Peppermint shrimp breeding?

[mikelaubach]

Ok, so the tank is going along well, corals are growing, everything seems happy. The FedEx finally got here with my package from Marine Depot with a new MH to make things even better. I am still constantly finding things in the tank that I had never seen before.

Like a worm that I saw last night about 3" out of a rock that looked like it had a face. I'm not kidding, a face. I got closer to the tank to look, and it flew back into the rock. Under a second to retract 3 inches is amazing to me.

I found a tiny starfish in the sump on the return pump, so tossed him in the display. White, body like a chocolate chip star, not like a brittle star. Also found a new snail - long like a nassarius, wrong color though, but the shell is a dark brown and tan, and very low, not like any other snail. He's got very long "whiskers" too. Here are the best bad shots I could get of him:

http://www.mikelaubach.com/gallery/view_photo.php?set_albumName=album40&id=snail1
http://www.mikelaubach.com/gallery/view_photo.php?set_albumName=album40&id=snail2

You can click the picture to get the full size one.

But the kicker is that one of my peppermint shrimps is carrying eggs! "She" molted on Nov 20th (early morning or late night on the 19th). They had molted on 11/7 then 11/8 for the other one. And now the one has eggs. Alot of them. I've started to do some reading on reef central, but have only gotten so far. Anyone ever succeed at this locally? I have a feeling this first clutch is going to become whatever it is that they become from dumb luck. She's been fertile for the past 24 days. They should be ready to go any day now. Any day before I'd be ready for them that is. Try as I might, she would not get into a position where I could take the picture. Grrr.

At least it means I'm doing "something" right. Even if that something is random and not explainable. :-) I'm doing everything the best "right way" I can, I'm just happy they are happy.

So, anyone ever try to raise the shrimp babies?

[KingOfJericho]

Much of the life you mention in the first half usually comes in bags of live sand. I actually had a starfish multiply in my tank once as well but that's another story. The shrimp thing is new to me but the rest could easily come on live rock or in a bag of live sand. They don't call it live for nothing.

[craiglanda]

pepermints breed pretty easy in home aquariums but mainly will be fish food...the snail is hard to tell what it is without a profile picture (even then its hard to say for sure) my guess would be a stomatello snail being you said the shell is very low profiled. The thing in the rock with the "face" was most likely a featherduster or possibly aiptasia or majano anemone. A pic would make it easier to tell.

[mikelaubach]

Originally posted by craiglanda
pepermints breed pretty easy in home aquariums but mainly will be fish food...

The fish are not in there yet, still in QT. Shoot, I"m lucky I even have fish. Well, my WIFE is lucky. I was happy enough to leave it just corals.


the snail is hard to tell what it is without a profile picture (even then its hard to say for sure) my guess would be a stomatello snail being you said the shell is very low profiled.


I looked online, and that is exactly what it is, thanks. :rollface:


The thing in the rock with the "face" was most likely a featherduster or possibly aiptasia or majano anemone. A pic would make it easier to tell.

A pic? I didn't even get a chance to see it well, let alone grab the camera. :-) It's not an anemone, definitely a work of some sort. I have tiny feather dusters all over the rocks, but never saw one this long. And there were no feathers, just work body. FAST worm body. :-)

[craiglanda]

Bristle worm? or baby medusa worm? without seeing it makes it impossible. So i can just list off a bunch of possible live rock hitchhikers but that will take awhile LOL! either way good luck with the shrimp if you can catch it and wanna raise them see if you can get it in a breeding net.

[fishieness]

the worm is probably some type of bristle worm, however, that still leaves thousands of species... When you say a face, do you mean like it has eyes? The most popular types dont really have eyes are most areharmless. However, most of the ones with an actual "face" that i've seen arent too good... I would try to keep looking and get a picture, just to be safe.
as far as pepermint shrimp, they are definatly more like to become fish food, pod food, coralfood, other invert food, whatever. They eat phyto when they are first hatched so it is pretty much garenteed that none will grow to adult sizes unless you separate them into another tank. I found a really good article online about raising them, however, i dont think i have it anymore. It was in a pdf on google. search around for ways to do it if you would like. Any type of shrimp in the cleaning family would do. skunk cleaners, fire shrimp, pepermints, whatever.
also, if the eggs are green, they are fertilized, if they arent, then they arent fertilized.

[Emg2]

Yeah, I happened to walk into the room where my tank was at just the right time once......it was SWIMMING with tiny little baby shrimp and mom was still releasing them as I watched. The clowns were snapping them up like candy.....

[argi]

Here something on rearing peppermint shrimp http://www.reefkeeping.com/issues/2002-10/nftt/index.php

HTH,

[seacraze]

The peppermints are easy until approx weeks 4- 5, the eggs hatch approx every 14-17 days and almost always between 1-3am.

We fed them fresh hatched brine, rotifers were too small. We found that by enriching the brine and adding other foods by the 2nd week increased the odds.

Rather than being a slave to the hatchings we made a catcher - using a light to lure them.

They take a lot of time and patience to bring to adults. We now only raise them for food for other fish fry - fry love them.