Pistol Shrimp Breeding

[Teuthis]

Hello everyone,

I'm new to the forum and to keeping marine invertebrates, so I'm not sure if this has been done before or if it's been tried that often. My prior research suggests otherwise, as scientific journals come up with little information and quick searches on this forum/other forums seem to show either that the perceived larvae are actually mysis, or that breeding happens unknowingly and the larvae die soon after.

I'm currently working with five pistol shrimp- three of which are of the same species, but I don't know what said species is (I'm looking into it and will update here ASAP if I find what they are). I can also gain access to more if needed.

I was hoping to try and potentially breed these pistol shrimp for a project- the animals are kept in a research aquarium that focuses on animal welfare, and looking into the welfare and care of shrimp larvae could be pretty interesting.

Does anyone here have any prior experience with breeding pistols/sexing pistol shrimps? Alternatively, could anyone link me to any good guides for rearing shrimps that I could use as a basis to try and find out how to breed the pistol shrimps I have?

 

[Paul B]

I "think" mine are breeding but I can't be sure because they spend 99% of their time underground. The Pair have been co habitating for a couple of years now hapily living with a watchman gobi. The male is larger and his claws are larger. You need to keep them in a tank with gravel and coral rubble, some tiny broken pieces of clam shell is also good as they need these things to make tunnels and larger caves that they can turn around in. They can't do that in sand. Shoot food into their tunnels every other day. Their food should be meaty like clams. I sometimes shoot pellets in there if I am in a hurry but they won't find enough food on their own.

I use one of these to feed them directly


You can see my current pair in this U Tube video at about 58 seconds.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zZA8aJnkVJM&feature=youtu.be

 

[Teuthis]

Thanks for the info!

I'm currently feeding them via pipettes in the same way you said. Their tank substrate is gravel, and I'll look into trying to get some other materials to help with burrow structure. I've seen them making burrows pretty well so far, but every little extra helps, right?

I had read about the male claws being larger, but other sources suggested this wasn't always true. Maybe it's a species-dependent thing?

I should probably also point out that whatever species I have is a lot smaller than the one you have by the looks of it. How big are your shrimps?

 

[Paul B]

They are about one and a half inches with their claws extended out in front of them

 

[Teuthis]

Ok. They looked a wee bit bigger than that in the video. Mine are probably a similar size to that- I'll try and measure them when I can.

 

[gogo7]

my alpheus randalls let a batch of babies go tonight..they're paired with a breeding pair of stonogbiops nematodes. (which coincidentally let out their tenth batch of babies tonight also) i've got the zoa in a two and half gallon cylinder at 81' with air. surrounded by 1 per mil rotis. L type.
i've had plenty of experience getting the animals to produce, it's just getting them passed the early stages.
i had a pair of 'carribean' alpheus, they were breeding as well. i tried L types with those but i didn't take it serious enough. didn't get far. then the female died for no good reason a few weeks ago. the male is fine and i'm passing him on into a twenty shallow with a gobie .
here's the pair before she died.

the zoa from the randalls seem quite different from the other alpheus.
i've also dripped some dunaliella and added tetraselmis for good measure.
i meant to reply to this yesterday, but forgot... then the events of tonight drove me here.
i'm also cultivating ciliates (currently unknown species) that i'm using in my pico systems.
i'm glad you've started this thread. thank you.

 

[Teuthis]

Thanks for the information! Hopefully you have better luck with this breeding pair.
Still haven't been able to identify my current pistol shrimps- they're white/translucent with a blue tint to their pistol claws. Anyone have any ideas?

 

[Betta132]

Photos would help.

 

[Teuthis]

I'm working on getting decent enough pictures of them to help in identification.

 

[Calappidae]

Gogo7, those shrimp shown in the photo are not Alpheus randalli.

Actually, those are Alpheus formosus. Randalli are easy to distinguish by their "candy cane" short of pattern.

Alpheus Randalli

The ones you have are a little tricky to get the correct ID on, (due to lack of information) however their skunk cleaner shrimp like appearence is a dead giveaway as long as you know the classifaction, which unforunately no suppliers I know of provide.

Teuthis, see if you can get pictures and I'll see if I can narrow it down. By description that doesn't sound like one i'm too familiar with.

Inregards to the breeding project itself, it has never been successfully preformed. The issue is getting the fry to live the larval stage. As free floaters they are extremely weak to the slightest movement and can be teared up by the smallest of screens. Feeding them is pretty hard too as they need microsopic phyoplankton, or "green water" which fouls up the water when they cannot really handle high nitrates. Marine snow seems like the safest option, however accurately ensuring that they do come in contact with it and eat it is near impossible, since their swimming mobility is pretty terrible at this age.

There's always a first though!

 

[gogo7]

Gogo7, those shrimp shown in the photo are not Alpheus randalli.

Actually, those are Alpheus formosus. Randalli are easy to distinguish by their "candy cane" short of pattern.

Alpheus Randalli

The ones you have are a little tricky to get the correct ID on, (due to lack of information) however their skunk cleaner shrimp like appearence is a dead giveaway as long as you know the classifaction, which unforunately no suppliers I know of provide.

Teuthis, see if you can get pictures and I'll see if I can narrow it down. By description that doesn't sound like one i'm too familiar with.

Inregards to the breeding project itself, it has never been successfully preformed. The issue is getting the fry to live the larval stage. As free floaters they are extremely weak to the slightest movement and can be teared up by the smallest of screens. Feeding them is pretty hard too as they need microsopic phyoplankton, or "green water" which fouls up the water when they cannot really handle high nitrates. Marine snow seems like the safest option, however accurately ensuring that they do come in contact with it and eat it is near impossible, since their swimming mobility is pretty terrible at this age.

There's always a first though!

yes cal, sorry, i had both species in pairs breeding.
formosas and randalls. my formosus died a little while ago and i gave the male away. my other species of alpheus is the randalls, and they're in my four gallon display.
i currently have a batch of their babies in the vase i housed the formosus in.
they're three days old.
this is a pick of one of the zoa

here's a dead one at twenty four hours.
i've been feeding them cilates, two differing species that i've cultured, but yet to get a good pic of. there are lots of harp. copepods in there. live dunaliella, tetraselmis and L type rotifers.
i finally made it to the lfs today and dosed about 30 mls of mature nannochlorosis in there for good measure.

tetraselmis and ciliates that i'm using.
i've put some bbs in there last night and got some feeding reponses.
i'd say stay away from the dead food when it comes to cultivating shrimp larvae. nothing fouls your tank faster than dead food. i've tried marine snow and reef roids. fouls up fast.
unless of course, using it can be proven beneficial. i prefer live foods only. the little ones respond naturally to live food. phyto eats nitrates, so unless you're adding immature phyto culture, i don't see the 'dirty' part in it.
one thing when adding phyto too much too fast, is that it can mess with the ph.

i'm expecting another batch in about two weeks, so i'm ramping up my zooplankton culture again.
i have posted info in a thread i have in the breeding forum. 'black ray gobies'