Aquaculture peppermint shrimp larva round two! (1 Viewer)

[Chad Vossen]

Well, If your collector is working, no need for the baster. Right?

Stage two for the shrimp should be noticeable in the tail. The z1 is how they hatch, z2 has the stalk eyes and 3 white-ish spots on the tail, z3 has 5 less prominent spots on the tail. z4 is noticeably bigger and the antennae develop, and if they are lucky, very small spear legs will appear. the next several stages they develop longer spear legs and more (and more developed) antennae.

thank you for the info, i guess im still in the Z2 stages, though some of them have a white spot where their tail "hinges".

i can still use the baster for other things. for example, mysis shrimp almost don't fit into my pipette opening. and the pipettes don't have much power for blasting the live rock clean. the detritus kinda just laughs at me when i try squirting 3-4 ml of water at it. :biggrin:

 

[hypertech]

thank you, i havnt been to either for 2 years or more though, hehe. cash wise or target are where i go. as an alternative, i have been using pipettes for as long as i have had my reef, but the opening is to small for the baby peppermint shrimps. for the larva, i will need to purchase a turkey baster. yet another piece of equipment to add to the clutter , thanks guys :biggthumpup:

I hate WalMart with a passion, but there I wasn't about to pay $8.99 for a fancy baster when a cheap piece of junk from walmart for $1.99 would do the trick.

I made a special trip, bought the baster and only the baster and haven't been back since.

They also sell cheap little sauce dishes that work well for thawing fish food.

 

[kerks01]

If you realy need a turkey baster I'm sure I have an extra one sitting around. Could get it to you sometime tomorrow...

Sue

 

[David Grigor]

Matt, you could have gotten two turkey basters for the same prices at the dollar store and keep your Walmart streak alive. I also get the plastic baby food containers 4 for a dollar that work well for thawing frozen. If gets nasty just throw it out.

 

[oltemative]

It's too bad that you're in St. Cloud. I'd love to come over and see your setup!

The other bit of advice I've gotten is to do lots of water changes. I have not found this to be useful with new ASW. However, I have taken to draining large amounts rearing tank water, then exchanging the same amount out of the parent tank. The LR in parent tank can work on the ammonia and dilute/filter the rest. The other advantage is that you only have one set of levels to mess with.

There are a couple of complications. 1. The RT is much warmer than the PT so there could be temp shock which I have found will kill large numbers of larvae. 2. It should be done often, ideally daily. (These guys are huge time-parasites) 3. You must devise some way of removing the water without sucking up too many larvae (especially the healthy ones). This is the easiest problem, just turn off the light, use a flashlight on one side and siphon the other side.

 

[Chad Vossen]

It's too bad that you're in St. Cloud. I'd love to come over and see your setup!

The other bit of advice I've gotten is to do lots of water changes. I have not found this to be useful with new ASW. However, I have taken to draining large amounts rearing tank water, then exchanging the same amount out of the parent tank. The LR in parent tank can work on the ammonia and dilute/filter the rest. The other advantage is that you only have one set of levels to mess with.

There are a couple of complications. 1. The RT is much warmer than the PT so there could be temp shock which I have found will kill large numbers of larvae. 2. It should be done often, ideally daily. (These guys are huge time-parasites) 3. You must devise some way of removing the water without sucking up too many larvae (especially the healthy ones). This is the easiest problem, just turn off the light, use a flashlight on one side and siphon the other side.

i actually live 10 miles south of kimbal, or 30 miles south of st. cloud. more people know where st. cloud is so i put that as my location.

i do water changes nearly daily. i use water from my reef tank and have it dripped into the larva tank through out the rest of the day. it takes a good 6 hours to drip 4-5 gallons. i use rigid air hose to syphon off the bottom and keep the end away from any shrimps that are swimming. if they are on the bottom, and look like their dieing, i suck them up too.

as far as coming over to see the setup, just shoot me a pm if your coming out this way. i will have pictures floating around some time soon of my "operation" to give y'all a virtual tour of my aquaculture facility (my bedroom). yea, still living at home, enjoying the free utilities/rent.

 

[Chad Vossen]

tonight i did some spot feeding with frozen cyclopeeze. didnt take long for nearly all my little shrimp to have a cyclop in their face, chewing away on it. i even observed two shrimp holding onto the same peice of food, drifting around the tank. they were not eating off it (that i could see), but just holding on to it.

this is really fun, everyone should give this a try

 

[Chad Vossen]

well, im having issues with my main reef, possible high alk + major bacterial bloom... i did a water change using water from my reef to replace water taken from the shrimp tank. i drained half the shrimp tank, then dripped the new (old reeftank water) into the shrimp tank. it took until the next day to fill the larva tank back up. i found a lot of dead shrimp, and VERY cloudy water by the time the larva tank was filled back up. right now (today), i cant even see 2 inches into the larva tank. i only see 3 larva, so im giving up on this round.

i will try again once my reef tank is back to normal. i truly do hate reef calcium by seachem... lol

 

[Chad Vossen]

things were not as bad as i thought. there were a several survivors still swimming strong. i fed them, and holy cow have they become aggressive towards food. must have been hungry!

anyways, i did another water change useing water from the reef tank. i had a ton of detritus at the bottom of the larva tank this time.

i took some pictures, some will give you an idea how cloudy the water is.

i have magnets taped to the inside of the tank to hold the black foam board in place, as i have magnets embedded in the foam board. you can see the tub above the tank with the air hose hanging down which is how to add new water to the larva tank.

the next two pictures show what my shrimp look like. it seems that due to the cloudy water, it was easier to focus on the shrimp which were at the surface of the water.

 

[oltemative]

Due to the length of the spear legs it looks like z5. If they hatched 3/1/08 this would be about right. Nice job! :biggrin:

I found that they can be quite resilient in conditions you would suspect them to die, and also quite fragile in conditions where there seems to be no problem. :grr: Just continue what you're doing and don't get complacent or lazy with the work, that's when you will lose them for sure. It's work and that's why most people don't have success with this.

If the DIBS and MOFIB breeders are right you're 1/3 of the way there. :biggthumpup:

 

[Chad Vossen]

i didn't realize those were the spear legs. they look like feeding arms. from what i can see, in my cloudy water, it looks like they are using those really long arms to catch food. the long arms have red tips. the detailed artwork in my book (how to train and raise peppermint shrimp) looks nothing like my shrimp do right now.. but i havnt taken such a detailed look yet either.

today i fed them only cyclopeeze. i didnt prepare a batch of brine shrimp at all since i was at the MN zoo most of yesterday. i feed, wait an hour, then syphon the bottom. few hours later i feed again, wait an hour and syphon. im about to feed again before going to bed, but wont be able to syphon till 4pm tomorrow. o well, we'll have to see how they make it.

 

[oltemative]

Yep, those are the spear legs. They will get longer, the tip will get bigger and they will start to look more like paddles. The behavior of the shrimp with their spears will change too. When they first get them they don't move them in a manner that suggests that they are jointed. After the 3rd molt with the spears, they will start to use them to direct food toward their other legs which they will use to hold the food as they stuff their face.

At this point it will get more difficult to notice growth by looking at the legs. Start to look at the antennae. They will become more numerous and longer.

As for the illustrations in Kirkendoll's book... well, uh... I think that those are what they would look like if you squashed them under a microscope slide/cover and dyed them gray. I'm not big fan of illustrated shrimp. There's an article floating around about sexy shrimp breeding that has horrendous illustrations. Your shrimp look great, no worries!

I have a small batch of larvae brewing right now too. They hatched two days after yours and they still haven't gotten their spear legs! Of course, I haven't been feeding them as diligently as you and my wife is tired of all the mess in the bedroom (yikes!) so I'm kind of letting them go until we can move and I can have a fish/shrimp room. :nuts:

 

[oltemative]

Any updates on the shrimp? oke:

 

[Chad Vossen]

they eat more than my fish do.. the water in the larva tank has cleared finally. i counted 28 shrimp, but estimate 30-35.

2 or 3 are missing a limb, and 2 are noticeably smaller than all the rest.

 

[Chad Vossen]

i found one that was missing an eye. this guy got fed to my clownfish.

i added 4 large micro brittle starfish to "co-culture" in the shrimp larva tank. i figured they would eat the uneaten food at the bottom, while reproducing themselves. i never see any of the shrimp larva towards the bottom so im not worried about the starfish eating my shrimp.

took some pictures today, some came out really good.

 

[oltemative]

They look great. Now it's just a waiting game... 17 days down... 8 to 18 days (in theory) to go.

What's your water changing frequency?

 

[Chad Vossen]

They look great. Now it's just a waiting game... 17 days down... 8 to 18 days (in theory) to go.

What's your water changing frequency?

the water change is almost continuous, i fill a bucket above the shrimp tank and let it drip into the shrimp tank. when i syphon the detritus from the bottom, i usually drain a bunch of water too. all the while i have new (or old reef tank water) water dripping and refilling the tank. i try to keep the tank half filled.

today i tried selcon for the first time on freeze dried cyclop-eeze. i didnt like it, and neither did the shrimp. wow can they swim away fast. the shrimp are to big to eat newly hatched brine shrimp now, they try their best to get that twitching BBS into their mouth, but most of the time it escapes. my phyto culture revived itself two days ago, and is nice and green today so i added about 100ml of phyto into the larva tank to feed the brine shrimp. the plan is to let the pep shrimp eat whatever BBS they can, and let the surviving BBS grow a little and feed off the phyto.

this seems very easy, surprised more people havnt tried it. i cant claim success at all since they havnt settled yet.. im about half way there i guess.

 

[oltemative]

the shrimp are to big to eat newly hatched brine shrimp now, they try their best to get that twitching BBS into their mouth, but most of the time it escapes.

I noticed this too. You could find a food that will float, but is thick enough for them to grab below the surface of the water. i.e. flake won't work because it doesn't break the surface tension of the water at first, and then it sinks rapidly.

this seems very easy, surprised more people havnt tried it. i cant claim success at all since they havnt settled yet.. im about half way there i guess.

Don't count your shrimp until they've settled. You might find that the first one to settle will eat the rest and you will end up with one like I did. :grr:

 

[Chad Vossen]

Don't count your shrimp until they've settled. You might find that the first one to settle will eat the rest and you will end up with one like I did. :grr:[/QUOTE]

in that case i wont be so careful to syphon all the uneaten food on those last few days.

 

[Chad Vossen]

last night i set up the larva collector on the shrimp tank again and got a big load of newborn shrimp. i added these into my larva tank. most of the new shrimp larva survived just fine.

i was amazed at how much my older shrimp have grown.

anyways, i fed cyclopeeze again today and it seemed the shrimp were not quite as interested. im about to do a water change and see what that does for their appetite.