Shrimp ID

[Mengo]

I got a couple of ghost shrimp from petsmart recently and there is one that doesn't look like the rest. It's been doing fine with the rest. I just wanna if it is a ghost shrimp or not. Thx!

[FlyingFishKeeper]

Hi, I heard on Cory's shrimp livestream that "ghost shrimp" sold in pet stores are most of the time a collection of different species of brackish and freshwater shrimp, with the occasional prawn collected by accident. If they're getting along fine I would guess that it's just a different species?

Edited April 9, 2021 by FlyingFishKeeper

[Dr.rex]

Yes thats is a ghost shrimp or glass shrimp, I have a 10 gallon of them breeding, if you look extremely closely on the antenna I there's an colored band, yours have a orangeish band that identifies it, I believe as a Eastern North American Glass shrimp, same as mine, if they're more reddish I think they're a western North American variety, (but they have exoskeletons that's built with all the food they eat and stuff in the water and that does affect how their exo looks ). they shed this regularly as they grow, I believe the discolorations you are seeing are imperfections or excess / deficiencies in the exoskeleton of your shrimp, keep watching it and it should molt eventually and then recheck it after it molts, if there is some kind of mineral deficiency of some kind you'll see it but, if it comes out looking like a normal ghost shrimp then it was just an imperfection in the exo from previous conditions, and not all glass/ghost shrimp are going to be clear, they're all going to have some kind of discoloration to a point but because they're called ghost/glass shrimp it does mean they should be at least mostly clear, but take my advice with a grain of salt I'm still learning myself but It appears we have the same shrimp, and I've had them come in and look just like that, they molt and there just fine, if you do see any issues after a molt add a Wonder shell then just repeat the whole wait and check process again, but I don't see anything wrong with that one, looks just fine to me