O'my god!

[piscesblue]

My lights have been off for 1hr and I just walked in the room and turned on a light, floating in my aquarium was a bunch of critters that looked like pods. Under closer inspection and after turning on the tank lights, I realized they were newborn shrimp. The 2 peppermint shrimp that I bought 2 months ago must have spawned. My coral banded and cleaner shrimp have been in the tank for over a year, could one of them have been pregnant this long? There were about 100 clear, perfect little shrimp! How cool is that to witness??? It saddens me that I will probably never see any of them again, I have a 6-line wrasse and a red scooter blennie. They'll have a feast when they find the babies.

 

[piscesblue]

My cleaner shrimp is already eating the babies.

 

[piscesblue]

Anybody know how long it takes shrimp to leave their plankton state?

 

[piscesblue]

By 3:30am central time, I could only find 1 baby floating around. My tank critters were quick to feed on the newborn.

 

[troy mcclure]

You shouldve gotten a couple of net breeders. Theyre only cost about 4 bucks each. You couldve kept them there until they were big enough.Just a thought.

 

[sgt__york]

How common is it for shrimp to breed in captivity like that? I'm just curious. Have many others experienced the same?

 

[nm reef]

I'm not sure about how often they mate and really have no info on keeping them alive....but I do have 3 peppermint shrimp that have produced babies several times over the past year.....sorry to say they are nothing more than a natural source of food in my reef. Kewl to see but they never stay long.... <img src="graemlins//angel.gif" border="0" alt="[angel]" />

 

[bang guy]

Originally posted by sgt__york:
<strong>How common is it for shrimp to breed in captivity like that? I'm just curious. Have many others experienced the same?</strong><hr></blockquote>
Mine let loose a swarm of shrimp larve about once a month.. each one.
Raising them is a bit more difficult than just putting them in a net breeder. The larve are extremely delicate and need their food to surround them for easy retrieval. They go through a lot of molts before they become small shrimp. This takes about 2 months.
Here's a 4 week old larve:

 

[piscesblue]

I was on another board and a guy said that peppermint shrimp will spawn every 2 weeks. He is going to get a 10gal tank with 8 peppermint shrimp that will overflow into his main tank, providing a constant supply of food for his fish and coral.

 

[kris walker]

Mine use to spawn once every 2 or so weeks, but now it is more like once in a blue moon.
I had some small guys around for a long time (long for me; like 2 months). But I think they recently died off for some reason. They like to find little pockets in your LR or near the LR/substrate interface and hide there during the day, coming out at night to play/eat.
kris

 

[heavenly damsel]

There is an extensive article on peppermint shrimp at this site
<a href="http://www.lysmatapublishing.com" target="_blank">http://www.lysmatapublishing.com</a>
HTH

 

[stacy]

I was talking with a fellow reefer in the LFS and he says he keeps a pair of breeders in his sump/refugium. When they release the babies they end up filtering into the display and become a source of food. He said his breed about every 2-4 weeks.