How Easy To Breed Cleaner Shrimp?

[simonas]

just bought two of these stripey dudes today and when I see them they look ace

in the shop the tank had a load of babies in and I;d love these to breed even if it meant they only ended up as free food for the fish

do they come as male and female or do they adapt and change sex?

 

[-Nemo-]

To breed them is easy. They are hermaphrodites so its just a matter of time before yours start to mate with each other. I had one cleaner for the longest time and then added another and within 2 days they had mated with each other.

Their eggs can only be fertilized when they have just molted so usually one of mine will have his/her babies and the same night she will molt and that same night she will also carry new eggs that are fertilized, sometimes they wait a day or two to produce new eggs though. I have 5 little ones running around with my baby clownfish atm because I accidentally caught a few.

Incubation period is generally 2 weeks and the two usually end up synchronizing with each other (at least IME) so that there are shrimp being born every week. The fish love it


Raising them is a whole different story.