Red Reef Lobsters -- Breeding/Rearing Offspring?

[PinkLady]

Hey all -- Anyone keep Hawaiian red reef lobsters? If so, has anyone successfully bred them and raised the offspring? I have a mated pair of these guys, and shortly after introducing them they bred and the female had a nice pile of eggs on her belly. We put her into a breeder net but she figured out how to climb out every time, so we gave up. She dropped the eggs about 2 weeks later, and we had originally thought they didn't survive. Low and behold 2 weeks later, we see about two dozen tiny little lobster fry scuttling around. We managed to get about 12-14 of them into the breeder net, and they're doing well. They appear to be 2nd stage larvae, past the planktonic stage, with clearly developed eyes, front limbs, and defined abdomen/tail, and are eating well on Zooplex mixed with flake food given in very small amounts 3x per day. I looked up info on breeding common Maine lobsters and assume it's pretty much the same, just on a smaller scale. I was just curious if anyone else had experience with these critters? They are really cool, very outgoing and social animals. The parents are about 5-6 inches each, and we keep them with our 2 moray eels as a cleanup team. They often come out and venture around the tank, and will follow us when we walk by, and they will approach and take pieces of food from the feeding tongs while we're feeding the eels. I think it'd be neat to raise up the babies and have more of these guys for our other tanks.

[jimsflies]

Are they big enough for pics? Sounds pretty cool!

[PinkLady]

The babies aren't, already tried with my cell phone with no success. LOL! But the parents are:



This pic makes me laugh -- the morays and the lobsters don't mind each other one bit, but three's definitely a crowd in one 3" PVC pipe...

[purerebel]

Oh my, sweet picture. That would be sweet to see live, looks like 3's company!

[jimsflies]

I think you would have had a good shot with either of those in our photo contest last month! Great pictures.

If you get a chance add your lobsters to our invert index. We don't have those in there yet.

[Tom@HaslettMI]

That's so cool. Are you sure the small shrimp/lobsters you're seeing aren't mysis? They are often mistaken for baby shrimp (cleaners, peppermints, ect.).

Tom

[PinkLady]

I'm 110% sure. I've had this tank for 3 years with nothing new introduced other than fish, eels, and these 2 lobsters. I know what all my little copepods and amphipods look like as I have a really good colony thriving in it and see them a lot. These guys don't look anything like shrimp or the shrimp-like amphipods I always have in there. They literally look like tiny clear lobsters, same body structure just no frontal claws. I have never seen anything like them prior to this week, and they were all congregating in the burrow guarded by both parent lobsters.

[PinkLady]

This is EXACTLY what they look like right now -- very obvious black eyes, lobster-shaped body, about 1/8" to 1/4" long:

http://bdnpull.bangorpublishing.netd...23836_8250.jpg

They should be in Stage 3 right now.

[PinkLady]

Proud Mama and Papa just now...thinking I brought them food:



I just took a video of the little swimmers, let me see if I can get it off my phone and onto my Photobucket.

[Tom@HaslettMI]

Originally Posted by PinkLady

I'm 110% sure. I've had this tank for 3 years with nothing new introduced other than fish, eels, and these 2 lobsters. I know what all my little copepods and amphipods look like as I have a really good colony thriving in it and see them a lot. These guys don't look anything like shrimp or the shrimp-like amphipods I always have in there. They literally look like tiny clear lobsters, same body structure just no frontal claws. I have never seen anything like them prior to this week, and they were all congregating in the burrow guarded by both parent lobsters.

I hope you're right but I'm still skeptical. Without front claws wouldn't it look a lot like this?

Hopefully the video will convince me!

Tom