What a great shot! That actually really helps me know what to look for with mine. I haven't seen any signs of eggs other then how she was acting yesterday. But now I know what they look like!


So just a little turkey baster then. I can see how that would be very useful in our tanks. I will have to pick one up! Thanks for sharing!

I said I was going to try to get a better shot today... but I can't... She released her babies last night and I got to watch!! It was so neat! She stood on top of some zoas and spread the sections of the tail. Then it looked like she shook and flapped her little legs and whoosh! Out came the babies... probably a couple hundred of them! Most of them looked lifeless but I did see a few squirming around. After she released them, she spent a good long while cleaning her tail. And when I woke up this morning, all the babies were gone, as usual. When I told mom about it, she told me I need to start another tank so I can raise the babies and sell them.

That is so cool that you were able to watch! It would be so much fun to be able to raise the babies. It sounds like they need lots of attention though. I think I will have to wait until my son is older before I can attempt it. It would be really cool if you did it though! Since you are already our expert on sexies you could advise us all on babies too! Hee hee.... I guess I want you to do the work first then tell me the easy way...or if not easy then just all the tricks that make it really work! I barley have time for my regular tank maintenance so I can't even imagine adding a sexy baby tank! It would be so much fun watching some one else go though the process though.

pickup the "How to Raise and Train Peppermint Shrimp" book - It has a lot of relative information. There's also a thread on RC that captures someone's attempt at raising the babies

Good stuff! I will be hopefully buying a few more shrimp in the coming weeks to increase my odds of getting a few mating pair.

Thanks, I may look into getting that book. And I have that RC link bookmarked already!
http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthre...mp;pagenumber=1

You were watching? Geez! Give the shrimp some privacy!

Seriously though, that sounds really neat! So, umm... where exactly did the babies go?

She was doing it right out in the open, so she was in public and I had every right to watch!

I don't know where the babies went. I heard the pistol shrimp snapping up a storm, so I'm assuming they were pigging out and I can only guess the rock crab and the bazillion bristle worms were eating too. Its a hard life y'know. Not to mention getting chopped up by the filter impeller.... Poor things. When I switch tanks, I may keep this one running with just an airstone and maybe some macro algaes. I just need to do more reeeeeeesearch.

Does anyone know if I could put a emerald crab in my 3g? I have two sexies and dont want the crab to mess with them. I have a lot of bubble algae thats the reason for wanting an emerald.

There are a couple of problems with emerald crabs. As they grow larger, they tend to become predatory upon other critters in the tank. I'm not completely sure if they would or would not harm the sexies, but there would always be a chance. Also, I think they get a little too big to live comfortably in a 3gal. tank. I think a better choice would be to take the rocks out of the tank and carefully remove the bubble algae yourself.

Liveaquaria says 30G. Is it really OK to put them in a smaller tank like 2.5G?

I snapped a few quick pics the other day of my sexies. Two were off doing their own thing and these guys hung out together. It was atnight, when the tank lights had gone off, and I swear it looked like a scene from E.T. where he is waiting for the spaceship to come get him. These guys were just on top of the kenya tree, waving their tails, looking up at the light.

The pictures as horrible, but I can't for the life of me figure out how to get better ones!

Fun pictures! I love when they all hang out together!

Hey if anyone successfully raises sexy baby shrimpies, I'd be interested in adopting

If you're talking about an emerald crab, I'd say it is not advisable to put one in a pico. They could cause problems, even in a larger tank.


ET... lol! Good job catching those photos.


Hey SL, how many alias' have you had to use lately?
And I'm hoping I can raise some little babies. I'll put you down on my list.

No i meant the sexy shrimp.

Sexies love small tanks. Lalani has a 2.5 gal. Here is her link

http://www.nano-reef.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=150482

And she is the sexy queen! check it out! Sorry I beat you to it Lalani! But you are awesome!

Lol! Thanks, Jenni, but I'm still learning about these little shrimp, just like everybody else.
Kamao, sexies really prefer smaller, dedicated tanks. They do ok in larger tanks, but they feel more secure in something smaller, with fewer tank mates.

I caught one of my female sexies snooping around the mushroom pile this morning and she agreed to do a photo shoot so she must've been in a good mood. I captured some pretty nice close-ups and she gave me really good poses so I thought I'd share them on here.

Fantastic pics, Fab! She really does look like she's posing in some of them.
Oh, and I really like your mohawk.

She really did pose for me! When she saw me with the camera she instantly crawled out of the mushroom and started posing. She strutted across the tank, stopping often to strike a pose. She's quite the little diva!

I'm glad you like my 'hawk. Thanks for the compliment!

Gah, wish mine weren't so shy. Hopefully I can raise some of the babies and keep a few for my tank. Maybe once their numbers grow, they will gain more confidence.

I went shopping today, and the parents wanted to come along, so I let them..... Of course, they had a list of groceries and whatnot to buy also...... But I hunted all over the place, and NO ONE has 2.5 or 5.5 gallon aquariums! I found 5.5gal. watertight reptile tanks at PetsMart, but they were like $35. So, at the last store, my dad came up with a brilliant (but not original) idea of getting a 10gal. tank and putting a divider half-way through. It will be a little more work than I was planning on, but I think it will work out great. Needless to say, I picked up one of the 10gal. tanks. I've just got to find the threads in which people have done this before and steal a few ideas. All in all, the Sexy Tank will be upgraded more than expected.

Just thought I'd drop by and show off my new camera.



Oh yeah and one of my sexy shrimp eating a chunk of shrimp.

Very nice! What kind of camera did you get? I need a good one to get better pictures of my tank (oh and my son too!).

It is the Canon Eos Rebel Xsi 40D. I got the last one from our local Best Buy, and they have no idea when it will be back in. You can see it reviewed in a number of places, even though Amazon says they aren't really out for a while.

Oooh, how is the XSi?
I have the XT.

lalani, have you seen sanddeep's tank ?
mabey you could try somthing like that with your 10G
i can post a link if you want

Thanks John, yeah Sanddeeps tanks are some of the main ones that I will be using as a starting point. I am going to try my best to use glass for the false wall, though. I have one scrap piece and I need to trim it on 2 edges to make it fit. Then I have the task of trying to cut a small hole for the maxi-jet output to fit snuggly into. Since I won't be able to cut the teeth for surface skimming, I may just cut the whole piece shorter and add some eggcrate to the top of it so the water will just fall over the back. Since there will be sexies in the tank, I may even go so far as to put some plastic screen or mesh on the front of the eggcrate so the shrimp don't take a ride back to the fuge area.

So far the XSi is fantastic. I have barely even started plumbing the depths of the photo options. Lots of easy to use settings, and a lot of space for someone getting serious. I have only had it for 2 days or so, and so far it is great.

ok im in the club now..




enjoy!

Welcome to the Sexy Club!

thank ya. im planning on getting a couple more soon. today i was mostly going for the pom pom crab but splurged on a sexy.

Yay! Welcome to the club!

Sexy in a 28g? I want to get 3 to 7 sexys for my 28g. They will share the tank with a fire shrimp a peppermint shrimp 2 pom pom crabs 2 perc clowns 1 firefish 1 jawfish and lots of coral. Is this ok other than them being hard to locate?

Sounds fine! As long as their are no invert-eaters, sexies should do fine with all other inhabitants.

So I'm checking out my shrimp as I'm feeding them tonight and see that the closest one to me is looking a little fatter than normal. I grabbed the magnifying glass, lo and behold she's carrying eggs. I looked around for the other 2 and it appears that the other female is also with eggs. Seems like my little boy has been busy after light's out. I need to verify the 2nd one still, but she too appears to be fatter. Both are also exhibiting characteristics of egg carrying females.

Here's one pic I was able to snap off before my batteries went dead - I hadn't plugged in the batteries since returning from TN/MS this past weekend.


Although I intend to ultimately try and raise some, these "batches" might go to waste. I am still doing some reading on raising them and I'm not sure if I an get a larval tank, food cultures, etc. up in time.

Bow chika bow wow

Great shot! I'm going to try and raise some of the babies too, so we'll be able to share tips.

I'd like to make a request of the other club members - Can you please post any links that you may have come across related to breeding and raising these guys?

I already know of at least MOFIB, Project Dibs, and the LisaP thread over on RC.

There's also a thread on RC related to breeding peps and fire shrimp - Will have to look for and link the posts.

What a great picture! I that is so cool! I am pretty sure that 2 of my 3 females have carried eggs form the way they were acting but I was never able to see them. Thanks for sharing!

I marked down in a journal that my female sexy shrimp was with eggs on the 14th, and last night she released the babies.... which means it only takes 5 days for the eggs to hatch.

were you able to collect any? I'm working on a larval tank today. Just a simple 10g with airstone, hydor heater and strip light. Hoping for hatch mid next week.

I did not try to collect any. I'm going to wait until I've completed the pico upgrade and then I will use the 2.5gal pico as a small scale larval tank, just to see how feasible the project will be.
Are you going to put the female into the larval tank and remove her afterwards, or are you going to catch and transfer the larvae?

I'm going to try and catch them. From what I understand with shrimp, hatches are typically about the same time as a molt. I don't want to risk stressing her/them.

With peppermints, it's said that stress may cause the mother shrimp to abort the clutch, mortality for both mother and babies is very high.

In a day or so, I'm going to cut off the overflow and return pump and replace them with a small HOB filter and a night light away from the intake - There are no predators in the tank except for the parents so hopefully some of the fry will be a little more protected until I can pull them from the tank.

Good strategy! How are you going to collect the larvae? I was planning on using a flashlight to attract them to the side of the tank and scoop or suck them out gently, like described in the LisaP thread.

I'm thinking the one female may be getting ready to hatch out her clutch-

Any "signs" per se that those of you have seen hatches can recall? She's cleaning the and aerating the eggs more frequently today / tonight. She also seems to be spending a little more time away from the other 2 shrimp.

Larval tank is basically done and waiting. Mixing and heating water in a 5g bucket now. Debating starting a batch of bbs since they take time to hatch out.

When my female is ready to release the larvae, she will stay away from the other shrimp. She also won't accept any food. Other than that, you just need to keep an eye out. Mine usually releases between 11pm and 12am.

maybe it won't be tonight then as she was still eating after water change earlier today

I guess we'll see -

Finally got my SEXIES!

congrats Aaron - How many? What tank are they going in? The AP or pico?

Hey Lalani - How big are the fry at hatching? I working on some thoughts for isolating them in the display after hatch until they can be collected.

Ryan

Congrats! Welcome to the Sexy Club!


The newly hatched larvae are tiny, maybe 2mm long. I think it would be great if you could isolate them, but I think it will be difficult. What do you plan on using?

Isolation would only be temporary (until I woke in the morning) as the idea of watching and waiting till the wee hours does not sound so fun.

I'm considering using a small plastic frame with wedding veil or something similar. Holes small enough for for fry to pass through, yet still let water flow. This frame will sit in the corner of the tank with a small LED above it to keep the young'ns attracted. Siphon off in the a.m.

MOFIB also shows a snagger using an overflow going into a specimen box - The fry are separated from the return pump by a screen. I could setup a screen in the rear "sump" and create a screened partition with finer mesh or foam pad - I'm just not sure about larva mortality going through the Utube