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Aquaculture peppermint shrimp larva round two! (1 Viewer)

They may be busy eating the new larvae. It's usually not an issue as there are so many of the new ones, but I don't think they are as nutritious as the cyclops.

It's a tough thing to get around, but I imagine that since they are constantly looking for food and the new larvae are constantly present they might be full by the time you get around to trying to feed them.
 
oltemative said:
They may be busy eating the new larvae. It's usually not an issue as there are so many of the new ones, but I don't think they are as nutritious as the cyclops.

It's a tough thing to get around, but I imagine that since they are constantly looking for food and the new larvae are constantly present they might be full by the time you get around to trying to feed them.
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"full"? i didnt think that word applied to these baby shrimp! hehe.

im thinking of trying sexy shrimp or flame shrimp. ill set up a 2nd 10 gal and raise another shrimps larva in that.

sexy shrimp can be raised on a mix of phyto, rotifers, and bbs. i personally think they can be raised on bbs alone, but on MOFIB, someone claimed the rotifers were needed. guess if i go this route i will have to experiment. i think their larva time is about half of the peppermints.

flame shrimp can be raised the same as the peppermints, but i think i have read a larva stage of about 90days or more. thats a lot of time to mess up. ill be starting school this summer and wonder if ill even have time to mess with the shrimp when i need to.

now that i have just wrote those two paragraphs, i think ill attempt the sexy shrimp first due to the shorter larva stage. ill think about buying up a pair if i can make it to the frag swap.
 
armagedon48 said:
"full"? i didnt think that word applied to these baby shrimp! hehe.

im thinking of trying sexy shrimp or flame shrimp. ill set up a 2nd 10 gal and raise another shrimps larva in that.

sexy shrimp can be raised on a mix of phyto, rotifers, and bbs. i personally think they can be raised on bbs alone, but on MOFIB, someone claimed the rotifers were needed. guess if i go this route i will have to experiment. i think their larva time is about half of the peppermints.

flame shrimp can be raised the same as the peppermints, but i think i have read a larva stage of about 90days or more. thats a lot of time to mess up. ill be starting school this summer and wonder if ill even have time to mess with the shrimp when i need to.

now that i have just wrote those two paragraphs, i think ill attempt the sexy shrimp first due to the shorter larva stage. ill think about buying up a pair if i can make it to the frag swap.
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Yeah, I didn't do the rotifer thing the first time, but I was considering doing it so I can raise larger brine for the older larvae (as you noted they have a more difficult time with the bbs).

MOFIB has some good articles on Sexys, and after looking for a half an hour I still can't find it, but there is a good article on Sexy shrimp raising done about 10 years ago by a lady in England. She had a basic at home setup and had a high survival rate. Ill keep looking for it.
 
I'm excited to see the pictures I just took on a REAL screen, I'll take care of them and send them to you tomorrow, probably around 1:00 or so.
 
Abby said:
I'm excited to see the pictures I just took on a REAL screen, I'll take care of them and send them to you tomorrow, probably around 1:00 or so.
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thank you abby, im excited to see how those pictures turned out!
 
only a few of the pictures that were taken turned out any good. its still blurry, but it gives an idea.

shrimp-1.jpg
 
took some more pictures today. after cropping the photos, things came out alright.

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Those antennae look great! I suspect that you won't see much more growth until meta. I think the next thing to change is that the two centermost antennae will get longer than the others... I'd have to dig up my notes.

How many do you still have left?
 
oltemative said:
Those antennae look great! I suspect that you won't see much more growth until meta. I think the next thing to change is that the two centermost antennae will get longer than the others... I'd have to dig up my notes.

How many do you still have left?
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after a quick peak at the shrimp when i got home, i saw one of them with freakishly long spear legs. it will surely be weird when they all look like this.

will they develop the pleopods before settling into little shrimp? i know the cleaner shrimp would, but i dont think i have heard this for peppermints. im sure they would, and im keeping a close eye on their tails.
 
observation from today, the peppermint shrimp seem to be able to retrieve frozen brine shrimp from the bottom of the tank.

i fed frozen brine shrimp (adult size) and the peppermint larva had no problem eating these. i even saw two shrimp feeding on the same food piece. it was kinda comical to see two shrimp larva that each want to go a different direction fighting over a brine shrimp.

from now on i will feed frozen brine shrimp, maybe mysis shrimp depending how tomorrows feeding works. i will still add cyclopeeze to feed the smaller peppermint larva.

i also observed cannibalism attempts between the older peppermint shrimp and some 5-7 day old peppermint shrimp. but just like the live brine shrimp, the small peppermint larva were able to escape.

also, to clarify, i do have two separate batches of peppermint larva in the tank. the original bunch, plus a hatch from last week i just tossed in.

i also siphoned out most of the brine shrimp, it doesn't appear the peppermint shrimp are capable of catching them. i then saw something else interesting, my birdsnest corals could catch and seemed to eat the brine shrimp. *i fed the brine shrimp to the reef tank.*

i should also note that the antenna of the larger peppermint larva are 2-3mm in length. the larva that have been injured, or lost an arm are noticeably smaller, and some have uneven sized limbs assumed to be regrown.

my mini brittle starfish that i added to the larva tank for detritus control have reproduced. i have found several micro sized starfish around the tank. the parent starfish are loosing their arms rapidly, not sure why but maybe due to lower temps?
 
something cool i just noticed, the peppermint larva are eating the frozen brine shrimp that i fed them yesterday. so i guess that feeding frozen brine shrimp (possibly even mysis) allows them to forage for dropped food.

this task keeps getting easier.

oltemative mentioned that he probably only got 1 to settle because it ate the other larva. if in my case i have brine/ mysis shrimp sitting on the bottom of the tank, any newly settled shrimp will have something to chew on till i find them.


i truely am looking forward to round 3, since i have learned so much already. in round 3 i also want to try hermit crab larva, so stay tuned for that!
 
i counted 23, so i could have at least 20, but probably no more than 25. they are hard to count.


i did not count the smaller ones that im co-culturing with the older ones.
 
hypertech said:
pics man pics!

we need pics!
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they still look the same as in post #47. though i should get a picture of one holding a brine shrimp or mysis shrimp. or even a brine shrimp that has two peppermint larva on each end, munching away. ill see what i can do.
 
i got some pretty good pictures today, hour in the bathroom (darkness) taking pictures of a tiny shrimp in a vial with a LED on top....

also labeled one of the photos, i believe my largest are now Z8 or Z9, only a few more molts away from settling!


this first picture shows the pleopod buds that are forming on the tail, and also the technical term for those spear legs.
pleopods12.jpg


the next photo is the same, but without the words.
pleopods1.jpg


the fallowing are more pictures that came out good, to give an idea what these things look like.

shrimp1.jpg

shrimp3.jpg

shrimp4.jpg

shrimp5.jpg


i also bought more frozen foods, they really like beefheart, but its difficult to feed with due to the huge chunks. also bought more mysis, hikari brand, and they love that too. most of all they really go after brine shrimp. i tried pellets, but they sink to fast and fall apart as they soak up water, but the shrimp did grab bits and swim away stuffing their mouths.

i also noticed this morning, when it is dark in my room, not to turn the lights over the tank on. i flipped the lights on at 5am this morning, and all the shrimp started doing flips and crazy things. they hated it.
 
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