A short introduction of myself; my name is Chad Vossen; I’m 20 years old and live in MN.
I have successfully raised 3 peppermint shrimp, with more to settle soon. I could have had more success, but I had two massive die offs that were human error.
My larval shrimp tank is very basic; it’s a 10-gallon with an air stone in the back corner. All the sides are covered with black foam boards that are held in place by magnets so that I can easily remove them for viewing or cleaning needs and then easily place back. I did not use a heater this time, but I’m sure the shrimp would have grown faster if I had. All the water is from water changes on the reef tank. Every 3-4 days I will use a magnetic cleaner to clean the bottom of the tank, and once every week or two I’ll clean the sides of the aquarium.
Water changes I think were critical in this setup. I feed the shrimp one or two times per day and a lot of food goes to waste. I made my own siphon tool with 20 inches of rigid airline with 6 ft of silicone airline. Every evening I siphon the uneaten food off the bottom, being careful not to siphon a shrimp larvae. Each time I remove about 1 gallon of water. Once or twice a week I will do a 3-4 gallon water change on my reef aquarium, and I add this “waste water” into a tub over the larval rearing tank. The water in this tub drips into the larval tank. It takes about 12-15 hours to drip 2 gallons of water.
Feeding has been much easier for the peppermint shrimp than I had thought. From the reading I have done, I thought that I would have to feed baby brine shrimp as the first food. I did feed baby brine shrimp, but when I tossed in a second batch of peppermint shrimp larvae, these did just fine eating cyclopeeze. The primary foods I feed my older shrimp larvae are
frozen brine shrimp and
frozen mysis shrimp. The younger larvae are fed cyclopeeze until they are eating frozen brine shrimp. I continue to supplement cyclopeeze throughout their development. I have tried other foods such as beefheart (they would eat, but quickly dropped it), bloodworms (they ate this food fine), pellets (sank to fast, wouldn’t hold shape long enough for shrimp to eat), and flakes (shrimp ate, but flakes sink to fast). One of the greatest things I found about the peppermint shrimp larvae is that they will pick food up off the bottom of the tank if it isn’t rotting. So I could feed heavily, and the shrimp have food available until I siphon it out.
Fragility of the shrimp larvae has been a big issue for me. When they are younger, their arms don’t break off as easily. Though when they get into their last few stages before settling, they seem to break legs often. They need to grow lost legs back before they can settle. Having the air bubbles in the corner helps a lot, but they never fail to find the bubbles and get caught in them.
I think that covers how I did this, now for pictures!
