Shrimp breeding setup

[Brian W]

My shrimp table setup

The rock I pulled from one of my tanks.

Anyone here currently breed shrimp? I setup a temporary 10 gal tank with a rock from my main tank and added 5 peppermint to it. The goal was to reduce the aiptasia in my main tank rock by rock, then maintain with F aiptasia.

Since I started this experiment I have grown attached to watching the shrimp interact with eachother. I have noticed that 2 of the 5 shrimp have eggs. I want to try my hand as raising the babies. I already culture brine shrimp, rotifers, copepods and phytoplankton for my clownfish broodstock tank.

I've watched several videos and read articles about breeding peppermint shrimp specific. I'm just wondering does anybody currently breed saltwater shrimp. Would you care to share your setup and post tips?

Breeding saltwater shrimp seems to be a super specific niche that not a lot of people really do it compared to the freshwater side of the hobby.

 

[KrisReef]

Doesn't look like they will starve. :)

Bump! Good luck with this endeavor.

 

[Eatfrenchfries]

Usually out of a shrimp pair the female will molt and be receptive. If successful she won't molt again and then lay eggs. Use a larval trap to take the larvae and put them in a separate tank. Feed appropriate sized foods and size up the larvae through each stage.

Not sure how many stages peppermint shrimp have but if it's close to 24, goodluck.

 

[shootingstar_reef]

I used a 5gal bucket with a fist-sized piece of live rock that I put an airstone over. Nothing fancy. They will eat brine shrimp (or rotifers) the first few days. After maybe a week I believe some have moved them to small dry foods at this point. Add a slight bit of phyto to tint the water. This only serves to make the prey observable to the larvae, and after a week you can stop.

I did a 1-gallon water change roughly every other day. At about 6wks they should settle. At first, you can add them to a couple gallons of water, then add a gallon every other day until the bucket is full. This should delay a "real" water change for the first week, when they're the smallest.

Where I ran into trouble: When they got bigger (3wk-ish) I overfed them; the nitrates spiked, and I lost my culture. Additionally, egg-release time is 11p-5a, so unless you wanna stay up all night, just get/make a larvae trap. Changing water is really tricky because I would always pick up some larvae. I would use a phonelight to locate the larve and use a coral-feeder to pick them up and put them back in the bucket.

If you head over to the breeding forum, I think somewhere I posted links to a couple of research groups that give much more detail than I did about their breeding setup. Since these shrimp are all hermaphrodites, if you have a pair there will always be someone carrying eggs so you'll have plenty of chances to try. Good luck! keep us posted (with pics).

 

[Brian W]

I used a 5gal bucket with a fist-sized piece of live rock that I put an airstone over. Nothing fancy. They will eat brine shrimp (or rotifers) the first few days. After maybe a week I believe some have moved them to small dry foods at this point. Add a slight bit of phyto to tint the water. This only serves to make the prey observable to the larvae, and after a week you can stop.

I did a 1-gallon water change roughly every other day. At about 6wks they should settle. At first, you can add them to a couple gallons of water, then add a gallon every other day until the bucket is full. This should delay a "real" water change for the first week, when they're the smallest.

Where I ran into trouble: When they got bigger (3wk-ish) I overfed them; the nitrates spiked, and I lost my culture. Additionally, egg-release time is 11p-5a, so unless you wanna stay up all night, just get/make a larvae trap. Changing water is really tricky because I would always pick up some larvae. I would use a phonelight to locate the larve and use a coral-feeder to pick them up and put them back in the bucket.

If you head over to the breeding forum, I think somewhere I posted links to a couple of research groups that give much more detail than I did about their breeding setup. Since these shrimp are all hermaphrodites, if you have a pair there will always be someone carrying eggs so you'll have plenty of chances to try. Good luck! keep us posted (with pics).

Thank you so much for this info. I have a couple BRS dosing pumps I was planning to use to setup auto water changes. On my inlets I will be putting rotifer floss so the larve do not get pulled out. The pumps are only 1.1ml per minute so not much suction happening anyways. I will look into a larval trap and check out the breeding forum. According to my calculations the larve should be released between 8/16 - 8/20. That's if they actually release them at the 8-10 day mark.

 

[Brian W]

Here is a snapshot from a video I took earlier in the week. I will get my macro lens out and take some really nice pictures today.

 

[Brian W]

Just snapped this close up with my phone and magnifying glass. They are definitely eggs.

 

[shootingstar_reef]

yep! they're really small though. you have plenty of time. You'll know when they're about to be released because they'll get pretty big and look like they're about to fall off anyway. If you can't find the post let me know and i'll send the info

 

[Brian W]

yep! they're really small though. you have plenty of time. You'll know when they're about to be released because they'll get pretty big and look like they're about to fall off anyway. If you can't find the post let me know and i'll send the info

I've read through some posts this morning but not sure if any of them were the one you are referring to.

 

[shootingstar_reef]

Breeding lysmata

Hey everyone, One day in the future, I'll try breeding some lysmata sp. shrimp...so I did a bit of digging in the literature and found a few scientific articles. The dissertation one is pretty thorough. Anyway, I thought I'd share them in case anyone else wanted to take a crack at it! Remember...

www.reef2reef.com

Along with the iconic book "how to train your peppermint shrimp" it's a little aged now, but some good nuggets of info in there

 

[Brian W]

Breeding lysmata

Hey everyone, One day in the future, I'll try breeding some lysmata sp. shrimp...so I did a bit of digging in the literature and found a few scientific articles. The dissertation one is pretty thorough. Anyway, I thought I'd share them in case anyone else wanted to take a crack at it! Remember...

www.reef2reef.com

Along with the iconic book "how to train your peppermint shrimp" it's a little aged now, but some good nuggets of info in there

Thank you so much. I'll pick up the book. Another one to add to the collection.

 

[Brian W]

So I have some pretty amazing news. One of the shrimp laid her babies tonight. I also see that she molted as well. I took some cool videos with my macro lens but I will have to post it tomorrow. This is the best I can do for now.

There are a lot of larve in this tank. Most are on the wall to the right and just near the waters surface. It's just incredible how many she released.

 

[monkeyCmonkeyDo]

Do you have one of those in tank breeding nets. Like a separation box kinda
Do you use an flow or hang on back Filtration or only water changes?

I think u got this if u can keep it all contained and supply a food source for them to grow on.
W00pwoop right on kudos to u in your endeavors
D

 

[Brian W]

I do not have a net box. I put the 1st mana shrimp in a seperate tank so she could lay them in the tank. She just molted this evening so I did not want to risk hurting her, but I will put her back in the the main community tank tomorrow. I'm hoping she does not eat too many of the larve before I move her.

Currently I am just using a filter sponge. I will be doing daily water changes. I'm not sure how long or how much, but I will research it in the morning.

The only thing I'm worried about is tge food source. I have a culture or rotifers I fed them tonight. I started a batch of brine shrimp also. I will start another one in the morning and then another on Wednesday. I believe a daily harvest will suffice. I read that I may need to feed up to 5 times a day. Not sure how long, so I need to read the article again.

I do have another shrimp that is about 1-2 days behind thus female. Meaning I saw eggs in the first female, then a day or two later I noticed eggs in a 2nd shrimp. I'm hoping the 2nd shrimp will not lay tonight because she is still in the community tank.

Well, that is all fir tonight. I need to get some rest.

If anyone has any suggestions, tips or anything please feel free to add your advice or questions. This is my first time trying to raise peppermint shrimp.

 

[Brian W]

As promised. Here is a better video and photo.

 

[DaJMasta]

Good luck!

My assumption is that rotifers will likely be too small to be adequate food for long, so I would try to start something else as well - baby brine shrimp are probably the simplest and fastest option, though live copepods may be a more nutritious option for future attempts.

Lysmata shrimp seem to always spawn around lights out (9:30-10:30pm in my tank), and they try to climb up to a high spot and then let the larvae go. They will basically always molt later that night, and I believe fertilization of the eggs happens during the molting process, so if you're looking for a constant supply of larvae, it may be better to leave the shrimp in the main tank. My approach is to turn off the pumps for that hour or so, black out the room as much as possible, and then have a light source somewhere, and the larvae will all crowd towards it (plus most larvae of anything else that spawns), and you can collect them in an air powered collector, with a fine sieve (maybe 200-750 micron), or even a turkey baster.

As said, they don't really eat phytoplankton, but there's some evidence in papers for there to be better feeding response with some present (won't make a difference in whether anything survives from the batch, but probably increases survival percentage in a successfully raised batch), and getting an appropriate amount of flow could potentially be tricky. It seems they do well with lower flow situations, but you want to especially avoid flow that pushes them into a wall or corner, as they are not strong swimmers.

It's also critically important to manage light into your vessel. The larvae are attracted even to dim lights, and multiple light sources will confuse them and cause them to run into walls or other things (and very bright light causes them to spin in spirals), so I think an ideal setup in a glass tank is actually just to black out the sides (using something removable if you want to look in sometimes), and then having at least a dim always-on light overtop. During brighter lighting during the day they will be less confused by room lights and things from the side, but at night it is important to really only offer one light source, since it is their primary mode of navigation/orientation.

There are tons of larval stages (something like one a molt), so you should start to see some differentiation in shape 3-4 days in, and then every couple days beyond that. Some of the stages are more subtle, but there are papers showing differences in zoea and under moderate magnification it should be apparent.

 

[Brian W]

Good luck!

My assumption is that rotifers will likely be too small to be adequate food for long, so I would try to start something else as well - baby brine shrimp are probably the simplest and fastest option, though live copepods may be a more nutritious option for future attempts.

Lysmata shrimp seem to always spawn around lights out (9:30-10:30pm in my tank), and they try to climb up to a high spot and then let the larvae go. They will basically always molt later that night, and I believe fertilization of the eggs happens during the molting process, so if you're looking for a constant supply of larvae, it may be better to leave the shrimp in the main tank. My approach is to turn off the pumps for that hour or so, black out the room as much as possible, and then have a light source somewhere, and the larvae will all crowd towards it (plus most larvae of anything else that spawns), and you can collect them in an air powered collector, with a fine sieve (maybe 200-750 micron), or even a turkey baster.

As said, they don't really eat phytoplankton, but there's some evidence in papers for there to be better feeding response with some present (won't make a difference in whether anything survives from the batch, but probably increases survival percentage in a successfully raised batch), and getting an appropriate amount of flow could potentially be tricky. It seems they do well with lower flow situations, but you want to especially avoid flow that pushes them into a wall or corner, as they are not strong swimmers.

It's also critically important to manage light into your vessel. The larvae are attracted even to dim lights, and multiple light sources will confuse them and cause them to run into walls or other things (and very bright light causes them to spin in spirals), so I think an ideal setup in a glass tank is actually just to black out the sides (using something removable if you want to look in sometimes), and then having at least a dim always-on light overtop. During brighter lighting during the day they will be less confused by room lights and things from the side, but at night it is important to really only offer one light source, since it is their primary mode of navigation/orientation.

There are tons of larval stages (something like one a molt), so you should start to see some differentiation in shape 3-4 days in, and then every couple days beyond that. Some of the stages are more subtle, but there are papers showing differences in zoea and under moderate magnification it should be apparent.

Thank you so much for your advice an d time. I really appreciate it. I only added the phytoplankton to potentially keep the rotifers alive long enough in the larve tank, so they can find and eat them.

I do plan to feed them bbs, she just caught me off guard last night. I had a small culture going so I fed them what was left of my current bbs culture. I setup 1 new culture last night and 2 additional bbs cultures this morning.

I will modify their tank to setup their lighting properly. I assume it will need to be setup similarly to clownfish fry. Blacked out on all sides and a small dim light on top.

I have another shrimp that should lay pretty soon, so I will be ready for this clutch. I also found a 2nd shrimp that had eggs just a few moments ago. So I currently have a 10 gal tank full of marve and 2 more shrimp with eggs. I do not want to get too ahead of myself, so I only plan to raise 1 clutch at a time until I get more experience under my belt.

Here are my bbs culture containers. I saw this on a clownfish breeders YouTube channel. So far it has been the best setup I've used over the years.

 

[Brian W]

I managed to get a better macro video today.

 

[Brian W]

New book finally arrived. Shrimp larve are on day 4. Not much has changed other than they appear slightly larger. I believe today they will molt for the first time.

 

[Brian W]

Day 7. Some of them have gotten their 2 large legs (do not know the proper name). I believe I still have at least 75% of the clutch going strong and doing well.