# Whisker Shrimp?



## Zoidburg (Mar 8, 2016)

It's from my understanding that ghost shrimp can breed and grow in freshwater, but that they require "green water" in order to survive. Aquariums are typically "too clean" and this is why ghost shrimp larvae typically don't survive. There's simply not enough food in the water column.

Whisker shrimp on the other hand do require brackish water in order for their larvae to survive.

I'm not entirely sure, but here's a page that someone else found which might be helpful. Doesn't mention much about raising them, only that some still require brackish water in order to survive as young shrimp/larvae.

http://www.nepjol.info/index.php/ON/article/viewFile/332/324


Which makes me wonder if the small shrimp is a ghost shrimp or a whisker shrimp.



The whisker shrimp might go after the snails, too, or might leave them alone because they have hard shells.


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## Drewet88 (Dec 21, 2015)

Zoidburg said:


> It's from my understanding that ghost shrimp can breed and grow in freshwater, but that they require "green water" in order to survive. Aquariums are typically "too clean" and this is why ghost shrimp larvae typically don't survive. There's simply not enough food in the water column.
> 
> Whisker shrimp on the other hand do require brackish water in order for their larvae to survive.
> 
> ...


Well my original post was a lot longer but Microsoft edge browser seems to be against me this morning so I'll quickly rewrite it. 

The aggressive guy in the shrimp seems to be doing fine for now. 
The shrimp left in the DT don't seem aggressive (they are smaller than the other guy).
All the fish survived the night after I took out deathclaw (just named him as I was typing this).

I read on a few different pages that whisker shrimp (macrobrachium sp.) vary widely. Some have a larvae stage, some don't. 

I'm starting to think I have what is called "rusty macro" Petshrimp.com -- All about shrimp they were clear when I bought them but they are starting to look like the pic on the bottom of that link. The red made me think I had red claws for a while but the claws are too small. 

Found the info here:
Petshrimp.com -- All about shrimp 

From what I read some are aggressive and some aren't but once the shrimp gets bigger than a fish they will try to ambush it at night when its sleeping if they get an opportunity. These are the shrimp that give true ghost shrimp a bad name. Now I cannot add any more shrimp since I don't know what these guys are, I could catch them and put them all in the sump but I have no idea how many babies are hiding around my tank. (I can only find 1 but they are amazing hiders). 

Also I only had them 3 weeks, I think that's too short for the larvae stage of shrimp to form into a full shrimp (I can be wrong tends to happen quite often). I also just put the covers back over my overflow yesterday so I would think most larvae would have died in my sump filters if they were larvae?

Ok off to work I'll do more research on my break.

So I got home at about 7 and went straight to the tank in time to see my smaller nerite riding on the bigger one (happens quite often). Then the small one fell off and landed on its back. Before it had a chance to flip itself over one of the shrimp were attacking it (or at least it looked like it was attacking), it pulled off what looked like a chunk of the nerite snail and started eating the stringy thing while it was still attached to the snail. I quickly scooped out the shrimp and put it with the other aggressive shrimp and put the nerite snail right side up hoping it was still alive (it was thankfully). 

Then another shrimp came out of the plants and started eating the white stringy thing attached to the snail, but this one ripped it off of the snail before I could stop it. That shrimp and all the other ones I could see at the time are in the sump now so I should have 1 full grown shrimp left somewhere in my main tank and at least the 1 baby I saw. Here is a pic of the stringy thing that was coming from my snail and a pic of the other shrimp that jumped on it to finish eating the part the other had started. 

I have no idea what the stringy part on the nerite was, but I can say the nerite is currently still alive. Not moving too much and appears to have only one eye stalk now (maybe that's what the stringy part was)? Or maybe it was just some weird nerite poop and I overreacted when I scooped all the shrimp that I could out. 

Any ideas?

1st pic is the nerite after I flipped it back over and removed the 1st attacker. It moved closer to the glass and another shrimp jumped on the white thing it was dragging behind it. It ripped it off before I could get a better pic. 
In the 2nd pic you can kind of see the white thing being ripped off and eaten by the shrimp.


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## RickyRicardo1838 (Sep 2, 2016)

The shrimp you have could also be a small prawn. My lfs always mixes these up with their ghost shrimp. The prawn I had killed a few fish in my tank before i found out what it really was.


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## chappy6107 (Aug 2, 2016)

I agree, one of my lfs mixes them up as well. Prawns are notorious for catching/eating fish.


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## Drewet88 (Dec 21, 2015)

Must be a prawn, if this was Reddit I would give you all gold. 

I only have 1 left in my DT and I cannot catch it yet. It caught another neon tetra last night so I'm down to 3. I have to get more for them to feel safe but I'll focus on catching the other prawn later. I'll try leaving a small piece of a sinking pellet in the net after lights out to see if that gets him to come out of hiding. If that doesn't work I'll have to take out some plants since it keeps hiding out in my swords. 
I'm putting them in my sump so they'll have some sponges to eat off of. The only other option is my turtle tank which instantly turns them into turtle food. 

Lucky they either cannot catch the rasboras the the rasboras are to big. I like the rasboras a lot more, they school almost 100% of the time unlike my tetras and they occasionally follow my guppies around so I get a nice mass of color going around the tank. 

I'll have to go back to RCS or a different small shrimp as an extra helper, maybe Amanos?


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## sfshrimp (May 24, 2016)

I would get amanos.

You should look at the shrimp before you purchase it so you know what you are buying. My LFS commonly mixes lobsters with the shrimp populations, so you might think you are buying a shrimp, but you end up with a lobster. You might also consider a sustainable food chain in your aquarium, so you have one species that is super aggro but can't eat enough of a lower species which has a more rapid breeding rate. It could be a really concept to have your aquarium like a super max prison where everyone is living in a constant state of paranoia of getting shived or getting caught for distilling pruno.


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## Minereaper (Sep 4, 2016)

Those arent prawns , those are ghost / some mixee species of ghost , i have 5 og them in my tank , and they dont even chase fish or snails .


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## Zoidburg (Mar 8, 2016)

You might end up having the same issue with amanos. May also depend on how many amanos are in the tank and how well fed they are.




Smaller shrimp might end up as bait for the fish, especially offspring.


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## sfshrimp (May 24, 2016)

Since you are the expert Zoidio, and the guy has some kind of crazy tank situation going on, let's figure out AA now that I am drunk... What are prawns that eat fish? Are they the same thing as amano shrimp? The amanos are generally a very peaceful species and something most people want in the tank. They make pizzas for fat angry white people most of time. It's not predatory, they are actually very shy and a thing of beauty confused as a "ghost shrimp."


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## Zoidburg (Mar 8, 2016)

> Prawns have claws on three of their five pairs of legs, shrimp have claws on two of their five pairs of legs. Their gills and body shape are different too. As far as cooking them goes, they are virtually identical and interchangeable.


What is the difference between a prawn and a shrimp? - Seasoned Advice


Not an expert at all, but I've seen several people keeping amanos in community tanks, then their fish start disappearing. They find out that the culprit is the amanos, especially when they turn the lights on at night, when the fish disappear. Some amanos have apparently preyed on smaller, living shrimp, too.

There is no doubt that what they have is an amano and not a ghost or a whisker or some other species.


The amanos here are kept with kuhli loaches and cherry shrimp. I don't know if the amanos are going after the cherry shrimp or not, but the kuhlis are just fine. The cherry shrimp have been declining, but have had cherry shrimp loss in a cherry shrimp only tank, too. (water parameters ideal for shrimp) Despite that, they are still reproducing and I can see several baby cherries floating about the tank. I've seen the amanos chase a couple of cherry shrimp, but the chase lasts for maybe 2 or 3 seconds at best, then the amanos ignore the cherries and go on their way.




Amanos aren't always shy, even berried amanos... they'll happily snatch food up after it's been added to the tank and run away with it. Definitely not fans of sharing!


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## Drewet88 (Dec 21, 2015)

Minereaper said:


> Those arent prawns , those are ghost / some mixee species of ghost , i have 5 og them in my tank , and they dont even chase fish or snails .


You either have true ghost shrimp or mine were seriously abused at PetSmart before I brought them home. 



Zoidburg said:


> You might end up having the same issue with amanos. May also depend on how many amanos are in the tank and how well fed they are.
> 
> Smaller shrimp might end up as bait for the fish, especially offspring.


I'm okay with the smaller shrimp becoming bait for the fish but not the other way around. Especially if its a species that breeds readily (I'll probably go back to cherries).



Zoidburg said:


> What is the difference between a prawn and a shrimp? - Seasoned Advice
> 
> 
> Not an expert at all, but I've seen several people keeping amanos in community tanks, then their fish start disappearing. They find out that the culprit is the amanos, especially when they turn the lights on at night, when the fish disappear. Some amanos have apparently preyed on smaller, living shrimp, too.
> ...


Dunno if I have Amanos but I've never seen them in person before. Off of pictures online it loos like Amanos have more color than the ones I have but that doesn't really mean much. 

As of now they are all happily living in the sump. They haven't killed each other, I added some plants for them to climb on and such, and I'll feed some type of sinking wafer every other day or so. If they get my sump too dirty they will be going to the turtle tank. 

Since kicking the shrimp out of the DT I haven't lost any fish but I don't have any little guys walking around getting all the hard to reach places. The only shrimp I can say for sure I haven't had a problem with have been the cherries but I wanted to do something different. Guess that will have to wait until I have the room to start a species only tank.

Wait: Do Amanos birth larvae as well or mini clones of the parents? The picture was horrible but its in the first post but these shrimp popped out mini clones not larvae.


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## Zoidburg (Mar 8, 2016)

Drewet88 said:


> You either have true ghost shrimp or mine were seriously abused at PetSmart before I brought them home.
> 
> 
> 
> ...




I'm pretty sure you have indian whisker shrimp. I *think* Minereaper has a different species of indian river shrimp. (they caught them from the wild)


Whisker shrimp are larger than ghost shrimp and have longer arms/claws, too. Ghost shrimp get to be about 1 or 1 1/2 inches in size, where-as whisker shrimp get to be 1 1/2 to 3 inches in length. This is the best website I know of where it compares the two species, although the whisker shrimp do not have their coloration and the photos are not that clear....

How to care for your new Macrobrachium sp. (probably M. lamarrei lamarrei) with pictures



Here's an older thread on whisker shrimp.

http://www.plantedtank.net/forums/8...rimp-id-please-macrobrachium-lanchesteri.html



In the right setup, amanos breed quite readily. The only issue is that their offspring (of which they can have a few hundred to a few thousand offspring...) require saltwater in order to grow to adults. Most amanos are probably rather peaceful shrimp, but there are the occasional amanos that will go after fish or other shrimp. If you have no interest in breeding them, it might be worth trying some out in your tank and see how well they do?


Amanos definitely hatch out tiny little zoes or larvae! Pictures and videos for reference from older threads!  (I have some myself, but not as good as these!)



wicca27 said:


> for those that have not clicked OP's link here is the pic of the baby shrimp that i belive are zoe's and need brackish/salt water to grow






accordztech said:


> Well its been getting colder, and now the temp sits at 68 degrees. I was going to put a heater in today, but after a huge cleaning on my nano (where my amano is) she decided to give birth! I tried not to stress the tank or anything, but I swear I never saw black dots (even though I THOUGHT I did before).
> 
> Now im wondering if I should put the zoes in the salt water now, or wait till the tank heats up a little bit.
> 
> Im counting maybe 75 zoes right now.





Richardblack said:


> *Amano Shrimp Breeding Second Attempt*
> 
> *This is my new setup:*
> 
> ...




Also, it appears that indian whisker shrimp do hatch out as larvae, just like amanos. They are so tiny that unless there are tons of them, you wont see them. The easiest way to see the larvae is to darken the room and put a flashlight up to the tank (or move the aquarium light to the side of the tank), then look through the water column. If they're floating in the water column, then you might be able to spot them. During the day or with the light on top, they aren't as easy to spot. (unless you've got hundreds of them!)

InvertePonics: Waiter! There's A Fry In My Soup!



Any chance of getting better pictures of their legs?


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