Coral banded shrimp

[mattiasschulz]

Hi all,

First post! I've just picked up a mated pair of CBS yesterday and I noticed one is pregnant and have a few newbie questions.

First up, I have read conflicting info and want to confirm- the male is the one carrying?

Second, I have heard that females job in the process is to "rip" the babies from the sack below the male, which holds the babies. Is this true?

Third, if the above is true, the male and female spent some time fighting with each other the night I put them in the tank. They eventually calmed down but it was brutal! Legs, tentacles and claws were broken in the ordeal. I know these will come back and so I'm not worried too much other then the fact that the poor fellow cannot walk. Furthermore, I was tempted to separate them that night before bed, but since they did finally calm, I did not. I woke in the morning to find the female dead, the male sitting right directly on top of her corpse - so the question, will there be any problems with giving birth?

I also understand it is very difficult if not impossible to breed these little guys in captivity, but I decided to put them in my QT tank and do my best to save any that I can!

Thanks for any answers, advice and input you have.

Matt

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[Ron Reefman]

I can't answer any of your questions with authority, so I'll leave that for others.

However, if these two were fighting that seriously, I have very strong doubts about them being a mated pair. I had a mated pair for several years and they never fought. I recently collected 2 in the wild in hopes that they were a mated pair and one killed the other within 2 days in my 125g tank.

 

[Bongo Shrimp]

I'm not sure about why they fought but I can tell you for sure that the female carry the eggs and once they hatch, about an hour after lights out, she will fan her swimmerets a lot and the babies will be released into the water column. The only thing the male does is fertilize the eggs.

In terms of breeding them, the babies would require a kreisel type tank to keep them suspended in the water column as they are pelagic larvae. They would need to be fed a large supply of fresh, live, copepods for around 60-70 days as they go through progressive molts, growing larger until the final molt where they settle and are small versions of the adults. The difficulty is in keeping them alive in a messy larval tank for 60-70 days.

 

[mattiasschulz]

Thanks for your answers. She has given birth overnight. I have put together a makeshift kriesel, which seems to be working well. The only issue I now have is trying to find live rotifers to be able to feed the young! I've called around a few places today but not having much luck. I should have anticipated this and pre ordered them online. My local fish store has got phytoplankton - do you think the young will eat this? Also, I haven't taken momma shrimp out of the kreisel yet because she is still very gold looking, I don't think she has released them all yet. Do you think she's already eating them? I haven't seen her eat them... I did feed her some brine shrimp today. She needs hand fed because she literally has no legs or nippers left... she only has tentacles and they aren't much use to her by look of it. I did hand feed her and she took some of the shrimp so I'm sure she is not hungry.. I hope she won't eat her babies loll. I attached a picture of the shrimp inside the kreisel

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[Bongo Shrimp]

Rotifers are too small, you should look into culturing some copepods such as parvocalanus or pseudodiaptomus possibly. You'd also need to culture phytoplankton if you choose to try parvo. The larvae will also not eat phytoplankton and the mom is most definitely eating the larvae. If she doesn't release more tonight I'd definitely get her out.

 

[mattiasschulz]

Rotifers are too small, you should look into culturing some copepods such as parvocalanus or pseudodiaptomus possibly. You'd also need to culture phytoplankton if you choose to try parvo. The larvae will also not eat phytoplankton and the mom is most definitely eating the larvae. If she doesn't release more tonight I'd definitely get her out.

Thanks for the tip. Spoke to the guy at my local store, the only thing he had was phytoplankton, which he seem to think would be fine for the first 2 weeks, after that he said they'll need something added with it (he said some kind of flake which you crunch up and small as possible and mix with the phytoplankton). I will also look into copepods, might be worth culturing both copepods and phytoplankton for future

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[Bongo Shrimp]

Thanks for the tip. Spoke to the guy at my local store, the only thing he had was phytoplankton, which he seem to think would be fine for the first 2 weeks, after that he said they'll need something added with it (he said some kind of flake which you crunch up and small as possible and mix with the phytoplankton). I will also look into copepods, might be worth culturing both copepods and phytoplankton for future

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The guy at your LFS has no idea what he's talking about and clearly has never worked with or read anything about raising these shrimp. I have raised coral banded shrimp larvae to 57 days and know people who have also cultured them. The larvae are strictly carnivorous and will absolutley not touch phytoplankton. The cells are far too small anyways.

They may even be large enough at hatching to take baby brine shrimp.

 

[mattiasschulz]

The larvae are strictly carnivorous and will absolutley not touch phytoplankton.

Can this be backed up?

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[Bongo Shrimp]

Sure, here's where I documented my work with blue coral banded shrimp: http://www.mbisite.org/Forums/tm.aspx?high=&m=81107&mpage=1#81109

Here's someone else who did some good work with yellow coral bandeds and fed them baby brine shrimp as I did: http://www.mbisite.org/Forums/tm.aspx?m=87519

Here's a scientific journal article that tried to raise them on rotifers but found that they need larger food later on. *I was wrong about rotifers not working at all, I fully accept that, my apologies. I must have misremembered this article that states that rotifers just won't work long term.
https://www.researchgate.net/profil...ey_density/links/557bc2cd08aec87640d9bb18.pdf

But it's well known that they won't eat phytoplankton.

 

[mattiasschulz]

Sure, here's where I documented my work with blue coral banded shrimp: http://www.mbisite.org/Forums/tm.aspx?high=&m=81107&mpage=1#81109

Here's someone else who did some good work with yellow coral bandeds and fed them baby brine shrimp as I did: http://www.mbisite.org/Forums/tm.aspx?m=87519

Here's a scientific journal article that tried to raise them on rotifers but found that they need larger food later on. *I was wrong about rotifers not working at all, I fully accept that, my apologies. I must have misremembered this article that states that rotifers just won't work long term.
https://www.researchgate.net/profil...ey_density/links/557bc2cd08aec87640d9bb18.pdf

But it's well known that they won't eat phytoplankton.

Legend. I am going to read these and be better prepared for the next ones

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[Bongo Shrimp]

Legend. I am going to read these and be better prepared for the next ones

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Good luck! If you have any more questions I'll do my best to help out.