Im a new father, please help with my thousands of spawn!

[flfirefighter13]

OK a few days ago I bought a tank, transfered everything to my established tank and now we have the coolest thing ever.... A coral banded shrimp was spotted with eggs around 1/2 hour ago, then she hatched em all out now I have thousands of little shrimp. I scooped most out and placed them into a 2.5 gallon setup I had running and now Im looking for advice on keeping em alive. Any ideas? or should I just feed them to my fish?
Brian

 

[waterfaller1]

Pm'd you.

 

[flfirefighter13]

got the pm, morning after update most have died but we do have a couple hundred still kicking in a little tank with some live rock and a bubbler, we'll see what happens! thanks

 

[waterfaller1]

Good luck with them!

 

[cschweitzer]

How do you feed their larvae? Is it the regular rotifers that are used for clownfish breeding? How are you controlling temp and salinity? They do make good food for the tank, but I've heard invert spawning is hard to accomplish...Good luck

 

[Juck]

I'm afraid Stenopus hispidus are about the most difficult ornamental shrimp when it comes to aquaculture. They take ages to settle (months I think) and have many different larval stages.

I believe the fry can be fed newly-hatched BBS immediately. The water must be pristine ,,, big water changes and syphon the tank daily.

 

[cschweitzer]

So Juck, can pep's or cleaner's be done easier? I would assume by size alone that any shrimp would take an expert breeder to care for.

 

[waterfaller1]

There is a book about breeding pepp's that's supposed to be useful in breeding other types of shrimp.

 

[Juck]

Peppermint shrimp are easier but they are still an awful lot of work,,, they settle after about 7 weeks I think. Quite a few hobbiests have successfully raised Pepps,,, Rob Toonen over at RDO and Frank Marini here at RC are two that spring to mind. I don't think anyone is raising them commercially on a large scale (as far as I know).

Cecilia Riley published 'Captive Spawning and Rearing of the Peppermint Shrimp ' in 1994 ,, I've never read it, but if you're considering trying this then you should probably get a copy. There's also another book out there called 'How To Raise & Train Your Peppermint Shrimp' by April Kirkendall.

Scarlet Skunk Cleaners & other Lysmata shrimp are very difficult to raise to settlement as far as I know. I think a few hobbiests have done it but not many.

I have 3 pregnant female pepps in my 75g and one very overworked male,,, I just look at it as fresh fish food,, maybe I'll have a go at raising some when they add an extra day to the week (Fishday,, comes between Wednesday and Thursday)

 

[dmbedard]

I'm ready for fishday too!