I'm new here and I've read all I could find on breeding Amanos especially Mike Noren's article and the French guy's. I'm at day 13 with the zoes at the moment, these are pics from day 10 (evacuated them at this point from the tank to another due to high nitrite levels;
I have them in full strength sea water (made from Tropic Marine) at 34 ppt. I make this with mature water from my 5 ft planted tank. At day ten nitrite levels went through the roof even after 50% water changes, so I evacuated them into another sea tank I had running. I have lost quite a few by them getting stuck in the water tension. A 20% water change every few days seems to remedy this. I aerate the 5 lt tank with 2 small airstones and I feed the zoes with phytoplankton which I cultivate and feed in the same tank. I light the tank for 24 hours a day and I also have some crushed coral in the bottom of the tank. I do seem to have lost alot of them before the evacuation, I must have had initially 1000 zoes as I had three spawns. Maybe the large number of zoes caused the nitrite levels to rocket even after water changes, I don't know. They seem to be doing better now some are at about 4-5 mm in size. Mike's article says that when the zoes morph into adults they become less tolerant to full strength sea water but I've read on these forums of people keeping the post larvae Amanos in sea water for up to three months after morphing, any ideas? Thanks, great forum by the way!
I would move them back into fresh water as quick as possible after they morph. Never got that far to know if it matters, but I don't think they would spend much time in the sea. They would be too tasty to other things.
I did regular water changes the 1st time, then none the 2nd time. Both failed at the same point. Next time I'm trying at 12-15 ppt salt with a recirculating filter.
I'm using mature water from my planted tank to make my sea water. I'm thinking of trying a minture protein skimmer, there are some that are air powered because I've had alot of casualties from them getting caught in the surface tension. This usually happens as the water thickens with phyto plankton. By the way, how many days did they last before failure, I know you mentioned the mysis stage but how many days was that?
A protien skimmer will take all the food out of the water as well. And since the shrimp are not good swimmers at that point, they will get sucked up by the skimmer as well...
Best thing to do is use water changes to prevent the film. Try a good % every day. That sould help!
Today was the 27th day and I have only 16 zoes left, all in the mysid stage. Also, one of the zoes has morphed into the adult form. It was very difficult to spot because after morphing they change colour and become almost transparent like the adults. I have placed it in brackish water now and it seems quite stable. I now have to perfect this process. I have another batch of 700-800 zoes which hatched yesterday, this time I have split them between three tanks. Still experimenting with various parameters to try and increase the yeild.
