[anthias]

hi all today I noticed that the abdoman of one of my shrimps is big , I had aclose looking it was the first time to see what I have seen.
there are many eggs carried and I can recognize some black spot in each egg.
I tried to take aclose shot with my 8megapix camera but it wasnt very clear,
what should I do now because I have three damsel in my tank and one bicolor angel, I think they will eat the baby shrimpes

[alexfevery]

well, id find out where she lays them and then colect them carefully and either put them in a new tank or float them in a cup of that water in your egsisting tank and attch the cup under the filter output so it gets a nice stream of clean water circulating, it looks like those are cleaner shrimp. those sell for about 10 dollars each, so if you can hatch even 10 of them sucsesfully and raise them, your sitting on about 100 dollars.

good luck

[leebca]

I moved this post to the Reef Aquariums Forum. It may get some additional posts from there!

[anthias]

thanks alex thanks lee

yesterday I took another photo showes the eggs, I ll post it today ,

yesterday evening the baby shrimps start to rise from the eggs located at the abdoman of thier mother and they sweem in the tank I sow them I think they are mor than 100 babyshrimps ,then I closed the lights to give them the chance to hide in the live rocks ,but today morning I couldnt see any one of them
I still have another shrimp having eggs but still small I think it needs a few days ,I tryed this morning to catch it but I couldnt it is very difficult but ill try again.

[anthias]

the first photo shows the eggs clear.
second one this is the best way I tryed to save the babys(this shrimp is not the same at the first pic the first one lost all its babyes yesterday)

[leebca]

You are certainly making an effort to save the babies, but how will you feed them and raise them?

[anthias]

hi,
you mean I have to but the mother in a qt then after the babyes go out I return the mother to the show tank so I can look after the baby shrimps.
you know the first shrimp that lost its babys she is having new aggs now I dont know how it happened so fast it took less than 48 hours to have new eggs but still small egges I still cannot see the eyes of the embryos.
do you know how these shrimps reproducts ? I mean some information about the cycle.

[leebca]

I'm of no help there. I just know that reproducing is not the difficult part -- it is difficult to feed the newborns to get them large enough to eat 'normal' foods.

[zhenya]

Originally Posted by anthias

hi,
you mean I have to but the mother in a qt then after the babyes go out I return the mother to the show tank so I can look after the baby shrimps.
you know the first shrimp that lost its babys she is having new aggs now I dont know how it happened so fast it took less than 48 hours to have new eggs but still small egges I still cannot see the eyes of the embryos.
do you know how these shrimps reproducts ? I mean some information about the cycle.

If I remember correctly, the larvae of Lysmata sp. shrimp has pelagic stage which makes them quite difficult to breed in captivity. I'm not sure how long this stage is but probably long enough to starve without proper food present in aquarium. I was just reading through extremely detailed article on shrimps by Dr.Shimek( which you can subscribe to as well here) and I think if you intend on breeding any shrimp or simply understand how they "tick" it is worth $6.00 bux.
Anyways, the larvae is swimming and is carnivorous, so you;ll need to provide some food like newly hatched brine shrimp, Artemia, larvae.

Also, they are extremely fragile and calturing them in the regular tanks is very difficult as the planctonic larvae gets damaged when if "bumps" into the walls. You will need to look into the specialized vessels for culturing planctonic larvae ( called zoea in the case of shrimpies ).

My suggestion would be to do a good research, prepare yourself with any eqipment you may need and then start the breeding adventure.
I do agree with Lee, though, your trying to save the babies is admirable but may be extremely difficult given the circumstances.

[anthias]

thank you very much, ill do my best,
it didnt work I dont know where the baby shrimps gone,
I m not trying to breed them but I have three shrimps now with eggs out of 4 ,I ll try to save the babies.