What sort of cleaner shrimp do you have?
Peppermint shrimp, (Lysmata wurdemani) are easy to raise, but Skunk Cleaner shrimp (Lysmata amboinensis) and Blood Cleaner shrimp (Lysmata debelius) are hard to raise.
Peppermints can be reared up on newly hatched brineshrimp and will grow rapidly for a month or so before metamorphosing and settling on the bottom. Then they grow like a normal shrimp.
Skunks and Blood shrimp breed the same but need something besides brineshrimp if you want them to metamorphose and settle to the bottom. I think they need fish eggs and fish fry to metamorphose. I was going to try using freeze dry fish eggs as part of their diet but never got around to it. Soak the freeze dry eggs for a few minutes in sea water so they sink. Then add a few to the larvae tank.
These cleaner shrimp are hermaphrodites and are both male and female. When a shrimp moults the male will breed with the one that has moulted and fertilise the eggs. When the second shrimp moults, the first one will fertilise the 2nd shrimps eggs. It sounds a bit confusing but they produce eggs when they moult and the shrimp they haven't moulted act as males and fertilise the new eggs.
The eggs hatch at night and the mother climbs to a high point in the tank and lifts her tail up. Then she moves her swimeretts back and forth in an attempt to dislodge the larvae. They then float around the tank until they get eaten by the fish and corals. The adults shrimp don't normally bother the larvae.
If you have the shrimp in a tank without any fish or corals, and use an air operated sponge filter in the tank, then you can usually scoop the larvae out the following morning.
Keep the larvae in a small shallow container under a light. Add a small amount of newly hatched brineshrimp each day. Change the water in the containers each day.
If you give the larvae the correct diet and keep their water clean, they will grow and change into little shrimp.
