Spawning Cleaner Shrimp

[ReefQuest]

Does anyone have any pix of cleaner shrimp carrying eggs? Also, what happens when the little shrimp are born? Are you likely to see them (Do they look like little shrimp? Do other tank inhabitants eat them too fast? Are they too small to see?)

Just curious...

Chris

 

[Midland]

I don't have any pics to post, but it is rather easy to see if you have a shrimp carrying eggs. They carry them along the underside of their body. In a cleaner shrimp, they are typically a very light greenish color. A pair of shrimp will spawn every couple of weeks. This usually occurs sometime soon after lights out. If you watch the tank for a couple of hours on the right night, you can definitely see the spawning event. The shrimp will flutter it's rear legs releasing the fry into the current. There are plenty of mouths in even a small reef tank however and these fry will be gone by morning time

Still a very neat even to witness if you ever get the chance. It's also very good food for your fish and corals!

 

[ReefQuest]

Interesting...do you have to buy a male and a female, or do they change sex. If they do change sex, can they change from female -> male AND male -> female, or can they only change from female -> male thereby not reproducing if you have two males?

Chris

 

[Jon_Hewett_85]

Whats really cool about cleaner shrimp is that each shrimp contains BOTH male and female sexes. IE any 2 shrimp can mate.

 

[Yellowboy]

The mating occurs after one of the shrimp molts. The shrimp with the softer shell is then the "female" while the hard bodied one is the male. Usually both shrimp will carry eggs because days later the other shrimp will shed and its his turn to be female. The babies will not look like shrimp(assuming that you can see anything more than dots) because shrimp go thru several life cycle forms. I don't know how many but i think there are three with shrimp being last and ugly looking funny shapes being the middle forms. Even with no other inhabitants in the tank very few will survive because the parents themselves find them tasty(how they havent become extinct with parental instincts like this baffles me). Also they need a ready supply of even smaller food. Shrimp are cool.

 

[davelin315]

I was told before that cleaner shrimp are either male or female, not androgynous. In my tank, I have 2, both are females. They are always with eggs, and there is no male (had 5 before, and 3 got killed off). The eggs are viable I'm guessing because the sperm is stored long term. Don't know if the above posts are true or not, so I won't give my opinion on it, since I could easily have been told something wrong. Anyway, the majority of your cleaner shrimp will join the plankton in your tank as a nice snack, but take a look at your sump, you might find a few tiny cleaner shrimp cruising around. Mine spawn every couple of weeks, along with a yellow tail damsel, and I have seen the young several times, but never for more than a few hours after they hatch.

 

[Anonymous]

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by davelin315:
<STRONG>I was told before that cleaner shrimp are either male or female, not androgynous.</STRONG><HR></BLOCKQUOTE>


Cleaner shrimp are both sexes although they cannot impregnate themselves. The fact that you have two shrimp that are usually carrying eggs makes this point very well

The cleaner at the right is carrying eggs that are ready to hatch.. http://home.eznet.net/~terry10/critters/cleaner.jpg

Normally the eggs are brite green and turn beige when they are about to hatch.

In this pic you can see how green the eggs are.. http://home.eznet.net/~terry10/fish/jellybean_cleaner.jpg

Here's a crappy pic of a newly hatched shrimp.. http://home.eznet.net/~terry10/critters/baby_shrimp.jpg

The little brown balls are brine shrimp eggs for a size reference...