[OK...I WISH I had this problem....
A work associate of the wife's has a 55gal tank and has nothing in it but a few pounds of LR ,two cleaner shrimp and two peppermint shrimp.
Seems his shrimp are very "active" and they have babies about once a month. But, they don't seem to grow. I went by there last night and he has literally HUNDREDS of itty bitty tiny shrimp scurrying all around in the sand and in the rocks, and both of his cleaners and one peppermint have HUGE mounds of new eggs on their bellies. I asked how old the little ones in the tank were and he said they were 4 months old. Now, I certainly am not going to pretend to know the growth rate of these little guys, but I would think they would be quite a bit larger than they were at 4 months. My theory is that they are not surviving he just keeps having new clutches ( or brudes, or litters, or whatever you call baby shrimp ) and thinks that the existing ones were still there.
Is there any thing he can do to be a little more successful in raising these little guys? What kind of food requirements do they have? I asked him what he was feeding them, and he said he was feeding phyto about once a week, and some small little round marine pellet type food every couple of days. In fact, he dropped a few pelets in and I actually saw tiny little shrimp attach to them and carry them around. This was quite the feat considering the pelets were about the same size as the shrimp!
Anyone successfully raise shrimp hatchlings? Any suggestions for the guy? He has never put any other stock in his tank because he doesn't want all the little ones to become some fish's food source. Would be nice if he could start actually getting some of these guys to grow ( especially since he said he would give me all that I wanted
)]
A work associate of the wife's has a 55gal tank and has nothing in it but a few pounds of LR ,two cleaner shrimp and two peppermint shrimp.
Seems his shrimp are very "active" and they have babies about once a month. But, they don't seem to grow. I went by there last night and he has literally HUNDREDS of itty bitty tiny shrimp scurrying all around in the sand and in the rocks, and both of his cleaners and one peppermint have HUGE mounds of new eggs on their bellies. I asked how old the little ones in the tank were and he said they were 4 months old. Now, I certainly am not going to pretend to know the growth rate of these little guys, but I would think they would be quite a bit larger than they were at 4 months. My theory is that they are not surviving he just keeps having new clutches ( or brudes, or litters, or whatever you call baby shrimp ) and thinks that the existing ones were still there.
Is there any thing he can do to be a little more successful in raising these little guys? What kind of food requirements do they have? I asked him what he was feeding them, and he said he was feeding phyto about once a week, and some small little round marine pellet type food every couple of days. In fact, he dropped a few pelets in and I actually saw tiny little shrimp attach to them and carry them around. This was quite the feat considering the pelets were about the same size as the shrimp!
Anyone successfully raise shrimp hatchlings? Any suggestions for the guy? He has never put any other stock in his tank because he doesn't want all the little ones to become some fish's food source. Would be nice if he could start actually getting some of these guys to grow ( especially since he said he would give me all that I wanted
)]