Petshrimp.com Discussion Forum

Hi All

I've been snooping around here for about 6 months and never got around to posting anything yet. I'm currently keeping Cherry's, Crystal Reds, Amanos, "Rainbow Shrimp", and Electric Blue Crays. I have maybe 100 tanks total, mostly fish.

The Cherry's have been regular spawners for me and last night I collected a bunch of larvae off the rainbows. I just got the crays and the CRS. I've been having issues with the Amanos though, and I think the other posts that came through today have me ready for a change of direction. I've been trying to feed a powdered food diet of spirulina and spray dried krill, my tank was too small, and I did a water change with all new water. So the larvae were doomed.

What I wonder is if making the phytoplankton culture is necessary for the rainbow shrimp too (or if this will even work since they are not in salt). The guy I got the adults form told me he didn't to anything and baby shrimp just showed up. I saw a few swimming around yesterday and didn't realize just how many there were until I saw literally hundreds hanging out in the crushed coral substrate later. So I split the batch hoping if I screw it up, I should have a fallback.

So this phytoplankton stuff, I guess it has directions on the label for making it a live algae culture? I figured it was just a dead suspension of food-stuff.

Hello
And welcome to the Forum

As to the "Rainbows", Do you get them off of a Auction Site ?

And when you say "Collected Larva". Do you mean Free Floating Tail Hangers ?
And not fully developed Shrimp.

If you have free floating Tail Hangers, I do nothing different and the Larva develope into Post Larva in under a week.

I will be getting a culture of Freshwater Greenwater. And adding small amounts to see if it help to increase the % of survival of the Larva.


John

Well, I guess the tail hangers are what I saw swimming around, because the ones that I syphoned out were'nt doing that yet and were smaller. I think there is significant attrition from adults eating them if I see so few swimming around. I haven't seen any fully formed baby shrimp yet, but i suppose they could be hiding. Sometimes spotting the adults can be a challenge.

I got them from an auction in Kalamazoo MI. I spoke with the seller and he told me they were the shrimp listed as Indian dwarf on this site, but they neither look like the photo nor use the reproductive method listed. After I mentioned that he didn't reply to my e-mails any more, so I'm stuck with the generic name "Rainbow Shrimp". I've hunted around and I'm pretty well convinced it is a paleamon species, but I don't know for sure. I'll try to shoot a pic.

For the freshwater species, do you suppose the powder foods or maybe phytoplankton powder would work? I've been using those so far.

Hello Mike (and welcome to the forum! ),

Some shrimp with freshwater larvae don't feed and others do. You'll have to find that one out for yourself, especially with an unidentified species. But from what you are saying about "baby shrimp just showing up" in the tank of the guy/gal that sold you these shrimp, it looks like the larvae either need no feeding or some of them survive by feeding on whatever plankton/food happens to grow in the tank.

Feeding shrimp larvae without killing them by polluting the water, no matter if they are in saltwater or freshwater, is an art and skill by itself. Just experiment around (utilizing the information that's already been discussed here) and I'm sure you'll find a solution. All the things you mentioned as food can work, but you will have to find the right dosage yourself over time. Do you have any pictures of your mystery shrimp?

yeah, i'm finding out that feeding is a bit tricky. these guys are much easier than the amanos are. the brackish seems to get dirty a lot faster than fresh.

i still need to get some decent pictured of them. john and i figured out we got them from the same guy though, so he's been very helpful.

a buddy brought her microscope camera to our last club meeting and i shot some pics of the larvae of both, they didn't turn out the best, but i'm going to try to clean them up a little and post them.