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PJ's Sexy Shrimp Breeding Thread


pj86

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Hmm no go still. It may be that she is carrying the eggs but they aren't fertilized. But here is an update photo of the tank, looks like a chemistry set right now,

 

DSCF4125.JPG

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I have to admit that's an odd setup, You should work your way towards an undertank sump, it would look a lot better. I'm rooting for you on the sexy babies! fingerscrossed fingerscrossed

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Its a vase inside a tank. The vase is the no flow area where I plan on putting the baby shrimp, only movement comes from the air stone which is inside a large hollow tube so the shrimp don't get hurt by the force of the bubbles. Also heat is dissipated to the vase, so there is no need of a heater inside the vase, so the shrimp wont be injured by the heater. There is also some bryopsis in the vase.

The tank is just filled with live rock and frags of corals from my other tank. Also will serve as a second place to raise the shrimp once they grow.

If they do grow successfully I will buy a 20 gallon tank to raise them till they are larger.

 

The setup is temporary, just trying to test out the concept.

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Ok, so thought I'd chime in as I'm looking to get my sexy breeding setup again. I'm planning to start the attempts again soon (stopped because we got a new tank with proper overflows so can't catch the babies). I can give you a bit of insight. In the past I had started raising them, after 4 broods I wasn't able to get any to full adulthood though we got a couple weeks further each time we tried (longest was ~4 weeks after birth. Here's what I know.

 

A couple of days before the birth we always saw what looked like a big thing of fish poop (getting technical here) floating in the aquarium. It was pretty consistent just before the spawns so we're pretty sure that was the egg sack being released to aerate. We didn't always see it mind you, but more often that not. Once hatched you can see the babies pretty clearly, they'd sit in the top 6" or so of water so you can scoop them up. Because of this you really need a typical hob filter so that they don't get sucked into anything that'll kill them. A tank with and overflow doesn't work well. They always hatched at night so just check things in the morning.

 

As for raising, we used baby brine. Aeration obviously and it needs to be in a tank without any filters/overflows etc. They'll get sucked in. We just used a little 1/2 gallon bowl. The key is to get as many live brine in there as possible and change the water often. These guys don't go far for their food and you'll have a lot of die off at each stage. We got them to the point of having little legs and looking clearly like baby sexies (when they're born they almost look like adult brine).

 

I'll be watching this closely. The only issue I could see is that with the height of the pico it may get hard to catch the babies and your hob filter might suck them up. I'm kinda curious if that'll happen or not. For my new one I'm leaning towards a 10" tall pico to avoid the issue. Looking forward to seeing how it works.

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faerl, thanks for the great info, this is going to really help. I've been looking all around for info but have found very little. One question, how long did it take for the sexy to spawn after you noticed she was carrying eggs? Mine has been carrying them about 2 weeks and a half and she is starting to look ridiculously large compared to the male. Thanks again for the info.

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faerl, thanks for the great info, this is going to really help. I've been looking all around for info but have found very little. One question, how long did it take for the sexy to spawn after you noticed she was carrying eggs? Mine has been carrying them about 2 weeks and a half and she is starting to look ridiculously large compared to the male. Thanks again for the info.

 

Honestly, I'm not sure. At the time I had about 10 sexies in a 10 gallon tall tank. There was almost always at least one pregnant and I wasn't tracking them like I should of been. I'd guess a few weeks. The sign I always used was the release of the eggs. I couldn't figure out what they were floating in the tank until after a few breeding cycles I noticed that every time I saw them they'd pop out another set of babies 2-3 later.

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Where did you buy your satellite fixture?

 

peytonk, I bought it from a forum member, they show up once in a while the 12" ones.

 

The sexy is just ridiculously fat, It's been about 3.5 weeks since she has been carrying them. I wonder how much longer it will take before she spawns. I can see the eggs and they are clearer and have some red streaks and 2 black dots in them. Her abdomen is so large that the eggs are now clearly visible all the time because they don't all fit in her abdomen.

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So she released some tonight, and was only able to get about 20-30. I was wondering if I should turn of the aquaclear, for the night? I don't want to kill the corals. Hmm...

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looks like when theyre clear, they will hatch, just like FW shrimp (what I've been basing my tips on lol)

thats a high number already, i think leaving the AC on is important, though if you want to use an airstone, that will work too. i bet you'd still see some larva even if you left the AC on.

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.Newman, yea they become really clear before hatching. She is still carrying quite a few and I probably will do the airstone method tonight for a few hours because the larvae stand no chance with the ac on.

 

So here are some photos,

head count ~30,

active larvae ~20-25,

feeding is going to start very soon with bbs, at the moment only rotifers and phyto is available

 

DSCF4138_crop.jpg

 

DSCF4142_crop.jpg

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Thanks. Brandon I think adrewkw has also a sexy that is carrying eggs in a even smaller tank. I wish I had bbs already going gonna have to wait another 10 hours before I can get a few. I thought the shrimp would have some type of reserve to go off, but as I inspect them they don't seem to have a yolk sack.

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Yea, it is pretty cool to see them. I'm gonna try to get a video, they are very very tiny. I hope a few survive so I can a small army of sexy shrimps.

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thanks will46r

So I started feeding baby brine shrimp and they immediately began holding and what appears to be eating the bbs. I did a head count and noticed that I had more shrimps than I originally counted. Right now there is about 34 shrimp that are alive. Only 3 so far have perished. The mother seems to be holding several hundred more, I wonder when she will decide to release them.

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