Breeding Amanos Part 2!! Past 10 days!!!

[Aphyosemion]

Okay, before anyone flames me, let me just say that I searched for "Breeding Amanos" in this forum before I made this post. I figured someone MUST have asked for info on it before, but found nothing. It is possible that I just don't know how to use the search function very well....
I am attempting to breed amano shrimp using full strength saltwater per a reference that I found online. It is from something like Mikes-Machine or something. Anyway it seems to be fairly detailed, but I would like to do my homework on this particular subject.
I have 3- one gallon tanks set up for the breeding project. When one of my female amanos appear ready to release their eggs, I place her in one of the 2 one gallon freshwater tanks with a reduced flow bubbler until she relases her eggs. Once the eggs are released, she goes back into the 75 gallon tank and the babies are transferred to the one gallon saltwater tank. I have marine phytoplankton, artificial rotifers, and crushed spirulina flake for feeding the babies. I am looking for helpful advice from people who might be more knowledgeable or experienced than I am on this particular subject.
This will be my second attempt. The first attempt failed because the female escaped when I accidently put the lid of the tank on askew. She had just started releasing the babies and there were only a few to try to raise.
Any helpful advice?
-Aphyosemion

[Mustafa]

Why would anyone flame you? LOL When I say "do a search fist" to people I want them to go check on stuff that is easily available or has been discussed a million times before. For example, if someone comes and asks in the forum: "How large do Cherry Red Shrimp get and what do males look like?" and they could have just gone to the Shrimp Varieties page and looked at the species description where it says how large these guys get and where there is even a picture of a male, *then* I tell that person to go do some research first. I don't get aggravated about that since that person might have looked but not found right away. Not everyone is internet savvy.

However, what really aggrevates me is someone who says the following (happened before several times in the forum): "Hi, I am too lazy to search for this info, so I thought I'd ask you guys: What's the scientific name of Cherry Reds?"

Anyway..I just thought I had to clear that up so people are not afraid to ask questions here.

Having said that....it seems like you found some good sources of information and have been doing things the right way. Let me just add that you should probably set up a Phytoplankton culture in a little 2 2/1 gallon tank (instead of buying the Phytoplankton in the bottle) and transfer the Amano larvae directly into the culture. That way you don't have to feed them anything additionally and the water quality won't deteriorate due to feeding either. Then you'll just have to wait and see...you can't really do much after that. If you larvae still die, try varying salinity next time. The larvae of some C. japonica populations seem to need lower salinities as mentioned in Mike Norens ("Mikes-Machine") article. That's a very good article by the way and Mike is a very nice and knowledgeable guy.

Hope this helped somewhat.

Mustafa

[Aphyosemion]

Thanks for the advice, Mustafa. It is always a little daunting when you are trying something that few other people seem to have done. There is a general lack of information on the subject and it is hard to find someone to tell you what worked and what didn't when they did it. For now at least, the article that Mike wrote will be my bible on this subject.
-Aphyosemion

[Mustafa]

Thanks for the advice, Mustafa. It is always a little daunting when you are trying something that few other people seem to have done. There is a general lack of information on the subject and it is hard to find someone to tell you what worked and what didn't when they did it. For now at least, the article that Mike wrote will be my bible on this subject.
-Aphyosemion

You're welcome. People like you, who go out and try to breed andronomous shrimp will take care of the lack of information problem in the future. Since the hobby is so new still, it's natural that there is not much info out there. But the existence of this forum and the fact that we are even discussing this topic is already an important step towards more clarity.

Take care,
Mustafa

[chlorophyll]

I have a few suggestions based on rearing Macrobrachium rosenbergii larvae. Can't say they'll be perfectly applicable to Amano breeding.
Unsure how you plan to do it, but siphoning the larvae when you do their transfer is better than netting them, imo. Once they're there, they shouldn't have to be transferred again until they're PL's.

How will your temperature be?
If you can crank it up to the upper 20's (C), possibly near 30, larvae will develop a little faster and you'll get more making it to the PL stage. Daily supplemental feeding of the crushed flakes or freshly hatched artemia will aid in this intensified culture. Fresh hatched Artemia are great nutritionally, but hatching them daily is extra work and it's annoying when you end up with a bunch of adult brine shrimp swimming around in your larvae tank. Might want to pass on that.

In 1-gal containers, 50% water changes every 1-2 days (preferably daily) would be good, if you are doing the supplemental feeding and have time to do this. Just make sure the new water is of the right salinity and temperature.

Rubbish (wastes, uneaten food, normal dead larvae) will build up on the bottom, and it's very easy to clean up daily with a turkey baster. Just remove the air stone temporarily, swirl the water so the wastes collect in the middle, and one or two turkey baster fulls will clean that up sufficiently (no need to worry about getting every last bit of junk... you'll have gotten most of it!). Any larvae sucked up can be picked out of the waste water (with eye dropper or plastic pipette) and returned, but there is a hatchery theory that if they are lying on the bottom getting sucked up in the first place, they may actually not be worth saving anyway. Even if you might think that's mean

Don't worry too much about the air bubbles being on too strong (you do want an airstone that'll give reasonably small bubbles though). It shouldn't be cranking like crazy, but larvae can handle pretty good movement and they definitely need good aeration, especially in the highly concentrated biomass they'll be in. If you ever accidentally leave the air stone out for a few hours, almost all can be expected to die. Likewise, aeration that is just too sparce and gentle can be detrimental.

What else... I don't know. Good luck!

Oh, turning off the lights and using a concentrated light source to attract the larvae to one general area can be useful if you're flake feeding. I would first sink the flake particles in a very small vile or container of the larvae tank water then use a small pipette or eye dropper to drop the food into the water directly where the larvae are accumulated. You should be able to witness larvae carrying away particles in their clutches. I would not leave them swarming into each other for more than 5-10 minutes. Eventually you put the airstone back in and they have to randomly bump into the suspended food, but at least initially you can have them concentrated for feeding to increase their chance of grabbing some food.


Hope some of this is useful.

[Aphyosemion]

I wanted to update everyone interested in breeding amanos on my progress to this point. I have studied the account given on Mike's Machine and come up with a plan that was to be my first attempt at breeding the amano shrimp. I also looked at some other resources, but Mike's seems to be the most comprehensive.
Here is/was the plan: Pregnant amanos are transferred to a 1 gallon freshwater tank singly until they release their eggs. The freshly hatched amano babies are then transferred to full strength saltwater (specific gravity 1.023) where they will be fed a combination of marine phytoplankton and artificial rotifers until they are big enough to eat crushed spirulina flakes. They are then transferred back to FW after metamorphosizing.
Here is a quick note about how it has gone to this point.

Day 1 thru 3: The female only seemed to be releasing only a few babies at a time, so I began transferring them to SW as I found them. I ended up with only about 3 dozen babies, which I figured would be sufficient for the project, since the female was trying my patience. After their transfer to saltwater, I began feeding them phytoplankton and artificial rotifers and watching their progress.
Day 5: I saw the first active feeding of the babies and took it as a good sign. I also did a 50% cycle of the water using a brine shrimp net and an airline hose. I don't want pollution to be a factor in baby loss.
Day 8: I don't seem to have lost a single baby yet and they are definately feeding. Everything seems to be going great.
Day 9: From most failed attempts I have read, everyone seems to fail at day 9 or 10. While I was wary of this fact, I presumed it to be from a lack of water changes, combined with overfeeding. After I got home from work I went over to my tank to check on my babies and GASP, I have inexplicably lost 90% of them!!! They were fine last night before bed and by the time I got home they were mostly dead. After verifying the salinity of the water was correct, I immediately went back to Mike's breeding account and another one that he refers to in an attempt to figure out what might have gone wrong. My immediate assumption was I underfed or chose inadequate foods. What I found was something that I missed in my initial study. The light for the larvae is supposed to be kept on 24/7 or you may experience loss of larvae for unknown reasons during the night. That seems to be what has happened here. I noted that Mike had kept a light on in his tanks, but didn't realize that it was important. I used a light only when I needed to count or feed the shrimp. The other possibility is that it got cool last night and the heat in the house was off. I noted that it had dropped down to 70 degrees during the night, but as far as I know that was as cold as it got.
While I still have about a half dozen larvae in there, I have chalked this one up to a failure and will need to start over using this newfound bit of knowledge. Looks like it's back to the drawing board.
I will post another update if I manage to make it past the elusive day 10 in the near future. I already have another berried up female waiting to give me the opportunity to try again.
-Aphyosemion

[chlorophyll]

Very interesting.
I wish I could try my hand at it. How do you get your japonica to spawn?
My conditions must not be right. Too cold in the lab maybe.

Lighting ey? I wouldn't have guessed that. Hope the new plan works out!

How was the current in the larvae tank? Were the larvae being dispersed well by the current?

[fugly]

Day 9: From most failed attempts I have read, everyone seems to fail at day 9 or 10. While I was wary of this fact, I presumed it to be from a lack of water changes, combined with overfeeding. After I got home from work I went over to my tank to check on my babies and GASP, I have inexplicably lost 90% of them!!! They were fine last night before bed and by the time I got home they were mostly dead. After verifying the salinity of the water was correct, I immediately went back to Mike's breeding account and another one that he refers to in an attempt to figure out what might have gone wrong. My immediate assumption was I underfed or chose inadequate foods. What I found was something that I missed in my initial study. The light for the larvae is supposed to be kept on 24/7 or you may experience loss of larvae for unknown reasons during the night. That seems to be what has happened here. I noted that Mike had kept a light on in his tanks, but didn't realize that it was important. I used a light only when I needed to count or feed the shrimp.

Hmmm... My thoughts on lighting... I attempted to raise amano larvae into juvies as well and failed in my attempt, mostly, I think, because of insufficient feeding. I don't have too much time due to work and other variables. However, I don't think lighting should be an issue. If you think about how the larvae survive in the wild, they certainly don't have light 24/7. They must follow the daily day-night cycle. I think deaths would be due much more to the lack of proper micronutrients existent in pure saltwater than a lighting issue. Just my thoughts... I'm don't discount the validity of the breeding article, and I think it definitely can be reproduced but I think there's much more to it than lighting.

[Aphyosemion]

Yeah, that is partly why I completely discounted that as a necessity the first time I read through the articles. However, the mention of sudden inexplicable deaths during the night seems to match perfectly with what seemed to happen. With that being said, I definately will express no confidence that I know EXACTLY that was what happened, cuz I would be lying my butt off. When troubleshooting a problem, however, you eliminate every possibility until you solve your problem or run out of ideas.
Regarding water circulation, I have a plastic airstone in there with the air turned up just enough that I get like 2 tiny streams of bubbles. It is enough to move the water, but not enough to really mix it up. The shrimp tend to congregate at the brightest corner of the tank, so they have no trouble moving around on their own. I'm not sure if more bubbles would be beneficial or detrimental. The articles only mention reduced flow, which I definately have. How MUCH to reduce it was just a guess, but based on how delicate they look, I thought a bare minimum would be necessary to prevent injuring them.
As for feeding, I also am not sure that I fed them enough. I put about 5 drops of phytoplankton 2 to 3 times per day, plus one little tap on the rotifer bottle for good measure. The water only took on a mild greenish tint. I have seen greener water in my freshwater planted tanks, unfortunately. Maybe with my next batch I should kick up the feeding a notch. In the breeding account he mentions he feeds his shrimp like 5 times a day, but doesn't say how much. It is fairly well detailed, but to someone who has never done it before, there are still some small gray areas.
-Aphyosemion

[frugalfish]

Thanks for the updates Aphyosemion! Keep it up! I am one who is definitely interested in seeing how your experiments go. Hopefully later this year I will be putting in my own time to breeding various shrimp, of which I would like to include either the Vampire or Wood shrimp. Best of luck to you!

[chlorophyll]

Personally, I would try kicking up the circulation. Though too much can likely be harmful, these guys in the wild do get swept down from rocky mountain streams. They're probably not as delicate as they look. Certain animals also need the constant water motion. Baby brine shrimp for example need it to hatch and will mature in that same (often strong) circulation despite how small and squishy they seem to be.

But actually my theory behind asking about the circulation had to do with the way the larvae rush to light. It may be possible that when the lights are out, the larvae are more strongly attracted to the area that's most lit. Maybe they are injuring each other as they swarm into each other for hours on end. Higher circulation could help prevent this, if it is happening.

Also the question about why day 10? Have there been many ideas on that?
If the larvae are injuring each other when they get massed together, maybe they reach a larval stage around day 10 where they become a little more zooplanktivorous and are more apt to start grabbing at any zooplankton (each other included) that they happen to bump into. This might also suggest the feeding of live artemia could be beneficial because it ensures live zooplankton can be available 24/7 for larvae who are possibly hungry for meat.

However, huge massive die-offs tend to be linked to water quality issues. Your population might prefer lower salinity, or they reach a larval stage around day 10 where they for some reason need more circulation or oxygenation.

I don't know; these are just some theories that came to me!

Live cultures (both phyto and zooplankton) will definitely help keep the larvae fed. If larvae rearing tanks maintain enough water circulation and are supplied with usable light, these foods will stay alive and available in the water column for longer periods. One of the more often used places to get microalgae cultures is Florida Aqua Farms. The disks are not too hard to use and are affordable. A basic hydroponic fertilizer solution (very low dosage is necessary) can be helpful to help perpetuate the cultures. If you order from FAF, just instruct them in your "special notes" to send by "USPS Priority Mail" and you'll get it relatively quick and cheap in shipping.

[edinjapan]

Also the question about why day 10?

Saltwater shrimp exhibit the same problem in their lifecycle in captive conditions. When I was interested in saltwater many years ago breeders were facing the same problems but, with much more expensive shrimp and crabs. Part of the problem was traced to food quality and quantity, the fact that at this stage the shrimp's metamorphosis was at a critical stage and in some cases was attributed to their bumping into the sides of the container.

[chlorophyll]

Yeah it really does make sense to me that allowing them to swarm into one area for too long can be very harmful. I remember watching my prawn larvae as I fed them with the aeration off and light source on, and thinking how dangerous it looked for them to all be trying to cram into one area.

Lacking nutrition also makes sense. They may need more HUFA's and PUFA's. Supplement food may be necessary. A custard (later squished/strained into fine particles) made in the microwave with egg, ground shrimp pellets, ground squid, and a fish oil capsule. My aquaculture professor called it "COMA" ... forget what it stands for. Causes a need for more water changes. I would prefer avoiding the trouble of having to make and feed this stuff if is possible. But it might help.

[Aphyosemion]

Yeah, there are still many possibilities that I haven't quite narrowed it down to yet. Food is a possibility as well as light. It could be insufficient food, or not quite the right food. The light might be what keeps them from congregating in one corner and repeatedly smacking themselves into each other. For the most part they didn't seem to really be swimming like mad, they just kind of gathered there and sat around. It could also be they do indeed need more circulation to keep the food and themselves in motion. I am going to try to address as many possibilities as I can on the next run. The only thing that seems unlikely is starting a live phyto or zooplankton culture. The successful breeders didn't do zooplankton and artemia was a problem, but one of them mentioned greenwater. I have attempted to duplicate that with marine phytoplankton, but didn't have time to establish a marine greenwater culture before the mother laid the eggs. What is really sad is that I just got back from San Diego an hour ago and was at the ocean, but forgot to bring back a bag of ocean water to start a phytoplankton culture.
-Aphyosemion

[CEF]

I used mikes article as a guide for my attempt. I have 3 amanos down that have been in various tanks over the last year and they started mating back in january. My first attempt was just last month though, I had a batch go free swimming on 4/23 with very poor hatchout rate. My female berried again 5/1, and this time instead of just a dish i put them into a 2L brine shrimp hatcher with a large bubble going up about every second or two. I think the first time i got maybe 20, this time i have well over 100. I used about 2 cups of tank water from my plant tank, which isn't changed very often, and then filled the rest of the volume w/ fresh cool RO water. Hatching started 5/21 early in the day, around 12 i came down to find a hundred more maybe.

With the poor hatch rate, I only wanted to learn what it looked like when the shrimp morphed to postlarvae. I dont have any way to view them under any magnification to speak of. The only feature i could really discern as changing is their eyes are much more visable. The last one died after about 24 days, i assume because it was a postlarvae needing to go back into freshwater.

I use phytoplex to feed them, it seems to do the chore. Though note, I didn't have a large sampling though to gage loss.