Petsmart Ghost Shrimp?

[esarkipato]

I recently picked up 10 of these, @ $0.30/per it's hard to pass up!

I am trying to track down the scientific name, to learn a little more about them. I found a great article at The Krib, which seems to suggest they are probably Palaeomonetes kadakensis or paludosus shrimp. Anyone have some insight?

Also, has anyone kept the common, "feeder" ghost shrimp with cherry reds? Am I another newb asking for trouble?

Thanks~

[acbaldwin]

Ghost shrimp were my first shrimp. Now they coexist perfectly with my cherry, singapore, and amano shrimp. They are useful for getting the bigger chunks of food/stuff quickly. Mine actually pop up at feeding and swim away with entire pellets in their claws. I have six ghost shrimp now, and two are pregnant.
I was actually just going to suggest the krib article for you, but I see you've got that done already.
I got mine at Petsmart too. At $.30 apiece, they are the perfect guinea pigs to find out if something is shrimp-compatible.

[esarkipato]

Thanks, acbaldwin for the info. Out of curiosity, in what order did you introduce your shrimp? I know that with fish this has a large part to play in the pecking order that gets established.

[acbaldwin]

I had my fish in originally (Livebearers/yoyo loaches), and then I introduced the ghosts. Each time I introduced them (usually in batches of six) they would all turn milky white, lose their balance, stop eating, and die within a few days. I suspect that this happened because of a lack of food. I feed heavily, but the tank was fairly fresh being set up less than three months, so the ghosts didn't have much to graze on all day and night. On the third batch, about three months after the inital try, they survived, and now they are thriving. After about three months of the ghosts being in with just fish, I introduced four amano shrimp, then a month later a large singapore shrimp, and finally 20-30 cherries. The cherries are extrememly vibrant in color and by the looks of the females, worse than guppies when it comes to gettin it on. I ppplan on introducing some bee/diamond shrimp with my next order.

-In hindsight, I think that introducing a larger, more able to defend itself shrimp first was a good thing. Since the ghosts are relatively large, the fish did not attempt to eat them. I believe this helped the fish recognize that shrimp are friends, not food, so when I added the much smaller juvenile cherries, none were eaten.