Raising harlequin shrimp larvae

[FuEl]

Hi folks, I have raised blood shrimps to settlement before. Currently I'm working with peppermint shrimps and harlequin shrimps. My peppermint shrimps are developing fast but I'm not so sure about my harlequin larvae.

The only website online I could refer to is by Kraul. I have received an email correspondence from him that they will take newly hatched Artemia immediately after hatching.

My first batch of larvae all died by 6-7 days when I fed them Artemia nauplii. They did'nt molt at all.

Now I'm onto my second batch and I'm flooding the water with s-strain rotifers now in case they need smaller food items. However now is already 4 days after hatch and they still look the same. They did'nt seem to have molted at all.

Am I doing something wrong? Can anyone who have actually raised these guys before give me a little reliable information to start off with? Thanks.

 

[FuEl]

Was reading somewhere that harlequin shrimp larvae are rely on their yolk reserves at first and only begin feeding after their first molt. Can anyone kindly confirm this? Thanks

 

[spk]

Good luck with this. Keep us posted if you find any further information.


Steve

 

[spawner]

The larvae must feed right way, they post larvae don't feed on seastars for a few days after settlement

 

[FuEl]

Thanks for the feedback guys. Currently I am flooding their water with rotifers. Till now they still look the same and I don't think they have molted. I'm confused..

 

[rsman]

its LATE on a LONG day so hope i dont wonder about too badly, I had done these regularly for a few years, they are not particularly hard to raise, and do quite well even mixed with certain other small fish (mandarins ....)

there are a lot of problems guessing at what is going on here, first are they molting and your not noticing it ?? only way to know for sure would be to watch it for hours on end, not something I looked forward towards .... then food, rotifers are nice for the runts but nhbs is the proper first food. problem with rotifers is they are not especially nutritious , they are just small for those things that cant eat larger foods.

now to go back to molting how are you looking ? microscope or other, if its a microscope and they dont look any different then chances are they did one or more molts without development these are bad for early larva, and you shouldnt be seeing these yet, which means probibly food issues. though as I think about it you should know what a mark time molt is and how to recognize it ....

what temp are you trying I kept mine in the 80 +-1 range and they did well, what other water quality issues, these can be sensitive to things .....

and anything else you can think of cause im brain dead, tired and going to bed

 

[FuEl]

I fed my last batch nhbs but they did'nt make it past day 6-7 (maybe it was my suction from the meshed overflow, then again I could'nt be so sure). They did'nt look any much different (at least to my naked eye) so I thought brine shrimp was not a good starter diet. Now with this batch I'm using a little more rotifers with a mixture of nhbs, hopefully this batch makes it. Going to stop the rotifers tomorrow and use 100% brine shrimp. Hopefully everything goes well then. Thanks people! :mixed:

 

[spk]

How about some pictures of your setup and little ones? It would be really neat to see.

Steve

 

[FuEl]

Nothing spectacular, just a plastic cylindrical container with a wooden airstone. Water changes and prey replacement done manually, along with the cleaning of the airline tubing, airstone and rearing container. Just keeping things simple for now.

 

[FuEl]

Remaining larvae seem to be getting more active with a constant supply of Artemia nauplii now. Lost quite alot maybe due to the early rotifer diet and possibly slightly off water quality. Hope everything goes well now.

 

[FuEl]

At day 7, probably only left with 20-30 larvae from probably a few hundred larvae. Maybe the early rotifer diet was a bad idea? No idea, weird thing compared to Lysmata larvae is the growth of harlequin shrimp larvae is'nt really that visible. I really wonder if they are actually growing. >.<