[optical]

hey guys,
its been a while...good to see some nice updation on the site!
i have a pregnant peppermint shrimp (i think). im guessing she is by the hundreds of tiny eggs under her, uhhh...abdomen or whatever. what are those little flipper things they use to flutter around with anyway? gross.
anyway, im sure my fish will eat the babies once they start swimming around. i have a clown, coral beauty, and yellow tang...and a cleaner shrimp.
what should i do? how do i catch her? she usually hides way inside the rockwork. build a hang on fuge maybe? whaddya think?
if she has babbies successfully, anyone who wants em could have em.

[sihaya]

It's really hard to raise baby peppermint shrimp. Even if you catch her and save the babies, they'll probably die within a few days. But if you really want to give it a shot, here's a cool article about it:
Captive Rearing of Peppermint Shrimp (Lysmata wurdemanni) by Frederick Scott Noack- Reefkeeping.com

[optical]

thanks for the article! looks like i will be doing some experimenting. the only thing i would really try different than what he tried is instead of trying to siphon out the larvae, i would try to quarantine the mother before the larvae are free swimming, then introduce her back into the main tank after.

[Ninong]

optical,

How many peppermint shrimp (Lysmata wurdemanni) do you have in your aquarium?

[sihaya]

Sure, that would probably be better... but catching the larvae is not the hard part. THe hard part is culturing food that the larvae will eat. You might want to look at the DIBs website for ways to culture copepods.

Good luck

[sihaya]

Here, I found that DIBs page...
Copepod Culturing - Project DIBS Forums

[Ninong]

Originally Posted by sihaya

You might want to look at the DIBs website for ways to culture copepods.

I think copepods would be too large for Lysmata wurdemanni larvae, even in the later stages of development.

[sihaya]

What about baby brine? What would you suggest? I've heard of a few determined people raising these things to adulthood, but I don't know how they do it.

[sihaya]

Ninong- have you read or heard of this book? I was thinking about getting it...

Amazon.com: How To Raise & Train Your Peppermint Shrimp: Books: April Kirkendoll

[Ninong]

Originally Posted by sihaya

What about baby brine? What would you suggest? I've heard of a few determined people raising these things to adulthood, but I don't know how they do it.

Lysmata wurdemanni are being bred commercially. They use live phytoplankton, live Artemia nauplii and live rotifers for larval feed. Live copepod nauplii might work but I don't believe they are being used in ornamental shrimp aquaculture.

[Ninong]

Originally Posted by sihaya

Ninong- have you read or heard of this book? I was thinking about getting it...

Amazon.com: How To Raise & Train Your Peppermint Shrimp: Books: April Kirkendoll

That book is reviewed here.

According to that review, Kirkendoll mentions her unsuccessful attempts at rearing Lysmata amboinensis. She was unable to get them through metamorphosis. Remember that that book is about six years old. L. amboinensis has reportedly bred successfully since then; however, I'm not sure if this species is in commercial aquaculture yet.

The problem with L. amboinensis (and possibly other similar tropical ornamental shrimp) is getting the final larval stage to settle. It is thought that the right environmental cues are necessary to entice the final stage to settle and absent the appropriate cues, it just doesn't. At least that's what I read a couple of years ago. The Waikiki Aquarium claimed success in breeding L. amboinensis several years back but they used a very large tank with natural seawater flow-through, so it's quite possible that the larvae fed on naturally occurring oceanic phyto- and zooplankton in addition to whatever was introduced as intended food.

Someone posted on Reef Central a year or two ago about success breeding L. amboinensis. If I remember correctly, the person doing this was located in the U.K.