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So what is the biggest ghost shrimp anyone has seen? I brought one home from work tonight that is at least 2.5 to 3 inches long. I have never seen one any where near this size. This shrimp is just about as big around as my pinky. I will have to see if I can steal a cammera sometime soon.

Last edited by Wingsdlc at 12-Nov-2005 19:27

55G Planted tank thread
19G Container Pond
[IMG]http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y118/Wingsdlc/Ric

That is probably not a ghost shrimp, but perhaps a macrobrachium species of some sort. You should post a picture if you can.

Hoping that there must be a word for everything I mean...

thats too big for a ghost shrimp.

Here are some pictures. They aren't really great but maybe someone can tell what it is if it is not a huge ghost shrimp.

The pictures are not super great and the shrimp was in the prosses of molting when I was trying to get some pictures....

The Pics

55G Planted tank thread
19G Container Pond
[IMG]http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y118/Wingsdlc/Ric

That's a big ghost shrimp! I had one that got that big then he died. I had put it in the 2 gal with the betta to eat the algae and it tried to eat the betta. Although Buddy must not be the smartest fish in the lake because he kept going down within range of the shrimp. That's why Buddy wound up in candle vase and the shrimp had the 2 gal all to itself. I still don't know what killed it. After it died I broke down the 2 gal and gave it away.

"If you're afraid you'll make a mistake, you won't make anything."
-Family Circus

I don't think it looks like a ghost shrimp. A better pic of it's claws might help but the dark lines on it's back and it's shape doesn't look like my ghost shrimp.

I know what you mean. The little guy(or big guy) actualy just kicked the bucket today so I flushed him. Maybe I should have saved him and took some pictures........

55G Planted tank thread
19G Container Pond
[IMG]http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y118/Wingsdlc/Ric

Aww... I'm so sorry it died. In the last few pics, it looked like it was molting, and this is a very sensitive time for shrimp, when many deaths occur. I can say that it definitely was not a ghost shrimp, and not an amano shrimp. There have been some larger species of freshwater shrimp appearing in fish stores near me lately. Many of these shrimp are gathered from large rivers in the southern US and down into south america, and the fish stores don't ever really know what they are selling.

Hoping that there must be a word for everything I mean...

It looks the same as my ghost shrimp. I also have a large one.
Pics of him are here
The last 2 are of some smaller ones.

He is missing his claw arms and some legs. He got into a fight with 2 other shrimp almost the same size.

Last edited by jfk at 08-Dec-2005 16:19

Well your ghost shrimp don't look anything like my ghost shrimp but the pictures are dark. Here is a really good pic of a ghost shrimp that matches mine exactly [link=http://chicagowildernessmag.org/issues/spring2001/images/shrimp.jpg]http://chicagowildernessmag.org/issues/spring2001/images/shrimp.jpg" style="COLOR: #C000C0[/link]

Wingsdlc and jfk: neither of you had what most North Americans term ghost shrimp (Palaemonetes spp.) - both specimens represented some manner of Macrobrachium.

The latter specimen is a young M. rosenbergii (to 24 inches), most likely male. Wingsdlc's probably belonged to the M. lanchesteri complex, though the images remain inconclusive. M. rosenbergii, while native to Southeast Asia, Austronesia, and Australia, sees large-scale aquaculture (with both secondary and primary introduction to the waterways of various Pacific islands, South Asia, the Neotropics, and the Southern U.S.). Probably for this reason (that is, either incidental collection [all feeder ghost shrimp are wild-caught] or low-cost availability of post-larvae from local farms), this species often occurs as a sporadic contaminant or even exclusive component of feeder "ghost" stock

Wingsdlc: Opaque coloration such as that displayed by your specimen in the images you posted is a fairly sure indicator of moribund shrimp. Such shrimp do not necessarily behave oddly, and may, indeed, continue to move and feed normally until the precise moment of death.

illustrae: "There have been some larger species of freshwater shrimp appearing in fish stores near me lately. Many of these shrimp are gathered from large rivers in the southern US and down into south america, and the fish stores don't ever really know what they are selling."

Just out of curiosity, do you have any images of these "larger species?"

On a side note, death by "molting complication" is often anything but - more broadly problematic water quality is often of greater complicity than stress or mineral deficiency alone.

I'm afraid I don't have any images of the larger shrimp I mentioned, and they are usually being sold under ridiculous names that don't really give you any additional info. One type I saw was being sold as "black-spotted shrimp" and it was a 3" shrimp with a translucent body and black spots and broken stripes along its body. It had very very long antennae, and didn't have unusually large foreclaws that I usually associate with macrobrachium species. A particularly aggressive shrimp that has almost become common in the stores near me are "blue prawns" which are probably a macrobrachium, though they have other characteristics to the tail and mandibular claws that make me think they might be something else altogether. The other large shrimp I've been seeing around are definitely macrobrachium ranging from rusty red ones to black, to mottled browns, to almost white.

Hoping that there must be a word for everything I mean...

Just took a look at this page featuring Macrobrachium shrimps.

This Shrimp from India looks interesting - I was trying to hunt down something that had the same reddish-looking vertical abdominal stripes as your now-defunct shrimp, but seems my memory was off. Well, at least I tried to look

Can't find a 'Ghost Shrimp' with that banding in any of my shrimp page links however ...



Last edited by Calilasseia at 16-Dec-2005 10:11

Panda Catfish fan and keeper/breeder since Christmas 2002

Calilasseia, your shrimp is a juvenile M. rosenbergii. That page contains some nice images, but the taxonomic information and length figures are very suspect.

"Black-spotted shrimp" usually refers to a perhaps-unclassified Indian species (to around 4 inches) with a gracile morphotype. A few months ago, Mustafa (of Petshrimp.com) had several for purchase on Aquabid.

Last edited by Veneer at 18-Dec-2005 21:26