct 8, 2012)

I've had ghost shrimp grab fry out of the water and eat them.


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## sharonluvd (Aug 6, 2011)

I've had and still have some in planted tanks. They do graze around and will eat smaller fry. Also, they will steal food from fish if they can get their hands on it before the fish do.

The only time i've noticed ghost shrimp to eat adult sized fish are in confined spaces... and if they are really hungry... i've been lazy and put them in a bag with guppies when i got some from the LFS, and it did grab a good sized one and attack it... never again will i do that.. hahaha.. 

They might seem like a cheaper alternative if you don't want to spend $2 bucks for an amano, but like liam said.. since they are manily kept as feeders at the LFS, they don't do so well in transition from supposedly being a feeder getting eaten before it dies.. to a shrimp you'd rather see swimming around. This is also another reason not to get ghost shrimp if you are using them as tester shrimp for a new tank setup, b/c if it dies does not mean the tank isn't ready for shrimp.. it may have just died in a mature tank as well.

If you like the clear look of the ghost shrimp.. amanos are definitely hardier shrimp and more of a cleaner shrimp, and i've never seen them eat any small adult fish.


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## assasin6547 (Feb 6, 2013)

I use Ghosts as like a cheap test before adding others, they help cycling tanks keep moving so later I remove them and replace with RCS. I have some stuffed with guppies, so far so good no harm done at all.


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