Pregnant Peppermint Shrimp
 

I have had a pregnant peppermint shrimp seperated in a 2 gal. tank. She is going to have babies in the next 2-3 nights. I was just wondering what I could feed her young for the first week until i can feed them something bigger.

Can they be fed non-living foods? Will they still eat non-living foods, or is live food the only thing they eat?

i have a pregnant cleaner shrimp so im with ya buddy. how is it to keep the young, what should we feed them?

Well, my shrimp hasn't actually had hers yet, but i read that they can be fed baby brine shrimp, live or frozen. What kind of cleaner shrimp do you have thats pregnant?

Here's some info on raising peppermints.
[url]http://www.advancedaquarist.com/issues/april2004/feature.htm[/url]
[url]http://www.breedersregistry.org/database/LYSWUR04.htm[/url]
[url]http://www.reefkeeping.com/issues/2002-10/nftt/index.php[/url]

No one has figured out how to raise the cleaners successfully yet. They do need live food, but so far no one has figured out what type is best. They're also extremely fragile so need specially designed tanks. Just keep the shrimp in the main tank and let the larvae feed your other critters.

I once had my peppermint explode babies all over the tank. Very cool experience.

There are several people who have raised cleaners, there is an article from an UK site, that details how to do it.

Can't get link to work, but do google search for U.K. reefs.com or just search cleaner shrimp breeding, there are also references on wet web of people just getting lucky and getting and having young survive, mine breed every few weeks and I have gotten 1/2 inch juv of Lysmata garbhami but they get eaten within a few days of being seen.

Here is a photo of the larvae just after being released.
[IMG]http://i225.photobucket.com/albums/dd31/philter4/PC020013.jpg[/IMG]
Don't have the tank space to try to raise any larvae, I also get my blue stripe and red striped pipes to breed, and every once in a while I see larger fry, but they never make it to adult hood, too many other animals that can prey on a 1/2 inch juv.

[quote]There are several people who have raised cleaners, there is an article from an UK site, that details how to do it.[/quote]
There are people who have [i]tried[/i] to raise cleaner shrimp and had very limited success. They can get them to survive for a few weeks and then they fizzle out. There have only been a very small number of people who have gotten them all the way to adulthood and they only got about 1 or 2 individuals per hatching and can't even do it consistently. Sure, it's possible to do if you really want to invest the time and money, but unless you're intent on refining the culture methods, it's not a practical thing to do.

For most hobbyiest, me included, this hobby isn't economical or really practical, it is just the joy of keeping the animals that is the goal. I haven't tried to raise any of the fish or inverts that have produced eggs or fry, but as I said every once in a while I find a larger juv that has passed the larval stage, so I believe that if I tried I could raise some to adult hood. I don't have space to seperate the animals, but again, that isn't the point, and just the fact that there have been some success with these animals is cause for optimism for any hobbiest to try, and the more people who raise 1 or 2 the more we learn about the care of the young and the more succesful we can become in the future.

Well, you all are probably right about failing to breed them. This is my first time trying to breed baby peppermint shrimp, I know that all of them will probably die after the first week.

I think the longest recorded length of time that anyone has kept cleaner shrimp larvae alive is 52 or 56 days. They go through a zillion stages and take somewhere from 6 months to a year to be viable. Peppermint shrimp on the other hand are often raised. A good place to start is here if you are serious....

[url]http://www.breedersregistry.org/[/url]

marlene

[quote]For most hobbyiest, me included, this hobby isn't economical or really practical, it is just the joy of keeping the animals that is the goal. I haven't tried to raise any of the fish or inverts that have produced eggs or fry, but as I said every once in a while I find a larger juv that has passed the larval stage, so I believe that if I tried I could raise some to adult hood. I don't have space to seperate the animals, but again, that isn't the point, and just the fact that there have been some success with these animals is cause for optimism for any hobbiest to try, and the more people who raise 1 or 2 the more we learn about the care of the young and the more succesful we can become in the future.[/quote]
I wasn't talking about practicality in the sense of time and money spent. I meant that cleaner shrimp aren't a practical place to start breeding. It's kind of like jumping into astrophysics without ever learning algebra. Start with the basics and work your way up. We're not going to learn anything about how to breed these guys from haphazard attempts. There are actually labs working on breeding these shrimp and they've found lots of ways that don't work. There's no sense in repeating their failures.

.[QUOTE]Sure, it's possible to do if you really want to invest the time and money, but unless you're intent on refining the culture methods, it's not a practical thing to do.[/QUOTE]

There are lots of examples of both fish and reptiles that more is learned from the people who just enjoy the animal then labs spending money to find out about captive care. My point was people have done it and why should you or me or anyone tell someone it's impossible so don't try

.[QUOTE]I wasn't talking about practicality in the sense of time and money spent. I meant that cleaner shrimp aren't a practical place to start breeding.[/QUOTE]

I've been in the hobby for over 30 years, and kept and bred reptiles as well, and more often then not it is a hobbyiest who has no preconcieved idea who are the most successful. . Breeding an animal isn't even close to astrophysics, phish guy allready has the eggs, why should he not try if he has the desire, and just because he has never tried doesn't mean he can't stumble on something that others have missed. There are now foods and information that wasn't even available to us even just a few years ago, and a much better understanding of how to replicate the ocean on a small scale. Besides if there are lots of ways known how not to do something, we don't have to try those again, that was the reason for giving the information out.

No one, me included, said it would be sucessful, or even easy, just giving the information to help people who want to try. IMO no one should tell people not to try no matter how complicated the task, it wasn't that long ago that keeping marine fish was considered impossible for the average person, even less time when no one could keep corals, then the first people bred some of the fish and actually raised the fry. Now there are businesses that raise marine fish for the trade and make money doing it.

[QUOTE]We're not going to learn anything about how to breed these guys from haphazard attempts[/QUOTE]

Who is to say that anyone can't possibly be the first to figure out the trick to raising cleaner shrimp, I've gotten settled larvae in the past, if I paid attention to what was happening why can't that info be provided to hobbyiest so everyone could do it?

I don't mean to start an argument, just one of my pet pieves when some one tells people it is too hard, no one else has done it so don't try. If that were the case we would never find new and better ways of keeping animals.

Very solid points Philter4, and good luck to you guys trying to raise those shrimp babies!

well i light of what has been said, i am not goin to try and rasie the cleaner shrimp babies, i didnt think it would be easy. i dont have room to isolate her and she is happily cleaning my tang and lawnmower blenny. so ill just see what happens, maybe some will survive. im sure my six line wrasse will be happy about my decison.

GOOD LUCK TENNYSON!