Peppermint Shrimp in refugium?

[Tabasco1]

I had read on another thread about keeping these shrimp in a fuge for primarily spawning benefits. I would REALLY love to hear more about this if anybody can share.

I am looking for a discussed on benefits/challenges for keeping these shrimp and what I would love to hear specifically about is:

General Care-Do you need to feed them anything additional to what is already in the fuge?

Spawning-the benefit would be to help provide food for corals. How can you tell the difference between a male and female shrimp to make sure you have purchased a pair? Do you need to do anything to start spawning other than provide adequate food? How often will they spawn?

Compatibility-I have heard that Peps are faily mean. Are they mean within conspecifics or agressive to their mate if in a mated pair? Are they agressive with other fish/ small fish such as gobies? Do they nip on coral?

That last bit about compatibility pertains to deciding to keep them in the refuge or in the display tank. Any thoughts on +/- on either one would be great.

 

[ruppertb]

i think they would eat all your copepods in your fuge, which is primarily why ppl set them up.

 

[Bubbles_B]

i think they would eat all your copepods in your fuge, which is primarily why ppl set them up.

I concur!!! I have placed them down in my sump and notice that there was hardly any pods left for my Mandarin so I placed them back into my display and moved my hungry Mandy in the sump until I notice pods coming back. In essence, don't do it.

 

[Tabasco1]

Hmmm, that is very good to know. I definately have a pod priority.

What are thoughts on running a divider in the fuge to keep the shrimp seperate from the main fuge with pod production? I think it would be really cool to get them to spawn to feed corals. Could be a lost cause though from the sound of it.

 

[ruppertb]

i would say run a seperate tank, seperate system for the shrimp, they will breed in a reg setup with a cheap light and filter.

or set up a shrimp only tank connected to tank, a friend has this with a mantis shrimp.

then you still have an area for pods to breed and if any decide to live in the pep shrimp tank, then you have food for them in there.