[DereksReef]

So many little mouths to feed!!! LOL

The peppermints that I put aside in their own tank just hatched their eggs... I don't know if it was both sets (I put 2 pregger shrimp in a ~35g tank.) but there are hundreds if not thousands of baby shrimp swimming everywhere.

I didn't set this tank up to rear them, I don't have the time to give them the care they need, or offer them the food they want, so there is a 0% chance of them growing into adulthood, but it would be really cool if a few did!

Very long story short, I survived less than 0% chances, and so maybe they can too

The tank is a mature tank (about 13months old) it has a 4" deep sand bed, low light, and very low flow. It is stocked full of cheatomorpha algae, and has a bit of hair algae growing on the rock and back walls of the tank. There are pods in the tank as well as a couple hermit crabs, and my snail population exploded with babies when I removed the fish a month ago or so.

Hopefully they will live long peaceful lives, I know it will be peaceful... I just don't know how long

 

[scadsobees]

They're fun to watch and to try to raise. There's a few pages of others attempts to raise them that are very interesting. Looked pretty complicated.

Mine had a 0% survival rate.

If nothing else, they're cheap coral food....:butcher:

 

[katymunoz]

shrimp

I have seen a tank that had mysis shrimp being raised in the sump (by accident) and they didn't add anything to their tank at all to feed them, and they made it to maturity.... well before getting sucked up into the main tank and eaten...... but I still consider that a success lol

 

[fishtal]

If you want to try and raise them you can see what a few others are doing here: Invert Breeding Journals

 

[DereksReef]

I've read over the journals, and it seems most people who have success don't really do it the way you are supposed to do it. The ones that are doing it correctly are having the least results...

I did not setup a kressil (or what ever its called) And after reading everything people do I realized I simply don't have the time.

Here is what I am doing (a little makeshift journal)

Found a bunch of peppermints in my growout system (approx 500g with 700lbs of live rock) so I took two of them that were carrying eggs and put them in a ~35g half cylindar aquarium with internal filtration system.

I removed the fish and crabs accept for a few small hermit crabs. and left in about 20lbs of live rock, 2 chalice corals and a gorgonian. I removed the powerheads and added about a basketball size clump of chaetomorpha algae to the main portion of the tank. The filter pump is a small rio and runs very slow but it insures the water is being cycled and not go stagnant. There is a small skimmer built into the back of the tanks built in filtration, I don't have the cup on it so it is simply adding oxygen to the water before it is returned to the main portion of the tank.

It took about two weeks for the eggs to hatch. I don't know if its a coincidence or not but, the water had been evaporating out of the back of the tank, and I hadn't added fresh water in a while, when the pump started sucking air, I added 3 gallons of fresh r/o water to fill it back up to the top (no auto top off on this tank) the next day the eggs had hatched.

Easily hundreds of little larvae floating around but too small to really make out what they were for sure. I started feeding them a combination of foods, but primarily phytogreen-s 1-2um and phytocrhrom 1-30um primarily the former. I also feed artificial artimea and rotifera daily.

It's been close to a week and the shrimp are numbering in the thousands now (noticeable) and they are starting to swim outside of their previous little cluster clouds. They are also beginning to look a little more like tiny shrimp from what I can see. They are still very small, but they have probably double in size. This tells me that they are eating what I'm giving them, and they are seemingly happy for now. hundreds of them have begun to vernture into the chaetomorpha clump and they seem to love to swim under it. They arent as drawn to the live rock as I thought they would be, but that's probably prime hunting ground for the copepods that might want to eat them.

I also add various other sizes of phyto and zooplankton, as well as some reef snow, reef chili, and coral frenzy. but these are in smaller amounts and less frequent. I don't want to way over do a unfiltered tank. And I don't want to do a water change because I will surely suck out hundreds of these little guys by accident.

I feed a small bit of flake for the shrimp every other day, and they seem happy. Once molted night before last, and they are actively moving around the tank.

I added some iodine and amino acids a couple days ago, and will add some more in a day or two.

I'm sure there are better ways to do this, but it seems to be working for now. I know many people have had success with this size/maturation I'm really waiting to see how things go as they get bigger and hungrier... I have lots of different foods for them, I just wonder if any of it is going to be sufficient. I am also concerned with the nitrate levels going up. they are fine now, but the tank has about a 6 inch sand bed and a basketballs worth of cheato algae to help keep them low. I don't know how low, or for how long...

But that is my makeshift journal on peppermint shrimp breeding... I will try to remember to keep you all updated.

Happy Reefing!

Please enjoy the short, low budget, low quality flick :victory:
You might as well mute it because I think my flip camera needed new batteries and the audio quality is worse than the video quality!

 

[DereksReef]

OK, I woke up today to get a shower and saw that many of the little larva/shrimp thingies have become all out shrimp! pretty cool looking, but they don't seen to be able to swim as good as their younger brothers... I had to turn the overflow return system as they were getting sucked through the overflow.

I will hook up a air bubbler and try to siphon out the back shrimp if I see there are a lot of them back there. I moved the chaeto to cover the overflow so when i siphon the water out of the back, and put it back in the main part the other shrimp wont simply overflow right back into the back.

This seems to be the hard stage, we will see how they do rder

 

[katymunoz]

That sounds sweet! CAnt wait until you can get some pics of baby shrimp!!

 

[DereksReef]

Again, crappy OLD flip camera (this things are awesome, but mine is old, and one of the first to come out) I added music this time :jester: no more crappy audio!

 

[katymunoz]

They still going strong?