Baby shrimp!..EVERYWHERE!

[jupiterbunny]

I just looked at my tank and notcied all this white stuff going around I started freaking out thinking that it was something else..like my filter messing up or something. I turned my filter and my maxi jet off and noticed that they were tiny little cleaner shrimp. I was wondering why both my cleaner shrimp were acting funny all day. Now one doesn't have a belly full of eggs. The other still does. Well I guess my question is...what do I do? There are thousands of them everywhere.

[akm]

To tell you the truth the chances of survival are slim to none unless you've got a tank to put them in and the stuff to feed them. They will probably be eaten by what ever can catch them.

[Louie3]

think of it as free high protein fish food :P

[jupiterbunny]

What do you feed them? I only have a few corals, softies. My clam 2 clowns...tiny ones, 2 mandarin gobies and a lot of snails.

[Louie3]

the shrimp?

[jupiterbunny]

yea sorry the baby shrimp

[Louie3]

im thinking any algea or vegitable matter. i dont think you can feed cleanershrimp with brine shrimp.

[jupiterbunny]

I have tons of algea! How about Dt's?

[Louie3]

lets see scrape of the algea, put it in another tank or container, scoop up the shrimp with a net or ziplock, place them in the other tank, and put an airstone and maybe theyll live.

[jupiterbunny]

sounds good. Its late so I will have to do it tomorrow I need to get some sort of tank. Thank you for the help.

[Louie3]

your very much welcomed, feels good to help out.

[akm]

The chances that they will eat the algae is pretty slim also, the best things to feed would be rotifers of baby brine shrimp. they are supposedly pretty difficult to raise past a certain age (which isn't very long). Good luck though, maybe it'll work.

[Louie3]

i think its best just to let them become fish food.

[Instar]

Its not worth the effort to try to raise cleaner shrimp larva. Even the hatcherys in HI can't do it with fresh sea water yet and you definitely do not have the food for the larva without an extensive culture system already in place. Let the plankton be fish food for your fish and corals and just enjoy the part that is naturally provided by having shrimp in there.

[SGTDirk]

Instar and Louie3, I disagree. I think that if Jupiterbunny wants to try and raise them she should go for it. I agree with moving them to a seperate tank. but I wouldn't move all of them. try to just get a couple hundred out. If you are able to get them past the larva stage you are gonna have a handful. Try using Brine Shrimp food. You should be able to get that at your LFS. Good luck and let me know how it works.

[jupiterbunny]

Well I was going to take them out the next day but they are all gone. I know my fish didn't eat them. That is to many for my little fish. I saw a few in the LR and a lot in my Bak Pak I have a lot of copapods and some I think baby mysis...and I think that some of the cleaner shrimp babies are in there too I didn't have that many little shrimp in my Bak Pak before. So I guess I will see that happens. Hopefully 1 survives..that would be neat. The babies freak out everytime I put Flake food in my filter...its funny.

My other cleaner shrimp has eggs she got them a few months later so I should be getting some more baby shrimp in a few months so I will now have a tank ready to give it a try. Yes I know they will probably not make it but it doesn't hurt to try.

[Instar]

There is a lot to know about larva of any species and that takes a lot of study. First of all, larval cleaner shrimp look more like moina, not shrimp, and they are very capable of avoiding the aquarist who might try to net them. The gestation period for cleaner shrimp, if you include the stored sperm might be months, but its not that long for the eggs once they are on the tail. If someone wants to get a kick out of raising shrimp larva, try peppermint or grass shrimp. They look like little shrimp and can be fed a combination of living micro algae and live rotifers. Kept at the correct density, they can be raised for a couple months and the peppermint metamorphosis stages are amazing, bizzare and very colorful if a person has the equipment to see them. Setups and effort to rear larva takes money so the message about letting the cleaners go is aimed at sparing any new reefers from trying something that is rated as exceptionally difficult and not successfully done yet.

[jupiterbunny]

I don't think they really look like Monia to me they looked like little shrimp...

<img src="http://i37.photobucket.com/albums/e79/jupiterbunny/DSCF0801.jpg">

Yes it is a blurry picture, but there they are. I think it would be fun to try. I don't think that I would want to get some more shrimp and hope they have eggs so I can raise their babies. I just have my cleaners that have eggs. To get stuff to raise them should be easy also, well to get stuff for the next batch of eggs. So I guess I will wait for that to happen.

[SGTDirk]

Well I say go for it nd good luck.

[Instar]

Is all that white bubble looking stuff what you are referring to as the cleaner larva?

[jupiterbunny]

yea that is it. Its blurry b/c my filters were on.

[Louie3]

try it, i still think it will end up being fish food, sorry if thats kind of mean. but best of luck if it works out.

[jupiterbunny]

Nope not mysis. I have mysis in my bak pak. They kinda look the same. There is no way that a few thousand mysis shrimp just popped out of no where. Well I was fish sitting my friends fish and she had a Cleaner shrimp also and that is when I noticed the other one started carrying eggs.