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Freshwater shrimps as pets?

viperon1982

By viperon1982
in Non-Fishing Chat

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Cowfish13 Newbie

Cowfish13

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I've got them now:) I've also got a Yabby and a couple of fish.

Firstly, you'll need some water conditioning stuff from a pet store to take bad stuff away from the tap water (like chlorine). Then you'll need a bubbler/filter to keep the water airated and clean. Then for food, feed them some small worms occasionally (once every 2 days or so). Only need to be very small worms. Half each. And other times you can feed them normal goldfish food flakes.

Hope this helps:)

PS: Take the bread out. They won't eat it and it'll make the water dirty.

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username_taken Newbie

username_taken

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I've successfully bred redclaw crayfish ... we had a male and two females, and he kept the girls pregnant 24x7. We'd grow the crayfish out to a few inches and then feed them to the pet turtles ... was awesome to see the turtles hunting the crayfish and then smashing them big time.

Also used to feed the to the barramundi and saratoga ( 65cm ) when we had them, but the barra's died and the saratoga went to a friend with a bigger tank ( 6-foot wasn't big enough any more ).

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namyau Newbie

namyau

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ive kept fresh water shrimp before - chucked them into my fish tank for 2 jack dempseys most of them were eaten but 2 or 3 of them hid behind the filter and grew to about 5-6cm long.. need good water filtration and plenty of air and keep them away from large fish

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CrayfishMates Newbie

CrayfishMates

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viperon1982 wrote:

Went castnetting last nite and had 2 freshwater shrimps amongst my haul. Decided to keep them as pets! Put em in a container filled with tap water and chuck some bread in it. And they're still alive today!

Anyone kept them as pets? Will they survive long? Any tips would be cool.

About three days is my guess.

A little more tricky than that mate. The Brisbane water is treated with chloramine, which is a combination of chlorine and ammonia, but we wont go too much into that. If you do use a water conditioner it will need to be able to deal with both ammonia and chlorine. Some will say they deal with chloramine, which is true but it takes the chlorine out of the mix and leaves you with about 5ppm ammonia, which will kill any aquatic.

You can simply pop an aerator in the water for 2 days and it will gas off the chloramine somewhat. Or you can first treat the water with Sodium Thiosulphate (used in photography) and then aerate it.

Anyways, enough of the mumbo jumbo....

Grab a bottle of water conditioner, about 7 bucks from the aquarium shop and while your there grab a 13 buck aerator with a bit of 4mm hose and a small air stone. Something like what you would use for a live tank. You will want some Algae Wafers to feed them. All up wont cost more than 30 odd bucks. Oh and pick up some Sodium Bicarbonate from the cooking isle at the shopping center about a buck fifty.

Treat some tap water in some plastic storage container, whack the aerator in and let it run for a day or two. Dump in and stir up about 1 teaspoon per 5 liters water of the bicarbonate and let that run until your next catch.

Shrimp are fickled little buggers so watch the light levels. Don't go shinin the 50,000,000 candlelight torch in there lol. Feed only a pinch every two days or so, depending on how many you have in the container and how hungry they are. They also may want some form of habitat to make them feel all warm and fuzzy. Wash an onion or orange mesh bag out, let it dry in the sun (if we get some) and weight it into the container.

Watch the container is not somewhere where it gets hot during the day. Keep the temps low as 18c if you can (float a frozen bottle of water in it daily or something to that effect. Or just keep them somewhere cool.

If you want to get a little more technical on it, let me know but that will cover the basics for now. Water, Habitat and Feed. Have fun.

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Feral Newbie

Feral

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Ta for the extra info - I suspect my last lot carking may have been at least partially heat related, the tank is in my shed and the shed can get fairly warm, even though it has a 6m x12m roof at 2.7m high. Might give that frozen bottle a go, or move the tank into the carport section before getting the next lot of shrimp.

I've tried those algae wafers, the shrimp dont seem to be interested in them, but they come out frantic to get at standard tropical fish flakes tucker!

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CrayfishMates Newbie

CrayfishMates

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The bicarb is what the fish shop will call "pH UP" that is all it is. We buy 20kg bags of it for 7 bucks and yet the fish shops will charge 7 bucks for 100grams lol. The reason this is needed is because without some form of calcium carbonate substrate like crushed coral or oyster shells the ph in the containers will go acidic in a few days of stock and feeding, you will need the pH at about 8.2. That is from the lovely nitrite or nitric acid in water. Basically this will stop them breathing. They do like lots of oxygen so when the heat goes up the oxygen goes down.

Pretty easy and inexpensive to set up a tank basically suitable for keeping them long term, even to breeding.

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Feral Newbie

Feral

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CrayfishMates wrote:

some form of calcium carbonate substrate like crushed coral or oyster shells

I cover this in two ways - firstly the "gravel" in the bottom of the tanks I use 7mm crushed basalt which is a basic rock, and I mix in a couple of good handfuls of chook shell grit in to it. (after a good wash to remove any contaminants)

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Do$tylz Newbie

Do$tylz

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y'know this is exactly how I got into having a marine fish tank. I caught a bunch of prawns that I didn't use fishing. So ended up buying a 4 foot fish tank to house them. Kept up to 30 salt water prawns and 15 hook sized mullet at a time. They would all eat anything.

But if you want to keep salt water prawns, some cured live rock, water movement, cool water and a protein skimmer will keep them for a while.

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Cowfish13 Newbie

Cowfish13

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I got em as pets. There really cool to watch. And the Yabby terrorises them:lol:.

I've got 10 Shrimp, 1 Yabby and 2 fish. I had 4, but the Yabby or Shrimp ate two of them:pinch:

viperon1982 wrote:

Any ideas how to ID males or females?

I don't really know for sure, but maybe the arm/claw sizes are different. I've got some with tiny arms/claws and others with really long ones. It might be just because they have been broken off in the past tho:dry:

But, if you are asking that because you want to breed them, you'll need a way bigger tank to do that.

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RX007 Newbie

RX007

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check out age of aquariums at browns plains for any aquarium products needed(food, equipment). i get a lot of my gear for my tanks there and the guy is really helpful. also for a water conditioner try to get your hands on a bottle of "geo liquid" or "easy life filter medium". either product is very good and they are an all in one water conditioner. it will remove heavy metals, pesticides and chloramine. it prevents stress , lowers mortality rates, promotes breeding , removes smells and heaps of other good stuff, but best of all the water is crystal clear after use. try to keep a constant temperature as well as big changes will knock them round a lot.

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Feral Newbie

Feral

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I use tank water - dont need any conditioners, although I'll use a flocculate if I am putting a tank together for the first time, just to get rid of the cloudiness out of the water (usually in there because I am to lazy to fully wash all the dust of the gravel before I put it in!)

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