Baby cleaner shrimp

[gurthystag]

Attempting to raise a clutch of skunk shrimp. I may not be successful but worth a shot. Not much time to prep as I discovered them after the lights went out on feeding night in the sps tank. I'm guessing the food and calm flow encouraged my shrimp to release them. I set them up the same way I raise Tigger pods, glass container with airline drip. Food I guess will be pods and live photo if they eat that. I have at least 300 of them collected so if one makes it I'd be plenty happy just to say I did it. Any suggestions would be welcomed especially with food. I only hatch pods for my mandarin so I don't have rotifers. See the video, awesome to find.

 

[gurthystag]

Close up pic

 

[DaJMasta]

Good luck, they are tricky as their settlement time is ~150 days, I've only managed to keep them for 3 weeks or so, so far.

In my experience, the larvae are EXTREMELY light sensitive, so having even dim lights from other nearby sources can confuse them, and bright lights cause them to spiral around instead of a more stable swimming pattern. In my more successful attempts, I've had an always-on light above the vessel and completely blacked out the sides. Low flow also appears to help, though higher flow may work if they aren't running into anything. I've read they can eat phyto in their first day, but will need zooplankton after that, and while the staple recommendation is brine shrimp nauplii (ease of hatching, uniformity of size), supposedly copepod nauplii will be more nutritious.

They appear to grab food and hold it under them with legs under the abdomen, but I don't know how easy it is for them to catch live prey. If they are eating and growing, you should see their next zoea phase in about three days, where the tail will divide and look different, plus just a bit of red will show on them.

 

[gurthystag]

Good luck, they are tricky as their settlement time is ~150 days, I've only managed to keep them for 3 weeks or so, so far.

In my experience, the larvae are EXTREMELY light sensitive, so having even dim lights from other nearby sources can confuse them, and bright lights cause them to spiral around instead of a more stable swimming pattern. In my more successful attempts, I've had an always-on light above the vessel and completely blacked out the sides. Low flow also appears to help, though higher flow may work if they aren't running into anything. I've read they can eat phyto in their first day, but will need zooplankton after that, and while the staple recommendation is brine shrimp nauplii (ease of hatching, uniformity of size), supposedly copepod nauplii will be more nutritious.

They appear to grab food and hold it under them with legs under the abdomen, but I don't know how easy it is for them to catch live prey. If they are eating and growing, you should see their next zoea phase in about three days, where the tail will divide and look different, plus just a bit of red will show on them.

I do have pod hatcheries with plenty of pod nauplii. I guess i could also hatch brine though i hate it lol. Have you tried raising them without light.

 

[DaJMasta]

No, though I would imagine normal day schedule lighting may work. I run a moon cycle on my tank lights, and my lysmata shrimp explicitly seem to avoid the new moon night to spawn, usually spawning in the few days following it, so it may be important for the young larvae, they do seem to use it to navigate and move towards it. This may not be the case after they develop a bit.

Also worth mentioning: there are a few scientific papers discussing raising them, and I think their development is very similar to the fire cleaner shrimp, so it's probably good to read up how people have had some success and at least trying to adapt some of their methods.

Luckily, if you've got a pair of shrimp, you will likely get a couple of spawns a month to play with. They're simultaneous hermaphrodites, so both shrimp can carry fertilized eggs when there are only two, and they release the eggs the night they molt.