Baby shrimp video

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debdp

Premium Member
Yeah, yeah, I know. I've done this before... but this time they're thriving without my trying to raise them. Note to self: Leave the animals alone, they do better without your interference :?

I have been watching for a few months now baby cleaner shrimp in my sps/lps tank. I actually looked for them after going to Fish Gallery and Josh pointed out all these mysis swimming under these rocks. I got home and started looking under and around the rocks. Yep, my cleaner shrimps' babies are thriving all over my tank, all up under the rocks, the back wall of the tank. But the majority of them are swimming around my Tunze 9002 skimmer... between the glass wall and the side of the skimmer and under the skimmer. I tried a picture but their coloring blends in so well with the background they can't be seen, so I took a video. Here's the YouTube link (well i got an error link so I have to check on it) Okay replaced try this one:

http://tinyurl.com/4feu3q

This is just a 4" x 2" space, so I'm gathering I probably have at minimum 100 of these guys thriving in my tank.

What have I done different? First: I haven't tried to raise them :) But actually I switched from DTs Phyto to all Brightwell products for the filter feeders in my tank. I usually mix it with Coral Food Mix and Rotifers and only feed 2x a week. We'll see what happens.
 
This morning was really neat. Normally in my office I turn the ceiling lights on about 7:30 so the tanks get light before the main lights come on. I didn't this morning for whatever reason. When the lights came on in the 20, there were baby shrimp covering the whole front of the glass, I mean hundreds... then because of the lights they all disappeared into the rocks, it was sooo cool.

This is frustrating. Marc just made me a nice new, slightly larger set up to replace this tank... now I've got to figure out how to move everything and not hurt this growing cycle for the shrimp.
 
Please explain mysid shrimp? I have two mated cleaner shrimp that constantly release larvae in this tank. I have not brought in anything, I don't feed live foods. Are mysid shrimp just baby cleaner shrimp?? Or are you saying you think they're something different?
 
Mysid shrimp are a separate species.

mysis.jpg
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Thank you. How though could mysis get into my tank if I haven't put any new rock in there for over 6 months? and the few small frags I have put in are on plugs and frags less than 1". I'm asking because I want to be sure I'm not wrong about them being baby cleaner as I have been wrong in the past on my assumptions of "babies" on snails.

Check out these pics, though. I fed some flake food in for my goby and larger shrimp, these guys exhibits the same "piggy" attitude of cleaner shrimp :) He's got a piece of flake about 1/3 the size of his body. There are several that hang out near the suction cups of my frag rack that's on the front of the tank. The second picture shows two eating. One could be the same as in the first picture.
 
Those look like juvenile to adult mysids. They're literally microscopic when born, so it wouldn't surprise me that we can't see them when they're hatched.

Somewhere I have a pic of a pregnant mysid, you can see the tiny green eggs. You could fit 10 eggs on the tip of a needle.
 
My mysid collection started when I bought a LPS from Fish Gallery a couple of years back, so basically those little guys can travel on rock, algae, and corals.
 
Definitely Mysid. My Mysid population is just now getting reestablished and I set up the new tank in Feb. IME it usually takes a while for these populations to reach larger numbers like your seeing. They're great for your tank though as both cleaners and food.
 
Yeah, I feel so dumb :oops: You guys are all right.. I took the magnifying glass and got a closer look at the largest one in the front and it's loaded with eggs. I know baby cleaner shrimp wouldn't be carrying eggs. And with no fish in that tank, I'm sure they'll just continue to explode. I need to siphon some out some how and put them in my 24g where I do have fish. :)

Well thank you all for your help and sorry I mislead everyone.
 
You didn't do it on purpose. It would've been cool to have baby cleaners though. I definitely would've have bought a few from you if they reached adulthood :)
 
Other than getting lucky and having them hitchhike in on rock or frags, how would you go about getting them started in your tank or fuge?
 
I originally jump started my population through hooterhead (Brandon). When he was working at Fishman in Denton (before it closed) he put a small sponge in their refugium. I picked it up the next day and it was populated with mysid and seeded my fuge with that. You could also just find someone who has them in their fuge and get some chaeto or something from them. There are also some places that sell them online shipped live to you. I'll probably need to trim back my chaeto by July 13 (frag swap) if you're going I'd be happy to give you some.
 
I gave some to a friend of mine to stock his tank. I used airline tubing & just sucked them up. Just chase them around with the tube. I ran the other end of the tube in a bag with some rubble in it so when they went in they went down in it to hide. I let the bag over flow into the tank until I had all I wanted. Also after they start to hide on you feed them & they will come out to eat & then you can get more.
 
Ben, I an planning on going to the frag swap as well. If you could bring some chaeto with mysis in it, that would be great! I don't have much to swap yet as most of my corals are hardly beyond frags.
 
Don't worry about trading anything I'll just give it to you. Send me a pm a day or so before so I don't forget if you would. I put a small sponge in the sump for you as well just to make sure you get a decent little seed population.
 
Just a quick update on these mysids. Some are still thriving in the tank... some because I'm in the process of upgrading and have split the rocks/corals up into two tanks so I can work on the new tank area. Anyway, one thing I found is that since the mysids had no real predators they boomed BUT they pretty much decimated my pod population. Where I could always see tons on the glass, sand and rocks, I can barely see any anywhere I tried siphoning some and adding them to my 12 gallon zoa tank but the little Royal Gramma in there was super quick and spotted them before they had a chance to hide. They were supposed to be food for him... but I wanted them to multiply first :( In one holding tank I can see many still in and under the rocks, but they don't seem to happy about the bare bottom.
 
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