rm
Passport
- Family
- Shrimp and Yabbies
- Grows to
- 5 cm (2")
- Lives
- 1–2 years
- Temperament
- Peaceful
- Care
- Beginner
- Swims
- On the bottom
- Keep
- In a group of 3 or more
- Water
- 20–27 °C (68–81 °F)
United States
Care requirements
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On record for Ghost Shrimp: adult size, lifespan, minimum tank, temperature, ph, hardness, carbonate hardness, minimum group, diet, care level, swim level.
Not on record for Ghost Shrimp: tank length.
A figure that is not on record is left out rather than guessed. One marked Suggested comes from keeping knowledge rather than a page.
- Minimum tank 38 L / 10.0 US gal
- pH 6.5–8
- Hardness 3–15 dGH
- Carbonate hardness 3–12 dKH
- Diet algae eater/omnivore
Care notes written from general aquarium knowledge, not from the cited sources.
About
Ghost shrimp are sold as one animal and are really several. The name gets attached to whatever transparent shrimp a wholesaler has, mostly North American glass shrimp, and regularly to whisker shrimp, which are predatory and look almost the same. You often don't know what you've bought.
The genuine article is a small, near-invisible scavenger with a faint speckle of colour along the body and a visible gut running through it — you can watch a ghost shrimp digest, which is oddly compelling.
They're usually sold as feeders, which means cheap, kept badly and shipped in poor condition. Expect losses in the first week that have nothing to do with your tank.
Tank setup
Give your ghost shrimp cover and a mature tank. They're timid, they moult often, and a soft newly moulted shrimp in an open tank is something's lunch.
Plant densely and add leaf litter or moss. Biofilm is what they actually live on, and a spotless new tank starves them however much you feed.
They're undemanding about chemistry and handle a wide range of temperature and hardness, which is genuinely useful — this is a shrimp that suits an ordinary community tank straight out of the tap.
Check the arms of what you bought. Long front arms with visible claws mean you have a whisker shrimp, and it will eat your small fish.
Feeding
Ghost shrimp scavenge constantly and eat almost anything: leftover food, detritus, algae, biofilm, dead plant matter, and any dead animal they find.
Feed them properly if the tank is clean. Sinking pellets, blanched vegetables and the occasional protein wafer keep them in condition, and a well-fed shrimp bothers its tank mates less.
They're quick and bold at feeding time for their size, and they'll drag food away to eat it somewhere safe.
Avoid: copper in anything. As feeders they're often treated as disposable, but the same medications that kill an ornamental shrimp kill these.
Filtration and flow
Gentle flow and a guarded intake. They're small enough to be pulled into an unprotected pipe at any size, and a sponge filter is the simplest answer.
Ordinary filtration otherwise. They tolerate more variation than the ornamental species and are a reasonable choice for a tank that isn't perfectly stable.
Keep up with water changes and match the temperature. Sudden changes cause failed moults here as in any shrimp.
With plants
Ghost shrimp are safe with plants and clean detritus out of them without doing damage.
They'll pick at dying leaves, which looks like grazing and isn't. A shrimp stripping a melting leaf is eating something already lost.
Moss is worth adding. It holds the biofilm they graze and gives young shrimp somewhere to survive.
Health
Most deaths happen in the first days and trace back to how the shrimp were kept before you bought them. Acclimatise slowly and expect some attrition on a feeder-tank batch.
Failed moults are the ongoing risk and hardness is the usual cause. They need minerals in the water to rebuild a shell.
They go cloudy white in the muscle when they're seriously ill or dying, which is different from the normal translucence. There's little to do at that point beyond removing the animal.
Breeding
Ghost shrimp breed in fresh water and will do it in a home tank, which sets them apart from amanos. Females carry green-tinged eggs under the tail.
The larvae are free-swimming and tiny, and they need infusoria or a powdered food before they can take anything else. In a tank with fish, almost none survive.
Raise them separately if you want numbers. A small fishless tank with moss and green water will get a reasonable proportion through, which is more than can be said for most of the shrimp sold beside them.
Tank mates
Avoid14
- Convict Cichlid Convict Cichlid reaches 15 cm and will eat adult Ghost Shrimp.
- Jewel Cichlid Jewel Cichlid reaches 15 cm and will eat adult Ghost Shrimp.
- Kribensis Kribensis reaches 8 cm and will eat adult Ghost Shrimp.
- Oscar Oscar reaches 35 cm and will eat adult Ghost Shrimp.
- Panda Garra Panda Garra reaches 9 cm and will eat adult Ghost Shrimp.
Only with care33
- Chinese Algae Eater Chinese Algae Eater is aggressive and Ghost Shrimp is peaceful.
- Least Killifish Least Killifish is small enough to leave adult Ghost Shrimp alone, but will still take shrimplets.
- Scarlet Badis Scarlet Badis is small enough to leave adult Ghost Shrimp alone, but will still take shrimplets.
- Agassiz's Dwarf Cichlid Agassiz's Dwarf Cichlid is a risk to Ghost Shrimp: shrimp and yabbies and sth american cichlids - dwarf are a pairing to watch.
- Angelfish Angelfish is a risk to Ghost Shrimp: angelfish and shrimp and yabbies are a pairing to watch.
No conflict is recorded with the other 61 species in the database, so nothing to flag.