Progress updates

[Varanus]

Well 95 days (i.e a little over three months) after getting my shrimp I now have my first LARVA!

Singular because he/she seems to be alone for now. I presume it is a early hatcher from one of my berried females who has been looking ready to have her eggs hatch all day (the eggs have changed form and she has moved them further from her body in readiness).

[KenCotigirl]

Great news!

[Varanus]

Its interesting how staggered the hatching can be from one female. There are now about a half dozen larva but the female with the most developed eggs (who I presume is their mother) still has some unhatched on her. Heck that first baby floated around all on its own for at least two days.

The larva are interesting little things, more skittish than the adults (if I move my magnifying glass to get a better look at them they dart away, the adults don't mind the magnifier). Or perhaps they just have better eyesight?

[Varanus]

Some more observations on the larva. Haven't seen any actually fully hatch, it seems to be a lengthy process involving the hatching larva jerking about for a long time as it struggles free of the egg and whatever sticks the eggs to the female.

I now have at least twenty larva, as many as the adults I started out with, and that's just from (I think) two of the berried females. I can't wait to see how the tank's look changes once all those new shrimp metamorphose and start crawling around with the adults.

[Varanus]

Spotted a metamorphosed larva for the first time (clinging right to the glass so it was easy to see). I'd like to think it is the same individual as that first hatchling.

Its behavior is markedly different from the adults. It sits very, very still, and when an adult bumped it the tiny shrimp swam away like an adult (using the swimmerets) before taking a position floating in the water much like a larva. However, like the adults it has little to no reaction to the magnifying glass, suggesting again that the larva have better eyesight.

[Varanus]

Well I guess everything can't go smoothly. A number of larva have metamorphosed smoothly, but yesterday evening I noticed four larva floundering on the sand. They were no longer able to float, and kept flexing their bodies. So I thought perhaps they were simply in the process of metamorphosing from larva to baby shrimp. Especially since there are a few dozen other larva floating around like normal.

However, come morning they were still there. I don't think it should take so long to shed their larval skin (though I've never seen it happen). I went ahead and tested the water, and while nitrite and nitrate were fine, there were low levels of ammonia.

So it seems I will be forgoing the usual bi-weekly feeding. It may be too late for those four larva but I went ahead and added some Prime (detoxifies ammonia and such) to the water. It seems I have at some point fed too much.

Any advice on if I should do anything else? I do wonder why only a few larva were effected, assuming the ammonia is the cause.

[Mech]

if you are prepared to keep the ammonia levels down and let the tank cycle then you wont have to worry about over feeding ever again, just monitor nitrates

you can do water changes to reduce ammonia.

[Varanus]

if you are prepared to keep the ammonia levels down and let the tank cycle then you wont have to worry about over feeding ever again, just monitor nitrates

I'm not sure what you mean. My understanding is overfeeding is always a risk. And the tank cycled just fine, as I recorded in this topic. I don't know what could have happened beyond overfeeding. Though even that may not explain why my nitrates are now so low (barely registering).

[Mech]

If you have a cycled tank, ammonia is instantly turned into nitrites, this then gets turned into nitrates by friendly bacteria.

If you have ammonia then you have not gotten a cycled tank, if you are over feeding or something decaying and nitrates are not increasing then the nitrogen cycle isn't doing its job. You tank has either crashed and is starting to do a mini cycle again or you just didn't have a fully cycled tank in the first place.

[Varanus]

You tank has either crashed and is starting to do a mini cycle again or you just didn't have a fully cycled tank in the first place.

What could have caused a crashed tank then in these circumstances, as I am quite certain it cycled months ago? As I recorded here the ammonia went up, and I checked results weekly. Eventually ammonia went to zero and I had nitrates. I actually have never gotten a nitrite result on any tank water I've tested in any of my tanks, presumably because I haven't tested water during the short period where there are enough nitrites to register.

Regardless, I'm starting to doubt the results of that first ammonia test I did. I may not have looked at it in bright enough light or shook it thoroughly enough, as the two tests I've done since then have shown zero ammonia.

Got a slight nitrate reading too, just had to wait longer for the color to develop than expected.

None of the larva that seem to be having trouble have died, though some appear to have vanished (perhaps metamorphosed). I am starting to wonder if perhaps the problem was with those few larva rather than the tank water.

[Varanus]

In the end I never saw any dead larva bodies, and no other larva are having problems. Ammonia readings have remained at zero despite no water changes. I guess I may never know what really happened (though I am pretty sure now that initial ammonia reading was due to not reading the test result right), metamorphosed larva are hard to find in a tank as they like to hide (and they never need to leave places like my mass of macroalgae as there is plenty of biofilm in there), so its hard to get a count of how many metamorphosed successfully. I have seen at least ten at a time though hiding out in the algae, and they vanish afterward so easily that I wouldn't be surprised if there are a lot more I haven't seen. Assuming I lost any larva and it wasn't due to ammonia, perhaps some simply don't survive metamorphosing for various reasons.

Regardless, I think I'll switch to feeding every three weeks instead of every two weeks. It may give me a bit more of a safety net when it comes to how much I feed.

On a happy note, saw for the first time a baby foraging like an adult several days ago (normally they are very still compared to the adults unless disturbed).

[Varanus]

My theory that larva simply don't have a 100% survival rate seems to have been bolstered. The water is still good and I still haven't seen a dead larva, but another one that seemed to be having trouble swimming appeared today (it has since vanished so perhaps it metamorphosed). Another has had what I believe is its own shed skin stuck on its body for at least a day. My attempts to grab the stuck skin with small plastic tweezers (used to feed one of my pet snakes) to help it out have thus far failed.

The metamorphosed shrimp continue to do well, heading out into the open more and more often to forage in a identical manner to the adults (aside from one that has found it very easy to simply cling to the surface film and eat there), while others (possibly younger) still spend most of their time hiding in the macroalgae).

Also saw one of the snails feeding/moving above the water line. I knew they could do that but its the first time I've seen it in this tank.

[hardware_failure]

Also saw one of the snails feeding/moving above the water line. I knew they could do that but its the first time I've seen it in this tank.

My snails do this all the time. In fact its rare not to see at least one above the waterline. Maybe they just hate my tank lol.

[Varanus]

Has anyone noticed if their shrimp seem to behave differently when the weather changes? And I don't mean temperature changes, but changes related to storms and such that change atmospheric pressure. Yesterday we had a cold front come through that produced a lot of rain and wind. There wasn't any thunder, and the temperature inside didn't change much, but for some time my normally busy but methodical shrimp were swimming around frantically/exictedly as if something had disturbed them. Today the sun has come out and the shrimp are behaving as normal.

The shrimp certainly seem attuned to certain vibrations. Indeed it seems like once feeding has started they rely more on sensing other feeding shrimp rather than using their antennae to find the food. That is usually when approaching the feeding area they will head straight to a shrimp that is already eating and try to take the food from it, often passing right over unclaimed food in the process. Its like they can feel the movements made by the shrimp that is eating and hone in on that.

[jonesinfershrimp]

im gona say evolutionary sense animals are more in tune with the universe (and world) than we are.