True Peppermint Shrimp Pregnant.

[cdemeritt]

Day 2: update:
They young shrimp are still mostly pelagic, however will occationally pause their free float when the come in contact with the tank walls, and while it would be foolish to believe that all the young have survived so far, a significant quanity can still be found.

Discription: They are now about 1/4 inch in lenght and look like tiny adult shrimp. they are mostly clear, but some segments are white. 2 sets of legs and a set of pincers are visiable, and the legs are moving such a way as to help them swim. They are feeding, as their stomachs are clear and a visiable change in them have been observed mainly after feeding. What they are feeding on however, I'm not sure. I've stopped feeding greenwater as I believe this is too small. I've fed decapsulated brine shrimp, which have now hatched, the "spray dried" phytos (partical size unknown), and a product known as "reef bugs" which is promoted as a baby seahorse food, but is basically a yeast and bacteria product. I'm not too thrilled with using the second two products, as the biofilter hasn't been established yet. The little shrimp are unlikely to produce enough ammonia to foul the tank, but rotting food might cause problems, and not sure how yeast is going to play into this all.

that's all for tonight, keep you posted.
Chris

[cdemeritt]

Day 3: the Fry have molted again, and the eyes have developed very much, and now are on stalks and have a "hammerhead" like appearance. might be overfeeding.

Day 4: Due to the amount of food being fed, the tank has taken on a very cloudy appearance. preformed a careful 10% waterchange to help clean it up. first witnessed agression towards the brine shrimp larve, not sure if it was a attempt to feed on the BSL or just a "get out of my way" shove. Note: All the decapsulated eggs of the BS have now hatched. BSL out number PSL by about 100 to 1. the good thing, they are cleaning up the uneaten food. the bad thing, they are eating all the food. I hope the PSL can still get enough to eat. Maybe next time wait on adding BSE.

Day 5: The PSL are still growing and healthy and well fed, looking so far. The BSL numbers have fallen greatly, still not sure the PSL are eating them or not. They are still only 1/8-1/4 inch in length, and while still having a slight appearance of spun glass, are beefing up and don't look so fragile. They are becoming better swimmers, with more control than just drifting on the currents. some red now is visible on the body, but are still too small to get a good photo of. just a blur. preformed an additional WC and plan to do so about daily for a while.

Chris

[ChilisREasy]

glad to hear that the peppermints are growing ! how many is there ?

[cdemeritt]

Well it is now Day nine. My first attempt started to go real bad about day 7 and I called it on day 10. So far so good this time.

It is hard to say how many, The numbers have definately fell. at first there were about 25 estimate, and you could see about 10 at any one time. Their numbers have fallen, down to only being able to see 4 in a single look, so I'd estimate about 6-10 total. trying to count mostly clear bits of floating young shimp, not so easy, they keep moving, so it's hard to say if they are different shrimp of the same ones in different locations. Everything I've read says the next week is one of the critical points, that often lead to total failure. But as long as I get past day 10, I'll be happy.
not too much change in them so far still tiny little wisps of glass. looking a bit less fragil though.

Thanks for asking,
Chris

[Loverotties]

Good to hear things are ok.

[cdemeritt]

Day 10: had to capture all the shrimplings, and remove them from thier tank so I could really clean out the debrite that had started to cause the water to foul even with daily changes. vacuumed the bottom of the tank, amazing at what came off the bottom, then changed about 40% of the water. There has to be a easier way of doing this, and am trying to figure out how to add better filtering that won't harm the fry. If I come up with anything, I'll let you know.
As I had to capture them all, I got a count, only 6 remain. but that is still 6 more than the inital attempt at this point, and they seem to be good and healthy so far.

[cdemeritt]

Day 11: New fun development, The shrimplings are now large enough to capture larger food. Last night I tried something new. I loaded a Eyedropper with food, and as each shrimp passed by I puffed a little bit of food in it's direction. I dissolved some frozen cyclop-eeze into some water, them puffed it at them. They caught it and began to feed. as the cyclop-eeze is red, it was easy to make sure they all got some. easy way to cut back on the amount of food put into the tank, and slows the fouling process, however, I expect it might grow old quickly. only one didn't go for it, and I assume it's just not hungry at the moment.

[Twitterbait]

must see pics or video

[cdemeritt]

must see pics or video

Sorry, I've tried to get pics several times, however, I bought my camera back in 1999, and while it works ok, it isn't capable of getting a decent pic of something so small and clear. All I get is a blurry smudge. I have plans on purchasing a decent microscope that has a usb camera attachment. I then can use a specimen dish to get a good picture, but that won't be for at least 2 months. need to get some bills paid first. I wish I could get you some pics though.

Chris

[ChilisREasy]

nice to hear there growing good 25 more days & they should be pretty much full grown !

[cdemeritt]

25 more days & they should be pretty much full grown

Yeah, but that is still a long way to go. Some of the stories from people say that the 2 week mark is one of the most difficult points to cross. It is coming up quickly. I hope that with yesterdays cleaning of the tank and water change that the water quality will stay good, and I'll get there. at least with the point feeding, the amount of food added to the tank is much less than before, and that should help keep water quality up. I still am adding additional so that there is something in the tank at all times.

Anyone have any Idea on the timeframe before they "drop" from the water colume and become benthic? Once they are on the bottom, it'll be a bit easier to do maintenance without the worry of harming them.

[cdemeritt]

Day 13: Some interesting developments I should have reported several days ago, but just didn't have the time. First, it seems that not all the shrimp are growing at the same rate. Over the last four days some of the shrimp have developed a longer set of leg/or pincers, not really sure which. they are very funny looking, as they are longer than the shrimp themselves. They at this point seem to cause the shrimp to be off balance, and seem to cause them to tumble a little as the shrimp try to swim, Kind of like a 5'1 teenager suddenly grows a pair of size 12 feet, get real clutzy. At first only one of the shrimp developed this at that was 4 days ago, at first I thought I might have a mutant, but then slowely some of the others have developed these as well. Some still have not developed these as yet.

I could only confirm 4 shrimp today, but am still hopefull that the other 2 are still with me, as the 4 seemed to be becoming more benthic, hanging onto the side walls. maybe the other two dropped to the bottom when I was looking for them.

for the next spawning, I have thoughts on how to hopefully improve the initial survival rate, and that is to catch as many as possible out of the spawning tank and for the first day or so keep them in a smaller quart canning jar, this way improving the chances for the newly hatched shrimp to capture food, while using less foodstuff. of course having more correct foodstuffs on hand should definately improve the odds.

[cdemeritt]

Day 15: Have confirmed that there are at least 5 shrimp in the tank. Not sure, but the 5th one may have been molting, hard to say, never having witnessed a molt. 2 weeks down 3 to go. I've been trying since hatchout to get pictures, but due to a old camera, they just look like smudges when photos are taken. I tried again today and got a couple that are a little better, but not by much. but at least something is identifyable in them.

[cdemeritt]

Well aint this a interesting development: My peppermints are with eggs again. This is just 15 and 18 days after their previous release, and only 12 days since they were put back together in the same tank. the plan is to move the adults to small quart size jars for hatchout, then after a couple days or so move them to the growout tank. But with older shrimp arlready in the tank, will the new arrivials become shrimp food? Or will the older fry recognize the younger fry as some of their own and be ok with them? Well I guess I'll be finding out in about 10 days or so.

[cdemeritt]

Day 17: not much real change, body length is about 1/4" but with the growing antenna and pincers, easily reach 1/2" in length when stretched out. The fith shrimp I witnessed the other day was in the final throws of life and was found dead not too long after. At this point my official count is 4 left, and it is not likely to find any more, as I had to preform another 50% WC today to remove ditrius. I can't wait until I can get a decent camera or microscope. after removing the shrimp to preform the WC, I fed them. It was interesting to watch them swoop down pick up a piece of cyclop-eeze that had settled on the bottom, the after grabbing it float up a bit the start to eat. The next milestone to reach, day 20: the halfway mark.