skunk cleaner shrimp eggs.
 

I have a single skunk cleaner shrimp and today inoticed it has a mass of eggs under its tail.I am guessing it must be a female.Does anyone know anything about them breedinging in captivity?Do you need a male and female?How do you tell a male from female?Is there any chance of them surviving in captivity?What set up would I need.

there's really no luck for you to breed them, they need a special system and from what i've heard they are impossible to breed......they eggs and larva are usually fish food.

From my understanding, they're not impossible to breed, just very difficult and time-consuming. Their larval stage is supposed to be right around90-100 days...not sure if theres an actual chamical cue needed to trigger metamorphosis or not, but it has been suggested. Perhaps Luis or Edgar can chime in.

Over 120 days.Search "Lysmata"

Luis, any tips on rearing them successfully? I've read so many different theories on bringing these guys through metamorphosis, but I don't know what's fact and what's fiction. I know they've been raised, but do you have any details? Foods? Tank size/temp? Anything "unique" added (like wild plankton, certain chemicals, etc.)?

I have not raised them,just had some larva survive 120 days.Couple of people here have raised them though.In a nutshell,the problem is that they die and die and keep dieying.If there is some secret,I haven´t found it yet:(

Im gonna try it.Maybey I'll crack this one.My sks has already eaten most of the eggs but that was because I only have one.I'm going to buy 3 more and set up one with mine and the other two alone.I'll keep in touch with my results.

Good luck:) .Though you should try your wings first with peppers,L.wurdemanni:rolleyes:

Agreed on the peps...but good luck either way...make sure to chart your progress!

Update.My SCS has had 2 more batches of eggs that went unfertal due to lack of a mate.But I added a small one a few weeks ago and the next batch of eggs were fertalized.The shrimp always lays the eggs after a molt and if unfertalized they disappeared in less than 24 hours.I didnt really expect the new shrimp to be a suitable mate because of his small size but the next batch after he was introduced stayed.Tonight my first batch has hatched.I have most of the babys in a small 2 gal tank which I set up for holding them.I also put a few dozen in a 30 gal which is cycled and will soon hold seahorse,a few dozen in a plastic breeder still in the spawning tank and there is still a bunch still swimming free.Its late and I got a lot to do but ill write more tommorow on some of my observations so far.

I was never able to get a search on these shrimp so I have very little info on the raising of these shrimp so any and all info will be great.Thanks.

Any update?

Not impossible to raise, then again settlement success is relatively low. Not to mention the larval duration which is many times greater than peppermint shrimps and even blood shrimps. Here is a photo of one 10 days past settlement. Took about 5-6 months to settle out.

http://www.sgreefclub.com/forum/uplo...1140862525.jpg

did they have a settlement cue? how many out of the batch made it?

Hmmm..only 1 made it. No one to take good care of them since it was during vacation period. Another 3 would have made it but died from water quality problems. Don't think any settlement cue was introduced, but then again I read somewhere a small percentage of larvae will still settle in the absence of settlement cues.

I read your posts on the singapore reef club forum a while back and I believe you mentioned that you had added blood shrimp larvea to the cleaner shrimp larvea with the expectation that they would be eaten but they werent. Have you gotten any of the blood shrimp to settle? and if so can you post some info about it?

thanks

Yep the amboinensis larvae left the debelius larvae alone. From what I observed debelius larvae seem to be more aggressive hunters. I have managed to get a few bloods to settle. They died during the vacation period due to the lack of care though. All the info have been posted in singapore reef club forum. Not very nice of me to hijack other ppl's thread. :)