Is it common...

[Booeenie]

...To have thousands of little things swimming in your tank water column at night? I have lots of pod and such and I've seen a few of them in thw water column, but that is not what I saw last night. What I saw resembled shrimps I guess. Little fan like tails. Clearish. Way too small to get a picture of. If you have an idea about what it is let me know, but I would really like to know if this is something I will see again. What about increase in bio-load with a huge swarm of life?

[Cahooligan]

you have cleaner shrimp? they spawn about every month, and thatd be my only guess.

[Booeenie]

Two actually. I was under the impression that they rarely mated in our tanks. Cool. Maybe I should shut off filters and pumps for a while tonight and see if I can get a few to settle and stay. Anybody have any luck getting them to grow? I don't think anything I have will eat them, but who knows about the hermit crabs and sally light foot. Really considering removing all crabs.

[Booeenie]

Also don't the cleaner shrimp visibly carry their eggs under their tails? I hadn't noticed anything. I remember it was very visible when my Coral Banded was carrying eggs.

[headless]

might be cope or amphipods...read about them...more likely what you have...and if you do, you're in great shape! No problem at all to have them!

[SushiGirl]

Little fan like tails sounds like Cahooligan is correct. They're very hard to raise in captivity and take specialized grow out tanks, etc., so really no benefit to turning off the powerheads to try to save any unless you just want to watch & take pics! Any fish or corals in your tank?

Thought I had a pic of a cleaner carrying eggs (they're not a bright color like some, more the same color as the shrimp body), but I can't find it. Here's a baby shrimp though.
138780

Found a pic, but they're not fully developed.
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/99248541@N00/3583099177/" title="Pregnant Skunk Cleaner Shrimp by Sushi_Girl1995, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3633/3583099177_c912cae3be.jpg" width="500" height="375" alt="Pregnant Skunk Cleaner Shrimp" /></a>

[Booeenie]

headless:
might be cope or amphipods...read about them...more likely what you have...and if you do, you're in great shape! No problem at all to have them!
I do have a pretty good population cope and/or amphipods. Couple different kinds in there. I have seen them swimming before, but what I saw last night really looked like shrimps because of the little fan like tails. I just thought peppermint shrimps rarely bred in tanks. I was wondering if anyone else has had this happen, or if it was common.


SushiGirl:
Thanks for the input. Great pics. I actually have peppermint shrimp, not the cleaners. What I was seeing was close to those pics though.

[FlammySnake]

Peppermints are actually very easy to breed in captivity, mine spawned last night as well! Raising larva is easier than is for most marine livestock, provided you have the means and know how(see April Kirkendoll(sp?)). I typically leave mine go unless I'm feeling spicy. Congrats!

[SushiGirl]

The babies in the pic I posted are actually peppermint babies LOL.
I thought yours was a cleaner cuz you said cleaner up in your 12:57 pm post.
Peps eggs are more noticeable, but if they hide a lot you may not notice. I have one that's been pregnant twice so far in this new tank, and sometimes I have a hard time telling which one it is. Haven't caught it releasing the fry yet in this tank though. Usually they have eggs once a month or so, so it's pretty common.

Here's an old pic of a pregnant pep. Sorry for the small pic, it's all I have left from back then LOL.
138821

Peps are more easy to raise in captivity, but still not that easy. Here's a link to an article on breeding them. Behavior and Breeding of Peppermint Shrimp (http://www.advancedaquarist.com/issues/april2004/feature.htm)

Would be cool if you managed it!

[BigRedSpecial]

I've had cleaners reproduce in my tank before; there were literally hundreds of them swimming around... for about an hour. Next morning there wasn't a single one to be found. Not sure about peppermints... I believe they lack a larval stage (babies look like smaller adults)?

Another possibility, and something I've seen in my tank, is an explosion of mysid shrimp. I had thousands of them appear out of nowhere one night. They didn't last long either (at least not in those numbers), but slowly diminished over a few days.

[BigRedSpecial]

Here's a picture of the Mysis explosion I had:
http://img109.imageshack.us/img109/747/things2.jpg (http://img109.imageshack.us/i/things2.jpg/) Uploaded with ImageShack.us (http://imageshack.us)

Not a great picture, but you can sort of make them out, and see how many of them there were. The entire tank looked like this; they were distributed evenly.

[headless]

[QUOTE=Booeenie;18331800]headless:
might be cope or amphipods...read about them...more likely what you have...and if you do, you're in great shape! No problem at all to have them!
I do have a pretty good population cope and/or amphipods. Couple different kinds in there. I have seen them swimming before, but what I saw last night really looked like shrimps because of the little fan like tails. I just thought peppermint shrimps rarely bred in tanks. I was wondering if anyone else has had this happen, or if it was common.


Gotcha...I would think that either way, it's not an issue, no? If I had 'that many' shrimp, I'd try to sell them eventually...figure a peppermint is about 5 bucks in a store...if you could somehow come up with 1000 of them, you'd be doing quite well! :frog: