Common Names: Refered to as glass shrimp in the US and Germany, but look nothing like the glass shrimp sold in the UK.

Scientific Name: Macrobrachium Lanchesteri.

Availability in the UK: Purchased mine in a local fish store, also available online.

Overview: If keeping more than 1 then tanks of 100 litres or more are advised as the males are quite aggressive and territorial with other males. They can also show some aggression towards fish, including ones larger than themselves, but are only really of any risk to juvenile fish and fry. They mostly ignore other species of shrimp, but may predate on shrimplets if they can find them. This species is quite sensitive to aquarium plant fertilisers, especially at higher dosages.

Incompatible Shrimp: Males will fight if too many kept together in too small a tank.  They may also eat any dwarf shrimp that they stumble across, especially shrimplets.

Feeding: These shrimp are opportunistic scavengers but will also predate small fish fry and dwarf shrimp if they are hungry enough. Will happily graze on algae, baby live bearers (mostly the males that act in this predatory manner), fish flake food and Hikari Crab Cuisine greedily..

Sexing: The males are much larger than the females, also they have an obviously longer and larger set of claws than the females, making these shrimp very easy to sex.

Breeding: This species has an abbreviated larval stage of about 4 days, after which the young shrimp require brineshrimp naupli.

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