Janitor and/or Live Food
 

I have netted these in both fresh water and salt water. I will seed my outside growout system of three 150G Rubbermade tanks buried in ground, with these prolific shrimp.


https://www.livebrineshrimp.com/ShrimpJanitor.htm

Grass Shrimp / Ghost Shrimp
 

I have been catching grass shrimp for 25 years to go into all of my reef tanks.

I have caught Palaemonets vulgarisms in both fresh and salt water. They are excellent carnivores and will clean up food before it becomes detritus.

Got pictures?

I don’t, but I just saw a utube vidio of a Chesapeake Bay biotheme with blemmies and Ghost Shrimp. Let me find it and link it.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?t=178s&v=BWzTtVySdFs

I read somewhere that they live about 6 months or so (life span) so restocking is the key. A few of mine get attacked, killed and eaten, but most survive. I figure that most are adults when I capture them, so their life span in my tank is probably a bit shorter. Anyway, here's a pic, not sure of the exact species:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v1...psttkw5zmz.jpg

I'll have another video later today.

Interesting I've seen that page before, wonder how readily they breed in the tank? I'd be tempted to try some, but I think they'll just end up as easy snacks for my melanurus. Thing is an eating machine. Had a new acro added a couple weeks ago that had an acro crab on it. I was very excited. Saw it wandering around the base of the acro, it is now no more. Darn fish is good at what it does.

Mine bred continuously for three years or so. The key was critical mass. I needed to stock close to 300 and then they were constantly carrying egg pouches. The nauplii were very plentiful in the tank and they were a substantial benefit to my coral growth. It's a shrimp nauplii reactor.

However, the babies don't survive into adulthood as far as I could see. They would need a green chamber to get to a higher stage of development. Still figuring that part out.

If they get to that size in 6 months, they have to eat a lot. Nothing like a fat janitor.

Have you had any problems with bopyrid isopods? They are said to be a common parasite of grass shrimps.

I have never noticed.

I've seen some on a few of my shrimp, but the shrimp don't seem stressed by them that I can tell. Out of about 40 shrimp in my tank, there might be three with the isopods attached to them. The parasites have no affect on the tank or fish.

Kevin,
When I looked at your video “Up Close & Personal with Blemmies” I saw Ghost Shrimp swimming in front of Blemmies. Are they too big for Blemmies to go after? I tried to post your link, but I could not find it.

PS. I FOUND IT.



https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=w2DTcrYwppE