# Does Anyone Use Feeder Shrimp But Not As Feeders?



## Smells Fishy

Thought this could be a decent way to save some money, but has anyone actually done it here? My LFS's don't do live food so i looked online and aquaticstoyourdoor do them rather cheap at £1.20, i'm presuming a bag?


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## Greenfinger2

Hi I have a long time ago sadly mine did not live more than a couple of months. 

http://www.aquariumcarebasics.com/freshwater-shrimp/ghost-shrimp/


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## Smells Fishy

Had a scroll cheers. The site says there life span is anything up to a year, so maybe thats why yours died in 2 months. Makes sense to buy a few bags and see if they will breed, depends on how many you get in a bag?


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## alto

Had some long ago - assuming similar species - more detritus than algae clean up crew
Mine got quite large, think mature female Amano-sized, after a year or so, I rehomed them back to the shop ... tank in small person's room & one morning, shrimp found holding/feeding on weekly struggling cardinal tetra 

 (I'd wondered at the odd mystery fish losses )


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## Smells Fishy

alto said:


> Had some long ago - assuming similar species - more detritus than algae clean up crew
> Mine got quite large, think mature female Amano-sized, after a year or so, I rehomed them back to the shop ... tank in small person's room & one morning, shrimp found holding/feeding on weekly struggling cardinal tetra
> 
> (I'd wondered at the odd mystery fish losses )


Bloody hell wasn't expecting that! Shrimp do have little pincers so maybe a big enough one could grab a fish and not let go and then reel it in. That's pretty mad, its more like a crayfishes style. The maddest occurence for me was when I used to keep some real nasty cichlids and while I was doing something with my hand in the tank, suddenly Mr parrot fish attacks my hand ouch! It was like an electric shock and he did it a few times on separate occasions so I resorted to chasing him with a net when he did to show him who's boss.


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## dkraft12

I've kept Ghost shrimp twice now in low tech planted tanks, one with fish and one shrimp only.  In both cases the shrimp died after just a month.


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## three-fingers

The feeder shrimp you buy in the UK are a native coldwater marine/brackish species. Being a euryhaline species, they are very robust to changes in water conditions, but will just slowly die in  freshwater tropical aquarium.

In the US, different species are sold as feeder shrimp, sometimes freshwater ghost shrimp, which is why so many US based online resources recommending adding feeder shrimp to betta/planted tanks etc.  Don't bother trying in the UK.


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## Smells Fishy

three-fingers said:


> The feeder shrimp you buy in the UK are a native coldwater marine/brackish species. Being a euryhaline species, they are very robust to changes in water conditions, but will just slowly die in  freshwater tropical aquarium.
> 
> In the US, different species are sold as feeder shrimp, sometimes freshwater ghost shrimp, which is why so many US based online resources recommending adding feeder shrimp to betta/planted tanks etc.  Don't bother trying in the UK.



Hmmm cheers for your input. I'm just trying to be thorough and not rude, so do you mind telling me how you came across this info, how do you know all the feeder shrimp sold in the uk are euryhaline, are you some sort of shrimp expert or do you work in a LFS or something similar? You shouldn't believe everything people tell you that's all. Maybe an email to aquaticstoyourdoor would sort things out because surely they must know their products origin?


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## three-fingers

alto said:


> Had some long ago - assuming similar species - more detritus than algae clean up crew
> Mine got quite large, think mature female Amano-sized, after a year or so, I rehomed them back to the shop ... tank in small person's room & one morning, shrimp found holding/feeding on weekly struggling cardinal tetra
> 
> (I'd wondered at the odd mystery fish losses )


This happened to me years ago as well. I saw what I thought were ghost shrimp labeled as "freshwater shrimp". Turned out to be _Macrobrachium lanchesteri _and ate some of my cherry shrimp.  These guys are sold at Pets@Home all the time, so watch out.

Here is an old picture of one finishing off a cherry shrimp:







Smells Fishy said:


> Hmmm cheers for your input. I'm just trying to be thorough and not rude, so do you mind telling me how you came across this info, how do you know all the feeder shrimp sold in the uk are euryhaline, are you some sort of shrimp expert or do you work in a LFS or something similar? You shouldn't believe everything people tell you that's all. Maybe an email to aquaticstoyourdoor would sort things out because surely they must know their products origin?


Fair enough, I worked it out by researching online, asking live food suppliers directly and through experience. I worked in an LFS for a few years in the past and have also visited many different UK LFS in the past 16/17 years, the feeder shrimp in shops are from the same suppliers as online online stores. I wouldn't call myself a "shrimp expert", just an experienced shrimp hobbyist, but they are one of my particular interests.  I've personally tried keeping feeder shrimp alive in both freshwater and saltwater, they last much longer when stored in saltwater (for feeding large fish after loading) and the few I tried to keep in my freshwater shrimp tank died within 24 hours .

The staff answering customer service enquiries for Aquatics to your Door's website may be knowledgeable about the origin and species about their feeder shrimp, however it's such a niche question I sincerely doubt it. Most likely they will just reply to say they are for feeder use only and will not last long in freshwater, with no further details.  You could ask them who their supplier is, and then ask the supplier directly if you are interested in knowing the exact species. What species they are depends on where they are harvested, and this can change depending on the time of the year and supplier. _Palaemonetes varians _seems to be the main species available, but sometimes marine species are sold instead.

The UK has no native freshwater shrimp, and all live food suppliers provide "river shrimp" caught in the UK (which is why they are only sold cheaply as feeders). Therefor, regardless of exact species, they are cold-water euryhaline shrimp .


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## mort

three-fingers said:


> This happened to me years ago as well. I saw what I thought were ghost shrimp labeled as "freshwater shrimp". Turned out to be _Macrobrachium lanchesteri _and ate some of my cherry shrimp.  These guys are sold at Pets@Home all the time, so watch out.
> 
> Here is an old picture of one finishing off a cherry shrimp:
> View attachment 95103
> 
> 
> Fair enough, I worked it out by researching online, asking live food suppliers directly and through experience. I worked in an LFS for a few years in the past and have also visited many different UK LFS in the past 16/17 years, the feeder shrimp in shops are from the same suppliers as online online stores. I wouldn't call myself a "shrimp expert", just an experienced shrimp hobbyist, but they are one of my particular interests.  I've personally tried keeping feeder shrimp alive in both freshwater and saltwater, they last much longer when stored in saltwater (for feeding large fish after loading) and the few I tried to keep in my freshwater shrimp tank died within 24 hours .
> 
> The staff answering customer service enquiries for Aquatics to your Door's website may be knowledgeable about the origin and species about their feeder shrimp, however it's such a niche question I sincerely doubt it. Most likely they will just reply to say they are for feeder use only and will not last long in freshwater, with no further details.  You could ask them who their supplier is, and then ask the supplier directly if you are interested in knowing the exact species. What species they are depends on where they are harvested, and this can change depending on the time of the year and supplier. _Palaemonetes varians _seems to be the main species available, but sometimes marine species are sold instead.
> 
> The UK has no native freshwater shrimp, and all live food suppliers provide "river shrimp" caught in the UK (which is why they are only sold cheaply as feeders). Therefor, regardless of exact species, they are cold-water euryhaline shrimp .



Completely agree with this. I also worked in the trade and knew the man who went out on his boat in the estuary to catch them (although a lot come through companies on the continent).
I used to raise seahorses and other difficult feeders and used these to get them going before attempting frozen foods. We tried everything to keep them alive and breeding but never had any luck. I'm experienced with live food cultures like rotifers, mysids, copepods etc but couldn't keep these alive for more than a month or two. Some bred but mostly they ate each other. We thought the temperature was the problem but had tanks outside where the water was almost freezing up to warm, with massive airstones that you'd see in koi ponds. It made no difference. Salinity also varied everytime we got them in, sometimes they were in fresh and others full strength seawater but it made no difference for us.


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## dw1305

Hi all, 





Smells Fishy said:


> do you know all the feeder shrimp sold in the uk are euryhaline





three-fingers said:


> The UK has no native freshwater shrimp





mort said:


> I also worked in the trade and knew the man who went out on his boat in the estuary to catch them (although a lot come through companies on the continent).


I think that is probably the answer, we don't have any "freshwater" prawns, and the "River Shrimp" _<"Palaemonetes varians"> _is the likeliest option. 

In the summer you can collect huge numbers of these, and mysid shrimps, with a net from the algal fringe growing on break-water etc in estuaries. I used to collect them from the tidal mill-pond on the river Dart at Stoke Gabriel.

You can see the River Dart in front of you and the mill pond behind the rock wall on the right of the image. 



 

cheers Darrel


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## Greenfinger2

Hi All, We do have a fresh water shrimp  Its not a very impressive shrimp to look at. It hides away a lot as everything in stream and rivers eats it. I used to catch these little shrimp under rocks too feed my bullheads 

http://www.uksafari.com/freshwater_shrimps.htm


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## three-fingers

Not an actual shrimp .

_Gammarus_ spp. are amphipods - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amphipoda

True shrimp are decapods - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decapoda

Granted the term "shrimp" and "prawn" have different/loose definitions depending on where you come from, lots of things have "shrimp" in their common name when they aren't actually a shrimp.  Just like jellyfish aren't fish  .


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## Smells Fishy

three-fingers said:


> Just like jellyfish aren't fish  .



Crayfish springs to mind. Some things are just named stupidly, we could make a game out of this, who's next?


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## Smells Fishy

Kesgrave tropicals on eBay sells ghost shrimp and for the description it says they are a freshwater shrimp. So somebody needs to get there facts right.

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## three-fingers

"Ghost shrimp" are usually the American species _Palaemonetes paludosus. _They look like the related British nativ_e P.varians _but can live in freshwater. 

I'm not sure what you mean by "somebody needs to get there facts right", but I do agree it would be much better if Kesgrave Tropicals included a scientific name, if your thinking that too.

I have seen the above _M.lanchesteri _labelled as both "ghost shrimp" and "freshwater shrimp" in stores, so you need to be careful. I'd send a quick message to Kesgrave Tropicals to ask which species they are.

I may just do the same in the future .


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