Breeding cleaner Shrimp

[Anonymous]

We have 2 cleaner shrimp in our 55 gal reef tank. For probally about the past 2 weeks weve noticed that they both had a belly full of eggs. They seemed to tend to them by flipping them and such ever since we noticed this. However, last night, one of the shrimp released about 200+ baby shrimp from the belly pouch the eggs were in. Then he/she proceeded to pick out the egg shells and eat them. Of course, the fish thought this was a great feast and i dout that any shrimp survived the night. However, my question is does anyone know how these guys reproduce? Obviously they both have eggs, and the one did have hatched shrimp. Are they a-sexual?? If i was to move them into a 10 gal by themselves, how hard would it be to get them to reproduce? Are there certain conditions they need? What do the baby shrimp eat? Baby Brine? And finally what kind of filter could i use in a 10 gal that wouldnt hurt the baby shrimp because there reeaally small little bugers! Any information would be greatly appreciated!!!! Thanks a ton!

Lexi
[email protected]

 

[fishmark]

Hey there
Not to sure as to what species you are working with how ever i will assume that you are working with lysamata ambionesis. To tyhe best of my knowledge these shrimp are hermaphreditic meaning they have the ability to change there sex, However it seems quite bizarre that they should both be carrying eggs at the same time. It is possible that both specimens you have are female, Females have the ability to store sperm excess packets for use at a later date once they mated with a partner, supposedly they can store enough to fertilise up to six clutches of eggs. But i have never witnessed this many. The people of TMC (tropical marine centre) in the UK have supposed to have bred these quite successfully. Unfortunately they do have a rather long larval stage of about 6months before they settle down to bethnic life. There is a book published by April Kirkendoll Titled "How to raise and train your peppermint shrimp" while this is on another species it may give you some helpful insights as to just what is involved in rearing this challenging species. Best of luck and keep me posted as to how go
Cheers
Fishmark

 

[Luis M]

Yes,Lysmata shrimp are hermaphrodite.They lay eggs right after molting which are fertilized by the other partner.So it is perfectly normal that both of your shrimp are carrying eggs.They can not self-fertilize nor store sperm.Breeding them is easy,they never stop producing eggs every 2 weeks (each,so you have larvae every week).Raising them is very difficult.Though they feed well on bbs,their larval phase is very long and they die before settling.

 

[kervina]

As Luis M. points out, L. amboinensis (if that is the shrimp you have) are simultaneous hermaphrodites, and it is normal for all healthy adults in a group to carry eggs at the same time. His information on storing sperm may be mistaken. At least one study has found that the shrimp can store sperm for at least two fertilizations from a single copulation. There is anecdotal evidence that storage can be for up to four fertilizations from a single copulation.

I forget which study determined that sperm was stored for at least two, but it should be one of the two listed below. Neither of them are (to my knowledge) available online, but your local university should have or be able to get them for you.

While there are a few people who claim to have raised them from egg to adult, they have either not published their results, or they claim they are trade secrets and will not help you with raising them yourself. Nobody that I am aware of is providing them to the retail trade, in any case.

Waikiki Aquarium is said to successfully have raised them from egg to adult in a system that used flow-through of fresh sea water, but according to Rob Toonen (back in 1999), when three different people asked how they did it, they got three different answers. (http://www.reefs.org/library/article/r_toonen10.html)

In regard to fishmark's recommendation of Kirkendoll's book, I will stress that her information is good on how to raise larve in general, but the specific information on L. amboinensis largely consists of 1.) they eat differently than L. wurdemanni and 2.) she couldn't get them to settle and metamorphose. But if you want to try your hand at breeding shrimp and are willing to give it a go with peppermint shrimp, the book is a great resource, easy to read, and well worth the cost. All in all, I recommend the book highly, but don't buy it thinking it will give you the key to captive raising of L. amboinensis.

Of course, all of this is hanging from the assumption that you have L. amboinensis. You should be able to determine that by doing an internet search on "cleaner shrimp" and looking around until you find the right one.

Hope this helps.

----------------------------------------------
Simoes, F., Yasir, I., Jones, D.A. (1998). Reproductive biology of Lysmata debelius (Bruce 1983) and L. amboinensis (deMan 1888), (Caridea, Hippolytidae) tropical marine cleaner shrimps important in the sea water aquarium trade. Aquaculture ’98 Book of Abstracts, 496.

Fiedler, G.C. (1998). Functional, simultaneous hermaphroditism in female-phase Lysmata amboinensis (Decapoda: Caridea: Hippolytidae). Pacific Science, 52(2), 161-169.

 

[Luis M]

Kervina,
Take my word,Lysmata DON´T store sperm.Simoes paper was wrong about that and other references stem from it.

 

[kervina]

Kervina,
Take my word,Lysmata DON´T store sperm.Simoes paper was wrong about that and other references stem from it.

No offense, but I don't know you from Adam. I'd be delighted to take a look at your evidence/proof, but I wouldn't be much of a scientist if I just "took your word" for it. What procedures did you follow to make this determination? What was your experimental protocol? Has anybody else reproduced your results? Have you presented your findings in a professional forum so that they were subject to public scrutiny?

I freely admit that you may well be correct, which is why in my initial response I said that your information "may" be incorrect.

My personal observation - which I did not initially mention because I did not document it rigorously- is from when one of the pair of L. amboinensis I had died. The surviving shrimp released its eggs as normal, then molted and produced another batch of eggs that appeared to develop as normal fertilized eggs. I did not observe them microscopically, so I cannot say for certain that the eggs were fertilized. Subsequent clutches did not develop beyond the "green" stage. I suppose there could be other causes for the differing appearances, but I do not know what those causes might be.

In any case, that experience inclined me to accept that they may store sperm for multiple fertilizations from a single mating. I would be delighted to consider information that supports alternate conclusions.

 

[Luis M]

Kervina,
This is not the place to engage in an academic debate about the self fertilization or sperm storage of Lysmata.However:
What aquarists need to know is that it will be a lose of time to expect that a lone shrimp will produce fertile eggs.It just won´t happen.Ever.
While I had seen hundreds of pairs laying eggs,admittedly my experience with the fertility of single shrimps is reduced to some few that lost their partners,as it happened to you.In that cases,they lay one or more batches which are always infertile and dissapear in a couple of days.
But if my experience is limited,how do I know they never do it,you may ask.
Because I am in contact with people with a large experience in these shrimps in the academic field and it is now an accepted fact that they don´t store sperm,that the old paper stating otherwise was inaccurate and the other anecdotal reports supporting that were misleaded.
So don´t take my word,no offense taken.But read the recent works on the subject,or consult well known researchers currently working on them,like Junda Lin,Joan Holt,Andrew Rhyne,Matt Palmtag or Fernando Calado.
Quoting from:J.Lin-D.Zhang"Reproduction in a simultaneous..."(Marine Biology-2001)quote-Euhermaphrodite-phase L.wurdemanni do not store sperm or carry out self-fertilization (Bauer and Holt 1998)unquote.
I hope this makes my point clear.This matter has been thoroughly discussed in other forums,where you can contact the Andy Rhyne of the FIT directly.

 

[spawner]

Quite true Luis, I'll buy the guy a beer if he can get them to store sperm. They don't have the physiological capacity to do so. I have seen shrimp hold unfertilized, poorly fertilized, or maybe even spontaneously dividing non-viable eggs for up to 5-7 days before losing them. The number of eggs remaining can be small and appears a bit greyer or less green. This would explain the observation. How Simoes came up with the storing sperm idea is beyond me, as other things often are. I believe that was an abstract from a meeting and not a publication. We won't tell Ricardo you called him 8O Fernando 8O

 

[Luis M]

I believe that was an abstract from a meeting and not a publication. We won't tell Ricardo you called him 8O Fernando 8O

Please don´t It was produced by the heath of the discussion,we can blame Kervina for that :lol: .Anyway Fernando is a perfect portuguese name,so he won´t complain. I also called you "THE"Andy.My bad habit of not correcting what I write...
I didn´t know you were browsing this forum.Good to bring some action here 8) .See how much harm false published data could create,be it an error,a wrong conclusion,a lie or a pure bs phony paper.You know about that :x .This sperm storage myth has been showing up regularly.
Yes,it was just an abstract of a WAS meeting.

 

[fish farmer]

Hi,

Don't know if your questions were ever addressed in the thread -- sorry, I skimmed a bit. But I am currently using a simple air pump and wooden airstone (for gentler, finer bubbles) in a 10 gallon glass tank wrapped with black sides.

My larvae are now 15 days old and although I will not be surprised if they do not make it to metamorphosis, I have experience in ornamental mariculture and am taking this culture one day at a time.

I fed them rotifers and pulverized flake the first few days, then pulverized flake and newly hatched Artemia nauplii. I am now feeding them pulverized flake, nh Art. nauplii and ~ week-old nauplii.

I started with 4-6" of water from the parents' tank and then added ~1 gallon of fresh SW of the same temp./salinity each day until the tank was about three-quarters full. I now do a ~1 gal. water change every couple days while vacuuming the bottom.

I didn't start with many larvae to begin with -- it's a long story entailing the shrimp molting before releasing the eggs, but some of the eggs still hatched...??? It's a mystery to me -- anyway, I started w/approx. 150 larvae and I think this has helped survival somewhat (lower density).

Hope this helps somewhat and good luck!

P.S. I also have the A. Kirkendoll book and it is informative for ornamental shrimp rearing, but like mentioned, there is limited (very limited) info. for L. amboinensis.

 

[lusoreef lda]

Good afternoon,

In fact Cleaner shrimp or any other Lysmata species I´m aware of are not capable of holding sperm.

As said before, they can be simultaneous hermaphrodites both presenting eggs at the same.

One thing I can tell you is that it is possible to rear them (before 6 months of larval stage - around 2-3 months). The problem lyes in the final stage where the trick of settling them is not yet completely understood.

I have tested several protocols (early experiments were made with researcher Ricardo (not Fernando) :wink: ) and we have come a long way to conclude that it is possible to rear them in small batches. The problem is to make it in large batches (as we do for peppermint shrimp) to supply marine ornamental trade. We can only hope that in the next few months more development can be made towards this goal.

Best Regards,

Brian

 

[fish.freak]

Just noticed it today, I have had the shrimp for a month or two now and it just molted and now it has eggs. If it is imposible for them to self fert, or store sperm, then the eggs wont hatch right?

My question is how long do they hold before they hatch?
Would the larve be so small they would pass through a breeder net?
Thanks for you response

 

[Anonymous]

Just noticed it today, I have had the shrimp for a month or two now and it just molted and now it has eggs. If it is imposible for them to self fert, or store sperm, then the eggs wont hatch right?

My question is how long do they hold before they hatch?
Would the larve be so small they would pass through a breeder net?
Thanks for you response

The larvae are too large to pass through the typical breeder net.

 

[fish.freak]

is that a viable option to for this then, or will they get stuck?

 

[hurtssogood]

Hi just found the site.

I have tried to use a breeder net and my cleaner shrimp did pass through the net with some work. What I did to fix the problem is I set up the net with a fine fabric like a hankerchief lining the net. Then you can also add brine shrimp before the cleaner shrimp are released and they will have food. I have left the shrimp in the main tank like this. I have just done this but my shrimp are now a week old and doing great. They are even getting the coloration of the adults.

I look forward to learning more.

 

[dellboy]

Hi New to this live in the UK and only just seen this topic, I love the discussion about cleaner shrimps but just thought i would throw another spanner in the works. I set up a marine tank about 4 years ago probably like everyone was getting confused with all the misleading info out there.
The first tank inhabitant i purchased was a cleaner shrimp to hopefully see if all my water parameters were correct, It survived pretty well so after about a month i purchased my first fish a pair of green cromis again inexpensive to test my water still taking great delight as my cleaner shrimp got to quite a large size now often moulting, after about 4 months i purchased a pair of clown fish everything was happy and used to enjoy watching tiny critters come out at night on the odd piesce of live rock i had. Then one evening i saw my cleaner shrimp acting rather strange and watched in amazement as is spewed out hundreds of babys obviously not expecting it and no knowledge i just watched them being eaten by all the tank inhabitants. My point is i don't know wether this was the first time it had happened or just the first time i witnessed it but this cleaner shrimp lived on its own four a least 4 months until the hatching so somebody might be able to explain this

 

[FuEl666]

Wow this is indeed an ancient thread. Hi Luis and Andrew! Just happened to register today.

Hmm, dellboy I have no way of explaining what you have experienced. I doubt Lysmata are capable of self-fertilization, since most studies state that is the case. Or maybe this happened to be a one in a million situation were somehow self-fertilization managed to occur? I'll leave it for the more experienced to debate on that.

As for raising the larvae, it does take awfully long. I am beginning to suspect that this is due to inadequate larval nutrition rather than the theory of settlement cues. Has there ever been a field measurement of late-stage L. amboinensis to date? I tried looking for such data without avail so far. The 2.2 cm post larval length (Fletcher et al., 1995) was attained under lab conditions. Perhaps wild larvae settle out at a much smaller size?

 

[fishmark]

Been a while since I last posted to this thread. But thought you might all like to know that self fertilization is possible in these L.ambionesis, I have witnessed this first hand I recently purchased three such individuals from a local collector fresh from the wilds all three were carrying eggs, But the first one to release it's eggs was booted out of the group and rescued before he was killed by the other two shrimp who had made quite a mess of him/her?
Anyway relocated and recovered some three weeks later what should i spy but yes a batch of eggs curious to see if they were fertile i set up a breeder net to catch the larvae and sure enough they were fertile. Just a shame i haven't got the time to put into rearing them anymore. Time is of the essence when you own a retail aquarium store. So somewhere somehow these shrimp must have the ability to store sperm There was no notable difference in egg mass size or larvae size. Just a lack of time to play with them