macrobrachium lanchesteri breeding

[docsoldlady]

OK this is the last place I am turning to. I have tried several sites, browsed the web endlessly and really only feel partially informed. Most sites I find are in German, which doesn't help me. I have 4 of these guys. 1 Male and 3 Females, sold to me as Indian Whisker Shrimp. I had 1 berried and recently my female released her eggs, I don't think the larva survived (probably because I am unsure how to feed, proper care etc). Now I have 2 others berried so I seperated them (together) in a planted tank with water sprite, duckweed, amazon sword, and some java moss. Can someone help me with the life cycle? I think my original female held her eggs about 3 weeks, and I believe had larva babies. I can't tell you much more than that. I tried feeding the larva baby brine shrimp but don't think they made it. I am hoping for at least a couple to survive out of this batch. Please help me determine what to feed the larva, the mother shrimp (nutritional purposes), and really anything else I need to know. I can't seem to find a lot of GOOD solid info. Thanks!!

[docsoldlady]

If this helps here are pictures I took of the first berried female. I have added a few plants since then which the 2 females seem to like. I added an amazon sword and some other smaller mid light plant. There is lots of java moss and duck weed as well. There is 1 female that likes to sit on the sword and hang her long arms over. Please if someone could help shed a little more light on the situation I would greatly appreciate it. I am trying to figure out if the babies will be larval (I assume since I never saw any "mini" shrimp from the last female) and what I should feed them. I am feeding the adults a mixture of shrimp pellets, flake, algae tabs, and crushed freeze dried brine shrimp. They also get baby brine shrimp once and a while but I am unsure if they eat them or not.

[Mustafa]

From your description it sounds like you have not even seen any larvae. Yes, these shrimp produce larvae and not miniature shrimp. There are many reasons why larvae may die, but the most common ones are: 1. Water quality (i.e. you feed to much or your tap water has nitrates, ammonia, phosphates etc.) 2. the larvae get eaten. Either way you would probably not see any larvae floating around since they would be dead right after hatching. The larvae need to be in their own tank without any adults. It takes about 3-4 weeks for the eggs to hatch and another 2-3 weeks for the larvae to morph into young shrimp. Yes, they do need food for that but the trick is not to feed so much that the water quality goes down the drain and the larvae die. I'd start out with only feeding a little bit of finely powdered flake every few days, see how many larvae survive and go from there.

By the way...there have been some people that tried what you are trying in the past so it would probably be in your best interest to thoroughly search the forum with all kinds of relevant keywords. Good luck!

[docsoldlady]

Awesome thank you Mustafa!! What would you suggest the best way to go about separating the female from the larva if I am lucky enough to have them survive? I have a "specimen container" coming in the mail, the dip and pour type. Do you think when he eggs start to turn I could move her into the container until she has her babies? I think it might be easier for me to keep the water clean in a smaller container but I am unsure. I did a search as you requested and did find a little more information but still nothing solid. Is this a breed you've kept, if so do you have a recommendation on how I should go about all this? My main goal is to not stress the female out in the process, yet keep the water clean enough for larva to survive. Oh boy! I really love these guys and it's been a pretty great learning experience so far. Hopefully I will have a success story at some point.

[Mustafa]

I would not recommend a specimen container to keep the female in. That always goes wrong. She will either die by jumping out and landing on the floor or just escape. You really need two different tanks, one for the adults and one to rear the larvae. Yes, of course I have kept and still keep this species. I would never comment on a species (in such detail) if I hadn't had experience with the species. If your larvae survive, you will know for sure. The female won't be able to devour them all right away. If you never see any larvae in the tank after the female releases them, that usually means that the larvae died pretty much right away, which usually is the result of water parameters. I don't know your water so you need to really go find out what's in your water...i.e. read the city water report, go get some test kits, do some more reading on the internet.

The rest is just trial and error at location...nobody can really micromanage a breeding project remotely. The info is there but it will be up to you to put it all together and resolve all the problems. That's the challenge and fascination about breeding shrimp, it's quite different and overall more challenging from breeding most fish.