Ghost Shrimp Stats
Minimum Tank Size: 5 Gallons
Care Level: Easy
Water Conditions: 6.5-7.5 (Soft to Hard)
Temperature: 18-28 °C (65-82 °F)
Maximum Size: 1.5 inches (4 centimetres)
The name ghost shrimp applies to dozens of different shrimp that all share a common trait – a completely translucent body. The name ghost shrimp originates from their nearly transparent bodies and these shrimp can be incredibly difficult to locate in a well planted aquarium.
The conditions that ghost shrimp originate in differ wildly depending on the species. In fact, some of the ghost shrimp sold in stores actually require brackish water, and will quickly die if kept in a freshwater aquarium. But for the most part, ghost shrimp in stores are a fresh water species, that will thrive in both tropical and cold water aquariums.
In fact, they are a valuable addition to any tank containing small fish, and help to keep the tank clean by eating any missed food and constantly picking through the detritus at the bottom of the tank. They live on average for one and a half years and will grow up to 1 ½ inches if they are properly cared for and well fed.
Housing
Ghost shrimp are incredibly easy to house and will thrive in just about any tank provided for them. They are of the few fish or invertebrates that will not only survive, but will reproduce in a small fish bowl (one gallon is the minimum size). Of course they will do better in larger tanks, and some will even establish self-sustaining populations in heavily planted aquariums.
Because most stay under an inch, and produce almost no bio-load (waste), any filter should be chosen for their tank-mates and generally not for the ghost shrimp. If you are choosing a filter for ghost shrimp, it’s important to remember that their babies are free swimming larvae and will be sucked up to rather unpleasant deaths by most filters. Hang-on-back filters and canister filters should be avoided, and the only really safe filter for a ghost shrimp tank is a sponge filter.
But if they are kept in a larger tank with any significant number of fish, then it is still best to use a hang-on back filter or a canister filter. In any tank larger than 10 gallons, the majority of the ghost shrimp larvae will be able to avoid the filter intake of death.
Feeding
The feeding of ghost shrimp is incredibly easy, and most of their food will be scavenged out of the nooks and crannies of your aquarium. With that being said, they will still appreciate supplements to their diet, and they should regularly be fed a high quality flake food. If any fish are kept in the same tank with ghost shrimp, then sinking pellets should be used to ensure that the shrimp are able to get some of the food before the fish devour it all. I have used Hikari Sinking Wafers
As a treat, they can also occasionally be fed small amounts of frozen food. Their favorites are bloodworms and blackworms, though only a fully grown shrimp is capable of eating a bloodworm. Most other frozen food offered will generally be eaten by any fish in the tank, as it doesn’t sink to the bottom quickly enough for the ghost shrimp to grab.
Breeding
The breeding of ghost shrimp is relatively easy, and the only requirement is having a sufficient number of male and female shrimp. The difficulty arises in keeping the free swimming larvae alive, since their mouths are too small for normal fish food and most starve to death – at least the ones that are picked off by hungry fish.
If you want a large number of baby shrimp to survive, any pregnant female should be removed from the tank as soon as any eggs are visible. Because of their semi-transparent body, it’s easy to see which females are pregnant and carrying eggs. The female will have numerous tiny green eggs in her abdomen, which will hatch into free swimming larvae after carrying them for a few weeks.
Once you have placed a pregnant female ghost shrimp in the breeding tank, you then have to tackle the problem of larval survival. Unfortunately, as previously mentioned, the fry are notoriously difficult to feed and most quickly starve to death. But there has been some reported success by people using commercially available fry food or baby brine shrimp.
I have personally never tried either of those options, but I have had significant success by placing large mops of Java moss in the breeding tank for ghost shrimp. It seems to harbor large amount of infusoria in the tendrils of moss that larvae to feast on, and I have had an excellent survival rate for ghost shrimp in any tank with Java moss.
Would a pleco eat a ghost shrimp?? I recently added a few to my 36 gallon tank. It is a planted tank. There have been no problems yet except the occasional hide and seek champion deciding to hide from me…. Lol. Ghost shrimp are hard to find in such a big tank!
Hey Madison,
I actually had a pleco that developed a taste for ghost shrimp. That’s assuming that it’s a common pleco. Common plecos mainly eat plant matter when they’re young, but they start to eat a much meater diet as they get older. Of course there is always the chance that my pleco was just taking an opportunity to eat a dead shrimp, but I did see mine eating some a few times.
Hi
I’ve tried to keep two batches of ghost shrimp now and after 2 weeks most if not all are dead, I’ve done all the testing and my results are all good, I didn’t think tetras would eat them as I’ve been told, I really want some in my tank but have no idea what to do??? Please help
Cheers dom
It’s pretty normal to lose a few ghost shrimp after purchasing them. But you definitely shouldn’t be losing all of them that quickly. The problem with ghost shrimp, is that there are dozens of species, all clumped under one name. Some of the ones sold are actually native to brackish water, and won’t do well in a freshwater aquarium.
Assuming that you have a freshwater species though, what is the pH and hardness of your water? Are there any plants or hiding places for them? Are of them already darkening in colour when you purchase them? Any whose bodies are beginning to turn a milky colour, will die soon after.
As long as they are healthy, and you don’t have overly acidic water, they are pretty easy to care for. That’s why I suspect there may be something wrong at the source.
Thanks for the reply Rob,
My water ph is 7.2 and I’m not sure about my water hardness I still need to buy the kit to test it, my tank is fully planted with large rocks and loads of hiding places, so I’m not sure what’s going wrong
Cheers again
Sorry about the delay in getting back to you. Aside from the unknown water hardness, it sounds like you have the perfect conditions for them. I think in this case I’d blame the supplier. And like I said, they are somewhat fragile so it’s normal to lose a few even from a reputable supplier. So if they’re already sick when you pick them up, you could end up losing all of them.
I checked my water the other day the kh is 5 and the gh is 107, so from what I can read on the Internet everything should be all good for them, fingers crossed on the next batch I get. Thanks for the help and advice,
Dom
Good luck. It can be frustrating with these little guys sometimes, but they’re worth it.
I need help I have a ghost shrimp that is pregnant what do I do because I want the larvae to live so if someone could help me that would be great thanks
It’s difficult to keep the larvae alive, unless you have a mature, heavily planted tank. I’ve had the most luck with giving them plenty of Java moss to live in. I find that produces the most infusoria for them to eat when they’re larvae. You can also try culturing infusoria on your own, but I haven’t had much success adding that to the water. The truth of the matter is very few eggs will ever mature with ghost shrimp, and they’re difficult to breed in any significant numbers.
Why I’d it that they are so hard to keep alive? Surely at 39c a piece they must be easy to breed on a bulk scale.
Many ghost shrimp in the hobby are wild caught, and they breed in massive numbers in the wild. But the main problem with keeping larvae alive in the aquarium is the lack of food. There simply isn’t enough microscopic life for them eat – life which occurs in much greater densities in the wild. Also, they face the danger of predation from any fish in the aquarium, and many can also die by being sucked up into filters..
Great info! I only have two, but they seem to happily thrive in my 55gal tank with 3 adult white cloud mtn minnows, 24 baby ones, a dozen harlequin rasboras (young and adult mix), 4 black neon tetras, 8 cherry barbs, 6 cardinal tetras, 4 zebrafish, 6 leopard danios and 3 assassin snails (I know, it’s overstocked for the traditionalist, but that’s the way we do it out here on the farm…very tight community). Anyway, they’re pretty mellow during the day, hanging out around the plants, ornaments and other hiding places, eating and cleaning themselves when some of the fish are down there cruising around, but pounce about the tank during the night when the lights are off and the fish rest in the upper portions of the aquarium. I think I’ll add a few more since they’re so beneficial. They are really cool to watch – when I can find them! I keep the temperature ~23°, pH 7.0-7.2, nitrate<5.0ppm, and sadly, I've never measured my hardness. I use well water, condition it with sea salt and my tank is well established (~2yrs). 1/3 water ∆ every 2wks. I've never seem any of these very peaceful fish harass the ghost shrimp, not even my semi-neurotic leopard danios who spend a good part of every waking day chasing each other through out the tank. I did lose one cherry barb 19 mos ago after he jumped through a small opening in the lid while I was out (loved racing up and down the currents in the back of the aquarium), and my largest harlequin rasbora 4 mos ago from some rarity (his mouth became stuck wide open, he jumped all around as though looking for air, and by the time I quarantined him in the 10gal (same specs) to see if something was lodged in his mouth-about one min-he died on me. But the rest have flourished together and seem to really enjoy the company and atmosphere of their aquatic environment here, paying little, if any, attention to the glass shrimp who were added 2mos ago.
Marty
That tank must be a sight to behold. It’s definitely an interesting mix, but it sounds like you’ve picked some good species to go along with each other.
And it’s funny, I have all kinds of exotic fish, but ghost shrimp still remain one of my favorites. They’re criminally underrated in the hobby, and they’re so interesting to watch as they go about their daily routine. In fact, for quite a while I had a tank dedicated to just ghost shrimp, but after a while I couldn’t resist the lure of adding fish to it.
Good luck going forward with your tank.
Oh that’s cool! And thanks! Sometimes, I just lounge in my favorite relaxation chair, conveniently positioned about one meter in front of the aquarium, and watch them swim around and interact with each other for hours at a time. It’s a whole nother world in there! Your site is excellent, btw.
I’m getting some ghost shrimp and snails to add to my tank, and I already have a betta fish in it. My tank is a 10 gallon. Will my betta eat or harm the shrimp?
Betta’s will occasionally eat both shrimp and snails, though in my experience, preying on ghost shrimp is very rare. More likely, they’ll just harass the shrimp without doing any damage. As long as you keep the betta well fed, you shouldn’t lose any shrimp.
I’ve noticed that ghost shrimp eat their dead. Well, I had few cherry shrimp in with my ghost shrimp. One of the cherry shrimp died and about six ghost shrimp ate him. All the ghost shrimp that ate the cherry shrimp died shortly after. Is this because the cannibalism within their species causes some kind of disease?
I know this is a couple years later but for anyone scrolling down here: if your cherry shrimp that died had a disease, and then the ghost shrimp ate it, it could have passed on the disease. You should always take dead bodies out of the tank even if you think they’re healthy.
I’m planning to get some ghost shrimp, but how many should I get to ensure that at least 1 or 2 survive, and if I have a female and male, how many times will the female lay eggs, and how do I stop the larvae from hatching and overpopulating my tank? I have 5 neon tetras, some guppies, cory catfish, oto fish…with some live plants and a bunch of hiding places. What should I do?
I used to get them in batches of around a half dozen, and about 4 would usually survive in the tank.
As for overpopulation, there is virtually no chance of that happening, since tanks usually don’t have enough food for the larvae to eat. Most of them will be consumed by the fish, and only a few with find the microscopic food they need to grow into adults.
Hi
I was wondering what type of fish are compatible with a few ghost shrimp, in a 10 gallon tank.. I’ve done a bit of research myself and found that Zebra Danios are pretty good with them, is there any others that will suffice in a 10 gallon tank with the ghost shrimp?
Most of the smaller mouthed fish work well with them, and guppies, danios, and many of the small tetras are good choices. Also, it helps to provide dense plants for them to hide in like Java moss, or carpet plants like micro swords. These ensure there is always a safe place for them if the fish become aggressive.
Hi. Thanks so much for this helpful articl.
I have a small 25liter aquarium with ghost shrimp, in addition to my 60g community tank with a common pleco. He is doing very good and I am planning for a larger tank for him. He is now 1year old and about 10inches. When, more or less, do they start eating meat?
Okay my actual question is. In the shrimp tank…
We went on holiday and the neighbors fed the fish, but while we were away they had a lot of babies. I now have all sizes shrimp as quite a few shrimp were full of eggs. I think when they saw the babies the fed them more, thus overfeeding. I now have tiny white worms swimming arround. I see one or two every now and again. They are about 5mm long and as thin as ‘n hair.
What are they? I read that some worrms like that can get in as a result of overfeeding. I thought i would vacuum the gravel a bit and do a few small waterchanges over the next week or so. But im scared that i wil vacuum baby shrimp in.. please give me some advice.. thank you for always having helpfull information for us.
I find they start to prefer a meatier diet at around six inches, but you don’t need to change too much of what you feed them. Even most of the herbivore foods contain a fair bit of fish and shellfish in them, so you can most likely stick with whatever you’re feeding your fish.
As for the worms, those are planaria, or roundworms. They are harmless, but they do indicate there is a lot of decaying waste in the tank. You could change the water, but you need to be very careful not to vacuum up any shrimp. You can do this either through going very slowly and using a small tube, or by siphoning the water off into a bucket, and then examining the bucket to make sure you haven’t sucked up any juvenile shrimp. Unfortunately, there’s no easy way to avoid sucking up the larvae though.
My shrimp is pregnant and I don’t know what to do with her my tank isn’t big enough and.my mum won’t let.me buy a container and also font have access to have moss or other food for the babys because I don’t have my own email for purchases can babys eat left over fish food??
Shrimp hatchlings should do alright with finely ground up food. They will also graze on the aquarium, eating detritus and microscopic life. Why do you say you’re tank isn’t large enough?
Hi can anyone tell me how long a ghost shrimp is supposed to live for? Cuz we have had ours for almost 17 years and he or she has eating everything we put in the tank including hard back snails. We call him the killer shrimp ????