Breeding Cleaner Shrimp

[Lexus9903]

Hello-

My husband and I have two cleaner shrimp in our tank with greenish colored eggs in them. Does anyone know about breeding these shrimp? I only found a couple of articles on the web and they were totally conflicting! Any help would be appreciated! Thanks!

Lexi and Rob

[OrionGirl]

Cleaners are hermaphrodites, so with a pair, you always have at least one carrying eggs. The eggs hatch into free floating larvae that hang out in the water column unti their first molt, when they will drop to the substrate, become more visible and start looking like shrimp. In a community setup, the larvae are quickly eaten by most filter feeders. You can set a new tank for them, but it's a bit of effort. I just let the tank have a good snack, and don't worry about it. If any make it through alive, it would be nice, but not worth the effort to setup a tank to raise them.

[Lexus9903]

Thanks for the Info! I figured they'd probally be a pain but I had to ask!


Lexi

[gje]

so if i bought a new cleaner shrimp to go with my 3 month old one they would start to breed also do fire shrimp and cleaners interbreed with each other or do they keep to there own...

[mogurnda]

Your cleaners will start to breed.
As far as I know, there are no records of fire shrimp and cleaners interbreeding.
Fire shrimp are trickier to pair. From what I read, it's very common for one partner to kill an unsuitable mate.

[gje]

thanks for letting me know i plan on getting a new cleaner in the coming weeks.

[fishieness]

if you post your email, ill send you a pretty useful article that i searched for when i was looking to purchase a breeding pair of fireshrimp (unfortunatly, by the time i had it researched to find thaat i wanted to do it, someone has already bought them. lol)