The Quest to Breed Singapore Wood Shrimp, Day 28

No news to report. Things are much the same.

I haven't shot new images or videos since last Friday, because everything looks the same. This is a shot from Friday March 13th. The only behavioral change I see if that she is not as enthusiatic about beating her pleopods, although she does do that. One thing I haven't mentioned before that I find interesting happens when I am feeding her. Since she is now in a 10 gal tank, I am feeding her using either a small piece of airline hose, when I feed her Cyclop-eeze, or a drinking straw when I am feeding her flake food. This is so I can direct the feed right to where she is instead of it disoursing everywhere. If a large quantity of food gets near the eggs, she beats her pleopods wildly to get the food away from the eggs.

Isn't nature interesting?

I am SOOOOO ready for these eggs to hatch.

Here is the video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lmQ0RJP7eBk

The Singapore Wood Shrimp Reproduction Quest- Day 21

After spending about 4 days now thinking the eggs would hatch any day now, I decided to dig in for the long haul. I have had her in the 10 gal tank with about 6 gals of water for over a week now without filtration- the only water conditioning going on at all is a portion of a bio sponge tied around the air stone. This ‘one more day will be okay’ has drifted out for a week. So, I took the cool little in-tank filter that I had augmenting the new filter for the 20 gal cichlid tank, wrapped the intake area with a piece of the 35 micron screen given to be by Argent Chemical Labs, and put it in the tank. My plan is to let that run all day, then, since everything I have read indicates she will loose her eggs after the lights are out, I will turn it off with the lights. I intentionally use the term “loose” because I do not know whether they disperse as a result of hatching, or whether she will somehow knock them off of her, or what, I thought it might be something I could leave on, but watching the particulates, they get pulled into the folds of the fabric. Definitely not something I want to have happen to the larvae.

Got some new video today- the eggs have turned a light tan color:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XGj4vNTBxzQ

This photo is from March 9th, but the video is today. It has a weird fish eye effect, but at least the eggs are in focus. It's just not that easy to catch- she fans those pleopods, and you have to catch them on the open stoke. Today it seems you can see the patterns in the eggs, as if you can see not just eyes, but also the folded up body. Or maybe my eyes are playing tricks.

I got a message from someone on YouTube today, who suggested she might loose the eggs over a period of days. No indication as to whether this information is from experience or not. That will certainly be a challenging turn of events.

Singapore Wood Shrimp Eggs day 17

Sunday, March 8, 2009

I printed out some articles to read on the plane. I found a really good one about breeding freshwater prawn. The title of it is JUVENILE PRODUCTION OF THE FRESHWATER PRAWN CRYPHIOPS CAEMENTARIUS (DECAPODA: PALAEMONIDAE) UNDER LABORATORY CONDITIONS IN COQUIMBO, CHILE available http://www.scielo.cl/pdf/gayana/v70n2/art10.pdf.

It has charts of zoea stages, the salinity they used, along with temperature and feeding schedules. I will compare this with the French Aquarist's documentary of his successful routine for Amanos at http://caridina.japonica.online.fr/English/index.html and try to find some cohesive combination. Of course, no information is available at all about what other species bears a similarity with the wood shrimp needs.

In the Prawn article they seemed to feel that a constant temperature was very important, so yesterday I bought a small heater for that tank. They also indicated that high levels of oxygen were important. Another website I read about filter-feeding shrimp in general indicated the need for high oxygen levels, so I have mirrored the drip design to an air-tube/stone design for the bottles. I do want to make sure they aren’t so agitated with bubbles that they are damaged, so I am using enough valves to make sure there isn’t too high a flow.

Yesterday the eggs showed the baby shrimp eye spots that are characteristic of eggs about to hatch. I watched her closely. I shot some more video (not too good, but decent), viewable at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ec9Vdmy2jGk but got a decent still photo seen here.

This image is a close up of the one above. She is standing on a piece of bio sponge that I have tied to an air stone. I did not want to introduce any manner of pump to this tank, because it would suck up and kill the hatchlings. She is in about 6 gallons of water alone, and I have two media bags full of used aquarium gravel, so I am comfortable that amonia levels won't build up.

Singapore Wood Shrimp Eggs day 11

Monday, March 2, 2009
(Retrospect)
I glanced at the Wood shrimp today and noticed the eggs were no longer orange, but instead had turned brown. Knowing I was about to leave town for 3 days, after much consternation, I decided to attempt to move her to the breeding tank. On the one hand, I was afraid of the stress of moving her without me to vigilantly watch her for signs of stress. On the other hand, I was rather certain that with two filter feeders in a 2 gal. tank that by the time I got home there were be few larvae if they were to hatch.

I took a little tiny Tupperware container, and moved it up next to her. With a fondue fork I often use as a tool, I gently nudged her. She took a few steps to the side, right into the Tupperware. No muss, no fuss, it was a fantastically calm move.

Last Friday, Feb 27th, at the invitation of the Argent Chemical Laboratories Representative (makers of Cyclop-eeze), I had a long talk with the representative about the Singapore Wood Shrimp dilemma. He suggested a design for a hatchling tank that held the larvae in vented cups within the larger tank, with a drip apparatus to maintain water flow. In this way, the density of plankton could be much higher surrounding the larvae, with lower risk of fouling the water.

I went to a local hardware store, and decided upon using some hardware used for drip-irrigation, attached to a small 30gal/hr pond pump. I can house this whole thing in one of the spare 10 gal tanks I have. The drip nozzle has 6 outlets, and I am using 3 to feed into the hang-on-the-back filter that belonged to that tank, so there will be a good water flow being mechanically filtered (not using electricity to the filter, just moving some of the drip hoses into it). Also, the drip heads are supposed to have a constant flow of ½ gal/hour (although this has not yet been my experience), and I didn’t want the extra force from the pump (although it does have an adjustable flow) to blow off the hoses. So half of the outlets will flow unabated into the filter, and the remaining 3 holes split to form 6 drip hoses. Currently, my plan is to have the larvae in 5 water bottles, and use the 6th to gradually raise and lower the salinity.

The Representative suggested I buy some freeze-dried cyclop-eeze, which could be ground to smaller sizes than the frozen product I bought, and if I did, he would include some free samples of other products that have size ranges from 20-450 microns. I gladly agreed. Our bargain also included my commitment to talk to my friends about farm-raised salmon, which I have already begun to make good on. The package arrived Monday, March 2nd, and it was just like Christmas.

He also told me to start feeding the frozen Cyclop-eeze to the berried shrimp right away, as it’s nutritional benefits are needed while she is brooding. The other shrimp I have (Red Cherries, Blueberries, Bumble bees, and a lone Tiger) really like the stuff as well, as do my little Convict Cichlid fry.