mysid shrimp question

[wschang812]

do mysid shrimp hide in live rock like copepods/amphipods or are they free swimming the the water column all the time? I want to seed my display tank mostly, and very little in my fuge. my tank is cycling still, but i'm wondering that if i do seed the display before i add fish, when i do add fish, will my mysid population disappear totally from the display or will it be sustained due to them hiding in the live rock/crevices as well? any knowledge on this would be appreciated. thanks in advanced

 

[Trainwreck]

I have tons of mysid shrimp in my fuge, (CPR HOB Fuge, Med) for some reason they seem to pop up a lot more when you use miracle mud in the fuge but anyway they really hang out in rock work whenever they make it out of the fuge....so, as long as they can get in there before the fish go in I would say sure they can maintain their populations if there is enough places for them to hide in. I have noticed that in systems that have lots of rock work packed tightly together enough that no fish can get back behind them, yet have small open areas (like a corner that is almost entirely closed off with rocks) copepods/ampipods/mysid shrimp will seem to gravitate towards that area and multiply like crazy. I had a system once that had the aforementioned with my back right corner of the tank (which I could view from the side) and I almost always saw copepods swimming around....I mean it, not just typical benthic crawling around on the glass and rocks but actually pelagic 'pods swimming around in an almost school like pattern. I think the biggest reason that they were able to get to this population is that they had access to raw water, unlike most fuges do, and had the benefit of being protected since no fish could fit. I liked to further encourage the increase of zooplankton populations inside the display tank by taking one piece of rubble out of the fuge once a week and swapping it with another piece inside the display. Just hide the rubble somewhere that isn't an eyesore and do the swap at night time a few hours after the lights have turned off; this way the fish don't immediately feast on them.

 

[wschang812]

Thanks, appreciate it

 

[Trainwreck]

No prob dude

 

[wschang812]

I heard mysid shrimp are cannibals and are hard to culture. If I feed the tank normally, will they be able to build a population in the tank just by me feeding the tank with my fish? Will they survive on the uneaten/leftover/detritus food. I don't want to buy live shrimp if they are just going to eat each other up lol. Any advice is appreciated. Thanks

Tank specs:
50 gallon with 10 gallon fuge with chaeto
45lb live rock
40lb live sand