Hermit Larvae?

[92Miata]

Had a bloom of these things last night in one of our tanks. There's a fire shrimp, but only one. Only other inverts I can think of that have more than one are hermits and snails.

They're about half the size of a mysid.

 

[ichthyogeek]

I'm willing to bet that they're a copepod of some sort, or the hermit crab larvae. I'm fairly positive that it's not snail veligers.

Did you pull any out, and can you get us a closer look at them?

 

[samnaz]

How long have you had the fire shrimp? Could've already been preggers when you got it.

 

[ichthyogeek]

How long have you had the fire shrimp? Could've already been preggers when you got it.

But only if it was already berried!

 

[samnaz]

But only if it was already berried!

Which isn't possible? Thought "berried" meant carrying eggs. I stand corrected.

 

[ichthyogeek]

To clarify, Lysmata shrimp (like fire shrimp), are hermaphrodites, and theoretically always have eggs. When they molt, another shrimp comes along and they do the do, leaving a shrimp with fertilized eggs, and is thus “berried”. To the best of my knowledge, I don’t know of any parthenogenesis in Lysmata, so unless the shrimp came in berried, there’s probably no chance of it sending out larvae.

 

[92Miata]

The fire shrimp has been in the tank for a couple months and gone through several molts.

I didn't manage to get a close up/microscope photo - and there was no sign of them last night - so more likely a spawning/release event than an active population.

I did manage to look at some in tank with a jewlers loup - and they seem consistent with what I'm now seeing googling hermit crab larvae - kind of similar body plan to a mysid but darting backward.

 

[vetteguy53081]

Appears to be pods which are free food. Shrimp babies are a possibility as they move quickly

Fireshrimp:

 

[Arthur_Dent]

Awesome! I just had a similar bloom in my tank last night, did a little digging, and here's what I've come up with.

Here are photos of what spawn out for me, and what they looked like in the tank:

Here's a link to another forum discussion, with a link to a youtube vid and a photo that is nearly identical to the one I took, and some additional info about the larvae:

http://www.mbisite.org/Forums/tm.aspx?m=62162&mpage=1

 

[MrsJones91011]

Awesome! I just had a similar bloom in my tank last night, did a little digging, and here's what I've come up with.

Here are photos of what spawn out for me, and what they looked like in the tank:

Here's a link to another forum discussion, with a link to a youtube vid and a photo that is nearly identical to the one I took, and some additional info about the larvae:

http://www.mbisite.org/Forums/tm.aspx?m=62162&mpage=1

I just found these in my fallow display tank!

thankfully Santa brought my kids a microscope for Christmas! Lol