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Aquaculture peppermint shrimp larva round two! (1 Viewer)

WOOT! i had one settle! just yesterday i was watching one of the shrimp, it had both spear legs and the pleopods looked fairly well developed. well today i found another dead shrimp laying on the bottom, but when i looked closer, i saw its eyes were no longer stalked and its body looked bigger. after i took it out, i realized it was a fully settled peppermint shrimp.

so, i have had success, but only sorta.. to claim full success, i need the settled shrimp to live. i still have a few more shrimp larvae that im playing with.

the parent shrimp have started spawning again, well the original shrimp that was mass producing eggs died. i now have only 2 shrimp, and yesterday i noticed one of them has a few eggs, hopefully she will pick up the slack on the egg production. my next attempt will be using heated water, and having the air bubbles contained so the larva dont get their ass kicked. this should speed up the process.
 
pictures are taken with the shrimp inside an API test kit tube.

first picture shows the eyes, they are no longer stalked.
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last photos show the pleopods and body structure.
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shrimp1-1.jpg
 
cute little buggers. I think its really cool that you are doing this. It's kinda like after we master one part of this hobby we want to master something even harder, and so on. good work, man :biggthumpup:.
 
Pretty cool. My cleaner shrimp are carrying eggs right now, I thought about how cool it would be to raise them, but I think this is still out of my league for now.
 
I think we have a "pair" of cleaners, I wouldn't know the first thing about watching for eggs though. We have 10 peppermints, I would imagine we've had eggs at some point.
 
gruntmon said:
I think we have a "pair" of cleaners, I wouldn't know the first thing about watching for eggs though. We have 10 peppermints, I would imagine we've had eggs at some point.
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oh yea, the night life in your tank is well fed with the 10 peppermints you have spawning.
 
wolmutt said:
cute little buggers. I think its really cool that you are doing this. It's kinda like after we master one part of this hobby we want to master something even harder, and so on. good work, man :biggthumpup:.
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thank you! well, i haven't exactly mastered keeping corals yet, as i keep having problems and all my corals are browned out... but im learning and tweaking things. to raise something that is born in our tank, we just need to have the time and dedication to give it a try. there is nothing difficult about it if you do some research before making the attempt.

patent said:
Pretty cool. My cleaner shrimp are carrying eggs right now, I thought about how cool it would be to raise them, but I think this is still out of my league for now.
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before i tried the peppermint shrimp, my only other "success" was with zebra danios and before that, guppies... though i wouldnt try the cleaner shrimp as the first attempt (six months for them to settle, if you end up at that 6 month mark and they start dieing, then you gotta start over). i would recommend sexy shrimp or peppermint shrimp as the first try, maybe flame shrimp if you dont mind waiting about 100 days. i bought 3 scarlet hermit crabs in hopes that i got a male/female pair. i intend to make an attempt in the future on these. aparently hermit crabs are really easy and take about 20-30 days to settlement, and feed on BBS and frozen foods.
 
so, i just found my first live peppermint shrimp that has settled. it is hanging out on the dead coral skeleton i provided.

i will have pictures soon. im in a hurry right now, but should have pics tonight.

the rest of the shrimp larva are still regrowing lost arms, and i found one this morning that lost a complete spear leg... so that little guy has another week of recovering before it gets another chance at settlement. ugh, i hate their fragile nature.

btw, those 3 scarlet hermits i bought, at least one of them is carrying eggs. holy cows those eggs are red, more red than the hermit crab.
 
oltemative said:
CONGRATULATIONS! 25-35 days my a$$ eh??
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oh i know! they must have been feeding some really good food and had the water temp at 90! maybe next time i can hit the 30 day mark. im going to let one or two more settle (so i have more breeding stock) then im going to use the remaining as fish food and clean that tank out. from there ill play with sexy shrimp or hermit crabs till i have my 65 gal set up again. i plan to have an area in my sump (originally wanted to make a fuge, but now ill use it to raise shrimp) to make some cylinder containers with a small screened holes in the sides for diffusing the waste. eh, right nows prob not the best time to describe it, ill have pictures of it when its finished.
 
so, today while i was hunting down the peppermint shrimp to take pictures, i found 2 more! i now have 3 that have settled, and possibly a 4th. i have one that has not settled, but its spear legs are the same in size and i figure its next molt will be settlement.

here are pictures!

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Thats awsome keep up the good work. Now only if you can do this with cleaner shrimp you can pay for your hobby :greenguy:
 
spectrum said:
Thats awsome keep up the good work. Now only if you can do this with cleaner shrimp you can pay for your hobby :greenguy:
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cleaner shrimp should be easy, however they are not as aggressive eaters. they are more fragile, and take about 6 months to settle. so there is a lot more room for error with these guys. if i can make a setup that doesn't require as much attention, and is safe for larval shrimp, i may try the cleaner some day. i have a few ideas, hopefully i can try them soon.

today i picked up a group of sexy shrimp. i got a male and female, and a 3rd that i hope is a female, but im not as certain. aparently these are easier than peppermints and faster to settle. i don't know how easy they are to feed though.
 
armagedon48 said:
if i can make a setup that doesn't require as much attention, and is safe for larval shrimp, i may try the cleaner some day. i have a few ideas, hopefully i can try them soon.
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I wonder if a modified version of the egg tumbler/fry keepers I used to make might work for the larva. I used them in just about every tank I had when I was breeding FW fish. It allows you to keep them in the tank so you can have so you have the stability of a larger system but still isolating them from threats.

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You could do away w/ the sponge and everything.

How small of an opening can they get through? I have a few ideas too. I can try to put something together for you as well and see if it works.
 
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