Shrimp/inverts that breed readily in tanks?

[Elijah F]

As an avid freshwater enthusiast, I absolutely love freshwater shrimp, especially since they will breed constantly and keep their populations high without much effort. Now, of course any saltwater critter might take some more elbow grease to get breeding, but I'd still love to have some version of a cherry shrimp that I could add to my macroalgae tank that would continuously breed without me having to constantly replace them, or require me to set up an elaborate kreisel tank. So far I haven't found much; sargassum and ghost shrimp seem like plausible candidates, though I haven't found much evidence that they can breed in home aquariums

Any ideas? There are so many types of shrimp in the ocean, there's got to be at least one that will breed in a home aquarium environment.

 

[reeferguy3303]

There are none

 

[Fishyfish22]

it's not necessarily them breeding, it's the fact that everything has a thousand predators in a tank. Cleaners, coral banded, peppermints, and even sexy shrimp will breed every few months if you get good pairs but rearing and growing the fry to adults is the hard part that requires culturing rotifers, phyto if you want, and specialized setups.

that being said, usually the stuff that reproduces fast and on its own is stuff we really don't want. aptasia, asterina starfish (debated), sundial snails, and vermetids.

others reproduce so small you barely notice like chitons and small feather dusters. micro bristle stars are pretty cool but again you dont really see them reproduce and go through growth like cherry shrimp, you generally just see more tentacles start appearing under or around rocks

 

[Fishyfish22]

Current Project is: Culturing phyto and Pods!

Attempt 1 sees me attempting:
AlgaeBarn Ocean Magik
Apocyclops Panamensis
Tisbe Pods
Tigger Pods
I will be using 8-1Gal Jars, 2 will go towards culturing each organism. The goal right now is to let them grow for a few days before I start cutting the cultures!

 

[Ryebreadiest]

Nice setup, trying to raise something specific?

 

[klawson]

You could try opae ula shrimp - they reproduce like freshwater shrimp, and while they're technically brackish, I've read that they can be kept and bred in full salinity seawater also. The main reason I think they're not more popular is because they're so small - smaller than freshwater shrimp, and therefore snack-sized for most fish. I have some in their own tank (brackish) and found them to be super hardy and reproduce readily. I haven't tried them in my reef tank yet though. Apparently some people have kept them with dwarf seahorses as tank mates, clean up crew, and even extra food (babies) - I'm hoping to try dwarf seahorses eventually, and plan to add the shrimp with them if I do.

 

[Stomatopods17]

old thread, but pretty much as everyone else said breeding shrimp for saltwater is more of a science project than 'drop a ton of shrimp have a colony constantly repopulating itself'

Freshwater shrimp, (the ones that don't travel to higher salinity waters) adapted better to being isolated to dirtier water and less food options. Saltwater you're seeing a whole different predatory food web, including what they're going to prey on (sometimes each other) and keeping that maintained in a filtered aquarium is... no, thats why the ones tank bred are isolated in special systems and constantly given the food until they reach a stage where they can forage normally, and then its a matter of if anything will eat them or if they can even coexist together.

 

[ISpeakForTheSeas]

For shrimp specifically, see the links below (the first link is a general shrimp rearing guide, the second is basically tips and info on rearing ghost/grass shrimp specifically):

Breeding Palaemon Elegans (Mediterrane Rock Pool Shrimp) Guide

Hi, Im going to post a breeding guide of palaemon elegans shrimps here. Two females are preparing for spawning so if you are interested you may want to stick with me. This breeding guide will be interchangable for every kind of shrimps but i stick elegans because: - With cleaner shrimp we are...

www.reef2reef.com

Culturing Marine Grass/Ghost Shrimp

Hey everyone! TLDR summary at bottom. I've seen a few people on here ask about how to culture marine ghost/grass shrimp species in their tanks, and the responses I've seen have ranged from it's not possible, to use Google Scholar, to you just add them and they breed. Knowing that Ghost/Grass...

www.reef2reef.com