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Breeding Journal, Species: Stenopus scutellatus (Gold banded coral shrimp)
Monday, November 18, 2013 12:50 PM
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Breeding Journal DataSheet
This first post should be updated regularly to include new information as events take place or changes are made to your system General Species: Stenopus scutellatus Social Structure: Mated pair Size of Individuals: ~2 inches, perhaps slightly less Age of Individuals: Unknown, wild caught Date added to Tank: Early November 2013 Broodstock Tank Details Size of Tank: 5.5 gallon Substrate Details: None Filtration Details: Sponge filter Water Changes: As needed, not regular Water Temperature: ~80F Lighting: CFL clamp light Lighting Cycle: 6 AM to 9 PM Other Tank Inhabitants: Four M. sculptus Broodstock Feeding Details Food Types: Hikari mysis, live enriched brine, nhbbs, frozen mash, pellets Feeding Schedule: Two or more times a day Spawning Details Date of First Spawn: Before purchase, 11-24-13 was the first spawn after purchase Spawn Time of Day: Around lights out, or after. Female molted shortly before lights out Dates of Consecutive Spawns: 12-8-2013 Courtship Details: None noted Egg Size: Not measured Egg Color: Green, turn to silvery white with noticeable eye spots a couple days before hatch Egg Count: Not counted Hatch Details Hatch Date: 11-13-2013, 12-23-2013 Hatch Time of Day: After lights out # Days after Spawn: Usually ~15 days Larvae Description: Small, clear, long rostrum and also have a weird pointy appendage coming off their back Larval Tank Details Temperature: ~80 F Size of Larval Tank: 17 gallon BRT Substrate Details: None Other Tank Decor: None Filtration Details: None (water changes and live phyto) Lighting: Fluorescent strip light Lighting Cycle: 6 AM to 9 PM Water Changes: As needed Larval Feeding Details Food Types: nhbbs Feeding Schedule: constant Metamorphosis/Settlement Date of Settlement Start: Days after Hatch: Date of Settlement End: Description of Fry:
Grow-Out Tank Details Temperature: Size of Grow-Out Tank: Substrate Details: Other Tank Decor: Filtration Details: Lighting: Lighting Cycle: Water Changes: Size at Transfer: Age at Transfer: Grow-Out Feeding Details Food Types: Feeding Schedule: Additional Information (No Pictures or Videos in the Section Please) Miscellaneous Information: You will be required to provide photographic evidence in this thread of each event submitted for the MBI Program.
If your thread does not contain these photos the MBI Committee will not be able to approve your reports.
<message edited by shannpeach on Monday, March 3, 2014 8:46 AM>
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Re: Breeding Journal, Species: Stenopus scutellatus (Gold banded coral shrimp)
Monday, November 18, 2013 12:55 PM
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Parents:  The female had TONS of eggs! Day 4 larva:  Note the pointy thing on the back...anyone know what that thing is called? Here is one chowing on a brine shrimp that is surprisingly large:  I keep phyto in the water so hopefully that artemia it's chowing on still has some nutritional value! These things are SO much harder to see in the water compared to peppermint shrimp. They are nearly clear and the easiest way to spot them are their eyes. They are also quite tiny, about the size of hermit crab larvae (if I can remember the size of those correctly). I didn't collect nearly as many of them as I wanted, and I am not even sure of how many I was really starting with, but here goes!
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Re: Breeding Journal, Species: Stenopus scutellatus (Gold banded coral shrimp)
Sunday, November 24, 2013 9:14 AM
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Yesterday, after days and days of not spotting any larvae, I decided to harvest the partially grown artemia from the bowl to feed to the juvie pipefish. I dumped the orb bowl into a bucket and then the bucket through a sieve. Then I spotted something on the sieve so I back washed into a bowl. There were still a few larvae left! The abuse they've taken! There were only five, but I bastered them out of the bowl and now have them set up in an inverted 3L bottle. I took some pictures and I will add them later. A female of one of my pairs (the one that my current larvae came from) actually seems to be developing eggs. She has a greenish area developing that the male does not have. The pair:  The male:  The female:  In the pictures, the area looks yellow, but in person it actually looks green.
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Re: Breeding Journal, Species: Stenopus scutellatus (Gold banded coral shrimp)
Sunday, November 24, 2013 8:33 PM
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Re: Breeding Journal, Species: Stenopus scutellatus (Gold banded coral shrimp)
Wednesday, November 27, 2013 9:12 AM
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Little bit of an update. On Sunday shortly before lights out, I found a molt in one of the broodstock tanks but wasn't sure which shrimp it came from (male or female). Monday I suspected the female had eggs, but I didn't have a chance to look very closely. Yesterday (11-26) I looked at her with a flashlight and sure enough, she is carrying a small batch of eggs (small compared to the whopping big egg batch she had when I bought her. I am still working on finding some thing these guys will chow down on with gusto). So it looks like there was a spawn Sunday evening. I tried to get a decent pic of her with the eggs yesterday but wasn't very successful:  My iPhone camera got messed up so it is sometimes hard to get it to focus on the correct thing. I will try to get a better pic in the next few days, but you can sort of see the small batch of eggs  The batch of larvae from the first hatch out of this pair is still going. Well, at least there is one still alive. I will have to do a water change on the 3L container soon and will get a better idea, but as of last night I saw at least one floating around. I think they are two weeks old or so at this point.
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Re: Breeding Journal, Species: Stenopus scutellatus (Gold banded coral shrimp)
Wednesday, November 27, 2013 8:58 PM
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A slightly better pic 
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Re: Breeding Journal, Species: Stenopus scutellatus (Gold banded coral shrimp)
Monday, December 9, 2013 9:17 AM
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Must have missed the hatch, or the number of eggs dwindled to nothing. I thought I saw a few left Sunday morning when I looked with a flashlight and swore I even saw eye spots, so I figured the hatch would be last night. However, this morning I woke up to a freshly molted shrimp with a new batch of eggs and no larvae. Perhaps the few that hatched were eaten. I will probably put a snagger in for the next batch just in case. This batch of eggs seems quite a bit larger from the quick peek I was able to take this morning. This spawn was two weeks on the nose from the last one, so I at least know a tentative schedule for when to put the snagger in
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Re: Breeding Journal, Species: Stenopus scutellatus (Gold banded coral shrimp)
Monday, December 9, 2013 3:18 PM
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It sounds like you are working very diligently with these. I think you were really smart to purchase a pair from the LFS that were already breeding, this may have saved you months waiting for them to mature and pair up.
Have you tried copepods with the new larvae? Have you read April Kirkendoll's book on peppermint shrimp? She found that flake food was a good food because the baby shrimp could find an appropriate sized morsel that didn't fight back when they attacked it.
If there is no downside to your snagger in the tank, you might have it run every night and just check the next day to see if you had a hatch or not. Just an idea.
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Re: Breeding Journal, Species: Stenopus scutellatus (Gold banded coral shrimp)
Monday, December 9, 2013 3:36 PM
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I actually have two pairs, both of which were purchased as a "mated pair" and agree it is the easiest way to go. I have not tried copepods but will likely add some during my next attempt. I won't rely on them exclusively since bbs seem to work just fine for most inverts, but I am sure they won't hurt. I have read Kirkendoll's book (a few times  ) and have successfully raised peppermint shrimp. The only thing about flake/inert foods is that other shrimp don't seem to take to it as well as peppermints and there is more uneaten food which equals faster water fouling. I have several sizes of Golden Pearls which seemed to be enjoyed by the peppermint shrimp which I hope to also try a bit in my next attempt (which will be in a larger container, likely a BRT). I wouldn't necessarily have to run a snagger every night now that I have a better idea of when to expect hatches. The eggs change noticeably closer to hatch, so I will probably just run the snagger once I see that. I do, however, have some crabs in there that I hope are breeding as well, so perhaps running the snagger all the time will be better. I just have to get more/better light sources to really do it successfully on a regular basis instead of stealing the light from my other snagger which runs nightly in a different tank.
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Re: Breeding Journal, Species: Stenopus scutellatus (Gold banded coral shrimp)
Tuesday, December 10, 2013 8:22 AM
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Got a pic of the new batch of eggs last night  Looks to be a good one!
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Re: Breeding Journal, Species: Stenopus scutellatus (Gold banded coral shrimp)
Thursday, December 26, 2013 9:51 AM
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The eggs hatched on December 23rd. I got home around 1 in the morning (technically the 24th) and they were hatching. It was annoying because only one or two would hatch at a time so it took FOREVER to collect them and sometime after 2 I decided I was done waiting and would just collect the rest in the morning...but when I got up at 5 to check, there weren't any! So it looks like if I am going to collect these I have to use a collector or put her in the hatching chamber since the larvae get eaten in the small tank before morning. I collected quite a few and put them in a heated BRT with nhbbs, iso and nanno. I'm using an airstone near the side to move water. I took some day one pics since I didn't get any of those last time:  This one is eating something:   They are super hard to see because they are nearly colorless. There was also a spawn the same night and it looks to be a pretty nice size one again.
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Re: Breeding Journal, Species: Stenopus scutellatus (Gold banded coral shrimp)
Tuesday, December 31, 2013 9:35 AM
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Re: Breeding Journal, Species: Stenopus scutellatus (Gold banded coral shrimp)
Thursday, January 2, 2014 9:41 AM
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Couldn't find any more larvae from this batch yesterday, so I think this run is done. I am thinking about a few things to do differently next time.
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Re: Breeding Journal, Species: Stenopus scutellatus (Gold banded coral shrimp)
Tuesday, January 7, 2014 11:00 AM
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I used a larval snagger in the adult's tank and got a whopping number of larvae last night. I had added a bunch of copepods into the snagger the night before, so they hopefully were able to have a snack while in there. They are currently in a 3L inverted water bottle bubbling with rigid airline, in a heated water bath. They were collected along with the copepods (Eut and Apo) that were in the snagger, and I also added rotifers and a few nhbbs. I put in some nanno as well. Tonight I will pour them out and decide if I want to divide them up into separate bottles to reduce the number of larvae in each container. I am thinking that would be a good idea. I considered putting them in a BRT, but I sort of like the bottles because I can do 100% water changes every day easier than I could with the BRT, plus keeping prey density high without dealing with too-large artemia is easier in the bottles.
Also, as of 6:30 this morning, there was no new spawn. Not sure why they didn't last night after the eggs were released.
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Re: Breeding Journal, Species: Stenopus scutellatus (Gold banded coral shrimp)
Sunday, January 12, 2014 12:03 AM
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Re: Breeding Journal, Species: Stenopus scutellatus (Gold banded coral shrimp)
Wednesday, January 15, 2014 7:29 PM
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Re: Breeding Journal, Species: Stenopus scutellatus (Gold banded coral shrimp)
Monday, January 20, 2014 9:23 AM
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Re: Breeding Journal, Species: Stenopus scutellatus (Gold banded coral shrimp)
Friday, January 24, 2014 8:57 AM
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100% water change last night with a zoeal stage check (I only look at them under the microscope every other water change, and water changes are done every other day, so I look at them every 4 days) Judging by the new pair of legs on some of them, it would appear that Z5 is here at day 17! 
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Re: Breeding Journal, Species: Stenopus scutellatus (Gold banded coral shrimp)
Tuesday, January 28, 2014 11:24 AM
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Re: Breeding Journal, Species: Stenopus scutellatus (Gold banded coral shrimp)
Thursday, January 30, 2014 1:00 AM
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Your picture quality is fantastic. Has anyone raised these before so you know how long a larval stage to expect?
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