Breeding the Mediterranean Cleaner Shrimp (Lysmata seticaudata)

Lysmata seticaudata is a temperate Mediterranean and eastern Atlantic cleaner shrimp with protandric simultaneous hermaphroditism; pairs spawn readily but larvae are planktonic.

Overview

Lysmata seticaudata (Risso, 1816) is a cleaner shrimp of the Mediterranean and eastern Atlantic, known by common names such as Monaco cleaner shrimp and Mediterranean cleaner shrimp. As a temperate species it is suited to cooler marine systems and was historically a model organism for studying sexual differentiation in crustaceans.

Sexing

Early work mistakenly treated this shrimp as a straightforward male-to-female sex changer (protandry). It is now understood to be a protandric simultaneous hermaphrodite: animals first function as males, then become simultaneous hermaphrodites able to reproduce as either sex, so any two mature adults can pair.

Conditioning

Being temperate, it is conditioned at cooler temperatures than tropical Lysmata, broadly in the range of cooler marine tanks rather than warm reefs. Stable salinity and steady feeding keep settled adults in spawning condition.

Spawning & Berried Females

In keeping with the genus, the egg-carrying partner mates after moulting and broods the fertilised eggs on its pleopods. Cleaner shrimp of this group release recurring batches of planktonic zoea under favourable conditions.

Larval Care

The hatched zoea are planktonic and require a gently circulated larval vessel with live food. As with related Lysmata, rotifers and Artemia together with co-cultured phytoplankton support early stages, progressing to enriched Artemia as the larvae grow.

Common Challenges

The temperate biology adds a complication: larvae and adults need cooler, stable conditions than most reef setups provide. Combined with a planktonic larval phase and the live-food demands shared across the genus, this makes sustained home rearing difficult.