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mpugh5@aol.com
03-20-2009, 02:56 PM
does any one know anything about them?local close enough is selling them.
thanks michael

badflash
03-20-2009, 06:40 PM
I raised them for years, but they hardly put out enough to help plants. Easy to breed if you keep water quality high.

Best place to get them is on Aquabid.com in the invert section.

mpugh5@aol.com
03-20-2009, 07:56 PM
badflash how do they size up as a feed for the fish?

badflash
03-20-2009, 09:25 PM
Not good. Ghost/Glass/Grass shrimp are much better. You can get them for 10 cents each by the hundred, versus 50 cents each for cherries and they mass 20X more per shrimp. Cherries are decorative, not feeders.

jackalope
03-21-2009, 04:34 PM
Jack, how easy would they be for breeding?

badflash
03-22-2009, 08:26 AM
They are easy to breed, but need a species only tank. You must keep very clean water and use sponge filters. Weekly 50% water changes are essential. They need neutral to slightly basic water, pH 7-about 7.5. Bare bottom tanks are best. Java moss and Java Fern are the best plants to keep with them.

Males are much lighter in color than the females. Both can change the color intensity from day to day.

Females with eggs look like this:
http://i25.photobucket.com/albums/c70/badflash/cherry/pregocherry.jpg

This is a juvenile female having just molted. That yellow oval on her back near her head is her ovaries. You'll see a bright yellow saddle there when they get ready to breed.
http://i25.photobucket.com/albums/c70/badflash/cherry/cherrycloseup.jpg

They should be grown for enjoyment only. Any other purpose will disappoint you. They eat algae, but not well enough to keep your tank clean. They do not produce enough babies to make feed for much of anything, and they take a fair amount of care to keep them happy. You can expect about 30 babies every other month from an adult female and the babies take about 3 moths to get to sexual maturity.

They are very cool to watch though.

Once they hatch the babies are released to be on their own. Parents won't try to eat them, but just about anything else will.
http://i25.photobucket.com/albums/c70/badflash/cherry/babyshrimp2.jpg

catfish
07-21-2010, 11:38 AM
Not good. Ghost/Glass/Grass shrimp are much better. You can get them for 10 cents each by the hundred, versus 50 cents each for cherries and they mass 20X more per shrimp. Cherries are decorative, not feeders.


Do you have a source where I can get some Ghost Shrimp?

badflash
07-21-2010, 01:08 PM
Ebay and aquabid has them cheap. Shipping ends up more than the shrimp.

catfish
07-21-2010, 01:24 PM
So $.10 does not inculde shipping?


What is usally the total cost then?

I am just trying to compare to what we have here as I do not want to give handouts to the large corps here that sale them.

thanks

badflash
07-21-2010, 07:37 PM
You have to figure shipping cost for your self. Your skill in packing and methods makes all the difference. You need to figure this part out for yourself. This is art, not science.