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Breeding Amano / Yamato shrimp

R

Richardblack5

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Joined
31 May 2012
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106
Location
Nottingham
HI,

I am trying my first attempt at amano breeding and my zoes are already 12 days old.

I have cobbled together a mixture of ideas found on the net and have fingers crossed that some will make it through to adulthood.

Does anyone have success with this?

I split my zoes into two 14lt tanks with marine water of different chemistry and fed each a random mixture of phytoplankton and Liquizell.

I used these sites mainly for my knowledge base:

http://www.shrimpnow.com/content.php/12 ... p-Breeding

http://www.shrimpnow.com/content.php/264-Amano-(yamato)-shrimp-breeding-2

http://caridina.japonica.online.fr/English/index.html

I have stopped adding any more phytoplankton and Liquizell because my phytoplankton has multiplied and has turned the water so green that I can only see into the tank some 5 – 10 cm but don't know if stopping feeding is right or not.

I know I have zoes because when I shine a torch they all swim towards the light.

Pics here

20120918200309.jpg

Any advice would be welcome

Regards

Richard
 
I put all the females with eggs into small 14lt glass tank with water from my 400lt tropical tank where they live.(I purchased the small glass tank from Pets At Home for under £20) i installed an air stone and various items to make it feel homely for them. When the females released their larvae / zoe’s I used a small LED torch to attract the zoe’s and sucked them up with a small pipette where I squirted them straight into my salt water.

The two salt tanks were set up for the zoe’s. For one i used water from my 400lt tropical and the other I used pure RO.. I used marine aquarium salt mixed to full marine salinity in both. I set up two tanks as a safety to spread the odds of survival.

This is my first attempt not just with Amano zoe’s but also am new to marine water and phytoplankton cultures which I am now growing for their feed so feel quite exposed to having problems with any part of my process.
 
i noticed at day 15 my green water seemed to be fading slightly in one of my tanks. I don’t know whether this is because the phytoplankton culture is dying or perhaps the zoes are eating it. The zoes in this tank seem to be larger and more active than the second tank that is still deep green with phyto.

I have started a phytoplankton culture 21.09.12 (this is also new territory to me and Goggle say it should be ready after 8 days or so) this is so I can feed the zoes with a constant supply but now have two questions about this.Q1 how much phyto should i add to the zoes tank? Q2 should I do a partial water change in my zoes tank to allow existing culture and possibility new culture to multiply?

Additionally I have some Spirulina tablets, should I grind these to powder and feed also / instead as suggested in Google?
 
I plan to put up pics at day 21 (this Sunday), and then every 7 days thereafter so fingers crossed and holding breath.
 
Hi all,
I think with most crustaceans it is just a size issue, they filter out and eat any suspended food items of the right size, they don't differentiate between them. The advantage of a "live food" phytoplankton culture is that it will propagate, producing a supply of appropriately sized, nutritionally balanced food items (that will remain suspended in the water column), and also will utilise some of the ammonia (NH3) etc produced by the growing larvae as they grow and photosynthesise.

Therefore I think you can use any reasonably sized suitably nutritious food item like ground spirulina, gram flour or paprika etc, but these don't have the "live food" advantage of phytoplankton. Yeast might work, but I've never been successful with it with Daphnia, as it seems to have a very high BOD.

A live culture source that might be easily accessible is Haematococcus pluvialis, the algae that is grown commercially for its carotenoid pigment (astaxanthin) content, and is the colour enhancer fed to Salmon and Flamingoes. These creatures would normally get their carotenoids 2nd hand via the crustaceans they have eaten, which would have got them from the phytoplankton.

If you want a starter culture it is the rusty red gunk you get in shallow dishes like bird baths etc which repeatedly fill with water and dry out again <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haematococcus_pluvialis>. I've never tried to culture it, but there are instructions in the Wikipedia links, and it is extremely common in the UK.

cheers Darrel
 
I had some random thought to give them liquifry number 2 (as I had some left over from the past). I released a small drop just onto the water surface allowing it to spread on the water tension, when the particles began to sink the zoe’s just grabbed them. I assume they thought it was food, but as the liquifry began to sink so did the zoe’s into the murky depths of my phyto mix. Hope to see them tomorrow for their third week birthday as I want to take pics.
 
Whitey89 said:
Looking good Richard, surprised this topic hasn't seen more activity!

What day do you expect they will 'transform' so to speak?
Click to expand...

Yeah me too.

I’m just guessing my way through this now as limited info around.. the questions I am struggling to answer are:

How do i know when they are ready to move? How long after morph?

How long can i leave the salt water before adding fresh tank water?

I will still have zoe’s that are waiting to morph so how do i catch the post morph zoes (shrimp) for acclimatise to fresh water?

The info seems to be limited
 
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are these all the same age? Just with ones hatching earlier than others?
 
Richardblack5 said:
Whitey89 said:
Looking good Richard, surprised this topic hasn't seen more activity!

What day do you expect they will 'transform' so to speak?
Click to expand...

Yeah me too.

I’m just guessing my way through this now as limited info around.. the questions I am struggling to answer are:

How do i know when they are ready to move? How long after morph?

How long can i leave the salt water before adding fresh tank water?

I will still have zoe’s that are waiting to morph so how do i catch the post morph zoes (shrimp) for acclimatise to fresh water?

The info seems to be limited
Click to expand...


Hmm good point.
I would imagine when they do turn to shrimps, start a very slow acclimatisation process over the space of a week or so. Maybe 5% WC's with fresh water per day to slowly bring salinity down.

Interesting to see how this works out.
 
yeah. Any transfer or water change would need to be gentle and small. There are zero details out there, so you have to improvise. Good luck
 
Hi Richard,

Seems like we are both fumbling about on a trial by error route. Tonight I went into the garage when it was dark outside, turned all the lights out and shone a small 5 watt LED torch into the corner of the tank. As hoped the zoes all swam towards it in a swarm. I left it for a few minutes and then siphoned the lot out in one go into a large jug.

Once the shrimp zoes were out, I then noticed that there was a sparkling effect in the water. Under examination with a magnifying glass I saw the sparkly stuff moving about. I am positive this was the phytoplankton organisms in the water, which leads me to believe that there must be plenty of food in the tank, and yet the shrimp don't seem to be getting any bigger.

I then cleaned the glass bottom and sides because they were developing the diatom brown algae and is was difficult to see through the glass properly. The algae was obviously as a result of the lights being on 24/7. Once the glass was clean I siphoned out 50% of the water and added a new mix of slightly saltier water, 1.025. Then I carefully poured the contents of the jug back into the tank. All the zoes seem fine.

I notice from your pictures, some of the shrimp fry appear to be crooked, almost L - shaped. I was wondering if this is normal or are they suffering from lack of minerals to keep their shape?

If yours are 22 days old now what are you feeding them on?

Cheers and good luck, and I thought raising Discus fry was difficult!! :crazy:
 
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