My opae berried, she dropped? Or....what's this?

[MrsT]

Hi Varanus , I think I'm gonna just conclude that those floating orange and black dots are indeed dead eggs . I don't think anybody can confirm it because no one would bother keep looking at water surface for something unless it moves.
So opae dead eggs do float to the surface like human dead body float on the ocean. I'm wondering if I should get rid of it or leave it.
Here is a few pic.

[Varanus]

Hmmm... well I assume dropped eggs are normally eaten by the shrimp or snails. And if they do decay then they are so small that I doubt they would cause any harm. So I'd only removal them for aesthetic reasons if they continue to float and they bother you.

[Mustafa]

Eggs don't really float, they are heavier than water. But whatever it is, no need to remove it if it's organic. The shrimp will eventually eat it.

[MrsT]

Eggs don't really float, they are heavier than water. But whatever it is, no need to remove it if it's organic. The shrimp will eventually eat it.

Strangely , the shrimp never touch it. Anyway I just leave them be. Thank you Mustafa.

[Mustafa]

No problem.

[MrsT]

I mentioned in another topic of mine , I have an isolated berried shrimp in a small jar, partial of her eggs were released, the rest were either rot/unfertilised/spoiled whatever you call it and it stuck with her. She decided to shed skin to shoved them off.

I used tweezer to pick her skin and swivel off those rot eggs, a few came off and float on top of water surface. 2 more were too sticky to shake off, I just let it sunk down the gravel bed with their mother skin.
I can now confirm my curiosity, their rot/spoiled/unfertilised eggs do float to the top.

Anyway, my curiosity went to wonder if I could make a closed up on those live living larva. Looks like they were paddling non stop trying to learn how to swim and grab on whatever surface. Here's a few gifs. Look closely on their tiny little swimmeret, they paddling like nobody business .
So sorry for the poor quality. This is the closest I could get.

[MrsT]

I want to put them in the big tank. The babies are so tiny so I decided to just fill up their small jar full, covered it and slowly land the whole jar inside the big tank bottom. I lifted the cover and the babies just swam out themselves.
Look at the image I attached, I spotted 1 of them latching on the wall, it's so tiny.

[MrsT]

Last week the babies started picking on food.
Today 1 month old, to be exact 4weeks 1day.

[Vorteil]

Very cool. Thanks for sharing and updating.

[MrsT]

Very cool. Thanks for sharing and updating.

You are welcome Vorteil. I'm glad you enjoy them.

[Mustafa]

I also want to thank you for sharing! You make great gifs! It's interesting to discover for the first time how tiny really the babies are.
As for the floating eggs...that's interesting to know! I can imagine that bad eggs get colonized by bacteria that may produce tiny air bubbles as a result of their metabolism.

[MrsT]

I also want to thank you for sharing! You make great gifs! It's interesting to discover for the first time how tiny really the babies are.
As for the floating eggs...that's interesting to know! I can imagine that bad eggs get colonized by bacteria that may produce tiny air bubbles as a result of their metabolism.

You are most welcome Mustafa , i love catching those moments because they grow very quick and i might missed it once they grew older haha. It's very hard to get zoom in picture for young opae shrimplets on the internet so i had to do it
Yes Mustafa i think their eggs do float but some will sink under. I never pick them up, i just left them be unless i see mold growing on them but so far 'nope'

[MrsT]

5weeks 3days as of today. Spotted one on the small jar I previously left it in.

[MrsT]

I must've miscalculated the berried time. I thought I would see some larvae maybe in another 1 week time. Look what I found today? 2 of them hiding far end at the corner because that was the end that receive bright sunlight in the morning.
They are not floating which mean they have been here for a while and now they seem to just hang around at the bottom near light source area. Probably after few more days they will morph into shrimp like body and start to learn paddling their swimmerets.

[MrsT]

Difficult to take a clear shot because the bigger shrimplet
just won't stay still. I'm on flash only the larvae attracted to flash but shrimplet avoid it. The corner glass view was blocked by silicon, I only get to take it from this angle.

This is the size comparison between them.