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This is my second attempt. I have tried it about 1 year ago but after 2 water changes all the zoeys were dead.
This time so far they survived longer.
They have hatched almost 2 weeks ago and I still seem to have the same about of zoeys in the tank, about 50. It's a 2.5 gal tank and I removed the female after I saw enough zoeys in the tank to start the experiment. I have done 2 water changes and this time they lived through those.
But they have not really grown in size. I have to use a magnifying glass to see them. While they seem to have a more solid body and a transparent tail, they really have not changed much or grown in the 2 weeks. Is this normal?
I am feeding them Phytoplex, CRS shrimplet food, fry food, daphnia boost and strained spiritulina flakes.
Any hints?

garfieldnfish

Good Luck,
And
Please keep us updated either way.

John

Hi garfieldnfish,

Is the food being eaten as far as you can tell? If it is then they must be eating and growing even if it is too slow for you to notice. If they are not eating what you feed them then they must have an alternative food source or else they would die.

Best wishes, I hope you found a reproducible way to raise them

When I add food to the tank they all drift over to the food source, but they are too small for me to actually see them eat. But they are all in the upside down position and I read one report stating that that's good. If they would float horizontally they would die within a week. I don't know if that is a good way to judge how well they are, but so far so good. BTW I keep them in full strength saltwater. If they make it I will post what I did in detail if anyone is interested.

Green Water has always work great for me,
for the first 2 weeks.
But, I have Larva only live to 3 weeks.

John

If they make it I will post what I did in detail if anyone is interested.

I hope they make it to adulthood for you. That would be great if you can share when they do

Feel free to shoot me down if I am missing the point, but isn't 2.5gals a bit on the small side? Wouldn't it be wise to go for at least 10gals?

I only allowed 50 larvae to hatch in this tank and removed the female before the rest of the 1000-2000 did. And they are so small you can barely see them without a magnifying glass. When they transform into shrimp, they have to be moved to freshwater again in stages as not all of them will transform at the same time. So I will need 3 more containers to get them used to freshwater again. I do not have 4 empty 10 gal sitting around (I wish I had, lol, then again I would probably have filled them up by now). Which is the reason I am only trying this with about 50 of the larvae. They will be in this tank only for a few weeks when they are ready for freshwater they will be moved to much larger tanks. I have several tanks with just corydoras and small plecos, where Amano shrimp will be safe. If, by chance, too many make it I will have to give some away, but that is at best wishful thinking at this point.

John, I like the idea of green water. I already have a green water container on the back porch to feed my daphnia. So I used you suggestion and added a few squirts to the larvae tank. But would the salt content not kill the green water algae?

But would the salt content not kill the green water algae?

I am sorry,
I should have said Salt Water , Green Water

You should be able to buy this at any Quality LPS that has Salt Water.
They should have refrigerated cultures.
And if you get to know some of the workers, just ask them for some of the salt water they drain out during water changes.
Add the old water to a 10gal, then add some of the culture and in a couple of days with proper light you will have more green water than you will know what to do with.
And if you add a turbo snail to take care of the Algae that will grow on the side of the tank,
You will have a self-sustained green water culture.

Since the Larve are so small when they hatch, Green water should be the first food.
It is the smallest sized food source that I know of.

These are just my thoughts
John

And since the Larva do not hatch at the same time, you will have Larva at different stages.
So, I would suggest that you feed a small amount of green water all of the time.

Add the old water to a 10gal, then add some of the culture and in a couple of days with proper light you will have more green water than you will know what to do with.
And if you add a turbo snail to take care of the Algae that will grow on the side of the tank,
You will have a self-sustained green water culture.

This is intresting. How long can these cultures be kept, and what do you have to do to keep 'em running? How long are the light cycles?

Hi Cuba

How long can these cultures be kept, and what do you have to do to keep 'em running? How long are the light cycles?

I had one culture, that was outside last summer
And All I did was top of the evaporated water.
It was going for 2 months, and then the weather turned cold.

The Culture I had inside was going for a long time, Lights were on 24/7

John

Thanks Newjohn, thats some good info!

Since I am already on this forum today, I figured I might as well update you on my Amano breeding project. After 3 weeks, only 4 of the larvae were still alive. 3 had morphed into shrimp, one had not. I started to replace some of the saltwater with freshwater. 1/4 the first day, 1/4 the second day and 1/2 on the 3rd. By then, I figured a move into a fresh water tank would be ok with the shrimp. However, by then I was only able to find 2 shrimp, the larvae and the thrid shrimp must have died. I used a brine shrimp net to transfer the 2 remaining shrimp into a cycled 6 gal tank occupied only by a few MTSs. They were alive when they entered the tank as I saw them swim toward the moss. I have not seen them since and it's been well over one week. This tank had been empty for some time as I use it strictly for growing java moss. Most of my fish are too large for this tank so it has quite a bit of algae growth on the tank walls. I am not feeding this tank and the MTSs have grown in numbers so there is enough in this tank to sustain the shrimp. I do not expect to see them again (if they survive) until they get a lot bigger and are easier to spot.
I am planning on doing this experiment once more. I removed some of the saltwater algae that had started to form on the tank walls of the saltwater set up and it is currently sitting in a glass with saltwater on my back porch. When there is a bunch of it I will try this again using this saltwater algae for food.
My feeling on this: it is rewarding to see if you can do it but it involves a lot of time and some money (salt for the setup) and unless you get more survivors it is not worth the trouble at least not financially.
But I try to breed everything in my tanks at least once. So far my applesnails, my Bristlenose plecos, my African dwarf frogs, my glolight and skirt tetras and my minnows complied. My CRS did too, but I am still having trouble keeping the shrimplets alive.

But I try to breed everything in my tanks at least once. So far my applesnails, my Bristlenose plecos, my African dwarf frogs, my glolight and skirt tetras and my minnows complied. My CRS did too, but I am still having trouble keeping the shrimplets alive.garfieldnfish
Egg


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Joined: Thu May 17, 2007 8:36 pm
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Written (spoken) as a true hobbiest!! I feel the same way. It's nice to see that your putting your experience in writing here for everyone to draw from. From my personal experience, when young shrimplets ( I don't know if that's the correct term) die, it's almost always from molting. When I started adding iodine to my tanks they grew like weeds. The impression that I'm getting from this forum is that it's not always the case with people that live in other parts of the country. I've bred tetras, but I couldn't keep the fry alive. I guess I don't know the tricks.

Guba wrote:When I started adding iodine to my tanks they grew like weeds. The impression that I'm getting from this forum is that it's not always the case with people that live in other parts of the country.

I know you keep repeating this regardless of what has been said in this forum about the uselessness of iodine in shrimp tanks. I am repeating this here again, as I have done many time before already, because I really do not want this myth to rear its ugly head again: Just because things got better around the time you made some change (i.e. add iodine), does not mean that iodine is responsible for the positive results. If your tank is out of whack and you start adding minute amounts of sugar/pepper/coffee into your tank, and the tank somehow happens to recover around that time, then it wasn't the addition of the sugar/pepper/coffee that caused the positive change. There is more than enough iodine in pretty much *any* food that people feed to their shrimp. Nothing more is necessary. If you stopped adding iodine right now I can pretty much guarantee you that nothing will change. There have also been enough people claiming that amano shrimp *catch* and kill shrimp and fish (which is utter nonsense) just because they happened to see a dead or half-dead shrimp/fish being chomped on by the amano shrimp. The right cause and effect need to be established before a claim can be made. In this case *all* the experts (in the world, not just in "other parts of the country") agree that iodine additions do absolutely nothing. Years of experience have shown that.

We absolutely do *not* want to make claims in this forum without a solid basis. In this case there is no base whatsoever. Please use the search function to read up on this topic as I have explained this issue ad nauseum to plenty of people who also thought that iodine additions are somehow necessary, based on claims made by people over the years who have no idea about shrimp but proclaimed themselves (pseudo)experts in the dark ages before this website formally established the hobby here in the US and brought some light into the darkness. The last thing I want is someone reading your claim and starting another round of the same old myth that iodine "helps with molting" and should be dosed regularly.