Mysis shrimp (what do they eat?)

[ctreefer]

I've got what I can only identify as a bunch of Mysid shrimp growing in my little 10 gallon nano softy tank. The run around like crazy over everything in the dark corners of the tank and are about 3-5mm in length. There are no fish in there even though there have been in the past. what I feed on occasion contains a mixture of golden pearls, frozen cyclopeeze and some frozen mysid and fortified brine(for the softies). Would Mysid eat any of this stuff? (specifically the young as I'd like to keep them growing for a pipe fish down the road.)

[Paintbug]

they eat anything they can. even their young. :) they usually small algae.

[Mark426]

mine love frozen cyclopeeze

[vessxpress1]

I've got them too and I do have fish in the tank but they must be able to hide well enough not to get eaten. I think the corals pick them off at night as they get blown around though.

The water column in my phosban reactor is currently full of them, about 1 mm or less in length. The adults I've seen in the tank are roughly 3 to 5 mm like you say. I don't feed them anything special. They're on their own. If they can thrive long term in a phosban reactor, I'm guessing their requirements are minimal.

[davidryder]

You sure they aren't amphipods? Either way they eat just about anything they can get their grubby little 'hands' on. Leftover food, phyto, whatever...

[Reefbox]

They probably r copepods or amphipods, I have tons of them in my refugiums but they could be mysids.

I do know that mysids are definetely canniballistic shrimp and to culture mysids (im looking into possibly culturing live mysids for my seahorses) you have to seperate the adult mysids from the baby mysids or you probably wont have any more baby mysids because they will all get ate by the bigger mysids.

[ctreefer]

Thanks for the input everyone. They're definitely mysids. I looked at the article by Shimek along with the video and that's exactly what I have.

[lvreefer]

This artitcle might help...Mysis Culturing (http://www.seahorse.org/library/articles/mysisCulturing.shtml) ...Better late than never :hmm2:

[hankthetank]

Used to culture mysis for bioassays.Their cannibalistic tendencies can be minimized by frequent heavy feedings.Water quality will be the problem.Also cultures tend to crash so reculture frequently.