How do you know if a cleaner shrimp is pregnant? It looks like mine has green stuff in her belly that might resemble eggs. (or shes eating way too much!)
Mike
Mike
Pregnant Cleaner Shrimp
- Thread starter RothChyld
- Start date
The green stuff is indeed eggs. They mature in about 2 weeks, and will become a planktonic snack for the rest of the tank dwellers some night.
They have been raised, but it takes a separate "plankton friendly" system, small live food and patience.
They have been raised, but it takes a separate "plankton friendly" system, small live food and patience.
I love it when things multiply, Espeacially when its in my tank and I get a front row seat to the birth... we need to hear more about this stuff...
A plankton fiendly tank is one that contains nothing to trap or filter the hatchlings from the water column (no sponges, no corals, etc). Cleaner shrimp are hermaphrodites, so any pair will be fertile and produce eggs. But, in most systems, the hatchlings (free swimming at this stage, do not look like the adult shrimp) are caught by filter feeding corals, crustaceans, and fish, or get trapped in sponges and other fine-particle media, or starve for lack of available food in the water column. So--you seldom will get more shrimp in a community setup.