Harlequin Shrimp Breeding Project

Thanks to Saltcritters.com for getting me these harlequins. I'm going to attempt to breed them. First thing I need to do is make sure that they bond. So far so good. They won't leave each others side which is a good sign of pairing.

To my knowledge no one has had complete success breeding them, and only a few have tried.

These things have one heck of an appetite. I put about 20 small stars in with them last night and there was only two left this evening when I got home and they were being eaten at that time. I have around 50 in there now. I'll see how many are left tomorrow.

My plan is to keep them good and fed. I try to top off every night with RO water, and do a 50% water change every week with water from my DT. I have probably a thousand of the little white stars in my sumps and a few still in the DT, so I hope I don't run out of food any time soon.

If anyone has info on breeding them, please post it up here. I've been in touch with Chuck from Chucksaddiction. He attempted it and had to put it on hold for a while. He's going to start it back up. He asked that I keep in touch with him on how I fair.

Wish me luck, and again any ideas please let me know.

Here is a site I'm going to use a lot of reference from. It's one of the most documented breeding attempts I've found.

http://www.chucksaddiction.com/harlequinshrimp.html

Looks like copepods and brine shrimp are the only things that really work for the larvae.

you have been seriously bitten by the breeding bug Glen!! So, how does one collect eggs from a shrimp???

they keep the eggs attached to them until they hatch, then you have to collect the larvae.

Incredible article!!

You gonna try to culture algagen's parvocalanus pods? I think they are the smallest that they sell.

don't be surprised when the pair goes through that entire population of astrina stars in about a week! they are unstoppable!

I just put in some more a bit ago. I bet there's 100 of the little stars in with them now. Seems they don't have a bottom to their stomachs.

Not sure on what pods to culture. I'm in a study on another site and we're going to be raising pods through it. I'll post more on that when it actually happens. That will be more than enough for the larvae and the tank. I just need to get some Tiso to start up. i need a disk or a culture sample.

Can you try keeping a crop of chocolate chips or something and just removing 1 or 2 arms at a time so you can have a never ending supply of starfish? Since starfish regenerate and all...

That is what my lfs does. I was told to keep about 5 chocolate chip stars for a pair of harlequins. Just chop and rotate. These shrimp seem to defy the law of conservation of mass. It is astounding how much they can eat. More entertaining than that small Japanese woman that sucks down Nathans's hot dogs and lemonade.

I really don't like the idea of cutting them. I'm not sure what I'll do when that time comes. Right now I have more than enough of the little white stars.

I thought I had them pretty much cleaned out of my DT and all in the sump....till I went in last night after lights out. There were hundreds on the front glass. That's even after picking about a hundred out of the tank that I was able to see when the lights were on.

Ill cut em up for ya lol. I dont like cc stars.

This is too cool! I'm excited to see your progress

I hate asterina stars (they irritate my zoas) so I get a small sense of justice seeing them being devoured by Harlequins ^_^

I would never get a pair of Harlequins simply because I don't have the heart to cut up a chocolate chip starfish I'm a pansy...

I already have my stainless steel cleaver and plastic cutting board all picked out.

Originally Posted by LadyOfIreland

This is too cool! I'm excited to see your progress

I hate asterina stars (they irritate my zoas) so I get a small sense of justice seeing them being devoured by Harlequins ^_^

I would never get a pair of Harlequins simply because I don't have the heart to cut up a chocolate chip starfish I'm a pansy...

That's exactly why I began putting them in my sump. They were eating my zoanthids. I thought why not get something that eats them, and try to do something with them.

You should have seen all the poo in the tank when I got home last night. I'll snap a shot tonight before I clean the tank.

You're supposed to clean these tanks every day because of the waste that they produce. I don't have a powerhead in there. Just a sponge filter and a lift pump circulating water through a small filter.

Do all of the asternia stars eat corals?

I keep coming back and looking at these pics. Great buy man, they are gorgeous!

Pretty ambitious project. Shrimp arent easy to raise. I wanted to try cleaner shrimp a while back and did a lot of reading on them before i bagged the idea.

The August 2011 AFM magazize had an article on rearing marine fish larvae. It included peppermint shrimp in there noting the only difference was you have to beware of hair algae so their legs dont get stuck, and it said you can start with freshly hatched artemia rather than rotifers, and beware of cannibalism if they arent fed enough. If the diet of the larval harleguins is similar to other larval shrimp, maybe Glen can apply the peppermint strategy to the harlequins. Im looking forward to this thread as time goes on.

Originally Posted by Variko

Do all of the asternia stars eat corals?

They usually don't eat corals. Only when they are underfed??? I definitely feed my tank well, so I don't understand it.