I think my harlequin shrimp is pregnant!

[Thespammailaccount]

Harlequin shrimp molting and fertilization

 

[Thespammailaccount]

Hi everyone. sorry for the blanket message.

I'm a wildlife producer making a film for National Geographic. I have set up a film shoot with these amazing shrimps for the end of the month and we want to film them molting and mating amongst other things. It's not easy but I have read some really useful stuff, principally from Chuck's amazing page but also some studies from the 1970's by Seibt.

Hobbyists have told me that spawning and molting is more likely to happen at night but the published research seems to suggest that it might happen at any time of day and that actually these animals are DAY active, which is odd. We have 5 pairs all set up and ready to go. Our aquarist hasn't noticed eggs on them up to this point, but from Chuck's page the eggs don't look particularly obvious (silver, rather than bright orange like some). Until now they were kept well fed and happy but in quite small holding tanks (20cmx20cm). They've now been transferred into our much larger 70x50x40 filming tanks. could the small tanks have been preventing them from spawning till now? Apparently the females are huge now so they should be sexually active.

Basically my questions are:

1) Are there any tips you would offer to maximise my chances of filming spawning behaviour?
2) If the shrimp pairs are indeed not spawning, is there anything we can do to encourage them to? They have about one more molt until our three week filming block occurs.

Any tips in general would be so helpful. Thanks all and sorry for the long message!

James

I have been able to get some good pictures by just studying their routine. I have two pair of harlequin shrimp and only one pair is spawning. The second pair is smaller so not sure if they are just not old enough or if there is some kind of hierarchy going on to where there is only one dominate female giving birth

 

[Thespammailaccount]

A bit dated but hope this helps. Was never able to determine / obtain the correctly sized food to get the larvae beyond a week old.

Harlequin Shrimp

The care, breeding and raising of the Harlequin Shrimp

chucksaddiction.thefishestate.net

What did you feed during the first week? Have not been able to make it past the second day

 

[Thespammailaccount]

Harlequin shrimp babies

 

[Thespammailaccount]

Baby harlequin shrimp

 

[Mahogany1985]

thanks very much everyone. really helpful!

 

[Mahogany1985]

When the female is almost ready to give birth she swells up because the eggs are taking in water and hydrating

Thanks again. can you confirm the colour of the eggs? some people say they're bright orange but that's not what they look like on Chuck's page. I think they're grey...

 

[Thespammailaccount]

Thanks again. can you confirm the colour of the eggs? some people say they're bright orange but that's not what they look like on Chuck's page. I think they're grey...

I have been lucky enough to see the babies twice now. The first time was right before she gave birth and they looked transparent and a light gray. They were swollen or fluffy. I read somewhere that right before birth the eggs rehydrate with water and makes the female look much larger like in the picture attached. In the picture attached was the night she released the larvae. The second time I saw them was a few days ago and she has about a week left before she releases the eggs and the eggs looked like perfectly aligned rows of dark grey dots

 

[Thespammailaccount]

Thanks again. can you confirm the colour of the eggs? some people say they're bright orange but that's not what they look like on Chuck's page. I think they're grey...

Picture of the female taken this morning. She is not swollen yet like in the two picture above. Right before birth she swells up I think because the eggs hydrate with water. She has about a week more to go before she releases the larvae

 

[Thespammailaccount]

Thanks again. can you confirm the colour of the eggs? some people say they're bright orange but that's not what they look like on Chuck's page. I think they're grey...

The eggs are this color. Looks grey. She gave birth this morning. Click on the photos to zoom in.

 

[Mahogany1985]

Thanks so much for all these fantastic pictures and videos. It seems like your shrimps are incredibly good in front of camera!
Would you be able to drop me an email? [email protected]? I'd love to discuss in more detail. If your shrimps are reliably producing eggs it would be really interesting to know if we could film them using a local cameraman in Houston. TBD further though. Appreciate you might not be keen on that! Thanks again, James

 

[Thespammailaccount]

Thanks so much for all these fantastic pictures and videos. It seems like your shrimps are incredibly good in front of camera!
Would you be able to drop me an email? [email protected]? I'd love to discuss in more detail. If your shrimps are reliably producing eggs it would be really interesting to know if we could film them using a local cameraman in Houston. TBD further though. Appreciate you might not be keen on that! Thanks again, James

Absolutely!!!!!! I work the night shift tonight but will email you later tonight!!!!