Harlequin pair in a 5.5?

[Raibaru]

Sup guys, I'm going to make a small 5.5g tank and still deciding on a Mantis Shrimp or a pair of Harlequin shrimp. The tank will have a 5.5g sump also.

So I'm here just trying to do some fact finding. If you guys could help me with a few of these questions I'd appreciate it.

1. Will a 5.5g be enough for a pair of Harlequins and their meal?
2. How long will a starfish last a pair of shrimp and do they foul up the water pretty bad during feeding? Seeing the size of the shrimp against the stars (linkia?) I can't imagine them ripping it to shreds. More of a light nibble kind of thing? Do stars release toxins when dead/dying?
3. Will they EVER take to anything beside stars? Intention is to buy a few stars and kind of rotate them between my reef tank and the 5.5 so the stars can recover in my reef and the shrimp can go after a fresh one every once in awhile. However, stars are often difficult for me to find so if this rotation I have planned doesn't work out I may run into problems.
4. Will they leave other stuff alone? I may get a damsel to go with the 5.5 and the tank will be populated with softies and zoanthids too.
5. How can you tell if you have a pair as opposed to 2 (fe)males.
6. How long lived are these guys?

Also, if you guys have any pictures of your shrimp I'd love to see them!

[invertaman]

Harliquins are messy eaters. i dont know about a 5.5....you would have to have excelent filtration..

[Bebo77]

all you can keep in 5 g is a mantis...

[Bubbashrimp]

Question #5: The plates that cover the underside of the abdomen are a different color.

Female = white,(blue and red)
male = transparent or a yellowish tint

[bohannbj]

I kept a breeding pair for a while until they died in a move. Here are a few tips:
1. Choc stars last about 1 week, whereas the common florida stars last about a month.
2. The female is quite a bit larger than the male.
3. They don't need a star all the time, but they won't spawn without one. I had one for them a year round.
4. Starfish won't regen in an aquarium. The nutrients in the water just aren't there.
5. They are the coolest if you can keep em'.
Brent

[Raibaru]

what size tank did you have brent? The display is a 5.5g, but will have ~10g water volume due to the sump.

[bohannbj]

I had a 20g, but they would easily work in that tank. Just give them enough space to work with the starfish. They need to be able to flip it, plus it's really cool.

[Holokai]

Raibaru, did you ever implement this plan? I'm currently purchasing the parts for a 3 gallon Harlequin tank with a 20 gallon sump. (weird, I know) Anyhow, let me know your experiences if you did build this set up.

Thanks!
- Chris

[charlesr1958]

Originally posted by Raibaru
Sup guys, I'm going to make a small 5.5g tank and still deciding on a Mantis Shrimp or a pair of Harlequin shrimp. The tank will have a 5.5g sump also.

So I'm here just trying to do some fact finding. If you guys could help me with a few of these questions I'd appreciate it.

1. Will a 5.5g be enough for a pair of Harlequins and their meal?
2. How long will a starfish last a pair of shrimp and do they foul up the water pretty bad during feeding? Seeing the size of the shrimp against the stars (linkia?) I can't imagine them ripping it to shreds. More of a light nibble kind of thing? Do stars release toxins when dead/dying?
3. Will they EVER take to anything beside stars? Intention is to buy a few stars and kind of rotate them between my reef tank and the 5.5 so the stars can recover in my reef and the shrimp can go after a fresh one every once in awhile. However, stars are often difficult for me to find so if this rotation I have planned doesn't work out I may run into problems.
4. Will they leave other stuff alone? I may get a damsel to go with the 5.5 and the tank will be populated with softies and zoanthids too.
5. How can you tell if you have a pair as opposed to 2 (fe)males.
6. How long lived are these guys?

Also, if you guys have any pictures of your shrimp I'd love to see them!

1. Yes, I keep a mated pair in 2 gallons with nothing but some live sand, a few small rocks and an air stone. I do a fifty percent water change once a week.

2. I do not recommend you give them a whole starfish, I have done so only to remove the starfish after it started to rot away. It takes about three days for the shrimp to kill the starfish and once it is dead, it pollutes the tank very quickly. Instead, just snip off about a inch long piece of the star's arm and return the star to its own holding tank, it will heal and regrow a new arm, which is why I keep a few stars to rotate through, each sacrificing a small piece of arm each week. That one inch piece will last the shrimp almost a week.

3. I have seen others say they will eat the tube feet off of sea urchins, but I have tried a great many species and sizes of urchins only to be ignored by the shrimp no matter how long I wait.

4. I would not recommend keeping these shrimp in a small reef tank with other reef animals simply because as the shrimp eat the starfish, they release a huge amount of starfish spicules, which are the silicate spear shaped structures that the starfish uses for its body structural support, much like a soft coral does. Those spicules would be a constant irritation to corals. The shrimp will not bother anything else except a starfish.

5. Generaly, only by seeing the female carrying obvious eggs, which at that time, her abdomen will be wider than the males. Other than that, I know of no other way to sex these species. If they are not a mated pair, they generaly do not tolerate each other, specialy if they are both males, which will fight.

6. I am unsure of their life span, but my first pair is just over a year old of me having them and obtained them as mature adults.

Chuck

[Raibaru]

Thanks for the updates guys. I'm actually still in school (finals week) so I haven't had the time to really do much research and start nailing things down. I'm still undecided between a small Mantis Shrimp or a pair of Harlequins.

It all really depends on how things go with the tank set up. No matter what it will be a 5.5g with a 5.5g sump. I want to set up a small tank to give me a place to put some fragged corals from my main tank and want to put something nice to look at in the tank too. The mantis shrimp seems like a poor choice for this set up simply because of how reckless they can be.

With a pair of harlequins, the idea is to keep the shrimp in the main tank and put a few stars in the sump. I like the idea posted above about cutting off just a small piece of arm and this method seems very viable.

Once finals are over I plan to buy the 5.5g and set them up and get them running by the end of june. Once the tank is up I hope to have finalized research into the harlequin shrimp and I'll be sure to update you guys if everything goes to plan.

Be sure to update us as well Holokai. I'm also very interested in your progress as well.

[charlesr1958]

Just a bit of an update myself. Stopped at the shrimp tank on my way to bed last night (2am) and caught the female in the act of broadcasting her spawn. I siphoned out all of the larvae and now have them in my copepod culture tank and seem to be doing just fine, for now. Anyways, here is what a harlequin shrimp looks like at about ten minutes old.



I'm surprised at how well developed they appear to be compared to other ornamental species such as the peppermints.

Chuck

[Raibaru]

That is awesome. Be sure to keep us updated. Have you looked into raising the young? I hear they have long development cycles?

[charlesr1958]

Am attempting to do so again with this batch, but actualy, the harlequin have a fairly short larval stage and should settle out and become little minature versions of their parents within 8 weeks or less. The species that have the long larval stages are the cleaner shrimp, they can take between 7 months to a year to become actual shrimp. Too long for me!...lol

Chuck

[Holokai]

Holy cow, that's amazing guess you're doing something right!

Good work!
- Chris

[TFM]

I don't mean to dredge up an old thread but...

Charlesr1958, how did raising the larvae go? Did you get any post-larvals?

What species is it? There appears to only be two available in the aquarium trade, Hymenocera picta and Hymenocera elegans.

Apparently Larval duration for H. picta is 28-56 days. (Kraul, 1999)

3. Will they EVER take to anything beside stars?

I have heard reports of them taking to frozen starfish. Iw ouldn't plan on/expect it though. I think Harlequin shrimp diet is a area worthy of more research.

Harlequins are one of my current projects...I'm setting up an enviroment for a pair, and I am also constructing a database, finding all available online articles, and scientific research papers.

[Holokai]

And when you get all this information, you're going to share it, right? Right?

- Chris

[Raibaru]

Sorry I haven't updated or anything. Hopefully some of the other guys will have more luck then me. I'm not having much free time this summer unfortunetly and haven't had time to even start the tanks let alone worry about the shrimp yet.

I've seen that starfish are going to be very problematic for me though. Not finding any that are at a price where I could consider them "feeder starfish". If can't afford to buy myself a steak, I'm sure as hell not buying a harlequin shrimp a $50 dinner Even if that dinner will last him a month in theory.

At the moment I'm still planning to set up the tanks but as for the livestock choices I don't know yet.

I'd love to see your findings too TFM though

[Holokai]

Hey Raibaru,

I've got the Sump all set up, and the three gallon is drilled. I'm having problems with the overflow not being big enough to handle hardly any flow at all. We used 1/2 inch input and a 3/4 output. Prolly shoulda done a 1 inch output. Oh well.

Now we're thinking of switching out the 3 gallon display for another twenty breeder display

Hope you figure out how to get starfish cheap.

- Chris

[TFM]

Wow, those were some fast replies.

Sure, I'll post the 'database' (Website links, Reference papers...) in this thread when I finish researching. There is very little information available about Harlequins, but there are a few good sites.

Unfortunately you need access to a college library that is subscribed to that particular journal to get some of the scientific papers, which I don't ATM...To make matters worse, quite a few of the papers are in German...

Try typing in 'Harlequin shrimp hymenocera' in GoogleScholar.

Heh, I hear ya Raibaru. I'm not sure I'm going to be able to find cheap enough starfish either.

Thank you for the updates.