I went to clean out a 3d printed sort of kreisel shape that I was trying to raise shrimp larvae in, and behind the light blocker on the outside of it, there was a mass of eggs. There are a few fish in the tank it was in, but the only adults where there were more than one fish are masked gobies, and as a best guess given the others, that's my tentative ID.
I'm pretty well setup for an attempt at raising the fry, but I was wondering if anyone could offer any specifics on some of the basics: preferred foods, flow/space requirements, and fry behavior (how they strike, whether they gather in a certain way, how attracted to light they are, etc.).
I managed to find a vessel where I could keep them as they hatch without trying to scrape them off the light blocker (physically large), and best I can tell, many are fertilized but were probably deposited on different days, since there are clearly some near hatch as well as most at much earlier stages. I've also got a bubbler going by them for a bit of circulation, and I'll see when things hatch, but what sorts of foods do you think they will fare best with? Do I need to block out all light from the sides (seems important for some larvae)? How long from hatch will it take for them to eat, and how long of a window do they need to eat within? Any benefit to offering phytoplankton?
My preliminary search for info says hatch time is around 6 days, but as said, I wouldn't be surprised if larvae were free swimming tomorrow. Exciting! And hopefully not an isolated incedent (though I will need to find something else they can spawn on), but since I've got a setup basically ready to go, if someone can lend their experience, I can give these little guys the best shot from the get go.
I've got apocyclops, tigriopus, and a very limited supply of parvocalanus available as foods, as well as all the small TDO sizes and live phytoplankton. I've got a few size and shape vessels with full light blocking from the sides and dim overhead, always-on moonlights. I think my basic approach will just be feeding whatever I can in a shotgun approach, though only smaller copepods that will fit through a 250um screen, maybe starting as soon as I see some hatch.
As a reference, those lines behind the eggs are the layers of the 3d printed part they're on, and my settings were 200um layer height, so these eggs are less than 1mm in diameter, and the larvae will probably hatch out at around 2mm long (which is consistent with the info I found).
I'm pretty well setup for an attempt at raising the fry, but I was wondering if anyone could offer any specifics on some of the basics: preferred foods, flow/space requirements, and fry behavior (how they strike, whether they gather in a certain way, how attracted to light they are, etc.).
I managed to find a vessel where I could keep them as they hatch without trying to scrape them off the light blocker (physically large), and best I can tell, many are fertilized but were probably deposited on different days, since there are clearly some near hatch as well as most at much earlier stages. I've also got a bubbler going by them for a bit of circulation, and I'll see when things hatch, but what sorts of foods do you think they will fare best with? Do I need to block out all light from the sides (seems important for some larvae)? How long from hatch will it take for them to eat, and how long of a window do they need to eat within? Any benefit to offering phytoplankton?
My preliminary search for info says hatch time is around 6 days, but as said, I wouldn't be surprised if larvae were free swimming tomorrow. Exciting! And hopefully not an isolated incedent (though I will need to find something else they can spawn on), but since I've got a setup basically ready to go, if someone can lend their experience, I can give these little guys the best shot from the get go.
I've got apocyclops, tigriopus, and a very limited supply of parvocalanus available as foods, as well as all the small TDO sizes and live phytoplankton. I've got a few size and shape vessels with full light blocking from the sides and dim overhead, always-on moonlights. I think my basic approach will just be feeding whatever I can in a shotgun approach, though only smaller copepods that will fit through a 250um screen, maybe starting as soon as I see some hatch.
As a reference, those lines behind the eggs are the layers of the 3d printed part they're on, and my settings were 200um layer height, so these eggs are less than 1mm in diameter, and the larvae will probably hatch out at around 2mm long (which is consistent with the info I found).