# Attempting to Breed Amanos



## mordalphus (Jun 23, 2010)

Here's a thought, and I know it's way off out in left field. But I also have never seen anyone else try this (and I'm pretty certain is crucial to amano zoe surviving).

Instead of running a filter in the saltwater tank, try buying a few pounds of live sand and live rock from your LFS. (aka, instafilter)


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## james0816 (Jun 26, 2008)

Hmmmm....live rock is an interesting concept. Wondering though if there would be any critters that would feast on the zoea with their small size.

Good luck on your project. It's nice to see others do things like this.


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## Senior Shrimpo (Dec 4, 2010)

Live rock- IME, there could be ANYTHING on it. I mean anything. I got a snowflake eel once. lol

Most of the time you don't get anything but when you do... it's pretty funny

As shrimp are pretty low on the food chain (especially zoe) I would stay away from live rock.


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## livebearer (Jun 4, 2006)

shrimpo is correct ! i use to have a salt water tank and 9 times outa 10 i got bristleworms in my live rock which mightnot only be harmful to your amano babies but to you also if you accidently touch one! there are lots of stragglers with live rocks that hide in tiny holes. 

also i have tryed breeding amanos before i ended up with lots of 2 1/2g , 5g and styrofoam cups everywhere lol itwas very stressful! none of my lil guys survived but it was a fun learning experience, i may try again one day!

good luck to you!


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## jasonpatterson (Apr 15, 2011)

mordalphus said:


> Here's a thought, and I know it's way off out in left field. But I also have never seen anyone else try this (and I'm pretty certain is crucial to amano zoe surviving).
> 
> Instead of running a filter in the saltwater tank, try buying a few pounds of live sand and live rock from your LFS. (aka, instafilter)


This was kind of my idea for using lava rocks from an established brackish tank. It's already biologically active, populated with a bunch of brackish bacteria, algae, and some microfauna (somehow or other I've even got coraline algae going in there...) It's not coral, but it does have a relatively large surface area.


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## cjp999 (Nov 18, 2008)

I just cycle the tank with an air stone and small sponge filter. I make sure it can take at least 5ppm of ammonia a day. Once it is cycled, I replace most the water, remove the sponge from the filter intake so it just floats around, and also remove the air stone from the tubing, but still in the tank. This should be more than enough to handle the bio-load of a 200 zoes. Using high light and growing algae in the tank helps even more. I've never had ammonia or nitrite readings when doing this.

I think you could probably get away with cycling with just an air stone and some lava rock (sitting in the tank, not in a filter). Key is to get it well cycled before putting any zoes in it.

I wouldn't suggest sucking anything through a filter, even if it just contains lava rock. I don't think your zoe will survive too many rounds through a filter like that. I don't even keep my air stone in a tube because of this.


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## jasonpatterson (Apr 15, 2011)

Well, two weeks in and I had a population crash. Until 10/21 I had approximately 50 zoea surviving. On the morning of 10/21, I could only find 2 in the whole tank. Nitrogen readings were good and there were no large temperature swings; I'm not sure what killed them, honestly. I'm keeping this batch going until I see no signs of life, as I don't have any berried amanos at the moment anyway. I did a 75% water change in case something nasty had built up in the tank.

Out of curiosity, of the people who are raising (or trying to raise) these shrimp, how large are your zoea after 2 weeks of growth? When they convert into their benthic form? Mine are perhaps 1.5x as big as they were when they hatched, which seems slow to me. I imagine the temperature is playing a part in that. I'm considering scrapping one of my tanks in my living area in order to move the spawning and rearing tanks into a climate controlled part of the house.

ETA:
Regarding the filters, they don't appear to have caused the zoea any harm. The only spots with fast flow are the inlets and the outlet, with the portions where the zoea might come in contact with lava rock being fairly slow flow. I am considering making the inlet holes larger to reduce the flow rate at any given spot.


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## garfieldnfish (Sep 25, 2010)

I have tried several times to breed amano shrimp in the last 3 years and except for 2 shrimp that morphed, the results were bad and the 2 shrimp were placed into a heavily planted 5 gal tank that they shared with no one but they were never seen again. Maybe I introduced them to fresh water too quickly, a tricky part I never got to again in later trials.
My conclusion: It is hard as hell to raise amano shrimp. I doubt that I will invest the time and money into another experiment but who knows. If you manage it, let me know maybe I will give it another try.
Here is what I have learned.

It is easy to breed the amanos, they do it willingly if you have both male and females. The females carried the larvae to full term without any problems in fresh water. What you should do is remove the female into a small tank (2 or 5 gal tank) filled 1/2 with tank water when the eggs are dark and let her stay there until she drops them. Then remove the female and return her to the main tank. Add double strength salt water to the tank with the larvae. This will make the tank salt water. It will not hurt the larvae one bit to be suddenly exposed to salt water. The problem comes in with feeding them. I found they eat phytoplex and crushed spiritulina flakes squeezed through a cloth. The problem is finding the right amount of food for them as water changes seem to be the biggest problem. I have had no losses feeding them but then I felt I needed to do water changes due to the food polluting the water and that is when I lost most of the zoes each time. I believe you need to feed them very sparingly and do no water changes or find a petstore that will give you some discarded water from a saltwater tank heavily infested with algae in order to get this right.
I have grown some salt water algae in a small container for my last attempt and added that to the tank but I found it impossible to spot the larvae after I added the algae and since it was not free floating they may not have considered it as food. So that did not work out well either. If I were to do it again I would use the salt water algae and squeeze it through a cloth like I did with the spiritulina. Good luck. I will keep checking on this threat maybe one of us will crack the code sometime.


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## madness (Jul 31, 2011)

Just random speculation here but I wonder if a permanently running/established brackish/salt tank overgrown with algae and other stuff that you normally try to avoid would be enough to keep them alive with very little feeding (and thus no water changes).

I know this is not so different than what Liam and Jason are talking about but whenever I see a 'neglected' sump or refugium in a saltwater tank I can't help but think of all the tiny crap that must be living in there.

I haven't ever heard of 'natural' saltwater tanks that require no filtration and very infrequent water changes (think Walstad bowls but saltwater) so I don't know if it is really hard to pull off or if this is simply because saltwater fauna either adds a big bio-load or requires really clean water so no one bothers. In terms of freshwater shrimp though people have overgrown tanks that shrimp can survive in with zero feeding. Obviously the freshwater shrimp are born ready to eat small stuff in the tank and don't need to be target fed like zoea so it is easier.

This seems to be something that some people have had success with in raising opae ula (no or little filtration, live rock or seeded lava rock) and just dumping light on it and letting it grow algae and micro-fauna to both filter the water and feed the shrimp.

I would imagine that you would still need to target feed but an ugly overgrown tank might give you a bigger safety margin in regards to water parameters and food supply.


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## cjp999 (Nov 18, 2008)

jasonpatterson said:


> Out of curiosity, of the people who are raising (or trying to raise) these shrimp, how large are your zoea after 2 weeks of growth? When they convert into their benthic form? Mine are perhaps 1.5x as big as they were when they hatched, which seems slow to me. I imagine the temperature is playing a part in that. I'm considering scrapping one of my tanks in my living area in order to move the spawning and rearing tanks into a climate controlled part of the house.


The only time I was successful (44 made it to adult), I actually had one morph after just 10 days. I would say it had 5x to 10x the body mass of a newborn zoea, but that was over a year ago so I'm not certain. The rest in that batch took up to 28 days to morph.

Since then I've had nothing but failures. I wouldn't see any growth, and all died after about a week. I'm working a new batch now. I think I've solved some of the feeding/growth problems. After close to a week I'd say they've added about 30% to their mass. I have them in a 2.5g tank with a 2.5g hatching tank butted up against it, so I can easily compare their size to the newborn zoea in the hatching tank.


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## cjp999 (Nov 18, 2008)

garfieldnfish said:


> I have tried several times to breed amano shrimp in the last 3 years and except for 2 shrimp that morphed, the results were bad and the 2 shrimp were placed into a heavily planted 5 gal tank that they shared with no one but they were never seen again. Maybe I introduced them to fresh water too quickly, a tricky part I never got to again in later trials.


I had 44 that I transitioned to freshwater (a 2.5g tank with just some plants and sponge filter). 3 months later when they were big enough to move to a bigger tank, I counted all 44, so all survived.

For the transition to freshwater, I usually gave them a day. May brackish tank was 1.013sg. I would suck the shrimp into a turkey baster and put them in a 1qt container. I then removed enough water so it was 20% full. Then for the next day I would just squirt a bit of freshwater in every hour or so until the container was nearly full, and then I just dump them into the freshwater tank. I suspect I could actually do it much faster than that.


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## cjp999 (Nov 18, 2008)

garfieldnfish said:


> The problem comes in with feeding them. I found they eat phytoplex and crushed spiritulina flakes squeezed through a cloth. The problem is finding the right amount of food for them as water changes seem to be the biggest problem. I have had no losses feeding them but then I felt I needed to do water changes due to the food polluting the water and that is when I lost most of the zoes each time. I believe you need to feed them very sparingly and do no water changes or find a petstore that will give you some discarded water from a saltwater tank heavily infested with algae in order to get this right.
> I have grown some salt water algae in a small container for my last attempt and added that to the tank but I found it impossible to spot the larvae after I added the algae and since it was not free floating they may not have considered it as food. So that did not work out well either. If I were to do it again I would use the salt water algae and squeeze it through a cloth like I did with the spiritulina. Good luck. I will keep checking on this threat maybe one of us will crack the code sometime.


The one success I had, I most likely had something growing in the tank that they really liked, because it was cloudy and they grew very fast with only a bit of supplemented feeding (a bit of phytoplex and crushed algae wafers). I haven't reproduced those conditions. I do have tanks cloudy with algae, but see no growth in these tanks, and they die after a week. These are all very well established brackish tanks ranging from 1.014 to 1.023sg.

I'm starting to have some success with growth now in a 1.014sg tank that I heavily feed with powdered food. I created the food by adding a combination of algae wafers, spirulina, and shrimp tabs into a crucisble, and crushing into a powder. I then mix with some water and feed a few drops into a 2.5g tank about 4 times a day. You can actually see them grab pieces of the food and eat it. Sometimes they will grab a piece almost as big as their head, and slowly nibble away at it.

I don't believe free floating algae and kent's phytoplex works because it is too small. kent's phytoplex is 3 to 15 micrometers. The algae is likely even smaller. The head of a zoea is about 250 micrometers, and I believe they like grabbing food in the 15 to 100 micrometer size.

Yes, adding a lot of food does pollute the tank. Having a well established tank will help (no ammonia or nitrites). You may also have an algae bloom, but this is probably a good thing, because it removes a lot of pollution. I've been doing a 50% water change every few days. Not too bad with just a 2.5g tank.


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## jasonpatterson (Apr 15, 2011)

cjp999 said:


> I don't believe free floating algae and kent's phytoplex works because it is too small. kent's phytoplex is 3 to 15 micrometers. The algae is likely even smaller. The head of a zoea is about 250 micrometers, and I believe they like grabbing food in the 15 to 100 micrometer size.


I was considering trying to start rotifers for just this reason, but I really don't need another food source to take care of. I've been feeding cultured phyto based on the DT's blend. One of the species in it continually takes over (a brown algae), but I have enough of the original stock and first split of the culture to reseed it a great many times before I have to buy more, so I'm good for phyto needs. 

DT's supposedly contains phyto that grows up to 20 microns, and that particular species is the one that is taking over my cultures, so maybe I'll just let it go and feed them brown algae... I've also added powdered spirulina, and I've seen them attacking the grains, but that is a bit too big. I'm currently giving 5-50 micron golden pearls a go to see if I can get them eating better.

After a water change, a bit of crud vacuuming from the bottom of the tank, and a change of lighting, I can see at least 10 zoea swimming around in the tank now. Hopefully that means that there are several more about that I hadn't seen previously as well. Still a massive population crash, but not quite as bad as I had though.


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## cjp999 (Nov 18, 2008)

jasonpatterson said:


> I was considering trying to start rotifers for just this reason, but I really don't need another food source to take care of. I've been feeding cultured phyto based on the DT's blend. One of the species in it continually takes over (a brown algae), but I have enough of the original stock and first split of the culture to reseed it a great many times before I have to buy more, so I'm good for phyto needs.
> 
> DT's supposedly contains phyto that grows up to 20 microns, and that particular species is the one that is taking over my cultures, so maybe I'll just let it go and feed them brown algae... I've also added powdered spirulina, and I've seen them attacking the grains, but that is a bit too big. I'm currently giving 5-50 micron golden pearls a go to see if I can get them eating better.


Golden Pearls sounds promising. I'll give that a try if you have some luck with it. DT's is a bit pricey due to the shipping.

BTW, I forgot to mention that back when I had my success, I did sometimes see them feeding on soft fuzzy algae growing on the sides of the tank.


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## TheJadeShrimp (Oct 13, 2011)

Not sure if I can do this. But can full grown Amano Shrimps live in a Brackish tank? Or do they HAVE to live in a freshwater set up?


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## cjp999 (Nov 18, 2008)

TheJadeShrimp said:


> Not sure if I can do this. But can full grown Amano Shrimps live in a Brackish tank? Or do they HAVE to live in a freshwater set up?


"brackish" is somewhat ambiguous. You could argue that it covers salinity in the range of 2% to 95% of full marine salinity. I would say they would probably be ok at some of the lower brackish salinity levels. After all, after they morph into juvies, they are still in brackish water and need to swim to a freshwater stream.

http://www.thekrib.com/Fish/Shrimp/ says they are "very tolerant of salinity and pH ranges". What is the salinity of your tank?


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## TheJadeShrimp (Oct 13, 2011)

cjp999 said:


> http://www.thekrib.com/Fish/Shrimp/ says they are "very tolerant of salinity and pH ranges". What is the salinity of your tank?


Oh! I was just asking out of curious nature. I got out of Saltwater tanks. Amano Shrimps interest me to no end.


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## jasonpatterson (Apr 15, 2011)

TheJadeShrimp said:


> Not sure if I can do this. But can full grown Amano Shrimps live in a Brackish tank? Or do they HAVE to live in a freshwater set up?


It might make life easier trying to get the silly things to breed successfully if this was the case. I know that one of the people on here who is trying to breed them had an adult die shortly after a small amount of salt water was accidentally added to a birthing tank, but it could have been coincidental, of course.


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## james0816 (Jun 26, 2008)

Adult Amano's are not tolerant of salt. I learned that the hard way. I lost an adult Propinqua at the same time. Salinity of the water was low but obviously just enough to harm them.

As for feeding the zoea, I'm using a home cultured four phyto cocktail, spirulina and golden pearls. Still waiting for the breakthrough for transitioning the adults as that is where I have been failing of late.


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## jasonpatterson (Apr 15, 2011)

cjp999 said:


> http://www.thekrib.com/Fish/Shrimp/ says they are "very tolerant of salinity and pH ranges". What is the salinity of your tank?


I have to admit that I'm fairly skeptical of the info on that page. It was last updated almost 12 years ago. We've learned an awful lot about freshwater shrimp since then.


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## madness (Jul 31, 2011)

Jason: am I remembering correctly - are you one of those who has Opae Ula as well?


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## jasonpatterson (Apr 15, 2011)

madness said:


> Jason: am I remembering correctly - are you one of those who has Opae Ula as well?


Yep, I do. They aren't breeding yet though. Their tank is the source of my brackish algae coated lava rocks.


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## cjp999 (Nov 18, 2008)

Just added another batch of newborn zoea to the grow out tank with the week old zoea. I can see the size difference. The elders are probably 20-25% longer and 50% more mass. The main difference is that the older zoea are a lot less transparent, and seem to have a different body shape.


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## jasonpatterson (Apr 15, 2011)

I don't know if it was the temperature or what, but my 2 week old zoea kept in brackish don't appear to be substantially different from some stragglers I discovered in the hatching tank yesterday. I had pulled 2 or 3 from it a couple of days after I took the others out to move to the growing tank, then when I moved the tanks upstairs 11 days later, I found 2 more in there, still alive and doing well. All are in the brackish now and all look more or less the same. They have grown very little to this point, perhaps 1.5x their original size (mostly in thickness/mass here as well.) I'm hoping that the warmer temperatures in this part of the house will get them going a bit more.


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## cjp999 (Nov 18, 2008)

jasonpatterson said:


> I don't know if it was the temperature or what, but my 2 week old zoea kept in brackish don't appear to be substantially different from some stragglers I discovered in the hatching tank yesterday. I had pulled 2 or 3 from it a couple of days after I took the others out to move to the growing tank, then when I moved the tanks upstairs 11 days later, I found 2 more in there, still alive and doing well. All are in the brackish now and all look more or less the same. They have grown very little to this point, perhaps 1.5x their original size (mostly in thickness/mass here as well.) I'm hoping that the warmer temperatures in this part of the house will get them going a bit more.


My temp is about 76. No heater in the tank, but it is wedged between two tanks that are 78-80. I should probably just move the heater in. What do you think is the ideal temp? What temp did you have them at.

That fact that yours are still alive after two weeks shows the must be doing some eating. Mine always died after a week if they weren't fed.


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## jasonpatterson (Apr 15, 2011)

They were in my basement, where the temp is pretty constant at 55-60F. They're now in the living area of the house, 68F. I have no idea what the ideal temperature is. I was going with the idea that the salt marshes they are from are not in a hot environment, so they ought to be able to develop in cooler water. 'Ought' is a dangerous word though.


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## cjp999 (Nov 18, 2008)

jasonpatterson said:


> They were in my basement, where the temp is pretty constant at 55-60F. They're now in the living area of the house, 68F. I have no idea what the ideal temperature is. I was going with the idea that the salt marshes they are from are not in a hot environment, so they ought to be able to develop in cooler water. 'Ought' is a dangerous word though.


That sounds really cold. Considering the preferred temp for adults is low 70's to low 80's, and they live in freshwater streams, I would think the brackish areas they flow into would be at least this warm. I think I know why your shrimp have lasted this long. They are cryopreserved! :wink:


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## jasonpatterson (Apr 15, 2011)

The areas that they are found in have a climate similar to that of the south of the US, they aren't actually tropical at all. The adults must survive in the rivers when the temp goes down, and oceans are fairly cold in general, 60F in that part of the world. A salt marsh is going to tend to be more turbid and shallower, and thus warmer, but they apparently didn't suffer any negative consequences from the stay. The mother did fine as well, didn't seem to mind the cool temperatures in the slightest.


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## cjp999 (Nov 18, 2008)

How do you get a phytoplankton culture started? I've been reading a number of amano breeding threads, and most that were successful went this route.


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## james0816 (Jun 26, 2008)

cjp999 said:


> How do you get a phytoplankton culture started? I've been reading a number of amano breeding threads, and most that were successful went this route.


It's not too hard actually. I thought I made a write up on it but guess not as I didn't find anything.

Here's a shot of my Phyto Station. 2 liter bottles, rigid and flexible tubing, a light and an air pump. You have to have a constant air supply and at minimum 16x8 photo period but I run mine 24hrs. I played with different salinities at first but strictly culture at 1.026 now.

For the temps of the zoea, I've been letting the light dictate that, I will get up to around 74 during the day when the light is on. It will drop into the 60s at night when the light goes off. I'm trying to mimic the wild with this route by using a 16x8 photo period for the zoea.


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## jasonpatterson (Apr 15, 2011)

I bought a bottle of DTs phytoplankton blend (you can also mail order specific species of phyto to begin with,) made some 1.019 water, added half the bottle to a 2L and filled nearly to the top with the salt water. Drill a hole through the cap, insert rigid air tubing so that it reaches the bottom of the bottle, and go. I split the culture every 2 weeks, retaining or dumping half of the bottle and refilling with fresh 1.019 water. At that time I add 5mL Miracle Gro liquid plant food as well. Lights are roughly 12/12 (tied to the other aquaria in my basement,) stuff is growing like crazy.

I can't remember the particular site that I got this method from, but I do recall that there was a lot of concern about using Miracle Gro. The idea of the timing of this is that by the time you are ready to harvest your phyto, the algae has consumed virtually all of the parts of the fertilizer that could be harmful to fish/shrimp. I've tested the harvested portions and they come up 0/0/0 for the nitrogenous wastes.

I'm considering ordering a couple of phyto cultures so that I can have more than 1 dominant species. DTs is a blend of 3, but inevitably one of the species will breed more quickly and take over the culture in a short time and you're back to a monoculture.


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## jasonpatterson (Apr 15, 2011)

I found something really interesting today. In my hatching tank, which has not had an adult shrimp for 2 weeks now, I found 2 more zoea. I check it every day, partly because that's how I am, the kind of person who stares at an empty fish tank, I am also curious about some microcrab eggs that I dropped in there, hoping against hope that they would hatch. (Mama crab died 4 days ago with a belly fully of eggs with eyes showing. I nearly cried.)

I started this batch of amano zoea by filtering out nearly all of them with chiffon. It worked well, and only half a dozen zoea escaped the cloth, all of which I vacuumed up and put into the brackish tank. A few days later I found some more, then 10 days later I found 2 or 3 more. Today I found 2 more. I know that amanos hatch their eggs over a few days, and james0816 has seen what amounts to a pile of eggs left behind. I wonder if those eggs that the mother drops on the bottom are still viable and hatch out over a longer period of a couple of weeks or more as a sort of long term insurance policy for the birth. 

The larvae I'm pulling look exactly like the other amano larvae, by the way, I'm nearly certain that this is not a case of mistaken identity with the crabs. I'll concede that it is entirely possible that I have missed 2 larvae here and 2 more there, but both times I found stragglers they were immediately visible, attracted to the light in the tank, and were quite easy to find. Both times I searched for any other larvae and found none. I'm wishing that I hadn't vacuumed up the debris in the tank now... I'll check this out next time I get a batch of eggs. At the moment I've got 4 shrimp that are saddled and have been for weeks, and mama shrimp #1 is saddled again as well. Not sure what they're waiting for...


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## james0816 (Jun 26, 2008)

jasonpatterson said:


> I'm considering ordering a couple of phyto cultures so that I can have more than 1 dominant species. DTs is a blend of 3, but inevitably one of the species will breed more quickly and take over the culture in a short time and you're back to a monoculture.


Yep, the blends are made for feeding purposes. To culture, you want individual species in seperate containers. But be very carefull when working with them as they are easy to contaminate. Such as the pic I referred to. It shows the Iso as a green culture when it should be a nice brown color. I have since corrected that culture.

It is possible for the eggs to hatch after they have been dropped. The only thing you would have to worry about is fungus which will ruin them. I try to keep them on the bottom as long as possible for them to hatch.


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## jasonpatterson (Apr 15, 2011)

james0816 said:


> Yep, the blends are made for feeding purposes. To culture, you want individual species in seperate containers. But be very carefull when working with them as they are easy to contaminate.


I have been considering splitting the blend into three cultures, but I haven't tried to make plates for growing the algae out yet. The brown culture I've got going is one of the species in the DTs blend though (Phaeodactylum tricornutum, a diatom species, specifically,) I checked with a microscope and the cells are pretty distinctive. The reason I used DTs was because it was available locally at a reasonable price.


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## garfieldnfish (Sep 25, 2010)

I used Kent Marine PhytoPlex concentrated Phytoplankton in a bottle. Should I not have used that?


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## cjp999 (Nov 18, 2008)

Hi James,

Just went through your breeding thread. Didn't realize you had already put so much effort into this. Funny thing with me is that the first time I tried breeding amanos, it was a great success. The first batch of zoea had 44 making it to the juvie stage, and all of them making it to the adult stage. I've spent the past 18 months trying to reproduce that experience, and to date the best I've done is recently getting the zoea past one week with a bit of weight gain. I didn't something right the first time. The only things I can tell you for sure are:


*Salinity*: ~1.013sg. This was measured with one of the floating bulb things, so not sure how accurate it was.
*Transition to brackish water*: No acclimation. Just dumped them in.
*Transition to fresh water*: 24 hours, adding about 10% freshwater every hour or two. This was done anywhere from immediately after spotting the shrimplet (could have morphed a little as an hour before) up to 4 days after morphing. Pretty much I was catching them every day or two, but some times waited up to 4 days.
*Temp*: Likely 78-80. I had a heater, and this is the usual temp I would use, but can't say for sure it was in that range.
*Tank size*: 2.5g. Well cycled first.
*Aeration*: Just an air stone set pretty low.
*Lighting*: About 16hr with 18w CF (kind of in the yellow spectrum)
*Food*: I tried various crushed foods like algae wafers, spirulina, and shimp pellets, with some brine shrimp food mixed in. I put this in water in a dropper and fed a couple time a day. However, I think whatever was growing in the tank was also being fed upon.
*Water changes*: None. Eventually the water stopped supporting zoea. Those that had not morphed after 4-5 weeks died, as did new ones I added.
*Water parameters*: Other than salinity, I'm not certain. I think I mixed full salt water (made with distilled water) with water straight from my well. The well water is already pH 8.2 and nitrates around 40ppm. However, I can't be certain that I didn't use all distilled water.


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## cjp999 (Nov 18, 2008)

garfieldnfish said:


> I used Kent Marine PhytoPlex concentrated Phytoplankton in a bottle. Should I not have used that?


Used for feeding the zoea? I tried it, and didn't get any growth. My guess is that it is either too small or is needed in two large of a concentration.


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## cjp999 (Nov 18, 2008)

james0816 said:


> It's not too hard actually. I thought I made a write up on it but guess not as I didn't find anything.
> 
> Here's a shot of my Phyto Station. 2 liter bottles, rigid and flexible tubing, a light and an air pump. You have to have a constant air supply and at minimum 16x8 photo period but I run mine 24hrs. I played with different salinities at first but strictly culture at 1.026 now.


I guess my question was more of how do you get the culture seeded. I see from your other thread you made some purchases. From where and what is the cost? Do you need expensive overnight shipping.

Which culture did you think was best for feeding. Some of the ones you mentioned were only 1-2 microns. I think this is too small. Tetraselmis is 10x14 microns, which sounds more reasonable.

BTW, I have a 1.023sg and 1.018sg tank that are so green I can only see about 1" into them. All my zoea died within a few days in them. I noticed these algae blooms seem to mess with the pH. It starts at 8.2 and ends up off the charts, so at least 8.8. I've used vinegar to bring it down, and then it's back up within a few days.


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## jasonpatterson (Apr 15, 2011)

I don't know where James bought his, but Florida Aqua Farms has a good reputation for selling phyto culture disks. They've got 3 or 4 species for sale at the moment, no special shipping or care required.


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## james0816 (Jun 26, 2008)

Hey guys. Let's see if I can get caught up here.

I bought my samples from Carolina Biological. I'm still looking for one particular culture which is T. Iso. There are two different species of Isochrysis Galbana (C. Iso and T. Iso). Carolina carries the the C. Iso culture. They do ship over night, which of course is more expensive, as it is a live culture. 

For feeding purposes, I chose to make the cocktail instead of just using one species. After thorough research, the different species offer up different nutruitional values. This blend seems to cover all the bases for marine feeding.


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## james0816 (Jun 26, 2008)

cjp999 said:


> Hi James,
> 
> Just went through your breeding thread. Didn't realize you had already put so much effort into this.


Thx. I know people have tried the Amano's before with varying success. It's that information that I'm drawing off of and creating new to work with other low order breeders like the Propinqua and Serratirostris.

Always up for a good challenge. I love to experiment and conduct research. That's the fun part of the hobby for me.


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## garfieldnfish (Sep 25, 2010)

I think I am getting in on this as I have 2 very berried amano shrimp. What cultures would be best to order from Aqua Farms?
Also has anyone ever tried to feed them microworms or vinegar eels? My adult amanos eat those as well as grindal worms, which is what the fish in their tank get and the amanos always take their share of the meaty foods as well.
It would just be a tiny amount of fresh water that would be added to the salt water tank so it should not make a difference. I have never tried it before. I used only crushed and strained spiritulina flakes and phytoplex from Kent in the one trial where I had 2 survivors. But they were tiny when they morphed. I am sure they should have been much larger at that stage. So maybe their growth was stunted due to lack of adequate foods.


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## jasonpatterson (Apr 15, 2011)

The zoea are way too small to eat vinegar eels. We're looking at food in the 2-100 micron range, vinegar eels are 1000 microns long, 3000 max. They might be taken by larger shrimplets before they are transferred to fresh water, but those are apparently quite happy to eat the stuff growing in the tank anyway. 

The fresh water addition isn't really a concern, as the salinity fluctuates daily due to evaporation and feeding. Brackish species are usually very tolerant of salinity fluctuations.

From the Florida Aqua Farms page, they recommend Nanochloropsus, Tetraselmis and Isocrysis in particular. I'd go with the innoculant disks rather than the live culture, as they are shelf stable for months.


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## jasonpatterson (Apr 15, 2011)

Found two more zoea in the fresh tank today. They seem to be coming out in pairs for some reason. It makes me wonder whether the zoea I have that I believe are still surviving in my brackish tank are actually survivors or simply hatchlings from eggs that were transferred to the brackish tank along with the original batch of zoea. Going to have to do a more careful transfer after I finish murdering this batch...


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## garfieldnfish (Sep 25, 2010)

The females are in a 1 gal tank, 1/2 filled with fresh clean water. I just ordered 2 of the cultures, the nano.. and the tetra... Hopefully they will get here quickly. It may be a couple more days before the females drop the zoes but if they do before I get the cultures I have spiritulina and phytoplex still on hand to hold them over. The zoes lived for 2 weeks on this before even so they did not grow much. I would imagine I get the culture well before that. Do the cultures come with instructions?
Once I see a good number of zoes, the females come out and I will add double strength salt water to the fresh water. I might even invest in a device to measure salinity. Something I have not seen the need for before. Any advise on what to get there?


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## jasonpatterson (Apr 15, 2011)

As I recall you simply rub a wetted Qtip across the plate to scrape some of the algae off and then swish it around in a prepared 2L bottle. It takes some time to grow though. They'll recommend special algae growing vitamins, but miracle gro really does work.


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## cjp999 (Nov 18, 2008)

The french guy who seemed to have great success with 34ppm salinity used Dunalliela Salina, which is 10-12 microns in size. It would think that it or Tetraselmis (10-14 microns) would be the best choice. My green tanks that I had no success with at all seem to have something in the 1-2 micron size. I'm guessing I have Nannochloropsis. _Isochrysis_ galbana is about 3-4 microns, probably also too small.


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## cjp999 (Nov 18, 2008)

I'm not sure if anyone has seen these two threads by zax. They are 5 years old, and unfortunately he disappeared from PTN soon after that.

http://www.plantedtank.net/forums/shrimp-other-invertebrates/34587-successful-amano-breeding.html
http://www.plantedtank.net/forums/shrimp-other-invertebrates/34821-160-amano-jeuveniles-movie.html

The movie is cool. I also remember my juvies darting around once moved to freshwater. Anyway, he says he used 34ppm salt water made from water he took from a freshwater planted tank, plus "japanese phyto", whatever that means. 20% water changes every other day.

Using a freshwater tank as the water source is interesting. It probably gives you the nutrients you need phyto, but it also means the exact water parameters are very much an unknown. For example, the planted tank could have sucked the water dry of most nitrates, or he could have kept it well fertilized with high nitrates.


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## james0816 (Jun 26, 2008)

The phyto isn't too small. They will still eat it. As mentioned, the different phyto's have different nutritional factors such as HUFA and DHA. They each bring a little something to the table. Think of it as you eating a sunflower seed. It's small but you still eat it. Of course once the larvae get bigger, they need bigger food sources. This is where the Spirulina and Golden Pearls come in. Rotifers are good too. I haven't had any success cultivating them though but I'm getting ready to give them another go.


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## garfieldnfish (Sep 25, 2010)

When I get the cultures from Aqua Farms, would I be able to feed the cultures themselves rather than cultivate them? I am thinking if this starter culture is good for 6 months as they say than that should be plenty of time to raise a couple of batches of Amanos on the starter culture itself. 
About 50 zoes hatched overnight. The females are still holding a ton of eggs so I will wait another day or two, before removing them and adding the salt water. I did feed the first zoes with spiritulina flakes soaked in fresh water and squeezed through a nylon filter stocking. The zoes seemed interested in it as they all came over to where the drops hit the water.
Has anyone tried Shirakura minima breeder powder? I have some of that at hand to feed freshly hatched dwarf shrimps. I wonder if the zoes might eat that as well. Anyone know what's in it. It's all written in Japanese.
I just checked my cabinet and found Sera Micron, a powdered food for all egg laying fresh water and marine egg layer fry, made in Germany. It says on it that it can also be fed to brine shrimp and tadpoles. And I have some artificial rotifers also made for marine egg layer fry and invertebrates, made in Taiwan. Both expired in 2009. Wonder if I can still use them. I am willing to throw a variety of stuff at them, hoping something will work.


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## cjp999 (Nov 18, 2008)

I got my golden pearls today. Both 5-50 micron and 50-100 micron. I dumped about 1/2 tsp of each into a 3oz concoction I had previously made of ground algae wafer, spirulina, and shimp pellets. I then added about 1oz of kent's phytoplex. It's now a disgusting brown green.

I added about 8 drops of this to my 2.5g tank. Checked back about 5 minutes later and nearly every zoea had grabbed a large piece of food (about 30 to 50 microns in size). I had never seen this before when adding my previous concoction, even though it contained plenty of food of similar size. I would see an occasional grab of some of the larger food, but the zoea seemed much more finicky than they are with the golden pearls. I'm guessing they really like them, and I'm hoping for better growth now. Unfortunately I won't be home M-F of next week, and will need to rely on my 12 year old to care for them.


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## jasonpatterson (Apr 15, 2011)

The culture is a solid disk with algae growing in/on it. You could conceivably scrape it off, dissolve it in a bit of water, and feed it to the zoea, but you'd spend a fortune doing it. You'd be better off buying a big bottle of DTs or another live phyto blend and feeding that instead.


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## garfieldnfish (Sep 25, 2010)

I already ordered a bottle of live phytoplankton as I was not sure if I could use the disk directly and I knew I could not wait for a bottled culture to mature. So I am hoping to have a good cocktail of everything so these guys will find something that suits their needs. It should get here Tuesday or Wednesday. Until then they will have to do with Kents Phytoplex and strained spiritulina. I also odered the golden pearls. I can always use them for CPD fry if they won't work for the amanos. I have some soda bottles ready but instead of filling them with phytoplankton cultures I am tempted to split the zoes and try different foods on them to see what works but then again I want them all to make it so I will probably just toss a cocktail at them all. I am just afraid by feeding them so many different things it will pollute the water and then I will be forced to do water changes. That always resulted in loss of zoes before and I want to avoid water changes at all costs. What size tanks did you all use?


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## garfieldnfish (Sep 25, 2010)

CJP, how can you see all that? I use a magnifying glass to look at the zoes but I am still barely able to see them.


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## jasonpatterson (Apr 15, 2011)

I need a magnifying glass to see their eyes clearly, but I can see the bodies quite well just swimming around. It helps if they are strongly lit.


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## cjp999 (Nov 18, 2008)

2x magnifying glass is all I use.


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## garfieldnfish (Sep 25, 2010)

I got the salt water tank set up and the first few zoes in it. I kept the females in a holding tank to drop a few more, but tomorrow they go back into their main tank. So far I have about 50 zoes in the salt water set up. I fed them phytoplex, a new bottle I just bought today and some strained spiritulina flakes. How do you take pictures of something this small?


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## cjp999 (Nov 18, 2008)

cjp999 said:


> 2x magnifying glass is all I use.


I should clarify. 2x is what I used just to spot that most had grabbed a big piece of food. However, I also use a 25x, which is good for viewing when they are within a 1/2" or so of the glass (it won't focus beyond that).


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## jasonpatterson (Apr 15, 2011)

garfieldnfish said:


> I got the salt water tank set up and the first few zoes in it. I kept the females in a holding tank to drop a few more, but tomorrow they go back into their main tank. So far I have about 50 zoes in the salt water set up. I fed them phytoplex, a new bottle I just bought today and some strained spiritulina flakes. How do you take pictures of something this small?


A good macro lens should let you take detailed pictures of something small/close up. You also can try to take pictures through a magnifying glass. I can't find it now, but recently someone posted a set of very nice pictures taken with an inexpensive camera (maybe even a cell phone) through the high magnification bubble on a magnifying glass.


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## jasonpatterson (Apr 15, 2011)

Another berried amano, as of 10/28. I also have two berried limnopilos naiyanetri that I have isolated. I know that I've had others in the tank, but they are too good at hiding to allow to roam free until they hatch. My fresh water phyto is doing well, and I'm hoping that that and the golden pearls are sufficient for their development, assuming they ever hatch out. Going to have to start a fresh grow out tank it seems, the last thing I want is a mixed batch of freshwater crab and brackish shrimp zoea.


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## Newman (Jul 3, 2010)

Do any of you notice any zoea getting caught in the lava rocks? how much lava rock do you guys use in your SW growing tank (pics of tank if possible)?


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## jasonpatterson (Apr 15, 2011)

Not at all. They're able to swim around well, they wouldn't get caught on lava rock regardless of the amount present, I should think. They actually go to the bottom of the tank when it's dark.

In any case, I've got a 20 oz bottle cut down to about 5" tall filled with lava rock for an air powered filter. Otherwise it's just a couple smallish pieces.


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## Newman (Jul 3, 2010)

so you just run a few small pieces of rock in the tank?
What do you think about lighting the growing tank for 24 hours?


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## james0816 (Jun 26, 2008)

I don't use anything in the rearing tanks myselft except an air stone.


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## mmccarthy781 (Jul 7, 2011)

I just noticed one of my amanos berried the other day, but im probably not going to try and mature the zoea...
On a side note, I was wondering, are most amanos found at lfs captive bred or wild caught? Can wild ones bring in disease?


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## Newman (Jul 3, 2010)

the amanos at LFS are almost always wild caught according to what I've been reading...

is anyone in this thread using full saltwater to grow their zoea? about 1.025SG?


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## jasonpatterson (Apr 15, 2011)

Newman said:


> so you just run a few small pieces of rock in the tank?
> What do you think about lighting the growing tank for 24 hours?


I've got a filter in there filled with lava rocks that the zoeas can get sucked into and blown out of fairly easily without harming them. I've got a couple of extra rocks that I added because they were already coated with brackish algae/bacteria in order to see the thing. I also hope that if I ever do get shrimp, they will provide a place for the babies to perch/eat as they finish their salty phase.

I don't know if lighting it 24 hours a day would matter or not. The light isn't providing any heat to the tank (LED) and I'm not trying to culture the phyto that is already present in the tank for food, that's happening elsewhere. Since it's in a living area in my house, it's going to be 12/12. If that doesn't work for the zoeas, then they're just going to have to find a new tank to grow up in.


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## Newman (Jul 3, 2010)

Another question:
when do are you supposed to convert the young shrimp to FW? right after the morphed? and how are you to convert them to FW?


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## jasonpatterson (Apr 15, 2011)

Apparently after they stop swimming backward and start swimming forward they've morphed into shrimp. I believe that james0816 has seen some get to this point and mentioned that they started out red and lost that coloration before he tried to move them back to fresh. As far as I know, he's not yet been successful. I'm nowhere near that point, personally.


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## Newman (Jul 3, 2010)

so now there's yet another hurdle - moving them back to FW?
this is bad...there must be a certain age at which they are able to move gradually to the FW environment...
I'm also guessing that if that timing is missed, they will just die in SW =/


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## bruinhd (Oct 10, 2011)

i subscribe to this thread only to sit at my desk and alternate between laughing at how futile and ridiculous this project is and with admiring how ambitious and creative you guys are with this endeavor.

i assume that once you master the technique for breeding amanos, the details and method will be in high demand. make sure you name the process with your own names!

and keep fighting the good fight.


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## Newman (Jul 3, 2010)

yes this does sound pretty challenging. without knowing the natural lifetime biology of this shrimp, all hobbyists can do is guess work and trial and error...
There would have to be an expedition into their habitats and many specimen collections from various areas(both river, estuary, and ocean) to figure out when and at what size the young shrimp make their way toward fresh water. it would depend on the salinities of the areas where the young shrimp are found. that could give clues about when exactly the conversion process should take place and how gradual it should be.

one could even go to the extreme and try to radio-transmitter track a juvenile as it goes from SW to the FW areas lol. That would give the best information needed for raising them, most importantly the time it takes to convert.


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## Newman (Jul 3, 2010)

All that aside, i think we will see some success from at least one of these threads.
it sounds like rearing them in full SW, feeding them appropriate phytoplankton, and then very slowly converting them to FW after they morph into shrimplets yields actual results.

I'm definitely going to try this in the near future. i'm taking down my 10 gallon nano reef anyway and might as well put that 10 gal to use...probably going to use it to keep the adult amanos and some other tank for growing zoea.


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## jasonpatterson (Apr 15, 2011)

bruinhd said:


> i subscribe to this thread only to sit at my desk and alternate between laughing at how futile and ridiculous this project is and with admiring how ambitious and creative you guys are with this endeavor.
> 
> i assume that once you master the technique for breeding amanos, the details and method will be in high demand. make sure you name the process with your own names!
> 
> and keep fighting the good fight.


Futile and ridiculous is my middle name! Er, middle names!!!


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## jasonpatterson (Apr 15, 2011)

bruinhd said:


> i subscribe to this thread only to sit at my desk and alternate between laughing at how futile and ridiculous this project is and with admiring how ambitious and creative you guys are with this endeavor.


Seriously though, if you're interested in the process, james0816 has a lot more experience tinkering with this for amanos and similar species. His propinqua thread is awesome.


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## james0816 (Jun 26, 2008)

jasonpatterson said:


> Seriously though, if you're interested in the process, james0816 has a lot more experience tinkering with this for amanos and similar species. His propinqua thread is awesome.


Thanks.

To me...fish keeping isn't just a hobby...it's an adventure!


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## TheJadeShrimp (Oct 13, 2011)

jasonpatterson said:


> Futile and ridiculous is my middle name! Er, middle names!!!


I lol'ed at this.


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## garfieldnfish (Sep 25, 2010)

I got the phytoplankton paste yesterday and added a couple of drops. I put the bottle in the freezer as it instructed but even so I only added a couple of drops, the water is still very green today. How often would you feed the zoes? The stuff has a shelf life of 6 months in the freezer. 

BTW the zoes went crazy when I added the phytoplankton totally different than when I add Phytoplex from Kent.


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## Newman (Jul 3, 2010)

so you can confirm that they were eating it?
i wonder how much success one might have with Phytoplan powder? its the only phytoplankon food i own right now (using it for my reef)


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## james0816 (Jun 26, 2008)

I add a little bit each day. Not much mind you. Around the one week mark, I start using Spriulina as well. Two weeks then add a little bit of the 50-100micro golden pearls.


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## jasonpatterson (Apr 15, 2011)

This is just silly, but today, 11/4, I found two new zoeas in my fresh tank. I realize that it's entirely possible that I've just missed a couple of these over time, but each time I've found a new zoea in there, it was really obvious from after only a minute or so watching. I've got microcrabs in there that I'm waiting for right now, so I've been looking carefully each day for some time. The last time a shrimp was in there was on 10/13. It's been 3 full weeks and the eggs she dropped on the bottom are still hatching.

I know that these are shrimp zoeas rather than crab as the crabs have very distinctive ventral and rostral spines and these look exactly like the other 100's of shrimp zoeas that I put in originally.

I'm actually wondering at this point if I have had ANY zoea survive more than a day or two in the brackish tank or if there has just been a constant stream of new hatchings occurring that have kept it at roughly the same population. They aren't growing much at all for me. I had a massive nitrogen spike at one point that killed virtually all of the zoeas so I know it reset at least one time. (I think my kids put something in the tank that did it, the levels were 0-0-0 one day and the next I had 5-20-400 for ammonia-nitrite-nitrate without me adding anything. Tested repeatedly as well as testing other tanks to make sure the kit wasn't borked.) 

Since I have a new berried female incoming in about a week, I'm considering dumping the brackish tank and starting over. I really hate dumping anything living, but I want to be rid of the ever hatching eggs and to get the other tank cleaned out before the new arrivals show up. It's getting kinda scuzzy with Phaeodactylum tricornutum, zoea corpses, and random gunk. Maybe I'll try sucking up the remaining zoea and putting them in a tube until I get it cleaned up so that I don't have to kill them.


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## jasonpatterson (Apr 15, 2011)

I sucked up the 6 zoeas that I could find in my brackish tank and gave it a good washing. The only thing that went back in unwashed was the filter, and it got a thorough rinsing. The zoeas actually seem more active now than they did in the heavily fed water that I was keeping them in. I'm considering feeding much less so that the water doesn't become so full of phyto. It will let me see what's going on in the tank better and I have a hard time believing that a zoea has to have mountains of food crammed down its throat to survive. It certainly hasn't seemed to work for me to this point in any case.


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## jasonpatterson (Apr 15, 2011)

Pulled yet another new zoea out of the hatching tank today. That's nearly a month after the mom started dropping eggs. It's insane. I have 6 surviving zoea from that first batch, but as far as I can tell, the oldest is only a week or so from the eggs. My first attempt was basically a colossal failure.

The same shrimp is very nearly ready to hatch her next set. The eggs have visible eyes at this point, so I'm considering putting her in before the 2 week mark I had originally planned on. The problem with this is that there are still 2 microcrabs in the hatching tank holding eggs. Both have crawled inside the #(!^$#&*^ filter as well, and I can't figure out how to remove them from it without destroying the filter and almost surely crushing them in the process. Looks like my small scale setup is about to get a 3rd tank. The wife is going to love this...

I'm also considering trying to throw a few of the zoeas into my opae'ula tank to see how they'd do. It's a healthy, well established brackish tank with lots of algae and such for the shrimp. The salinity is about right, and I have to think that there is something in there that the zoeas can eat. The water conditions would be more stable as well. My reasoning is that if there is something that a cyclops or daphnia could eat in the tank, there ought to be something that an amano zoea could eat as well. I realize that's just like saying that if there's something a tiger could eat in its cage then there should be food for a frog too, but I didn't claim this was a well thought out idea.


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## garfieldnfish (Sep 25, 2010)

I have about 10 zoes left out of around 100. None seemed to have grown at all. I used the frozen phytoplankton and they seemed to go for it, but they have not grown in size. I will keep the tank up for a little while longer as I also added nerite snail eggs. But the next time the amanos are ready to release the larvae I will try a different salinity as it appears some people have better luck in brackish and others in salt water. Seems to make a difference where your amano shrimp parent came from. By that time my live phytoplankton culture should also be ready. It is sitting in the basement doing its thing. I plan on using a brine shrimp net to collect some of the zoes from the hatching tank next time and dropping them straight into the phytoplankton mix and keeping the rest in a full salt water set up as my bracking water did not work well for them. I have the feeling this will be a on going project for some time to come.


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## jasonpatterson (Apr 15, 2011)

My remaining 6 zoeas are actually growing. It was hard to see for sure, but with the addition of today's new arrival, it's very clear that the existing zoeas are larger. More fun is that I actually found an exoskeleton stuck to the side of the tank from where one had molted. Fingers crossed.


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## madness (Jul 31, 2011)

jasonpatterson said:


> I'm also considering trying to throw a few of the zoeas into my opae'ula tank to see how they'd do. It's a healthy, well established brackish tank with lots of algae and such for the shrimp. The salinity is about right, and I have to think that there is something in there that the zoeas can eat. The water conditions would be more stable as well. My reasoning is that if there is something that a cyclops or daphnia could eat in the tank, there ought to be something that an amano zoea could eat as well. I realize that's just like saying that if there's something a tiger could eat in its cage then there should be food for a frog too, but I didn't claim this was a well thought out idea.


It is definitely worth a shot. A well established and very stable tank that you can just toss them into and see what happens. Since there is so much mystery surrounding exactly what they need you probably have to fight the urge to do too much. Toss some in with the Opae Ula and let nature take its course and see if the results are any better or worse.


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## cjp999 (Nov 18, 2008)

Last friday I got back from a 5 day trip,leaving the feeding of about 50 one to two week old zoea to my daughter. When I got back, I counted only about 12, but they had grown noticeably over the 5 days. However, 2 days later I couldn't find any alive.


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## jasonpatterson (Apr 15, 2011)

Moved my berried female to the hatching tank today because her eggs looks so well developed. It was only 13 days after she berried, but fairly soon after I put her into a tank with no eggs/zoea present, I had at least half a dozen swimming around. Crazy stuff. I expect hundreds by tomorrow morning.


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## jasonpatterson (Apr 15, 2011)

I also found yet another zoea in the original hatching tank this morning. Dunno why I keep commenting on it, but dang, you'd think that a month after removing the mom from the tank, existing eggs would either have already hatched or rotted. Apparently not.

I cut apart my filter and removed the two microcrabs from inside. Rebuilt the thing with more, but smaller, holes and now it's adult crab proof. Except the outlet. They're going to crawl right back in...


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## jasonpatterson (Apr 15, 2011)

New filter has 1 microcrab inside it... Oh well. I think both may have dropped their eggs anyway by this point, they've been nearly a month with no larvae. 

Mama amano is still holding the vast majority of her eggs, but she is still hatching a 5-10 each day. It's really quite weird. In any case, I'm moving them over in small batches via pipette each day.


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## 150EH (Dec 6, 2004)

I've read about this recently on a french site translated to english and it comes up first with google, this is what I got from it have a grow out tank ready a 34 ppm salinity 17ppm does not work, keep the lights on 24/7, and do not add any food to the tank, adults will not live at all in saltwater, and it's well worth it to pat $2 each for these shrimp. The link covers it all.

Here's the link it sound like an adventure to say the least, see what you think


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## mach_six (Sep 12, 2005)

150EH said:


> I've read about this recently on a french site translated to english and it comes up first with google, this is what I got from it have a grow out tank ready a 34 ppm salinity 17ppm does not work, keep the lights on 24/7, and do not add any food to the tank, adults will not live at all in saltwater, and it's well worth it to pat $2 each for these shrimp. The link covers it all.
> 
> Here's the link it sound like an adventure to say the least, see what you think


Here's another good reference site that is mentioned on that link. It's no longer up but cached and the site below can retrieve it.

http://mikes-machine.mine.nu/breeding_yamato.htm

http://web.archive.org/


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## jasonpatterson (Apr 15, 2011)

Turns out that leaving for the inlaws for 4 days was just the right thing for the current batch of amano zoeas. Lovely to have actual proof that my presence causes things to want to die.

Mama amano hasn't dropped any more eggs since the batch she let out when moved to the hatching tank. She's still holding hundreds of them, so once I screw up the current 12-20 that are growing well I'll have another batch to mess up. 

The babies have grown dramatically over the past week. They are now approximately 4mm long and are much thicker; their shape has changed as well. The rearing tank's water is supporting a colony of phyto now, so it's hard to get a good count. I've seen at least 10 of them though.


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## Newman (Jul 3, 2010)

so you got a colony of live phyto growing in the rearing tank now? how long do you keep the lights on and what species of phyto is it?(as in how did you culture it and what is the source culture)


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## jasonpatterson (Apr 15, 2011)

The phyto is just leftovers from feeding really. The dominant species of the three from DTs phytoplankton is Phaeodactylum tricornutum. Lights are on 12 hours a day. I've got it culturing in my lightbox in the basement as well, as described in the first post of the thread. 

I recently got bored and decided to see if I could split DTs into its component species. It's a fairly straightforward process, but a bit tedious and very full of trial and error. Basically you dilute the stock into the culturing medium (water + miracle gro + flourish, in my case) and play around until you manage to get a dilution that gives you a single cell per culture (or slightly less.) The downside is waiting for the cultures to grow out enough to become readily visible. I've not got the right glassware to make the job easier and I'm too lazy to inspect the cultures daily for growth with a microscope. I think that I stumbled on a good dilution early on though, time will tell.


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## Newman (Jul 3, 2010)

so you used DTs?


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## jasonpatterson (Apr 15, 2011)

Yep, and cultured P. tricornutum.


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## Newman (Jul 3, 2010)

and that is what they eat?


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## jasonpatterson (Apr 15, 2011)

Presumably, they're eating something after all. I added some DTs fairly early on, but that's a blend of 3 species and the P. tricornutum takes over quickly. There is also some hairy algae of some sort growing in there along with coraline algae. I stir the whole mess up a few times a day. At this point I can see the zoeas grabbing larger pieces and chewing on them, but from what others have said, they'll also feed exclusively on phyto until they convert.


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## Newman (Jul 3, 2010)

at which point you plan on feeding them....algae wafer?


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## jasonpatterson (Apr 15, 2011)

Once they convert into their adult form they ought to pick at the gunk inside the rearing tank until they've been moved to the actual fish tank. In there they'll eat what everything else does.


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## jasonpatterson (Apr 15, 2011)

More amano strangeness: The current Mama Amano was moved to the hatching tank on 11/11. I saw that she was berried on 10/30, and when I moved her to the hatching tank, she immediately hatched 10-20 eggs and then stopped. Those zoeas are developing well, with at least 4 still alive (it's hard to see what's going on in the growing tank. Mama Amano, on the other hand, is still holding the remainder of her eggs. It's been 34 days now. Amano shrimp eggs are so weird.


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## Newman (Jul 3, 2010)

so they hatch at different times?

sounds like a survival mechanism.


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## mach_six (Sep 12, 2005)

I thought it was 14 days I have 3 berried for longer than that now.


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## jasonpatterson (Apr 15, 2011)

Newman said:


> so they hatch at different times?


Yes, the typical way it happens is that the vast majority of the eggs hatch at roughly the same time, over the course of a day or two, and a fraction are dropped in the tank. I noticed that those eggs will continue hatching for a few weeks or longer in my last batch.


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## Newman (Jul 3, 2010)

do you keep the dropped eggs aerated or anything?


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## jasonpatterson (Apr 15, 2011)

Sorry Newman, missed that post. I don't do anything with the eggs she drops, just leave them on the floor of my hatching tank and they eventually hatch. I suppose if there were other animals in there I'd have a problem, and at the moment I have a pest worm issue in there, so I might have to do something this time.

In any case, current mama amano's eggs are finally hatching, though she's not letting them go. It's like the eggs on her tail want off and she is fighting them tooth and nail. I'm getting 4-6 zoeas per day now. It's a pain in the butt, honestly. 

I've taken a few zoeas from today and put them in my Hawaiian red shrimp tank. We'll see what happens. I want to try more, but I'm having supply issues at the moment.


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## jasonpatterson (Apr 15, 2011)

Mama amano dropped all of her eggs finally a few days ago. The majority have since hatched and been moved to the rearing tank. There are still a number of loose eggs in the hatching tank and I'll be fishing the zoeas out for some time to come. Only one day after returning her to the normal tank, mama amano is involved in some adult shenanigans; I expect to be returning her to the hatching tank in a few weeks.

It's difficult to see exactly what is going on in the rearing tank at this point, as the phytoplankton culture is growing quite well and obscuring nearly everything else in the tank. I can see dozens of new zoeas, and 2 of the zoeas that were hatched when I first moved mama amano to the hatching tank have gotten quite large. I could be wrong, but I believe that at least one of them has changed into the adult form. It is losing some of its red coloration and spends most of its time swimming forward, though I still see it going backward from time to time and it doesn't spend as much time on the bottom as I would expect an adult to do. 

This provides a great example of the bizarreness of the amano eggs' hatching: A single batch of eggs has produced both adult form shrimp and eggs that have yet to hatch at the same time.

In other news, I have another microcrab that is heavily berried. She appears to be keeping her eggs and is in the second hatching tank waiting. I'm hopefully going to at least see larvae this time. For the last batch, neither mother ever hatched any, either dropping or eating her eggs instead.


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## jasonpatterson (Apr 15, 2011)

Holy cow. Mama amano is berried again. She's a machine. I know that it's the same shrimp because of an injury she got during her first trip to the hatching tank. I've got another 3 or 4 female amanos in that tank, none ever berry (though they do breed constantly) but she's constantly pumping out eggs.


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## jasonpatterson (Apr 15, 2011)

Approximately 200 zoeas in the rearing tank, approximately 30 in the Hawaiian red shrimp tank. Both seem to be doing well to this point. My most mature from this batch has now definitely transformed into an adult. With the poor visibility in that tank and the shrimp's ability to teleport itself instantly from place to place, I'm having an awful time catching it.


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## jasonpatterson (Apr 15, 2011)

So far so good with the zoeas in the Hawaiian red shrimp tank. It's heated, so they are actually developing fairly quickly. They're already about 1.5x the size of the new zoeas that are still hatching. The only downsides to using this are that I cannot feed them without fouling the tank water which means that my population in that tank is fairly limited. I'm sticking with 20 or so for a first attempt. The other problem will be getting them out. It's going to be a nightmare if they ever develop into adults.

My single zoea that transformed (one of the early drops from mama amano) is on day 4 of the transition to fresh water. I've been using the method recommended by {NAME OMITTED DUE TO FORGETFULNESS AND LAZINESS}. I started with it in a container filled halfway with the brackish water it came out of (1.019) and have been adding an equal volume of main tank water daily to dilute the salt. It's been a rough trip so far. On day 3, I knocked over the container that the shrimp was in and spilled at least 90% of the water, leaving perhaps 20 mL in the container. By pure chance the shrimp was still in there, and it survived the night until it was ready for more fresh water to be added, so we're back to 50 mL or so for it to swim around in. If my guesstimating is right, it should be at about 1.002 right now, so fingers are definitely crossed for it surviving in the main tank. I had considered throwing it into a hatching tank for it to grow out, but I don't want to have to deal with finding it a home when I want to clean the hatching tanks. I don't have any predators in the main tank, so it's going to have to do its best in there.

I haven't been able to find the second of the two large zoeas from my growth tank. They were developing in lockstep, so I was thinking that it had died, perhaps. However, I haven't found a corpse and there's nothing in there that could eat it. I'm wondering if the little bugger has set up camp inside the filter.

Odd note: Guesstimating is apparently an acceptable word for whatever spell checker I've got going. Zoea and zoeas are not...


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## jasonpatterson (Apr 15, 2011)

Haven't been checking on the Hawaiian red shrimp zoeas as much as I ought, only confirming that there is at least one alive each day. Today I had a good look around, and they're doing amazingly well. It appears that there are two that are close to transforming into adults. How I am going to catch them when the time comes is anyone's guess, but they do appear to be thriving.

The growth tank zoeas are not doing as well, statistically speaking. There are approximately 10% of the original zoeas left alive, though they are developing well. I found what is either the second of the well developed zoeas in my growth tank or a very early, fast grower from the more recent set of additions today, fully developed. Unfortunately I was unable to catch it, and it is once again MIA in the murky depths of the growth tank. 

I redid my 20L today, complete teardown and rebuild. The original adult form shrimp was nowhere to be found. I suspect that if it had been alive I would have missed it anyway, but it was disappointing to not even have a chance to see it zip past while all the commotion of removing the adult residents of the tank was occurring. Unless by some miracle it was hanging onto a plant that was moved, both out of the tank and back into the tank, it is now residing in my compost pile.


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## jasonpatterson (Apr 15, 2011)

Mama amano decided that a change of scenery in the main tank was sufficient reason to hatch all of her eggs after only being berried for 2 weeks. These shrimp baffle me. I sucked some of the zoeas out with a pipette, but it looks like it's going to be a loss for this batch overall.


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## jasonpatterson (Apr 15, 2011)

Of the zoeas in the Hawaiian red shrimp tank, I have at least 4 survivors. Two are fully into their adult form now. They are also proving extremely difficult to catch. I am going to leave them in the red shrimp tank until they've grown a bit and hope that that slows them down. At this point they are basically capable of teleportation. I look at them and they vanish and reappear 4" away. 

The third is one of the batch from December, it is very very close to transforming. After finding out that it was basically impossible to catch the adult form baby shrimp, I decided to move this mature zoea from the red shrimp tank to a separate growth tank. They are quite easy to catch with a turkey baster while zoeas, so hopefully this will work out. I matched salinities between the two, of course.

The fourth survivor in the red shrimp tank is one of the January batch, it's growing well but is still at least 2 weeks from transforming. 

I emptied my growth tank and cleaned it out. Just as a precaution I poured all of the water through a brine shrimp net. Lo and behold there was an adult form shrimp in there. It got transitioned to fresh water and put back into the adult tank. I haven't seen it since, but that could be because they are tiny and completely transparent. If I haven't seen any sign of it by March I'll pronounce it dead. 

I think I'm going to use another 1g tank as a growout tank though, from now on. I might extend the brackish--> fresh transition as well to 5 or 6 days. I've got to actually catch another adult form shrimp for this to matter though.

Mama amano is back in the hatching tank. She's just started releasing fresh zoeas today, half a dozen or so. She's still holding several hundred eggs. This time around I'm going to try keeping a relatively small number, 30 or so, of the zoeas in the growth tank. I am thinking that the previous issues with survival might have been due to overcrowding of the zoeas. Worst case scenario: She's berried again in 5 days and 2 weeks later is popping out babies.

I'm really hoping one or more of my propinqua's berry and hatch out. I'd love to try the red shrimp tank on their zoeas.


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## madness (Jul 31, 2011)

So the two adult form Amano in the Opae Ula tank 'made it' and should be OK to transition to freshwater if you could catch them?


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## jasonpatterson (Apr 15, 2011)

Yep, they survived. There were only 15-20 zoeas in that tank to begin with, so 2 (or maybe 4) out of that many is a vast improvement over my previous high score of 1 in 200. 

I actually managed to turkey baster up one of the zoeas from the opae tank earlier and move it to dip and pour for transitioning. I'm going to give it at least 5 days, halving the salt concentration daily. It's going to a growout container at that point. 

The other shrimp is going to stay in the opae tank for the time being. I'm curious about how long it will continue to develop in there, and whether it will really grow into a true adult shrimp in fairly salty water. If it continues eating and molting then I'll move it once it starts showing pigmentation.


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## madness (Jul 31, 2011)

You think the well established, mature tank made the difference?


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## jasonpatterson (Apr 15, 2011)

madness said:


> You think the well established, mature tank made the difference?


I suspect that that was a major factor, but it's also much larger and had a lower population: 20 zoeas in a 10 gallon tank versus 200 in a 1 gallon tank. Any problem that causes a dieoff in the small tank leads to runaway ammonia. I'm going to try lower population in the 1 gallon tank this time and see if it helps. Even if I can get to 50% of my 20 zoeas in the red shrimp tank, that would be a massive improvement over the current level. 10 adult shrimp per brood isn't so bad.

The second adult form amano in my red shrimp came out today. I had wanted to leave it in until it grew a bit, but it was acting really oddly and disturbing the red shrimp. It kept dive bombing them one by one, chasing them around.


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## madness (Jul 31, 2011)

jasonpatterson said:


> I suspect that that was a major factor, but it's also much larger and had a lower population: 20 zoeas in a 10 gallon tank versus 200 in a 1 gallon tank. Any problem that causes a dieoff in the small tank leads to runaway ammonia. I'm going to try lower population in the 1 gallon tank this time and see if it helps. Even if I can get to 50% of my 20 zoeas in the red shrimp tank, that would be a massive improvement over the current level. 10 adult shrimp per brood isn't so bad.
> 
> The second adult form amano in my red shrimp came out today. I had wanted to leave it in until it grew a bit, but it was acting really oddly and disturbing the red shrimp. It kept dive bombing them one by one, chasing them around.


I would imagine that a 1 gallon tank is really hard to keep steady in the first place. 

That is the problem with breeding set-ups that require multiple tanks.


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## jasonpatterson (Apr 15, 2011)

They're highly adaptable, even as zoeas, and they are so tiny that they can't have much of a bioload, but yes, it has proved to be something of a problem. I wish I had space for another full sized tank for this purpose, but that just isn't going to happen any time soon. 

I think I saw the first of the adult form amano babies in the main tank. It was a quick glance and the only shrimp of that size that should have been in there, but you never know with shrimp, they get up to all sorts of shenanigans. Both of the remaining adult form babies have been transitioned to fresh water and are in a 1g growout tank for the time being. They seem to be doing well and are eating whatever they happen to find in there. Full intestines, molts, etc.

The largest of my zoeas died unexpectedly, I don't know why. I have a whole batch of additional zoeas trickling in. Mama Amano is about halfway through dropping her eggs. Surprisingly enough, Auntie Amano recently became berried too! I'm going to have an abundance of riches, eggwise.


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## Bandit1200 (Dec 11, 2010)

I'm following this thread and have some berried amanos I'd love to start experimenting with, but it will have to wait for at least a few more weeks so I can complete the rack for the spare bedroom. One question (among many) is the transition to freshwater. I may have missed a post, but it looks like you are still trying to calculate how long they can stay in the salt water before they NEED to move to fresh water. Is that correct or have you determined a min/optimal/max salt water duration? 

Also is there a particular type/size phytoplankton you are culturing for them? I have a 70 gallon tank that's cycling right now and I was considering just adding some culture into it and just letting it go "green" for now. I'm pretty sure that I could put some zoea in there and see what happens, but I'm also pretty sure that if you can't catch them in a 10 gallon, there NO way I'd be able to get them out of that tank. It was a freebie but it's also a very awkward size @ 36 x 15 and 30 inches tall.


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## jasonpatterson (Apr 15, 2011)

I don't know how long they have to stay in salt water prior to moving to fresh, but I know that two weeks or more is perfectly safe for them to remain in salt after converting to their adult forms. They won't suddenly die after that transition if not moved immediately, and I don't know whether a prolonged stay helps, hinders, or does nothing at all to them in terms of their future survivability. I've only tried it with 4 shrimp so far, with wait times ranging from about 2 days to 2 weeks after they transformed.

Prior to their conversion from planktonic to benthic forms they have a reddish color. Most people trying this assume that once they've lost the red color they're ready to be transitioned. I had intended to leave a benthic baby in my red shrimp tank to let it develop for a while, but it was pestering the red shrimp, so I chased it down and removed it. Honestly, getting the red shrimp to breed is a much higher priority in my book than the amanos.

The transition itself has been working out very well by diluting the brackish water by a factor of 1/2 each day for 4-6 days. I have been waiting at least until I see the benthic form shrimp with a filled intestine and no red color before removing it. That lets me know that it's definitely transformed (there are some final planktonic stages that can look like benthic if the zoea is hanging out on the side of the tank) and that it is eating normally. I haven't lost any shrimp that I've been transitioning using this method.

As far as phytoplankton goes, I was using DTs phyto. When I culture it I wind up with a culture of Phaeodactylum tricornutum, which is apparently the most rapidly reproducing species under the conditions I'm using to culture it (it's some nasty looking stuff too, a pitch black culture at full density.) I've fed a mix of both along with whatever algae and other flora/fauna happen to grow in the tank. My pet store no longer carries DTs though, so I am trying a blend called Reef Nutrition Phyto Feast this time around. It is a more complicated blend (more species, I mean) and doesn't contain P. tricornutum, so if I decide to culture this as well I will wind up with another monoculture going. I've got the setup to do it, I just haven't begun yet. In the quantities I'm using it's probably costing me more money to keep the lights on for culturing these rather than just buying and using them, but I've also got freshwater phyto going for potential microcrab zoeas, so the lights will be on anyway.


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## Bandit1200 (Dec 11, 2010)

thanks for the response. I'm hoping to join you in the breeding/experimenting of these guys to see what I can see. Plus being able to trade/sell some locally couldn't hurt either. When you figure out how to raise the crabs up, I'd love to buy some from you along with a set of instructions roud:​


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## jasonpatterson (Apr 15, 2011)

Msjinkzd sells them for a very reasonable price. She's a great source for inverts.


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## james0816 (Jun 26, 2008)

jasonpatterson said:


> Msjinkzd sells them for a very reasonable price. She's a great source for inverts.


x10

I just got my new troops in yesterday from her. Hopefully be able to get these projects back on task now.


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## jasonpatterson (Apr 15, 2011)

The pair of adult form babies in the 1 gallon growout tank (aka the hatching tank) are doing very well. The larger of the two has molted already and both seem active and are eating normally.


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## Bandit1200 (Dec 11, 2010)

jasonpatterson said:


> Msjinkzd sells them for a very reasonable price. She's a great source for inverts.


 
Yours would be certified "Made in the USA"!


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## jasonpatterson (Apr 15, 2011)

I've seen my benthic babies swimming around in the main tank a few times. They are growing well. Unfortunately the tank is so full of hiding places that they are invisible 99% of the time. Still waiting for Mama Amano to drop her load of eggs, she's been holding for a month or so now and has only released about 20 zoeas. Aunt Amano is going to have to be moved into the hatching tank soon. It should be interesting to see if there is any difference with multiple females in the same tank.

The zoeas in the 1 gallon brackish tank are doing well this time around. I've tried to keep feedings to a minimum and the population is fairly low (about 10 zoeas, of which at least 6 are alive, quite probably more.) The zoeas in the opae ula tank are doing OK as well, though I've only seen 3 of them about. It's a much bigger tank with cover though, so that doesn't mean much.


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## jasonpatterson (Apr 15, 2011)

I moved Aunt Amano into the hatching tank on Monday, lo' and behold, Tuesday morning the thing is swarming with zoeas from Mama Amano. She had a few eggs left so I kept her in there for an extra day. This morning I caught her and moved her back to the main tank. I have been catching her by hand since I accidentally injured her during the first set of transfers by net. She'll happily climb onto my hand to nibble at my skin and then I just pick her up and move her. Today she didn't want to climb off, so I was standing there watching her, completely out of the water, crawl all over my hand feeding. The drops of water that were falling off of my hand into the tank got the males going nuts before she even hit the surface. When I put her in, she had already been pounced on before she made it to the bottom of the tank. Over the course of a minute or two no fewer than 5 males had come by and mated. I suspect she'll be berried either tomorrow or Friday.

I cleaned out my growing tank in preparation for the new batch of zoeas. Thus far I have put 20 or so into it. I fed only a few drops of Reef Nutrition Phyto Feast every other day for the first week, but this stuff is insane. It has grown dramatically until the growout tank is pea green and you can't see anything going on inside. I knew that there were at least a few zoeas left in there because I had seen them by chance when they were near the edge of the tank, so I wanted to avoid dumping them along with the soupy water when I did the change. I decided that I was going to try to feed even less and see if I could avoid another algae bloom, so I did a 100% water change.

I drained the water in the tank using a piece of airline tubing with a scrap of poly-chiffon fabric rubber banded over the end. This stuff is fantastic for filtering out the zoeas. The mesh size is very very small and the synthetic fabric doesn't have any fuzziness for the babies to get caught in. I drained most of the tank that way then poured the remainder (containing the zoeas) through a piece of the same fabric rubber banded over a tube. The last of the mucky water was gone and the zoeas were caught in the tiny net that I had made. I moved them into the clean water that I had already prepared and they appear to have adjusted well.

It turns out that I had about 10 zoeas left from my original batch. I added a bunch more, probably too many, to the tank. I didn't even attempt to count them, but there were 50-100 zoeas added. Hopefully this doesn't lead to yet another crash. I'm going to try to keep on top of water quality more strongly this time around and as I said in the previous paragraph, feed even less. I suspect that the growing algae is also consuming a great deal of the waste that the zoeas are creating, so it's kind of a difficult balance that I'd like to maintain.

The zoeas in the opae'ula tank continue to develop. Of the batch of 20 or so that were added this time at least 5 remain and are developing rapidly. The tank has continued to mature and is developing a fairly lush set of microfauna that I suspect are competing with the zoeas for food.


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## mingus77 (Apr 30, 2012)

Hi there!

I´m on my second week with zoes here. They are living in greenwater (phytoplankton) in a 10L (sorry european standard there )
How do you guys get so clear water when using greenwater? Mine is totally cloudy, and I´m afraid I won´t be able to see when the larvae has morphed into shrimp.

When all lights are off, I´m using a flashlight to see if there is still life, and there is so far...

Any suggestions?

(I had 5 females with eggs at the same time so I´m siphoning out new zoes everyday..)


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## Richardblack (Sep 25, 2012)

I am at day 20 with mine..and its my first attempt

http://www.plantedtank.net/forums/showthread.php?t=191990

Please can you offer any advise?


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