Raising Sexy shrimp

[LisaP]

Has anybody been sucessful at raising Sexy shrimp to adulthood?

Regards

Lisa

[purplehaze]

Lisa,
I know a couple of people who raised them only with BBS. Their larval development took 19 days (fastest).
Good luck

[LisaP]

Thanks for the info. Have they posted any more details on the net that I can look up?

I find it amazing that something so small can eat baby brine from the word go, I thought that they'd need rotifers at the beginning for sure.

Regards

Lisa

[purplehaze]

Hi Lisa,

I ´ll check and let you know

[LisaP]

Many thanks!

Just in case anybody else is interested, here's what newly hatched Thor amboinensis look like.



Regards

Lisa

[purplehaze]

Yeah, they look really cool.
So are you going to raise them?
good luck

[Luis A M]

Congrats,Lisa,they´re really colorful for newly hatched larvae

Good pic,sessile eyes place them in Stage I (or Z1)

Tell us about the breeding set-up,how many adults,were they kept in a tank of their own,how you collected the larvae?

[LisaP]

I am giving it a try, the zoeae are 2.5 days old now. I only removed a small amount for this first attempt . There were so many to choose from as about 500 or more were released. How can such a small shrimp produce so many babies at one go? It was totally mazing! I have about 20-25 with surprisingly no deaths (that I've found) up till now.

The adults are living in my nano tank, I have 3 in total. There is one that is bigger than the others and here she is 2 days before she released her offspring. It's hard to believe that she had over 500 eggs hidden in there. They share their home with a pair of (also spawning) Green banded gobies.



It was easy to transfer a few of the babies by a simple scoop method using a cup, I tried to do it as carefully as possible to reduce the likelihood of damaging them. They are now living in a small tank containing rotifers, some other small unknown organism (probably ciliates) and a mixture of algae as I never imagined that they would be able to eat brine nauplii from the beginning.

If they are going to start dying off when can I expect it to happen?

Regards

Lisa

[Luis A M]

Hi Lisa,again an awesome pic!.I am imagining things,or I can see some eggs among the 5th pair of legs?If so,they´re reddish as are the babies.How did you take the zoea´s shot?
I don´t know anything nor have read about Thor zoea raising.If they are so fast to settle,as Purplehaze says,you have a fair good chance to make it.Typically,larval shrimp die all the time,but peaking at molt time.The more you keep,the better your chances to have some making it.Next step is stalked eyes:Z2.Good luck!

[Luis A M]

I can even see the eyes and yolk of larvae within the eggs!
Lisa,that was an award winning pic!
How are you keeping the larvae?

[LisaP]

Those little eggs are way cool, and there were in excess of 500 hidden in there!

Here are a couple of larger, but slightly fuzzy, shots showing the eggs a bit better.





The larvae are being kept in a small rectangular tank with airstones providing the only water movement. It's not an ideal situation I know but that's all I have available at the moment. I was afraid that the air was bubbling a bit too fast but it seems to be OK so far, it may require a bit of tweaking in the future however.

For the average shrimp when does the first moult occur? I'm tempted to remove one of the zoea to have a look at it under the microscope to see if it has eyes on stalks now. They are almost 3 days old.

Btw the zoeae pictures were taken with the shrimp isolated in a small petri dish, elevated above a black background. The camera was/is a Fuji FinePix 6900z with a 50mm lens attached in the reversed position. A tripod and flash were also employed.

Regards

Lisa

[Luis A M]

I was right with the eggs!
They should molt every 3 days or so.The first change,stalked eyes,Z2,is common to all caridean and stenopodid shrimp.Usually it´s easy to see with a naked eye.The 2nd and 3rd changes should be the splitting of the now one-piece telson into exopodites and endopodites,the outer and inner tail fins.

[spawner]

Lisa, how are you getting such great photos? Camera, Lens, Lighting info please.

To bad your on the other side of the Atlantic, I would love to have some nice pictures taken.

Good luck with the larvae.

[LisaP]

OK so I had a quick peek at one of the zoea and it's not moulted yet. Perhaps it will change when the lights go out tonight, do they only moult at night or can it happen anytime?

I took a rather hurried shot of the baby shrimp a minute ago for my records and knocked up a quick stitched picture for comparative purposes. The newly hatched shrimp is on the left and the 3 day old shrimp is on the right. I think that there may be subtle differences between the two but it may just be wishful thinking on my part. What do you think?



My picture taking set-up is as follows. The shrimp are carefully placed in a small amount of water within a petri dish. The petri dish is then elevated up above a dark background by way of a couple of small boxes (or whatever) placed at either end. The camera, a now outdated Fuji 6900z, is fixed onto a tripod and positioned directly above the petri dish. To get as close as possible to the subject I add an additional 50mm Pentax lens (from my SLR days) attached in the reversed position via a reversing ring. The flash was positioned underneath the elevated petri dish and off to one side so that the shrimp is illuminated from below. Then it's all down to a bit of patience as the shrimp don't stay still very long.

Regards

Lisa

[Luis A M]

You must be a pro photographer?.Are these scanned film pics?.
Yep,they molt at night,look for changes in the morning.
Nope,they´re both Z1.I can see the long legs.You see swimming and walking legs?How many?Try to count them down now because progressively more legs will appear,marking new stages.
You see the rostrum (spear at the front end)Is it longer than the antennae?.
The importance of recognizing the stages,is that you know if they´re going forward.Some zoea,like Lysmata,show they´re not happy by "marking time"i.e. they molt,(they must)but they repeat the previous stage.

[LisaP]

Hmm, very interesting! So if they are really unhappy they can moult but stay looking the same? So what makes them 'unhappy', poor nutrition and/or pollution?

I can see that they haven't made any real progress yet so fingers crossed for tomorrow.

And no I'm not a professional photographer, just somebody who enjoys taking pics of the little stuff that appears in our tanks. The Fuji is a digital camera so it's easy to just download the pictures to a computer, sooo much easier and quicker than having to have film developed.

Regards

Lisa

[Luis A M]

Originally posted by LisaP
Hmm, very interesting! So if they are really unhappy they can moult but stay looking the same? So what makes them 'unhappy', poor nutrition and/or pollution?

Yes,or disease.
So how they´re looking so far?
Your Fuji is sure a professional digital camera,as you can change lenses.The macro pics of the zoea are better than many taken with a microscope.You should open a "Baby Fish n ´Shrimp Photo Studio"

[LisaP]

They are still looking the same. Is that a bad sign do you think? They are 4 days old. At least they are not dead.... yet.

I can't really change lenses on the Fuji, the reversed lens thing is just a neat (and quite useful) trick.

Regards

Lisa

[purplehaze]

Lisa, are you able to see if they are eating?
If you only offered them rots and algae, try some BBS!

[LisaP]

Well, err, I have no idea if they are eating. It's certainly not obvious to me, they do seem quite active however. Are shrimp 'born' with a yolk sac or something similar to keep them going for a few days like baby fish?

They only have a mix of rotifers (B. plicatilis) and some unknown smaller organism (probably a ciliate) to prey on at the moment. I'll get a brineshrimp culture started first thing tomorrow. I do have a copepod culture on the go but it's a way off being harvestable yet. Perhaps it'll prove useful later on.

Fingers crossed that the zoeae change into the next stage tonight.

Regards

Lisa

[Luis A M]

well if you can remove and invert the lens that´s something!.Better than my Cybershot and it´s stupid 5" delay that I couldn´t so far override!

Yes,you should be feeding bbs.Though they have reserves to molt to Z2 unfed,it was shown that early starving jeopardizes their future.Shrimp zoea can handle much bigger pieces than same size fish larvae,because they don´t swallow their prey but grab it and chew it.You can actually see them holding a bbs with their legs.

[Atticus]

Awe man now I am going to have to try to breed something else... I wish you luck as you progress Lisa and make sure to keep us updated!!!!

[LisaP]

OK, I feel really bad now. I've been starving the poor things.

I started off a culture of bbs first thing this morning and another 5 hours later so that I can feed them newly hatched nauplii first thing tomorrow morning and in the afternoon too. How many should I add per ml and what should I do about the bbs that remain uneaten in the tank after 6hrs??

Many thanks for all the comments so far.

Regards

Lisa

[LisaP]

Just another thought. Would it be worthwhile adding some copepods now? There aren't enough to harvest from my independent culture but it would be easy enough to siphon some out from the refugium of my big tank. They are a species of pelagic copepod, would they be too big for the zoea to tackle at this stage?

Regards

Lisa

[Luis A M]

I wouldn´t mess with anything else than bs,but it´s just MO.I don´t know about Thor and it seems nobody does here (perhaps Purplehaze?),so,you´re very much on your own.Good luck and keep posted