Mystery babies

[kizanne]

I have some 1/8 to 1/4" long babies in my tank. I awoke this morning to them all at the surface. They appear to be minnow like. my husband said there were thousands but when I got there it seemed like several hundred. Everyone seemss to be eating them except the banggai cardinal fish.

the tank is new, 125 gallons. It has tampa bay live rock, chaeto, gracillaria, two peppermint shrimp, two pink skunks. Added Sunday, 4 aquacultured Banggai, 2 yellow tangs, a cleaner goby, a six line wrasse and 2 cleaner shrimp.

I'm trying to get a better look at these guys. My head says they can't be fish and they don't look like shrimp (to me). But I'm thinking maybe a cardinal came mouth brooding? But the babies don't look like a traditional cardinal, I have searched and after 10 pages I haven't found pictures of day 1-15 cardinal babies so do they go through a metamorphisis to look like they do?

Any ideas? I'm trying to get pictures to post.

 

[kizanne]

Double by accident

 

[kizanne]

Mystery mostly solved. It's some kind of shrimp. I managed to borrow a microscope and I can see 8 legs (think it is 8) and some antenna. Don't know what kind of shrimp I'm hoping something useful like peppermint.

 

[kizanne]

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/picture.php?albumid=9518&pictureid=66179

 

[Sugar Magnolia]

Probably a mysid bloom.

 

[mwilliams62]

Might be the peppermint shrimps babies.. I had one that had babies but they did not live they are very hard to raise if that is what they are.

 

[ReeferKimberly]

Anything like this?

Skip to 40 seconds

 

[kizanne]

I haven't seen any mysid. I do know they could come on the rock and stay hidden (like the pistol shrimp I hear but don't see).

I think it is peppermint. I'm going to try to raise some, and I hope they spawn again so I can be more ready next time.

ReeferKimberly is wasn't quite like that. My husband came down and turned the lights on. When I came down stairs they were all at the surface, none on the glass, some hugging the edge of the glass at the top of the water.

They could swim quickly and did swim in circles or back and forth. They didn't sit still as much as those on the glass

 

[kizanne]

Well my babies are still alive so I feel good about that.

 

[accordsirh22]

i used to have sexy shrimp spawn like clockwork in one of my tanks, they were actually pretty large and looked kinda like mosquito larva. not sure if that helps you any, but i would put money on peppermints or the cleaners since i have had both spawn/hold eggs as well, even though i never caught that actual spawning event or saw the larva from those.

 

[D-Nak]

+1 peppermint shrimp. It's very common and the babies make great fish food.

 

[kizanne]

Yes, definately was Peppermint. They made it to Day 7 but I think they are all dead now. They were alive last night. I know I had some losses yesterday, then this morning I didn't see any but was in a hurry. I'll be checking more thoroughly tonight. One peppermint is already carrying eggs again so I'll probably try to get past 7 days when they spawn if I can catch them. But I'm busy with some other pressing fish matters right now so we'll see. I definitely want to try getting them to settlement so I hope they keep spawning so I can work on my own system. I've read many threads that have gotten them to settlement.