Feeder Shrimp / Breeding question

[MayoKetchup]

hey all,

How feasible/troublesome is this process of keeping/breeding white shrimp for fish feeding for a sump/refugium/main tank?

and since, i'm sure it's been done before... suggestions on how to achieve this? pitfalls? reality?

basically, i want to supplement some of the feeding to be live shrimp, rather than freezedried/frozen...

as to breeding, i'm hoping for the main tank...if not, perhaps my refugium/sump?

thanks.
MK

 

[Malster1]

Thank a great question. I wish I knew the answer, but I'll be checking back to see what you find out.

 

[Mr. Ugly]

Ran across some articles on breeding freshwater ghost shrimp.

Marine shrimp are more difficult.

Cheri from Seabay orders live marine feeder shrimp. She kept them in a big tub in her garage. She's also dumped a bunch into her tank for her frogfish to eat whenever he felt like. She wasn't breeding those shrimp though.

 

[Malster1]

Can you provide a link to any of those arcticles?

 

[Nuuze]

What about these?

http://www.liveaquaria.com/product/prod_Display.cfm?pCatId=2191

 

[Mr. Ugly]

I Googled several, but there was a particularly detailed one that I couldn't re-find. Will look some more today.

 

[Thales]

Re: Feeder Shrimp / Breeding question

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=8998950#post8998950 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by MayoKetchup
hey all,

How feasible/troublesome is this process of keeping/breeding white shrimp for fish feeding for a sump/refugium/main tank?

and since, i'm sure it's been done before... suggestions on how to achieve this? pitfalls? reality?

basically, i want to supplement some of the feeding to be live shrimp, rather than freezedried/frozen...

as to breeding, i'm hoping for the main tank...if not, perhaps my refugium/sump?

thanks.
MK

White shrimp (P. vannamei) get huge and like to eat, so I wouldn't put them in a tank unless they were going to get eaten. P. vannamei are used for sushi, which is why they are being bred in the first place and are USDA approved.

Breeding white shrimp, or mysis for that matter, is a pain in the booty. P. vannamei are raised in huge raceways. They are both extremely cannibalistic so you need lots and lots of space. Letting mysis do their thing in a fuge is one thing - but breeding them well takes like 10 10 gallon tanks.

If you want to supplement feeding, I would go with LFS bought freshwater ghost shrimp - much more affordable (some say that feeding freshwater animals to saltwater animals is not a good idea because of amino acid differences, but this mostly applies to fish, not crustaceans (there is an article some where in advanced aquarist about it) and I have successfully raised cuttlefish on ghost shrimp.

 

[Thales]

You prolly wont find a detailed way to breed them because its a money maker.

 

[Mr. Ugly]

Here's one of the articles I was looking for:

http://www.petfish.net/articles/Invertebrates/raising_ghost_shrimp.php

Pretty easy. I kept ghost shrimp for my angler in a 10g with a bunch of algae out of a pond. No heater or aeration. Just left the whole thing on the kitchen table next to a window.

I had babies hatch a couple times. If I put more effort and separated the adults, I could have raised the babies.

 

[Mr. Ugly]

If you use algae or water plants for the babies to hide in, you can scoop the adults out after the babies hatch.

Also, I've kept the egg bearing females in a floating breeder container in the 10g and let babies swim out to the main tank.

 

[Thales]

Norm, are you talking about FW ghost shrimp or P vannamei?

 

[Mr. Ugly]

Haha... the FW ones!