Petshrimp.com Discussion Forum

I lucked out in a major way.

The other day I was at Petsmart and took a look at their Atyopsis moluccensis tank, and I noticed a rarity. There was a female loaded with eggs. How could I not take her home?

Suddenly, less than a week after buying her, I have a nice big hatch. I was concerned it would take forever as many people have reported. This was almost too soon for me to prepare for.

I'll use the usual Amano method, since it's the best we know of. Unfortunately in my past attempts with many hundreds of Amano zoes, I have only managed to get seven post-larvae.

I don't know how my technique could have improved since then, but maybe my lucky streak will hold?

We'll soon see.

At the moment my only phytoplankton source is a local pet store with bottles in a fridge (N. oculata, P. tricornutum, and chlorella). I don't have time to grow a batch from a culture... at this point I need a bunch of it up front. Does anyone think that this source isn't sufficient and have suggestions for a better one?

That's great. I noticed that one of mine had eggs, but she ended up dropping most of them (the last I was able to get a good look, she only had about 5 left). I really don't know much about breeding bamboo shrimp, but here are my thoughts.

Is your phytoplankton fresh or salt water? I've read of one who used freshwater phytoplankton and he lost all of his larva. I don't know if it was the food or environmental.

If you can, split the larva into a few tanks. If something goes horribly wrong in one, you still have more larva, and you can try different techniques.

I was wondering the same thing, carbon. I am interested in the answers.

It's marine phytoplankton. I'm more concerned about just how alive these fridge cultures are.

I'll see if I can get a photo of the zoes. I believe I've sucked up around 150 of them. Too bad I don't have one of those microscope cameras.

You can still try the magnifying glass in front of your camera lens, if you've got one.