Skunk Cleaner Shrimp Larvae?!?

[Zakary2003]

It is 3am here. My skunk cleaner shrimp, which has full of eggs since its last molt, just released a bunch of larvae into the tank. They're so tiny and there are so many of them! The fish are all sleeping and nobody has started having a feeding frenzy, but my LPS and softies are enjoying the live food. Can I save any of them? What are the odds they will survive in my 20 gallon AIO?

 

[ISpeakForTheSeas]

It is 3am here. My skunk cleaner shrimp, which has full of eggs since its last molt, just released a bunch of larvae into the tank. They're so tiny and there are so many of them! The fish are all sleeping and nobody has started having a feeding frenzy, but my LPS and softies are enjoying the live food. Can I save any of them? What are the odds they will survive in my 20 gallon AIO?

If the larvae are in a normal reef tank, they'll die. Survivors in cases like this do happen occasionally, but the odds are ridiculously low - given that skunk cleaner larvae remain pelagic for 3-5 months, their odds are essentially nonexistent.

To rear these guys, you'll need a larval rearing tank and some live foods: Artemia (brine shrimp), rotifers, and phytoplankton together will give the best survival results, but only the Artemia (and phyto to culture them with) are necessary.

For a really simple larval rearing setup, see the thread below:

Breeding Palaemon Elegans (Mediterrane Rock Pool Shrimp) Guide

Hi, Im going to post a breeding guide of palaemon elegans shrimps here. Two females are preparing for spawning so if you are interested you may want to stick with me. This breeding guide will be interchangable for every kind of shrimps but i stick elegans because: - With cleaner shrimp we are...

www.reef2reef.com

For the complicated methods that might yield slightly better results (chapters 5 and 6 are the important ones for larval rearing purposes):

https://researchonline.jcu.edu.au/40038/1/40038-tziouveli-2011-thesis.pdf