Fire Shrimp with eggs

H

hot_amigo

Member
Ok, so I have had a fire shrimp in my 75 gal tank for maybe a year. It was lonely so I added another to keep it company. Before it was acting really depressed and would hardly ever come out. Now it is happy and they stand next to each other and eat/hunt together (searching for leftovers). I recently got some much smaller ones for a tank that I started at work. This time I got three and they all chose a rock as soon as I put them in. But none of these act like the two that I have at home. So it got me thinking that maybe I had a pair that would eventually mate.

I have been reading up on how to breed clownfish from FB's and Dazed's threads and I have recently noticed that these two shrimp have been hanging out extra close and today they were practically on top of each other. I thought they had just become really good friends or possibly even paired up. But I didn't actually think that I would be able to get anything out of them.

I had a LFS set up my tank about a year and a half ago an my nitrates have been off the charts since i have had it. They set me up all wrong with bio balls etc... so now i have been working on getting them down to try to keep what i have living. I think the lowering the nitrates (Thank you Melev) and special care i have been showing the tank has got the whole take "awake" I have had a Emerald crab let off its larva in my tank previously - That was really cool.

Anyway, back on topic... I noticed this eve that my fire shrimp was swimming differently this evening when I went to feed them. They were really active trying to catch the food and I noticed that the one's swimmerettes (?) were really puffed up and weren't going completely down like they usually do. I think I will be a father soon.

I don't even know where to begin with something like this. I have been trying to practice on getting BBS and feeding them to the tank and my next step was to learn "greenwater" then the hardest, or from what i have read, rots. I really want to try this out so I am hoping somebody out there knows or has some leads that I could go on to at least try to get these guys to live.

Any and all advice is welcome, and I know that my chances are slim to none, since I have very limited experience in this area.

I also apologize for putting this in the "fish breeding" area, but not sure where else to go with it :(

Please Help and I will try to get my BF to take pics ASAP.
 
Thank you so much for those links. I will have to read through them when I get back home from work.

I may have to go out and get a 20 gal. from what I have read so far. I already have BBS going so that will not be a problem either. Just not sure about getting the 'mother' into the future 20 gal and then back out after hatch. And the next issue will be the dripping of fresh sw into that larvae tank to increase the water as the process progresses.
 
They hatched

They hatched

I stayed up later last night in hopes of not seeing the larvae hatch into my tank. I wanted to have a chance to get a 20 gal to put the mother shrimp in so that I could just have them in there. On my way home i decided to get some tanks and a thermometer so that I could transfer tonight.

I only noticed the eggs last night during feeding, and I keep reading articles in which I should get a 20 (I got a 20 long) so that they larvae have enough space so that they are not bumping into things continuously. I have an air pump and airstones and now the 20long with the heater. I also got a couple of small tanks (a 5.5 gal and 2.5 gal.) just in case.

So I had my bf get ready with the camera so that when I fed everyone tonight we might be able to catch a glimpse of the eggs so that I could post them for everyone to see. Unfortunately, the eggs must have hatched either during the day or last night (and I didn't take notice this morning), but the are no longer there javascript:smilie(':(') .

From what I have read, the female molts after hatch and the male will do his thing again while she is vulnerable and slow, which will produce another batch in two weeks time.

I will be posting on here as soon as we see the eggs again. But so far I have learned that the pink eggs are the ones that are ready to hatch, and now I am at least prepared with my new tank. Just have to be patient now.

I will be posting again soon and hope to hear more information from all of the experienced reefers here. Thank you for your help so far.:( :(
 
My skunk cleaners quickly ate the larvae as they were hatching. I would think that you'de have to separate parents before they had a chance to do this.
 
Yeah, they let them off before I had a chance to do so. I'll be ready for the next batch though. I hope.. fingers x'ed
 
Well, I have noticed eggs again this week. So after a couple of hours of chasing her around the tank I finally just decided to move the rocks to get her. Now the shrimp is in a 1/2 full 20 gal long tank with some airstones and a heater, and a small piece of LR so that she doesn't feel so lonely and desolate in there. I took 5 gal. from the main tank and 5 was new sw. I think it will be another few days before we see anything. I will try to post pics today.
 
They Hatched!!! Again...

They Hatched!!! Again...

Yes!!! They hatched in only 6 days!! I was waiting for around the 2 week mark. I have been reading up on them and they are supposed to come approximately every 2 weeks and they hatched only 6 days from the last ones!! Now I don't have any BBS prepared to feed them. I put some cysts in there with them in hopes that they would get a chance to eat them just as soon as the bbs hatched and I started a batch the way i usually do. I didn't put very many in at all, but I don't think they will hatch before the little shrimps (?) starve. darn it. I guess we will see.

Also, my bf has a rebel XTI that I got him for his birthday a couple of years ago, but we don't have a macro lens. So any pictures that we take will not come out right? Is there a way in the mean time to finagle the camera into taking a half-way decent picture of them so that I can post them for you all? Anybody know any tricks? I might have to get an early b-day present :)
 
What lens does he have?

BTW the fire shrimp are functional hermaphrodites and will alternate who has eggs ;)
 
Hola,amiga (amigo is masculine,and I found you´re a lady shrimper:D )
Baby shrimp hatch every 12-14 days.You got the larvae from the other partner.Both produce eggs,twofold benefit!;)
In fire shrimp (L.debelius) eggs are hard to see.They are easy in the other species).But as they produce larvae clockwise,you can simply check the tank one hour after dark and if larvae are seen,
shine a light over the tank,wait 5 min and siphon them out.
Good luck.You will need it as they are tough to raise.I agree you should start with peppermints for a taste of success and self acomplishment!:D
 
Still alive

Still alive

Hello all,

thank you for all of your input. Luis, I am a guy and the screen name was given to me when I was in HS and first started using email :)

The lens on the camera is just the short one that came with the camera. I am not sure what kind it is, but I ordered it from Dell as it was cheaper than the other vendors at the time. I asked my bf to take a pic this eve. he has but it isn't all that great. I will definately have to get a macro lens for a better shot. But I am going to try using my digital camera as well to see if I can get a better shot. I will post all pics tonight.

I stopped the bubbles for a short second to take them and since I don't have any bbs to feed them I have given them frozen rots to sink their...teeth...mandible mechanism ? into lol so anyway i hope that tydes them over until the bbs hatch. I also have taken the one who was carrying the eggs out of the tank...I didn't have a chance this morn. before leaving for work. From what I have read it will molt and then breed again, and either one will carry the next batch. I will try just this one for now. I don't have all that much space to keep every batch. Although I would love to, my bf would probably not like the tanks all over the house. It is bad enough that the 20L is sitting on the floor in the living room :)

I still have the airstones going at full capacity and they are just whipping right through the bubbles but it doesn't seem to be affecting them. I don't want the bubbles to be too few and not have enough oxygen in there either. Any advice on this topic?

Also, I do not know what the levels of the Amm./nit/nitrates are in that tank. I am not sure how to clean it without sucking the little buggers up? Any advice on this one?

I have also asked my LFS if they wanted to take them in, but they are not set up to do so. I love those guys and they have experience with the peppermint shrimp in the past. They have told me that these guys will molt every 2 hours and that i need to keep a high level of Iodine in the tank. Does this sound right?

I will post a pic next and look forward to hearing from all of мои друзя (my friends)

Shawn
 
I hope this works fingers x-ed sorry about the image. Best I can do until the b-day
BabyShrimp01.jpg
 
Re: Still alive

Re: Still alive

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=13328808#post13328808 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by hot_amigo
Hello all,

thank you for all of your input. Luis, I am a guy and the screen name was given to me when I was in HS and first started using email :)
Click to expand...
Amigo,if your "better half" is "He"I assumed you had to be "SHE":D
my bf has a rebel XTI that I got him for his birthday
Click to expand...
Though your shrimp don´t fit in this "classical"sex role assignment:D
Feed them bbs.They can take a 1st day of fast,thanks to their reserves.Air flow should be something reasonable.
The rest is to try and be lucky!;)
 
Luis, yeah we don't quite fit the 'normal' relationship either. It is possible for humans to pair up in this manner to :) m2m no worries I wouldn't expect someone to just figure it out just by guessing it on here. And I guess most first assumptions would be similar to yours, which is I suppose what most people 'think' the 'norm' might be.

anyway, i didn't feed bbs b/c i wasn't expecting so soon. So i have given them some frozen rots for the moment and hopefully that will give me enough time to get the bbs hatched. We will see, but for the moment they all seem to be kicken. Kinda cool to watch them. I am not sure how long it takes them to finally not be so brittle, maybe 6 months. Hope i can keep them that long. Not sure how I am going to keep the tank clean? or if i need to use iodine etc...
 
Don't use the iodine, just keep up with water changes. Iodine is actually used by shrimp farmers to trigger molting, in this instance for the sake of getting the adults to molt for timed spawning. You don't to accelerate and trigger molting artificially in your larvae ;)
 
Thankyou That helps to explain it. They had me thinking that they needed the iodine to actually molt and that if it wasnt in the water that they wouldnt be able to do so.

How do I do the water changes w/o sucking them up? do you know how much i should change and how often? Guess i might have to get some of the cheap one-time-use testers for this type of thing. I have a test kit, but that might be a bit much for this type of project?

thanks for your help!
 
<--- Has subscribed

This is neat! Congrats! I wish the best for you in this adventure, and will be tagging along! Best of luck\

-J
 
For water changes on shrimp larvae I'd do the same thing as fish larvae. Small bore siphon and move slow. Requires much patience ;)
 
well the one shrimp i have had for about a year, but around the six month mark. It seemd a bit lonely and would never come out. Now that I have the second one they have gotten along and are much more sociable. I have had them together for about six months total. If you meant how long between batches it couldn't have been more than a day, because six days after i noticed the last batch had already hatched, this one did.

Thank you for the information on the suctioning. I suppose i would just use some airline tubing and siphon it out? I need to replace it, but I have read that I need to drip it in? I guess i should maybe get something like an IV bag or something like what a hospital might use? How often would the tank need cleaned? every couple of days?

also would it be horrible to put in a small bubble filter to try and soak up some of the bad stuff and help with the water quality or would it suck up the larvae? I have a small filter where all you have to do is hook up an airline to and it draws the water through with the bubbles.
 
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