Invert Spawning & Breeding/Reproduction?

[ISpeakForTheSeas]

Hey everyone! I occasionally see posts about people with snails spawning in their tanks, and I see threads now and then about people breeding various shrimp species in their tanks. One of the things that I frequently see come up on these posts is something to the effect of “I wish my snails would spawn in my tank” or “or how do you get them [whatever the species/invert may be] to do that?” These questions rarely get an answer in the threads, so I thought I’d ask them here.

So, without further ado, have you ever had an invert (snail, starfish, shrimp, anemone, octopus, etc. - if it’s an invert that’s not a known “pest” like Aiptasia or A, I’ll allow it) breed/reproduce/spawn in your tank? What was it (genus and species as well as common names, if known), and how did you get it to breed/reproduce/spawn? Were you able to (intentionally of otherwise) raise the young to adulthood? If so, how?

The more specific info you can give us about the setup/parameters/other things that might have influenced the event, the better.

Thanks!

 

[MaxTremors]

Not sure why you’re excluding ‘pests’ or hitchhikers, they’re inverts just the same as any others. But not including ‘pests’ (which is an incredibly vague, almost meaningless category), I’ve had multiple snails breed, but only ceriths have reached adulthood. Also limpets, stomatellas, chitons. I’ve seen mass spaghetti worm spawning multiple times (they all climb up high and release their sperm and eggs into the water column, they’ve been very successful. Lots of shrimp and copepod/amphipod species, mostly just mysids. I used to work at an lfs that had multiple successful rock flower spawnings and a torch spawning (that was crazy, there were baby torches all throughout the system, it was an old school system full of the most feral live rock, only a few survived into full grown polyps, and I’ve never seen anything like it since).

 

[Tofer]

I have had trocus snails spawn and have got a few that have survived into adults . I have had multi flower anemone spawns. Plenty of the babies survive and grow to mature breeding anemone.i have done nothing special to make any of the events to happen .

 

[ISpeakForTheSeas]

Not sure why you’re excluding ‘pests’ or hitchhikers, they’re inverts just the same as any others. But not including ‘pests’ (which is an incredibly vague, almost meaningless category), I’ve had multiple snails breed, but only ceriths have reached adulthood. Also limpets, stomatellas, chitons. I’ve seen mass spaghetti worm spawning multiple times (they all climb up high and release their sperm and eggs into the water column, they’ve been very successful. Lots of shrimp and copepod/amphipod species, mostly just mysids. I used to work at an lfs that had multiple successful rock flower spawnings and a torch spawning (that was crazy, there were baby torches all throughout the system, it was an old school system full of the most feral live rock, only a few survived into full grown polyps, and I’ve never seen anything like it since).

To clarify, I’m only excluding “pests” like aiptasia and asterinas because they seem to reproduce readily under almost any circumstances, so the “how” doesn’t really apply to them. Since wondering how is a big part of the question, it seems counter productive to me to include ones that reproduce even in far from ideal circumstances. That said, I don’t personally view them as “pests” (hence the quotation marks around the word - I actually really like Aquilonasta stars, and one of the most beautiful anemones I’ve seen was an Aiptasia species), and I’m fine including most hitchhikers - just not the ones that reproduce easily enough to be considered highly invasive by the community at large (pineapple sponges could fit into this category too).

Anyway, that’s great that you’ve had so much success in this area! What do you think was “right” in your systems that isn’t in “right” in other peoples’ systems? In other words, why do you think they reproduced so readily in your tanks when they don’t seem to do so in all tanks? Was it something to do with your water quality, your lighting, etc.?

 

[Tofer]

To clarify, I’m only excluding “pests” like aiptasia and asterinas because they seem to reproduce readily under almost any circumstances, so the “how” doesn’t really apply to them. Since wondering how is a big part of the question, it seems counter productive to me to include ones that reproduce even in far from ideal circumstances. That said, I don’t personally view them as “pests” (hence the quotation marks around the word - I actually really like Aquilonasta stars, and one of the most beautiful anemones I’ve seen was an Aiptasia species), and I’m fine including most hitchhikers - just not the ones that reproduce easily enough to be considered highly invasive by the community at large (pineapple sponges could fit into this category too).

Anyway, that’s great that you’ve had so much success in this area! What do you think was “right” in your systems that isn’t in “right” in other peoples’ systems? In other words, why do you think they reproduced so readily in your tanks when they don’t seem to do so in all tanks? Was it something to do with your water quality, your lighting, etc.?

With the flower anemones I think luck plays a role as you need to have male and female . The snails are just hit or miss at least in my tank .

 

[DaJMasta]

I've had skunk cleaner shrimp, fire cleaner shrimp, sexy shrimp, porcelain crabs, hermit crabs, and cerith snails spawn in my tank so far (with a mantis shrimp that came in with eggs on the live rock that spawned on like the 4th day of the tank having rock). I've also spotted a couple of larvae which I haven't yet been able to identify and have a colony of mysid shrimp in the sump portion.

I attribute it mostly to feeding, a little to making sure they have space to do their thing, and in no small part due to just paying attention and noticing that they spawned - with the fish and the flow, it's usually only a few minutes after a spawning event that there's very little trace of it, so you really have to be looking (typically on and just after dark).

My feeding is a big mix of stuff, something meaty and frozen every day on rotation, some particulate foods (think benereef and reef roids) in quantity daily, and daily live phytoplankton dosing. Your animals need enough food to spend the extra energy to make gametes and need a good mix of things to make sure the specific nutritional needs are met.

Nothing specific in terms of parameters for me, though I'm using the moonlight cycle on my Radion and I think it does coordinate some spawns to the same time of the cycle. In fact, I've dealt with cyano/dinos/bryopsis, high phosphate, and salinity creep fluctuations all in the time that they've been spawning.