# crshadow's Random Attempt to Breed Amano Shrimp Journal *56k Warning*



## crshadow (Sep 4, 2003)

Armed with sand and seawater, I set up two 1 gallon tanks. I'll be adding airstones soon. I placed these under light to help encourage algae growth. In one of the tanks, I added a pinch of garden fertilizer to feed any potential algae. Immediately after doing this, I realized that in doing so, I probably added copper as well. Hopefully it's a small enough concentration not to harm the shrimp.


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## dekstr (Oct 23, 2007)

Looking forward to this thread! Subscribed!

I wish there was natural saltwater in my area!


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## crshadow (Sep 4, 2003)

Throughout the Thanksgiving weekend, anytime a gravid female shrimp would appear out in the open in the main tank, I'd swoop her up and place her in dixie cup. Slowly but surely, I ended up with 9 females carrying eggs.










I prepared 3 small "critter keepers" with water and substrate from the main tank that the shrimp came from. I separated the captured shrimp and arranged them 3 per critter keeper. The shrimp will release their larvae in the critter keepers and from there I will transfer the larvae to the saltwater rearing tanks.


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## crshadow (Sep 4, 2003)

dekstr said:


> Looking forward to this thread! Subscribed!
> 
> I wish there was natural saltwater in my area!


Welcome aboard! Thanks for reading, I hope you enjoy it.

-Jeremiah


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## crshadow (Sep 4, 2003)

I was rewarded earlier than expected!!! Today, (Sunday, November 25th 2007) at least one shrimp in two of the 3 critter keepers have released larvae! They are teeny tiny itty bitty specks skittering about.

Sadly my Sony camera that I took all the nice pictures in my Tetra Breeding journal kicked the bucket, so these pics aren't that great, as they were taken with different camera.

You can barely make out the tiny shrimp.









A little bit closer.










I'll try and suck up a larva and get some better pics, but I'm not sure what I can pull off with this other camera.

Also, I took some video of the larvae darting around. I'll try and post that soon.

-Jeremiah


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## mistergreen (Dec 9, 2006)

couldn't have you slowly introduce the female into the saltwater and let her release the larvae into the water so you save 100% of the brood?

And if you need algae, I guess you can throw in spirulina wafers (mash) in the water for the larvae.


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## Gatekeeper (Feb 20, 2007)

mistergreen said:


> couldn't have you slowly introduce the female into the saltwater and let her release the larvae into the water so you save 100% of the brood?


Adults cannot be in saltwater. Only the zoes can make it. After about 8 weeks (or after the second molting I believe) they need to be slowly acclimated to freshwater or they will no survive either.

This is pretty cool. I have tried this a few times with no success. Hope the seawater works out for you! SUBSCRIBED!


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## natx (Jun 6, 2006)

Glad you are attempting this! When I first got my Amanos, the sight of all the females carrying eggs (they nearly always are) got me thinking about some sort of nano tank with a nice mangrove tree in a base of light sand and baby shrimp all over it. Of course I live in a one bedroom apartment and the girlfriend would probably put me and the shrimp out on the street if I did this.


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## mistergreen (Dec 9, 2006)

gmccreedy said:


> Adults cannot be in saltwater. Only the zoes can make it. After about 8 weeks (or after the second molting I believe) they need to be slowly acclimated to freshwater or they will no survive either.
> 
> This is pretty cool. I have tried this a few times with no success. Hope the seawater works out for you! SUBSCRIBED!


interesting... What a weird adaptation.. Too much work for me.


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## JenThePlantGeek (Mar 27, 2006)

I'd really like to see how this works out for you!


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## ovenmit331 (Mar 27, 2007)

this is interesting. subscribed.


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## susankat (Oct 14, 2007)

I'm subscribing to. Want to see if you have a good ratio of live babies making it.


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## Jdinh04 (Mar 15, 2004)

Sounds interesting, i'll keep myself updated with this thread.


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## Wasserpest (Jun 12, 2003)

mistergreen said:


> interesting... What a weird adaptation.. Too much work for me.


Not that weird really... These shrimp live in rivers that flow to the sea (how poetic). The zoes are released and the river carries them into the salty water. They grow up and get back to the river where they come from. At least that's what I remember.

But I agree... it is a lot of work for something you can buy at the store for $2. Interesting challenge though.

How will you feed the zoes?


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## mistergreen (Dec 9, 2006)

you would think the zooplankton would have a better chance of survival if they stick to the river.. Lots more critters will eat you out in the ocean (anemone, jellyfish, whales etc...)


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## dknydiep1 (May 21, 2006)

Wasserpest said:


> ... it is a lot of work for something you can buy at the store for $2. Interesting challenge though.


Sometimes its not about the cost, but the challenge and reward!

Subscribed


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## crshadow (Sep 4, 2003)

Welcome to everyone joining this thread, I hope to have some good luck with this project. We'll see how it goes. At any rate, I hope y'all enjoy!  

As far as the cost vs. effort issue, it's definitely the fun/challenge of the process, as well as the satisfaction that results from success that makes it worth doing. I also see it as a way to contribute to the hobby. Ending up with more shrimp is a bonus! 

For feeding the zoes, I'll be using a combination of golden pearls, yeast, or anything else I can get my hands on. Since this was a spur of the moment thing, I don't have any live cultures of any micro foods at the moment. We'll see how it turns out.

-Jeremiah


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## RoseHawke (Mar 10, 2004)

Wasserpest said:


> ". . . But I agree... it is a lot of work for something you can buy at the store for $2. Interesting challenge though."


Maybe in California, Wasser; I've *never *seen an Amano shrimp and most of the shopclerks will look at you blankly if you even mention freshwater shrimp!


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## MrJG (Feb 21, 2007)

Rosehawke: as odd as it sounds you may want to check your local petsmart. They recently started carrying amanos as "algae eating shrimp".


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## RoseHawke (Mar 10, 2004)

MrJG said:


> Rosehawke: as odd as it sounds you may want to check your local petsmart. They recently started carrying amanos as "algae eating shrimp".


Ummm. I think I did. I go by there fairly often as they're just up the road from me and I usually cruise the fish department. If nothing else I find that their tanks are always _scrupulously_ clean although what plants they have are usually in poor shape of course. I'll certainly keep checking though.


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## MrJG (Feb 21, 2007)

Gotcha. Keep an eye out though. I normally go there to buy feeder ghost shrimp for my puffer and I was super happy when I noticed amano's in the same tank @ 30 cent each. A few days later they actually had them in their own tank @ ~$3 each.


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## natx (Jun 6, 2006)

I've never seen them at a local store in New England either. I spent something upwards of $60 getting 8 or so shipped to me (although being rid of all algae within a week was totally worth it). I'm sure there would be a ready local market for cheap, home-raised Amanos.


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## ovenmit331 (Mar 27, 2007)

$60 for 8 amano's is pretty dang pricey... right?

is there ANY problem with keeping amano's and RCS together?


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## nellis (Oct 27, 2005)

Natx,
I've seen Amanos at both Tropic Isle in Framingham and Uncle Ned's in Millis. Not reliably so, though.


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## crshadow (Sep 4, 2003)

I've run across Amanos here locally a couple times, but usually it's a special order. If I even manage to get a few of these guys to survive I'll be happy to have a few more shrimp.

Managed to get a few more pictures, a little better than before, but not perfect.


















It's been a couple days and there haven't been any new "hatchings" yet, so I started transferring the larvae with a medicine dropper to one of the saltwater tanks. The zoes are attracted to light so they tend to congregate in the corner closest to the light, which makes them easy to catch.









Another shot.









...and here they are in their new home. I have no idea how many there are. I'd guess about 100 - 200. They are all from two females. One of the critter keepers has had only a handful of zoes swimming in it for the last 2 days, yet all the shrimp in the keeper are still carrying eggs. I guess the eggs of an individual shrimp can hatch over the course of a few days.



















-Jeremiah


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## Wasserpest (Jun 12, 2003)

So you just squirted them from freshwater to full salinity seawater? No gradual thing?


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## crshadow (Sep 4, 2003)

Wasserpest said:


> So you just squirted them from freshwater to full salinity seawater? No gradual thing?



Nope, amazingly not! According to the two websites I referenced earlier in the thread, they seem to not mind being put directly into saltwater. I tried this with a small batch of about 5 zoes the other day, before I did all of them. Sure enough, they seemed fine, no problems at all! :icon_eek: You'd think they'd be damaged from the change in osmotic pressure, but I guess not. <shrug> If I start to have problems though, I may adjust this part of the procedure. Normal fishkeeping procedures would involve a gradual change, but I'm mostly following what the aforementioned websites have indicated so far.


-Jeremiah


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## AndrewJGriffin (Nov 29, 2007)

*Personal experience at breeding Amano's*

I'm new to this forum, so apologise if my post isnt stylish and I dont have good piccies etc.

I had success up to the point of having a tank with zoes in it. Basically I set up a breeding freshwater tank and moved the egg-bearing female amano into it. Once she had let go of the zoes I moved her back to the main tank.

Unfortunately I was ill-prepared for this first attempt, and my breeding tank was basic and was using a standard water filter. So as not to kill any (more) zoes I turned off the filter - they're algae eaters so I assume this had no detrimental effect. Due to using a basic tank I had to turn off the light/heater/filter as they were all run off the same wiring block. I used a desk halogen lamp over the open tank to provide lighting (and marginal heat), and seem to remember reading that the zoes are able to tolerate colder waters. At this point I had maybe 100 zoes in the freshwater tank - I had no other food to give them so tried them with crushed flaked food in the hope that it would break down enough for them.

Soon enough (within two days) I decided to add salt to the tank - the reason why you can introduce the zoes straight into marine salinity is because this occurs in nature when they're washed out to sea - they get pushed out straight into marine salinity.

Anyway, it was adding the salt that killed my zoes. :-( I tried to gradually add the crystalised aquarium salt, but no matter how careful I was it caused small waves/ripples in the tank. One of the biggest killers of zoes as far as I can tell, is when the breeder accidentally causes them to get knocked about against the walls of the breeding tank. For this reason I think it is best to have a marine-salinity tank ready for the zoes, and syphon them into it.

My original female was still bearing the remainder of her eggs, and I only had a main tank and a marine-salinity one. I couldnt find any information on salinity tolerances of adult shrimps, so I decided late one evening to try her in the marine salinity tank to see for myself if she was able to tolerate the salt levels. She showed no signs of distress at the time aside from not liking to be transferred from one tank to another, which is normal, but she was dead by morning!! :-(

I've not tried to breed the shrimps since as I need a third 'staging' fresh-water tank to put egg-bearing females into so that when they release the zoes my fish dont eat them. For now I am keeping both the main tank and the empty marine-salinity tank running. I have removed the filter/wiring from the breeding tank so that thr heater/light can be used again, and added an air pump and a sponge filter (which apparently provides a good source of food for the zoes). If I do make another breeding attempt I will post any worthwhile information here for everybody to see. 

Sorry for the long post - hope it helps people!! Apologies if I have broken any conventions.

All the best,
Andrew Griffin.


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## Gatekeeper (Feb 20, 2007)

crs: Do you have a algae culture ready as a food source? this is where I have bunked on a few attempts....

KEEP GOING KID!! Make this happen!


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## crshadow (Sep 4, 2003)

AndrewJGriffin said:


> I'm new to this forum, so apologise if my post isnt stylish and I dont have good piccies etc..............................If I do make another breeding attempt I will post any worthwhile information here for everybody to see.
> 
> Sorry for the long post - hope it helps people!! Apologies if I have broken any conventions.
> 
> ...


Andrew, thanks for chiming in. I'll take all the help I can get. I appreciate you sharing your experiences. I'll make it a note to be careful to avoid blunt trauma to the zoes from the tank walls, hardware, etc.



gmccreedy said:


> crs: Do you have a algae culture ready as a food source? this is where I have bunked on a few attempts....
> 
> KEEP GOING KID!! Make this happen!


Sadly no... At least not a saltwater one. That's part of why I called this thread "random attempt" because I kind of decided to do it out of the blue and thus I'm not fully prepared.The aforementioned articles indicated success with non-live food, so I'm going to try that with this attempt. Although one of the reasons I went and got fresh seawater was to hopefully get some sort of plankton culture going out of it, if I were to put it under a light with some nutrients. I do have freshwater greenwater, but I doubt the microalgae would survive in seawater. I can definitely see micro critters swimming around in the seawater I collected, I just don't know if they are in high enough concentrations to sustain a bunch of zoes...

-Jeremiah


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## crshadow (Sep 4, 2003)

It's day 4 since the first zoes appeared. I tried adding a tiny bit of yeast to the tank. I can't tell if they are eating for sure yet. I have seen the larvae swim down to the bottom and back up again. In fact, some of them even seem to be foraging around on the substrate directly. I hope this a good sign that they will be able to take non-live food.

A zoe swimming down.









Here are a couple zoes on the bottom. Note that the "gravel" they are on is actually the very fine beach sand I brought straight from the source. I hope they are foraging and not dying or something.











Today I found this in one of the momma shrimp holding tanks. It seems that fresh zoes have been released. I shudder to think of counting them, but I'd guess there are 300 to 400 here. Anyone out there feel like counting them? :hihi: 









-Jeremiah


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## styxx (Jul 2, 2003)

wow. Keep it going! From what little I have read, they need to be fed regularly and with the right amount and type of food to get them to their next morphological change. I'd jump all over that quickly as it looks like they're quickly moving from the larval stage and growing fast!


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## crshadow (Sep 4, 2003)

styxx said:


> wow. Keep it going! From what little I have read, they need to be fed regularly and with the right amount and type of food to get them to their next morphological change. I'd jump all over that quickly as it looks like they're quickly moving from the larval stage and growing fast!


Right now feeding is my biggest concern. <fingers crossed>


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## crshadow (Sep 4, 2003)

crshadow said:


> Today I found this in one of the momma shrimp holding tanks. It seems that fresh zoes have been released. I shudder to think of counting them, but I'd guess there are 300 to 400 here. Anyone out there feel like counting them?


Update! It seems I have grossly misunderestimated the number of zoes in the previous pic! I just finished transferring all the larvae with a medicine dropper to the saltwater rearing tanks. I counted them in the dropper as I went. The grand total ending up being over *1700* zoes! You'll recall that in each keeper there were 3 shrimp. In this particular keeper, two of the shrimp were no longer carrying eggs, while the final one was still carrying hers. This means that only two shrimp produced all 1700 zoes. Nearly 900 offspring per shrimp! When added to the smaller batch from the other day, I probably have nearly 1000 larvae in each saltwater rearing tank. It seems I may need to consider more tanks. :fish: 

Boy I sure hope I get the feeding down....


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## eon17 (Aug 30, 2007)

that many larva makes me think no matter what there wont be a good survival rate.


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## JenThePlantGeek (Mar 27, 2006)

> that many larva makes me think no matter what there wont be a good survival rate.


Nahhh, I think crshadow has a few tricks up his sleeve. Heck, even if you only have 50% survive, you'll be doing pretty well! roud:


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## eon17 (Aug 30, 2007)

yeah i know but i am saying when an animal releases that many larva it makes me think that te only reason that many are born is to account for the small number that survive


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## mistergreen (Dec 9, 2006)

eon17 said:


> yeah i know but i am saying when an animal releases that many larva it makes me think that te only reason that many are born is to account for the small number that survive


that's in the wild with lots of predation... Not the case here


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## styxx (Jul 2, 2003)

mistergreen said:


> that's in the wild with lots of predation... Not the case here


agreed....


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## crshadow (Sep 4, 2003)

eon17 said:


> yeah i know but i am saying when an animal releases that many larva it makes me think that te only reason that many are born is to account for the small number that survive





mistergreen said:


> that's in the wild with lots of predation... Not the case here


Yep that hopefully will not be the case here, however there is at least one wierd worm thingy with two tentacles that hitchhiked in the sand and is living in one of the rearing tanks.



JenThePlantGeek said:


> ]Nahhh, I think crshadow has a few tricks up his sleeve. Heck, even if you only have 50% survive, you'll be doing pretty well!


<Pulls up sleeve.> For my first trick I present, a third rearing tank! This one is 10 gallons, and was also set up with sand and seawater from the beach. This should provide a bit more space when the need arises. In the meantime I'm leaving the lights on 24/7 on it to encourage algae growth. I may add some ferts to it as well to feed the algae.










Unbeknownst to me, this saltwater shrimp must have hitchhiked with the seawater or sand I collected. Can anyone identify it? It's not the best picture. When I add shrimplets to this tank, I will probably remove him to avoid him eating them.










According to the references, the shrimp don't feed for the first 4 days. That time has passed for the first zoes born, and so it's time to try and feed them. I dug through my foods and found these Hikari sinking wafers.










Here's a list of the ingredients. It seems to me to be a good blend of ingredients, well suited to feeding shrimp. Most importantly, no copper is listed.










Now here are some Golden Pearls that I also had from when I was trying to raise the tetras. Hopefully the shrimp will take to them better than the fish.










What I did was take one part Sinking Wafer, and one part Golden pearls and crushed them together into a very fine powder.










Then I added a few drops of water to make it into a paste. I used a bamboo skewer to mix the paste and also to feed to the shrimp. With a dab of paste on it, swishing the skewer in the rearing tank produces a cloud of food for the zoes to feed on.











I can't really tell for sure if they are eating yet, but time will tell.


-Jeremiah


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## styxx (Jul 2, 2003)

awesome idea...I think that the combination is a great idea but I think marine phytoplankton would be the ideal food at this stage...some of the food may be too great in size for them to consume but I'm not expert so either way good luck! I can't wait to see what happens!


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## mistergreen (Dec 9, 2006)

if nothing else, the golden perls & sinking wafers will encourage algae & microorganisms to grow. And try mash spirulina wafers.


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## will5 (Sep 30, 2005)

*Hi*

I love this idea. Subscribe.*


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## eon17 (Aug 30, 2007)

will you sell me some when they are older? its so cool that this is working


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## crshadow (Sep 4, 2003)

eon17 said:


> will you sell me some when they are older? its so cool that this is working



If I get a decent amount of survivors, I'd be happy to sell the extras.

-Jeremiah


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## crshadow (Sep 4, 2003)

When that large batch of shrimp hatched, I added half of them to the same rearing tank as the first smaller batch. In retrospect, I shouldn't have done this, because it makes it harder for me to time the development of these shrimp day by day. In any case, I'll try and make the best of it.

Here are a couple pics from the other day. (This would technically be Day 6 for the first hatching, and Day 2 for the larger hatching.)










Here you can make out the tiny legs of the zoe as he heads down to the bottom of the tank.










In the same fashion as I did in my tetra journal, I took some microscope pictures of a larva. I held my camera up to the eyepiece to get the pics, so it only captures a portion of the whole image. As a result I had to composite several pics together to make one image of the shrimp.










-Jeremiah


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## Agrippa (Jul 25, 2006)

That mystery marine shrimp reminds me of Palaemonetes vulgaris, but it's difficult to be certain. They're usually around 1" and are algavore/detrivores.

It's great to see your progression. Thanks for taking the time to keep us informed.


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## eon17 (Aug 30, 2007)

cool photo (the microscopic one)


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## crshadow (Sep 4, 2003)

Agrippa said:


> That mystery marine shrimp reminds me of Palaemonetes vulgaris, but it's difficult to be certain. They're usually around 1" and are algavore/detrivores.
> 
> It's great to see your progression. Thanks for taking the time to keep us informed.



I'll try to get a better pic, but he hardly ever comes out from underneath the sponge filter.




eon17 said:


> cool photo (the microscopic one)


Thanks!

-Jeremiah


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## crshadow (Sep 4, 2003)

12-4-2006: (Day 6 Large Batch / Day 10 First Batch)

Here are a couple pics from today. So far so good, no losses that I can see yet. Of course there are so many, I may not have noticed if one has died here or there. Definitely nothing obvious though.



















Meanwhile, 2 days ago in the 10 gallon tank I added some ferts in the same concentrations that we add for our planted tanks, using KN03, KH2PO4, and Flourish for micros. I did this instead of using something like miracle-gro which would likely add potentially unsafe levels of Ammonia. I also left some decaying plant material in there to futher add fuel to the bio population. As you can see the tank has started to get cloudy with what looks like slight green tinge, hopefully the beginnings of marine greenwater.










You can even see some diatoms forming on the glass.










If the artificial rearing on dry foods fails, the next batch will be going in here.

-Jeremiah


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## natx (Jun 6, 2006)

ovenmit331 said:


> $60 for 8 amano's is pretty dang pricey... right?
> 
> is there ANY problem with keeping amano's and RCS together?


Yeah I thought so! 2/3rds of it was for the overnight shipping though, the shrimp were $3 or $4 each.

So what was the process for moving the zoes over to the saltwater tank? Siphon? Turkey baster? I am really tempted to give this a shot, seeing those amanos walking around with eggs all the time is such a tease.


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## styxx (Jul 2, 2003)

Man, I really hope you are successful with this, I am so excited! lol!


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## frasertheking (Jun 15, 2007)

any updates ?


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## gotcheaprice (Aug 29, 2007)

Wow, great set up! This was exactly what I wanted to do, except with opae kala ole, en endemic shrimp to Hawaii. They have a similar life style to the amano, where they release their young and they flow to the ocean. Once they mature, they CLIMB all the way back up(they even climb waterfalls!) so I think it'd be easy to have a set up where they can easily climb to the freshwater tank with a board or something. These shrimps are, i'm sure, soon on the endangered list, since the wild form cherries breed like crazy in our rivers. 

I would have a really hard time to do this though, since my mom won't let me have any more tanks, and school is definitely in the way -_- Also, even if she did let me, dunno where the heck to find them xD

And man, if you can sell those for $2 a pop.... I wouldn't even be able to sell mine, since it's illegal, but I definitely would share with the locals... I need more time D:


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## A Hill (Jul 25, 2005)

Welcome back seems like you've had a rough year, sorry to hear that.

The thread is great! I like how random it was and how well it seems to have worked so far.

If you are worried about enough food why not take some of the algae (sea weed) from the ocean and plop it in the tank? I'd be willing to bet there is plenty of good stuff on that.

What are you doing for top offs or water changes? RO water for top offs and more sea water for water changes? 

Your idea seems so simple and working so well, all other attempts I've seen have been very micromanaged always recording Salinity and stuff which it seems you haven't bothered with, and it looks good so far!

Will be watching this thread for sure.

-Andrew


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## styxx (Jul 2, 2003)

*status?*



Fish Newb said:


> Welcome back seems like you've had a rough year, sorry to hear that.
> 
> The thread is great! I like how random it was and how well it seems to have worked so far.
> 
> ...


Ahhh, Andrew...great points. Of course, the problem with this situation is that not everyone can run down to the beach and grab some sea water and kelp, etc. Of course look at me running my mouth off and I live in Tampa, FL! lol...I'm curious about the progress on this also, where's an update!?! roud:


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## A Hill (Jul 25, 2005)

styxx said:


> Ahhh, Andrew...great points. Of course, the problem with this situation is that not everyone can run down to the beach and grab some sea water and kelp, etc. Of course look at me running my mouth off and I live in Tampa, FL! lol...I'm curious about the progress on this also, where's an update!?! roud:


Ha I just got back from your area on sunday!

Nice weather down there!

Looked for plants in some ponds but nothing good, maybe next time 

-Andrew


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## gotcheaprice (Aug 29, 2007)

styxx said:


> Ahhh, Andrew...great points. Of course, the problem with this situation is that not everyone can run down to the beach and grab some sea water and kelp, etc. Of course look at me running my mouth off and I live in Tampa, FL! lol...I'm curious about the progress on this also, where's an update!?! roud:


I can! 
3 minute drive, around 10 minute walk away from the beach here 

Too bad it's a tourist beach that's filthy! 

Well, not as bad as when I went to the mainland though D:


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## styxx (Jul 2, 2003)

gotcheaprice said:


> I can!
> 3 minute drive, around 10 minute walk away from the beach here
> 
> Too bad it's a tourist beach that's filthy!
> ...


Good point! I wish I was there but...alas...my education keeps me here...


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## crshadow (Sep 4, 2003)

Sorry for the delay everyone. Here's the scoop. I had to leave on a trip to Nashville this last week for 5 days. The day before I left a few things were happening with the shrimp larvae. First off, a new batch of 100 to 200 were released by another female. I went ahead and transferred these to the 10 gallon rearing tank. As for the others in the 1 gallon rearing tanks, I started having some major die off. My suspicion was that the water was becoming polluted from feeding such rich food. So before I left I decided to stop feeding, hoping that the remaining shrimp would survive off of the organisms in the water while I was gone, and hopefully allow for any toxic levels of ammonia, etc to drop. Meanwhile the the new batch was also to be left unfed while I was gone. The 10 gallon which had been previously fertilized was showing a large amount of algae growth, and it was my hope that they could easily subsist off of this.

Upon my return last night I discovered that all of the larvae in 1 gallon rearing tanks were gone. Not a single survivor. :icon_cry: If it was indeed the food that had fouled the water, it was probably already too late for those that I had left behind in there. Trying to feed 1000 zoes in a small tank, may have been the problem, in that it makes it easier to accidently overfeed.

Fortunately, the larvae in the 10 gallon seem to be doing just fine! So, even though there was a setback, we'll try and learn from it.

The next steps:

This first attempt, as the thread title suggests was random and not meant to be a precise exercise. However, the next try will be a bit more methodical.

I will do a large water change on the 1 gallon tanks to clear out any nasty stuff in the water, in order to prepare for the next attempt.

I have a few females still holding eggs. When they release I will put a specific amount of 100 larvae per 1 gallon tank. This smaller concentration should help reduce the chance of fouling the water. On one tank I will rely strictly on prepared food, and the other I'll try and have a nice algae rich tank, and not feed any prepared food, and compare results.

As for the 10 gallon, I will follow its progress, and will probably add any extra larvae as they are released to it. I may feed it some prepared food every couple days or so to supplement the algae. No real plan for it, other than the fact that it is a more stable environment due to the larger size, and as such I can probably afford to not be as careful with what I try with it.

The journal goes on! roud: 

-Jeremiah


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## styxx (Jul 2, 2003)

ahhh! Finally some progress! Well it is good to see that there has been some forward momentum on this thread. I've been anxiously awaiting some changes here. Of course the feeding issue no doubt has contributed to the problem but I think that the larger the tank the better your chances for successful breeding. Higher water volume = decreased toxicity for ammonia, nitrite and nitrate poisoning. I think that your side by side comparison would be an excellent starting point to begin to see what procedure works and what doesn't and go from there..I would also suggest regular sea-water changes as that might help with the feeding pollution issue (of course matched to the tank's temp.)...just a few suggestions that I think might help?


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## crshadow (Sep 4, 2003)

styxx said:


> ahhh! Finally some progress! Well it is good to see that there has been some forward momentum on this thread. I've been anxiously awaiting some changes here. Of course the feeding issue no doubt has contributed to the problem but I think that the larger the tank the better your chances for successful breeding. Higher water volume = decreased toxicity for ammonia, nitrite and nitrate poisoning. I think that your side by side comparison would be an excellent starting point to begin to see what procedure works and what doesn't and go from there..I would also suggest regular sea-water changes as that might help with the feeding pollution issue (of course matched to the tank's temp.)...just a few suggestions that I think might help?


Great input, I hadn't gotten around to trying water changes the last time, only top-offs. I'll probably perform small water changes this next time around.




Fish Newb said:


> If you are worried about enough food why not take some of the algae (sea weed) from the ocean and plop it in the tank? I'd be willing to bet there is plenty of good stuff on that.
> 
> What are you doing for top offs or water changes? RO water for top offs and more sea water for water changes?
> 
> Your idea seems so simple and working so well, all other attempts I've seen have been very micromanaged always recording Salinity and stuff which it seems you haven't bothered with, and it looks good so far!


Next time I go to the beach, I'll see if can pickup some fresh seaweed and toss a piece in to see what happens.

So far I had only done top-offs. I was planning to eventually change a small portion of the water, but did not get around to it before it was too late.

Thanks, I didn't want to make this into a precision attempt, and was hoping to get away with having some success without too much trouble. I may get more careful as things progress, but at the same time, I don't want to overcomplicate it if I don't have to.



natx said:


> So what was the process for moving the zoes over to the saltwater tank? Siphon? Turkey baster? I am really tempted to give this a shot, seeing those amanos walking around with eggs all the time is such a tease.


I used an eyedropper to move them, since they were so small. It worked pretty well.



gotcheaprice said:


> Once they mature, they CLIMB all the way back up(they even climb waterfalls!


Wow, that is one tough shrimp!


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## crshadow (Sep 4, 2003)

Oh, here are two pics from the day before I left. (12/9/2007) You can see that a large number of the shrimp congregate on the bottom of the tank, presumably looking for food. I had lost at least half of the shrimp by this time, almost from one day to the next. Their pose almost makes them look like an older shrimp, but they are still the same larvae.


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## kzr750r1 (Jun 8, 2004)

Nice project. I finally have a decent cherry farm going. Fun stuff.


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## crshadow (Sep 4, 2003)

Hey Sean, almost didn't recognize you without the black cat avatar.

Ya know, I still can't get a decent red cherry shrimp farm going. I guess my fish are keeping them in check. One of these days I need to dedicate a tank to them.

-Jeremiah


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## kzr750r1 (Jun 8, 2004)

Yeah, figured I'd put Shadow away.

It took me a few tries to get the shrimp going. Funny part is the 10g far has a full grown Striped Rafael sharing the tank. Started with just six shrimp.

Keep the cat fed and lazy he stays away from the fresh meat. 

Keep us up to date on your progress. As I've read you have the bull by the horns... Keep up the good work. roud:


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## mistergreen (Dec 9, 2006)

if you can find sea grass, I'm sure it'll make a great habitat for the zoes
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_grass


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## crshadow (Sep 4, 2003)

Just popping in to say that I'll try and post an update this weekend. Been spending time with the family the last couple weeks.

-Jeremiah


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## frasertheking (Jun 15, 2007)

i loved reading this thread please update


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## modemfox (Nov 9, 2007)

I come from a backgroung of saltwater tanks, the reason the seawater is killing the shrimp is not so much the food you are feeding as much as it is loosing buffers. The reason saltwater people buy salt instead of collect it from the ocean is the water from the ocean isnt buffered once its taken from the ocean and it begins a PH crash. It takes a while but eventually the PH gets so low that the bacteria and organisms that are in the seawater begin to die and become anoxic trash in the seawater.


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## markw78 (Mar 6, 2010)

What ever happened here? (2 years later lol)


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## AoxomoxoA (Apr 22, 2010)

markw78 said:


> What ever happened here? (2 years later lol)


Holy old thread dude :icon_lol:

I have no idea, but the last post before yours finally voiced at least part of my concern. Much better to make your own saltwater & no sand, too many organisms & variables involved trying to use straight from the ocean. I'd maybe use some aquacultured chaeto macro-algae for them to hide/feed in.


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## Gatekeeper (Feb 20, 2007)

I have done this and its a long painful task. I got to the final stage of transformation with only a few left and lost them all on a bad water change. Really tough on the cross over. I can't quite figure out the correct moment to do it.

I may try again. I have a few that are holding now. Might be worth one more shot.

If you follow the steps that were published, they will take you most of the way, but their is certainly a "ghost step" in there that must be needed to make the final transformation.


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## dragoncurse (Jun 3, 2010)

Hey. I got a female full of eggs here too. I'm still preparing phytoplanktons for the next gen. But the female seems have to dropped some eggs. Is that normal?


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## dave314 (Jul 21, 2010)

Hi I realise this is 7 years too late but it might be helpful to the next guy. I noticed the posts stopped, i'm guessing you didn't get any further? I have succeeded at raising the zoes to using the mike's machine guide. I tried sea water from the North sea (UK) and it failed. 

The adults can tolerate salt but don't really like it. I figured the best way to do it was to put the pregnant female in the salt and then the babies would be fine. Wierdly tho the eggs don't hatch in salt and as soon as I put them in fresh loads hatched! Don't know how eggs can tell! 

Anyway I used Aqua marin salt in the water and it worked! (3rd time!). Would recommend buying 100ml of phytoplancton for food, i bought it off the internet as it doesn't polute and is small enough for the zoes to eat. I raised about 150 from 200.


Any way I made a video about it but this forum won't let me post links, so...go to Youtube and search for 'amano shrimps - how to breed/raise zoes'


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## Gatekeeper (Feb 20, 2007)

Very cool! Nice job!


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## monkeyruler90 (Apr 13, 2008)

dave314 said:


> Hi I realise this is 7 years too late but it might be helpful to the next guy. I noticed the posts stopped, i'm guessing you didn't get any further? I have succeeded at raising the zoes to using the mike's machine guide. I tried sea water from the North sea (UK) and it failed.
> 
> The adults can tolerate salt but don't really like it. I figured the best way to do it was to put the pregnant female in the salt and then the babies would be fine. Wierdly tho the eggs don't hatch in salt and as soon as I put them in fresh loads hatched! Don't know how eggs can tell!
> 
> ...


great video!


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