Peppermint Shrimp Spawn (Lysmata boggessi)

Okay so it's now day 4, although I don't have the ability to accurately measure the length of the larvae at the moment, they look to be about 2-3 mm long now. No other major changes at the moment...their just doing what larvae do...eat and swim, but I have noticed that they aren't attaching themselves to the sides of the nursery as often as what they did the first day. I guess that would be because they can handle the meaty foods now and aren't interested in the film algae as much any more. Gearing up for the next major molt which will bring me to zoea 3, things seem to be moving along well because I can see that their tails are less heart shaped now and broadening out with slight notches. So things are still looking pretty good at the moment.

Now, the way that the broodstock have been gobbling down the "new" food and the amounts of it that I can see in their digestive tract leads me to believe that I must have been starving these before hand and they certainly weren't getting enough (I had them on the FW cyclops as well up until yesterday's creation of the new food). Okay, I'm guilty...and I'm certain that this first group of larvae were probably not of the highest quality. Not only because of a "poor" diet in mama but this was her first batch as well. The broodstock were all very small and couldn't have been more than a few months old from post larvae.

Now, let's take a look at the losses so far....after the first night I lost most of the larvae but that has more to do with me experimenting with this system and I most certainly had the re-circulation PF (power-filter) far too high (there is no chance for the larvae to be sucked into this PF because this PF draws water in from an outer chamber). The second day the PF was still too high and finally had to be turned off all together with just the input water turned on at a rate of 3 gals/hour to give the breeding chamber a constant water change. As the larvae get larger I'll experiment with turning the PF back on...what I might have to do is add a very small recirculation pump to the water jacket between the inner and outer chambers...we'll see maybe next batch, I don't want to introduce too many variables at this point (this is were I think we as hobbyists make alot of our breeding mistakes..we panic make a million changes and then lose track of what has been done and loose sight of all the causes/effects. The inner chamber of the breeding unit holds all the larvae and none can pass through to any of the filtration equipment or return water, here I am not using any type of a screen but rather a natural barrier. So, right now it looks as though I have somewhere around 10-15 larvae left give or take a few (for now I am okay with that number since the goal of the first batch was to prove out the slight system modifications necessary when adopting my system from nudibranches to crustaceans....this passed with flying colours, so a little pat on the back for me, and the first major goal is a complete success). This frees me up to concentrate and spend my efforts on dietary needs. Really looking forward to the next batch because of the major diet change for mama and it'll be round two for her. On batch two we won't make any other changes to the diet, the broodstaock on the new food and the larvae on shaved frozen FW cyclops....but that for batch two.

Alright then...patiently waiting for the next major molt to occur and then we'll be at zoea 3.

 

Very interesting! What about some pics?

 

...at the moment one of my cameras are on the blinks
...the nursery isn't set-up for photos of the larvae, but when I get my microscope with a built in camera I'll have lots of pics (hopefully this will be possible this summer) to share.
....working at setting up a stand alone tank to use as a "photo studio".

 

Well speaking about the success of the breeding system, we have had intermitten power outages all day, this last one was about 1 1/2 hours...during such events the breeding chambers all become independent and hold water with no adverse effects on the larvae or broodstock (however, this is dependent on ambient temperature).



A few random thoughts...if I have to add a small pump in the water jacket between the inner/outer chambers of the breeding chamber.....what I might do is add a small 9-watt submersible UV I'll hold that thought. Also, the inner chamber design could also be incorporated right into the design of a sump or if there is already room in an existing sump an inner chamber could easily be added (whereby the sump itself would become the outer chamber of the breeding chamber). This would make a breeding set-up possible for any and every hobbyist around the globe to incorporate into their reef or salt water set-ups. How is that for a home aquaculture explosion....maybe even a movement of truly conscientious

aquarists! By doing incorporating an inner chamber to every sump....well, it would take no time and very little effort to toss in a few snails or what have you...makes a lot of sense to me.

 

Did you join the MBI?

 

yes thanks, there is an identical thread running there.

 

Sweet!
I'll put up a link of my spawn report.
Spawn Report: Lysmata wurdemanni

 

Today is day 5 and there are no larvae left from this batch. I'm pretty certain that this was a weak or poor quality hatch...just based on the observations of how the broodstock are devouring this new food and the quantities that they are able to consume compared to their previous diet of FW cyclops. I am expecting that this synopsis will be enforced as I continue to work with this species.

So mama's expected due date for batch two is June 16th which is only 11 days away....stay tuned to this thread.

 

Well sorry to hear about the loss of the larvae but hopefully your next batch does better. Keep us updated on your progress.

 

Squid is a bit fatty and not the ideal broodstock diet. You want a lot of HUFAs.