Old Tank & Transferring Larva?

[QsusieQ]

I have babies had four berried shrimp, two of them have released.
It's been such a nice surprise, they got berried before the "shelter in place" happened with coronavirus- so it's a welcome distraction.

Background: I moved recently, so I combined the shrimp from two one-gallon tanks into a single one gallon tank. Even though the other tank was emptied of shrimp, I left it mostly intact- substrate, coral rock base, sea fan, even the brackish water and snails have been left in there, as is. Just the opae ula were removed and combined into the other tank.
Now that they've released some babies, my questions are:

1) Would it be safe to move some of the larva BACK into the old tank?
I know grown opae are hardy, but am unsure of the babies... if I could catch the grownups I would, but larva would be easier to transfer (if they're hardy enough)

2) Should I refresh the brackish water- my guess is the cycle was never broken because the snails weren't removed and it's been kept the same as before- algae still visible on rocks, 4 trumpet snails (one big one, 3 teeny ones), brackish water is still topped off... It's been emptied of the shrimp for about six months.

3) If the old tank checks out as fine- should I let the larvae grow more before transferring? Larva are three-to-four days old right now. If I should wait, how many days before I make the transfer?

Thanks ahead for your help~

[Varanus]

I don't know if anyone here has tried moving larva. They are more sensitive than the metamorphosed shrimp, so if you want to be extra safe you could wait until they become tiny shrimp. If you don't want to wait then you could always move one or two and see how they do.

The tank itself should be fine to move to though, since the snails have kept living in it this whole time.

[QsusieQ]

Thank you for your reply. If safer to wait, of course will go that route.

Another question than- are newly metamorphosed shrimp slower than their adult counter parts?

When the tank was originally set up, rocks were superglued down, but after the move, they've loosened and are no longer locked against the bowl sides. It's been ok because I haven't had to move anything since. But to stick a net in and "chase" the opae- it may bump some lava rock out of place, which could be fatal in a tightly decorated one gallon bowl

if anyone has a graceful way of catching/transferring them, any suggestions would be appreciated

[Varanus]

The newly metamorphosed shrimp are very secretive, not sure if they are actually slower.

As for moving them, a fine mesh net works well enough if you're careful and get them back into water fast. You can try a turkey baster too/instead, but you'll likely get a lot more water than shrimp.

[Dch48]

From what I've seen the new shrimp can move just as fast as the bigger ones but they don't do it as much. They seem to favor finding a spot, usually out of sight, and staying there most of the time. Mine have most often burrowed into the macroalgae and very rarely are seen as they forage through it.

[QsusieQ]

Mini update- so many larva were released, I decided to try moving them.

I had a mini cube storage container than I had thrown the extra rocks and brackish water in when I had first set up and forgot about it. It had algae so I'm sure it was well cycled.

Taking a straw, I just used gravity and suction to draw them in and move them- seven in all to the tiny setup. Surprisingly, as small as they are, I didn't expect them to scatter so quickly and try to scoot away~ In the end, happy to report not one loss after 3 days
Three of the fry have metamorphosed into teeny weeny shrimp.
Hope everyone is well!

[tonytheshark]

I've been moving shrimp from my office tank to a newly set-up tank I have at home. After putting water and substrate in the tank I allowed the night/day cycle for about a week, then moved about ten shrimp from my office tank which included 4 larvae. (I brought in some macroalgae from the office tank as well, plus a piece of fan coral so that some of the microorganisms from the more-established tank would be introduced to the new one)

I specifically looked for the larvae every single day for about two weeks to make sure they were still alive, and they were. And then they I noticed the post-larva stage swimming around, so it seems they have survived on to their next stage of development.

Some things to note:

• I used the same brand of marine salt for both aquariums (Kent Reef Salt mix)
• I used a refractometer to make sure the SG newly-mixed brackish water of the new aquarium roughly matched that of the the original (1.014ish)
• I drip-acclimated all of the shrimp to the new tank for about an hour before releasing them into the new tank

Your cube tank looks lovely btw, great job with it.

[Mustafa]

I just wanted to add that Supershrimp tanks do not have a traditional "cycle", so even leaving the tank sit there without any shrimp or snails for months is not going to be a problem. You can move shrimp or larvae in such a tank without any issues. Having said that, there is no harm in leaving larvae in tank until they metamorphose and grow up. They'll be large enough within 3-4 months to be caught without any problems. Postlarvae (mini shrimp after metamorphosis) are very hard to see.