A Shrimp Diary.....

[milalic]

Keep us updated...

 

[MoreCoffee]

It's all gone wrong !

Having been away for the weekend and then away mid week with work, it looks like both tanks have suffered the same problem. I cant find anything alive in either tank. This attempt is over - - Failed

I'm not 100% sure what it was, but I'm guessing it was water quality. Everything seemed to be going quite well until I had to spend some time away from home. Not being there to check things and do regular water changes seems to have been critical. I always knew it could go very wrong, very quick, but I have to admit to being quite dissapointed

Still, towards the end of Oct when I know I'm going to be around for a while I can always trya gain, assuming I have some shrimp carrying eggs about that time.

Thanks for following this and many thanks for the encouraging words.


Cheers
Al

 

[iSnail]

Hi Al

I'm so sorry to hear that it's not all gone to plan It's all part of a learning curve. Hope you have better luck next time and become one of the few successful breeders

Best of luck

 

[Liam]

Sorry about the disappointment, too bad, I was rooting for you and the little guys, you did great work and I am sure if you try again it will work. It was a great effort. Well done despite the result.

 

[three-fingers]

This is quite emotional for me even just reading it . Better luck next time though, you gave it a good shot .

 

[MoreCoffee]

Thanks all,

Yeah to be honest I was quite disappointed when I had to break down the tanks and was really tempted to get the 2 or 3 females still with eggs into the hatching tank and start again, however as I'm away on holiday for a week in mid Oct and also have another possible work trip coming up it would probably end up in the same restult

However during this attempt I've picked up quite a few things that seem to have been working OK.

> Isolating the females early can lead to frustration waiting for weeks for something to happen !

> The hatching tank needs to be small. Even a 5 gal tank is way too large when it comes to syphoning out the larvae. I should have listened to Bloo on this one and saved myself a lot of effort

> Marine water of SG 30 to 35ppt seems to work fine.

> Purchasing marine water (made from RO water) from my LFS was easy, reliable and cheap. It meant I didnt have to worry about buying any kit for mixing & measuring my own.

> I had the best success when leaving the larvae in fresh water for 24hrs then move straight to full salinity salt water. No need to do a gradual move to saltwater !

> Kent Phytoplex worked fine as a source of phytoplankton to make my 'green water'.

> Keeping a light over the tank 24 hrs per day seems to work.

> Maintaining water quality by regular water changes is vital to keeping them going . When I was away, I was unable to do the water changes. I'M FAIRLY SURE THIS IS WHY I FAILED !
Before the tanks crashed I had been doing 20% water changes twice per week. The larvae were active and growing well, right up until things went wrong.

when I first posted this diary, I didnt realise there would be as much interest as there has been.
The positive comments have been very welcome. Once I'm back from holiday towards the end of Oct, I'll be looking to see if any of my 'ladies' are carrying eggs and I'll give this another try - - - Hopefully with better luck !

Note: As something of a consolation.
One of my 2 surviving Crystal Red Shrimp is carrying eggs. So one of the small tanks has been setup as a hatching / nursery and they have both been moved there. CRS can hatch and grow in freshwater, I'll see if I can do any better with them for now !

 

[three-fingers]

Cool, i think i'll give it a try if my amano shrimp ever have eggs, i'll buy the water from the lfs and i'll only use one tank though.

Let us know how the CRS work out .

 

[iSnail]

That is a very nice summary that you've listed here. It's made me very tempted at trying with my newly berried amanos..... but... I simply don't have the room nor equipments for them

I feel excited just hearing about your CRS. Must keep us updated with pictures

Good luck!

 

[Bloo]

Sorry I've not replied sooner, but I've been away !

So sorry to hear that it went all wrong How many days from hatching was that ?

I need some time again to try too - it's a lot of effort and if you know you're not going to be around for the entire period and into metamorphosis, there's little point in starting the project.

Better luck next time

 

[MoreCoffee]

Sorry I've not replied sooner, but I've been away !

So sorry to hear that it went all wrong How many days from hatching was that ?

I need some time again to try too - it's a lot of effort and if you know you're not going to be around for the entire period and into metamorphosis, there's little point in starting the project.

Better luck next time

Hi Bloo,

Good to hear from you again .... well it was 2 weeks from hatched to despatched !
I think that's about the same as your try. I'm pretty sure it was the water quality that caused problems, whilst I was home, I was checking the tanks everyday and things were looking good. I was actually getting quite hopefull of some success .... amazing how quickly things can change.

I'll certainly be having another go once I'm back from holiday. But before that I'm going to have another look at my setup and see it I can improve on things.

..... 'A Shrimp Diary Vol 2' will hopefully have more success

Al

 

[voo]

Sorry to bring up an old post, but better than starting a new one i think.
My shrimp is full of eggs and as i was folloing this when it happened, it's made me wonder about having a go.

Just a few questions regarding your setup.
How long did you leave the lights on for each day? One of the sites you mentioned said to leave the lights on 24hrs a day.

Also, would this stuff be the same as the kent stuff you used, only it won't need culturing, so i could feed daily ?

I only noticed the eggs last week so i think i still have some time left to get prepared.
Thanks!

 

[MoreCoffee]

Sorry to bring up an old post, but better than starting a new one i think.
My shrimp is full of eggs and as i was folloing this when it happened, it's made me wonder about having a go.

Just a few questions regarding your setup.
How long did you leave the lights on for each day? One of the sites you mentioned said to leave the lights on 24hrs a day.

Also, would this stuff be the same as the kent stuff you used, only it won't need culturing, so i could feed daily ?

I only noticed the eggs last week so i think i still have some time left to get prepared.
Thanks!

Voo,

Sorry for the delay ... I've not been checking the forum recently (been busy). Replied to your PM, but thought I'd post here anyway !

I left the lights on 24 hours a day and didn't notice any problems doing this.

The phytoplankton you linked to looks OK and is certainly cheap enough. But just to be clear, the Kent Phytoplex doesn't need to be cultured. It's a mix of 3 different phytoplankton types that can be dosed daily in the same way as you intend to use the one from ebay.

If your shrimp have only just started carrying eggs (or have you only just noticed them !) then you could have a few weeks to wait before anything happens. This can be very frustrating, but it will happen !
Keep a good eye on the shrimp until you isolate them, I experienced some other fish trying to eat the eggs from the females and know on somebody else who saw exactly the same ( both times it was gouramis).

My attempt failed, but I did learn a few things from it ......

30 - 35ppm saltwater seems to work well.

A small isolation/hatching tank will save you lots of time and frustration. Bloo recommended this, but I still went for a 5gal tank and it was waaaaay too large. In the end I used a 20cm cube and that was fine.

The water quality of your saltwater tanks is probably the most important factor. I'm sure the drop in quality was the reason mine all died. If things go wrong, they go wrong quickly. You dont get any warning signs that the water quality is dropping. So keep on top of the water changes.

Good luck and keep us posted on progress !

 

[voo]

Thanks for your reply and PM.

As it's getting colder now i was wondering if it'd be possible to float a tub in my aquarium and keep the hatched shrimp in there, so that it stays warm. This would mean that the lights go out at night though. Would this be a problem? Or if i had a separate setup would the heat from a desklamp be enough to keep the water warm?

I know nothing about the phytoplankton and i might enquire about it in the marine section. You said the kent phytoplex doesnt need to be cultured, meaning it's already green water. However does this mean that the phytoplankton is dead? If it is dead, does this mean the water quality is poorer? I was thinking it was something that needed to be cultured

I will keep a close eye on her, but it's only been 10 days since i noticed the eggs which is giving me some time to get prepared. I have harlequins, tetra and platties in the tank with her and none have ever paid any interest in her so far, so i'll keep watching to see if there's any change.

I was thinking of putting the shrimp in a breeding new until she gives birth. I dont know if this would be any good for her, or if the zoes will be so small they can get through the net, but the net seems quite fine. I also have a brine shrimp filter which i'm hoping will save me the trouble of using a pipette to get them out.

I have my salt ready, i have a brackish tank. However i thought you used SG 1.023? i read somewhere of SG 1.030 ? Or was that 30 ppt / ppm ? I dont get all this... Still, i have time to find out.

Did you test the water when everything went wrong? Or tested whilst they were alive? How often did you do the water changes? Shrimps aren't really that messy, but then again there's quite a lot of zoes.

I'll keep you informed if i do decide to try it out, but it'll be a few weeks yet. Thanks once again for your help!

 

[MoreCoffee]

Thanks for your reply and PM.

As it's getting colder now i was wondering if it'd be possible to float a tub in my aquarium and keep the hatched shrimp in there, so that it stays warm. This would mean that the lights go out at night though. Would this be a problem? Or if i had a separate setup would the heat from a desklamp be enough to keep the water warm?

I know nothing about the phytoplankton and i might enquire about it in the marine section. You said the kent phytoplex doesnt need to be cultured, meaning it's already green water. However does this mean that the phytoplankton is dead? If it is dead, does this mean the water quality is poorer? I was thinking it was something that needed to be cultured

I will keep a close eye on her, but it's only been 10 days since i noticed the eggs which is giving me some time to get prepared. I have harlequins, tetra and platties in the tank with her and none have ever paid any interest in her so far, so i'll keep watching to see if there's any change.

I was thinking of putting the shrimp in a breeding new until she gives birth. I dont know if this would be any good for her, or if the zoes will be so small they can get through the net, but the net seems quite fine. I also have a brine shrimp filter which i'm hoping will save me the trouble of using a pipette to get them out.

I have my salt ready, i have a brackish tank. However i thought you used SG 1.023? i read somewhere of SG 1.030 ? Or was that 30 ppt / ppm ? I dont get all this... Still, i have time to find out.

Did you test the water when everything went wrong? Or tested whilst they were alive? How often did you do the water changes? Shrimps aren't really that messy, but then again there's quite a lot of zoes.

I'll keep you informed if i do decide to try it out, but it'll be a few weeks yet. Thanks once again for your help!

Voo,

None of the tanks I used in my breeding setup had any heaters in them. They were all in a room that was kept at a comfortable temp and all had a desk lamp over them. I didnt see any problems with water temp.
To start with I had mine in the conservatory and did notice a large temp swing between day/night, moving them to a more indoors cured this. I suppose it depends on the ambient room temp where you are keeping them.

I think the Kent Phytoplex would be very similar to the one you are looking to order. All I know is that for the first 3 weeks the zoes seemed to thrive on it and had doubled in size !

If using any form of 'net' to seperate the shrimp, I think the zoes would get through just about any normal netting. They are very small ! I could easily collect 15 - 20 in a 10ml pipette.

As for the salinity of your water, I did use 1.023SG. That equates to about 33ppt (parts per Thousand)
1.030 would probably be well off the scale !!!

Here is a link to the Salinity SG / ppt conversion table I posted on the first page of this thread.

SG Conversion table

As for water tests .... to be honest I didnt really do any. I just controlled the water quality with plenty of 10 - 20 % water changes each week, the theory being that regular water changes would prevent any contamination from building up. Only when I missed a couple (being away) did things go wrong.

One of the reasons I think water changes are important is that the tanks are small and they have no filtration, only a small air stone to give some gentle circulation. If you use an airstone, be sure to restrict the flow somehow .. otherwise your zoes are in for a very rough ride !

All of the above are the things I tried .... Feel free to ask any further questions, but remember, my attempt failed ! If you try something else and it works please let us all know ......

Good luck

 

[voo]

Thanks again for your reply and time, it's much appreciated.


At the moment i'm just worried about the temperature. I'm thinking of keeping the tanks in our spare room. windows are kept shut and so it shouldnt get much of a breeze. I'm gonna set up a test tank to see what the water temps are like. I'm just nervous with cold weather coming.

I've found a small tank, 4 litres. Would this be ok to hold the shrimp until she releases the eggs? I dont want to put her in there and her die from ammonia or something so maybe daily water changes would be in order?

I was thinking of maybe trying to get a tank cycled with the salt water and adding a very small amount of ammonia, maybe to just 1ppm. This way it might be cycled in 2-3 weeks when the zoes would be ready to be transferred and might help the water quality? Maybe a sponge filter or filter wool wrapped around the airstone?

The last few days i've noticed a change in her behaviour. She was always out in the morning, scavaging as they do, however these last 2 days she hasnt been out much and stays hidden. I have a real hard time trying to find her, but she sometimes comes out around this time when they get their 2nd feed.



Thanks