Blood Red Shrimp Babies

[northerncal]

i just bought a blood red shrimp from my lfs and it had babies on the way back to be put in the tank! does anyone know if i can possibly raise these guys since i still have them isolated in the lfs bag? or are they impossible to raise? help!!

 

[hot_amigo]

They are difficult to raise and take forever to grow. I have been trying with mine... They are hermaphrodites. They readily eat BBS. I can't remember the word but they need water movement to stay afloat... I think it is called Pelagic. Then after they hit meta they finally sit on the bottom. They molt and after each molting stage called Zoae stage 1-something like 15 or Z1-Z15. They start hanging out at the bottom after I think a month, but a major die off will happen around Z6 or Z7. They molt about every 3-4 days. It is tough to keep the tank clean and feed them at the same time with out throwing off the nitrates/ammonia. try keeping a piece of LR in there with them and feed often. Frequent water changes will also be needed to keep the tank in order and the little guys alive. I have only made it to week 3 (Z6).

Good luck

 

[monicaswizzle]

Rearing shrimp larvae does seem to be a LOT of work!

I am pretty sure that the spawn in my tank (see thread) is my blood shrimp since it has been AWOL for the past several days since the spawn started. Something I read online said the spawn corresponds with a molt, so I am not surprised to see larvae and not the adult.

I am making a bit of an attempt to rear the fry showing up in my tank, based on an online article in the Advanced Aquarist that claimed you could manage with dry food and bbs, but since I am not really set up to do it right I suspect a rearing tank crash and/or starvation of the larvae due to low food density is likely to be my result.

Good luck with getting through all the Z stages to honest to god shrimp juveniles!