Pregnant cleaner shrimp??

[buddah001]

I was sitting watching my tank today and noticed one of my cleaner shrimp is loaded with eggs. Or it appears to be eggs. They are are all underneath the tail. Is this eggs? If they hatch will she take care of them or will the clowns eat them? Do they hide in the live rock and will they be able to survive?

[Tennyson]

Its really hard to take care of baby cleaner shrimp, but yes, they can have babies, mine did, but it ate them. You said that they were under the tail, do you mean that literally? Or are they in between those swimmer things right next to the tail?

But if it does have eggs, if you don't remove the young, they won't last two hours in your tank, they need to be removed and fed on live brine shrimp.

[buddah001]

yeah they are all in those swimmer things. I would venture to say this probally is not the first time this has happened in the tank. Those cleaner shrimp have been in there a few years. Just really never pais that much attention.

[Tennyson]

Well, you can try to breed them if you want, but they are really hard to keep alive. Barely any people have had succes in breeding them, peppermints are fairly easy, my baby peppermints have been alive now for about 21 days. Shrimp seem to have their babies really often.