I hatched RCS eggs from dead mother!

Baby_Girl · Post by **Baby_Girl** » Mon Sep 17, 2007 2:29 pm

I found a dead female cherry shrimp in one of my tanks a couple weeks ago. What made this one stand out was that she was HUGE, nicely colored and berried with the most eggs I've ever seen. So I thought, I can't just let those go to waste.

I removed the eggs from her pouch as gently as I could, using small forceps to dislodge them and a pipette to suck them up. Granted, I know my method wasn't extremely careful so I expected that some of the eggs might be crushed. But I did manage to remove all of them.

I transfered the bright yellow eggs to a filter media bag with a very small mesh (microns, think brine shrimp net). This bag was placed in an open space in a power filter where they would be bathed in fresh, circulating water. Said power filter was placed on the back of my RCS breeding tank.

Since I was basically making this up as I went along and my tools were less than ideal, I figured my chances for their surviving were poor at best.

I've been checking on the eggs every couple days, expecting fungus and dead eggs. Never found any. And last week, not only was there no sign of mold/fungus, but also a tiny pair of eyes inside each egg!

OMG! They're alive and developing!

After seeing the eyes (and getting hope for their survival), it occurred to me that it might not be healthy for embryos to develop in complete darkness inside a filter, especially for their eyes/sight. So I moved the media bag to hang in front of the filter, right in the outflow. I also put an airstone right under it to further increase aeration and circulation.

Well, today I went to check on the eggs' progress. THEY HATCHED!!!!!! There were a bunch of newborn, white babies crawling around. They must have hatched within the last 24 hours, as there were also a few eggs still unhatched but containing eyes. I opened the bag in the tank and let the babies swim out. I have 30+ new baby shrimpies! There were a few dead bodies, but many more were alive and well. I'd say the majority of them made it.

Hurray!

zapisto · Post by **zapisto** » Mon Sep 17, 2007 3:31 pm

congrat.
i did the same with Bee shrimp
my hatching rate was very low though

thief · Post by **thief** » Mon Sep 17, 2007 4:03 pm

Wow I never heard of anything like this. I don't know if I read or heard you right but you put all the eggs into I little net and place it Into the Filter media? Anyways I say that is a nice survivor story.

Baby_Girl · Post by **Baby_Girl** » Mon Sep 17, 2007 5:32 pm

hi thief. I placed the eggs inside a filter media bag (~300 micron pores), the kind used to hold activated carbon or zeolite.

That bag was then placed in the open space inside an HOB filter where there I knew it would get a lot of circulation. I eventually moved it to outside the filter to give the embryos some light. So the bag was taped to the top of the filter and draped so that the eggs were directly in the path of the outflow.

I had read roughly about other people trying this with shrimp eggs. After doing it myself, I found this thread on Mustafa's experience with artificial rearing of crays viewtopic.php?t=2277&highlight=egg+tumbl%2A

People do it with fish eggs too in 'egg tumblers'. But I hadn't read about any of that until AFTER I improvised my own method. The egg tumblers are basically the same thing, a small isolation chamber with an airstone at the bottom to gently circulate water around the eggs.

marusempai · Post by **marusempai** » Mon Sep 17, 2007 6:44 pm

Wow, I am impressed. That is a high survival rate! Maybe having them actually IN the filter for the first while helped? I can't think how though...

Baby_Girl · Post by **Baby_Girl** » Mon Sep 17, 2007 7:10 pm

BTW, if anyone was wondering why the mother died in the first place, she was in one of my planted tanks. I have so much success breeding RCS and can't seem to sell them fast enough, so have put some 'over-flow' into almost all my other tanks. While I'm not deliberately breeding the shrimp in my fish/plant tanks, they are all doing well enough to increase in number to some degree or other. The particular eggs in this project were reared in my designated RCS breeding tank, no ferts or CO2 of course

I figured this female was able to get so large in this one tank because it's my highest light and most densely planted, so lots of decaying matter and goodies to eat. She died following a large dose of Excel to deal with a MAJOR algae outbreak in that particular tank. I actually put some RCS in there in the hopes they would help control the algae, but it was so bad they didnt' make a dent in it. Though I'm sure the algae is what helped her produce that large a clutch.

Following this experience, I believe I'm going to convert all my shrimp tanks to high light, power compact fixtures. It DEFINITELY helps promote their favored foods.

shrimpbaby · Post by **shrimpbaby** » Tue Sep 18, 2007 4:54 pm

Congrats. As I've told you before, I tried to save some green shrimp eggs, but they all fungused. I didn't have enough circulation.

geofied · Post by **geofied** » Tue Sep 18, 2007 7:21 pm

Great story. I think putting them in the filter (an extra filter, right?) was a novel approach, great thinking.

Suzie Q · Post by **Suzie Q** » Wed Sep 19, 2007 9:55 am

Congrats Baby Girl!!!!

I have thought about something simular to that with my betta eggs (if I get an egg eater daddy), and when my shrimp were dropping their eggs. My shrimp are happily reproducing on their own now, but I will keep your method in mind if I ever need to do it!

Baby_Girl · Post by **Baby_Girl** » Wed Sep 19, 2007 11:30 am

thanks everyone!

glad to hear your shrimpies finally got the hang of this reproducing thing, Suzie!

just an update: I see many of the babies clinging to the algae on the walls. They have grown maybe 0.5 mm and are now pink in color, instead of clear/white.

I wish I could have provided pictures for you all, but my camera is a cheap point-and-shoot and will not allow me to focus on anything that small. I have a hard enough time getting a focused picture of the parents, nevermind their babies *shakes head*
I gotta get myself a stand-up magnifying glass and see if I can use THAT to take pictures of tiny critters.

xy222 · Post by **xy222** » Mon Sep 24, 2007 11:05 pm

I did the same few months ago, but the eggs all mildewed

Baby_Girl · Post by **Baby_Girl** » Tue Sep 25, 2007 4:47 pm

xy222 wrote:I did the same few months ago, but the eggs all mildewed

aww, sorry 'bout that. Apparently, lots of circulation was the key to my success. I'd never tried it before, but from the tidbits of reading I'd found on this forum I got that idea.

xy222 · Post by **xy222** » Tue Sep 25, 2007 9:52 pm

hi baby_girl
You are right, I forgot that indeed. I put them into a container with air pump but without filter, so ...

fishbone · Post by **fishbone** » Fri Sep 28, 2007 12:52 pm

Awesome story.
Baby_Girl, I have been looking for a good media bag like that to hold my phosphate-removing media which is too darn fine for near anything.
I tried a pantyhose thingie but it severly restricts waterflow.
Can you tell me where you got your media bag from?
Thanks!
I'd say my phosphate media is smaller than rice.

Baby_Girl · Post by **Baby_Girl** » Fri Sep 28, 2007 1:37 pm

hi fishbone and welcome to the forum!

You know, I dont' remember where I got the media bag from. I have so many and have bought from so many places. I'd say they should all work, but stick to about 250-300 micron pores. But the one I used looked very much like the one in the picture, and dimensions were about 8 inches long by 3 or 4 inches wide. I think it might have been from Drs. Foster and Smith, as I buy a lot of my pet supplies from that company.

Yeah, pantyhose pores are just too small. I've used it in a pinch to cover filter intakes, but it clogs within hours. I suspect it might do the same in a filter, just clog and suffocate the eggs.