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Breeding Journal, Species: Alpheus armatus (Red Snapping Shrimp)
Friday, December 13, 2013 9:06 AM
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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: Alpheus armatus Social Structure: Male/Female pair Size of Individuals: ~3 inches Age of Individuals: Unknown Date added to Tank: October 29th, 2013 Broodstock Tank Details Size of Tank: 40B attached to a ~200 gallon system Substrate Details: Sand of various sizes, crushed gravel Filtration Details: Liverock, livesand, skimmer, bioballs... Water Changes: ~10% every 6 weeks Water Temperature: 80F Lighting: Fluorescent strip light Lighting Cycle: 6AM to 8PM Other Tank Inhabitants: Decorator crabs Broodstock Feeding Details Food Types: Pellets, live blackworms, frozen mysis, frozen mash Feeding Schedule: At least two times per day, sometimes more Spawning Details Date of First Spawn: Unknown, not witnessed but suspected Spawn Time of Day: Unknown, assumed at night after the molt Dates of Consecutive Spawns: ~Dec 10/11, 2013; 2-8-2014; 2-28-2014 Courtship Details: None noted Egg Size: Estimate ~1mm Egg Color: Difficult to see due to the pleopods, but they look dark Egg Count: Estimate ~100 Hatch Details Hatch Date: 12-31-2013; 2-7-2014; 2-27-2014; 3-17-2014; 4-6-2014; 4-24-2014 Hatch Time of Day: After lights out # Days after Spawn: ~20 days Larvae Description: Quite large, perhaps 4mm. Attracted to light. Reflective eyes make them easier to spot, otherwise they are clear and generally very difficult to see. Larval Tank Details Temperature: ~75-80 Size of Larval Tank: 3L inverted water bottle Substrate Details: None Other Tank Decor: None Filtration Details: Live phyto Lighting: Fluorescent strip light Lighting Cycle: 6AM to 9PM Water Changes: 100% every couple days Larval Feeding Details Food Types: Newly hatched artemia, enriched artemia 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: These shrimp were purchased as a mated pair. 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 Friday, April 25, 2014 8:41 AM>
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Re: Breeding Journal, Species: Alpheus armatus (Red Snapping Shrimp)
Friday, December 13, 2013 9:47 AM
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So, I went to get some water from the broodstock system to use for tumbling a dottyback eggball and I scooped it out of the sump. When I looked in the container I realized that there were some shrimp larvae in there. The only shrimp in the system are the A. armatus pair, so I know they were from them. I had suspected they were spawning, but they always hide in their PVC tube so it is difficult to tell if the female has eggs. I did take a couple pics of the larvae, but they were already dead so the pictures did not turn out very well. Those larvae were likely released either Monday or Tuesday night (Dec 9 or 10) but I can't say for certain how long they have been floating around in there. Here are some pics of the pair, sorry the images aren't that great :/ I now know that this is of the male, and that his RIGHT claw is the larger one:  The pair in a PVC tube shortly after acclimation (they hopped the basket that night). Female is in the front and her LEFT claw is the larger one.   Picture of the female with eggs. The only reason she is out of the usual PVC tube is because a crab got too close and they made a run for it to their second little hidey hole by the drain pipe. Lucky for me since I can see them a bit better there. The pics were taken this morning, so these eggs are likely several days old. The darker blob area under her tail are the eggs. I wasn't able to get a clearer picture in the time I had.   Looks like I will start running a snagger in that tank starting next week to try to catch some larvae!
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Re: Breeding Journal, Species: Alpheus armatus (Red Snapping Shrimp)
Thursday, January 2, 2014 10:06 AM
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Re: Breeding Journal, Species: Alpheus armatus (Red Snapping Shrimp)
Thursday, January 2, 2014 10:15 AM
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Actually, looking again at Luis's thread, it looks like the appearance of the elongated 5th legs marks Z3...which mine had the first time I imaged them around 11 AM the morning after hatch. Also, Z3 also seems to have the 5 part tail which, IIRC, mine had also, but it is hard to tell in the pics.
These shrimp larvae already have me very confused. Tonight I will have to try to take some more pics.
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Re: Breeding Journal, Species: Alpheus armatus (Red Snapping Shrimp)
Friday, January 3, 2014 8:36 AM
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Okay, so I'm thinking that these must have actually hatched on the night of the 30th/morning of the 31st and that I missed them an entire day in the snagger. I think that makes more sense. They are still developing super fast though. I did a full water change last night and most had died off. I think there were two factors at play. One, they went 24 hours without food. Not good. And two, I accidentally WAY overfed yesterday so there was far too many artemia and the water was pretty gross (it even had that brine shrimp culture smell). Also not good. There were still some alive, probably less than 20 though. I pulled a couple and I think some may actually be in a new zoeal stage again, perhaps Z4? I really need to learn the leg parts because it seems like that is very useful in staging. The main difference I noticed though was that now a few of them have a spike thing just behind the eyes pointing forward, most easily seen in this pic:  So now instead of me thinking this is a day 2 larva, I believe it is a day 3 larva...
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Re: Breeding Journal, Species: Alpheus armatus (Red Snapping Shrimp)
Monday, January 6, 2014 8:57 AM
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All are gone. Last one was seen Friday for pics. I may have spotted some floating around on Saturday, but none were found on Sunday during the water change. Some pics taken on Friday, day 3 (probably 4, actually):   I think this coming up weekend is when the next hatch will be. For this one I plan to get them out of the snagger the day of (hopefully) and will also start them on a combination of nhbbs and rotifers.
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Re: Breeding Journal, Species: Alpheus armatus (Red Snapping Shrimp)
Wednesday, January 8, 2014 3:00 AM
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Did you get these from Kara and Philipp? I've been eyeing those pairs for years  You're just doing some really interesting stuff, keep it up!
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Re: Breeding Journal, Species: Alpheus armatus (Red Snapping Shrimp)
Wednesday, January 8, 2014 9:26 AM
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I did get this pair from Kara and Phillip (and they are awesome to deal with  ) and I had been eyeing them up for awhile as well. Originally, they were meant to go into my 220g display, but I couldn't resist the "it's a pair...so I can try to breed them" line of thinking lol
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Re: Breeding Journal, Species: Alpheus armatus (Red Snapping Shrimp)
Saturday, February 8, 2014 9:15 PM
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So I finally had another hatch from these guys last night. I took the larvae out this morning and put them in an inverted 3L bottle with rotifers, nhbbs, and nanno. I pulled a few for pics (will post tomorrow) and like last time, they appeared to already be in Z3 and it wasn't even 12 hours post hatch. So last time I probably didn't miss them the day of hatch after all.
There is a group of these that keep floating in the surface no matter how many times I try to get them to go into the water column. Not sure if it's due to molting or what.
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Re: Breeding Journal, Species: Alpheus armatus (Red Snapping Shrimp)
Sunday, February 9, 2014 6:45 PM
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Re: Breeding Journal, Species: Alpheus armatus (Red Snapping Shrimp)
Sunday, February 9, 2014 6:46 PM
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Based on how long the spear legs are, perhaps Z4 already??
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Re: Breeding Journal, Species: Alpheus armatus (Red Snapping Shrimp)
Friday, February 14, 2014 8:22 AM
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Done at day 5 :/
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Re: Breeding Journal, Species: Alpheus armatus (Red Snapping Shrimp)
Tuesday, March 18, 2014 8:30 AM
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Hatch last night and the female molted as well, so I assume a spawn. I collected the larvae from the snagger this morning and put in a 1 gallon fishbowl with 30% broodstock water and the rest being new (aged) ASW. I added some enriched live bbs, 3/4 of my best 1 gallon culture of Apocyclops, and RG complete and am using a rigid airline tube.
I can't seem to get these guys past day five, so I am hoping this time I will make it until at least day 6.
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Re: Breeding Journal, Species: Alpheus armatus (Red Snapping Shrimp)
Tuesday, March 18, 2014 9:58 AM
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Is your sense that they are large enough to eat bbs? If you are enriching them too, then they must be 600+ microns in size? Amazing that the zoea are large enough to take food that size. What is the size range of your Apocyclops?
As usual, your pictures are fantastic.
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Re: Breeding Journal, Species: Alpheus armatus (Red Snapping Shrimp)
Tuesday, March 18, 2014 12:13 PM
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These guys are quite large when they hatch--the largest shrimp larvae at hatch I have worked with. I'm not sure precisely on the size of the enriched bbs, but I would imagine based on size alone that they could eat them. Most decapods are able to catch and chew on larger food (to a certain extent). The Apo were captured on a 53uM sieve and everything that was caught was put in the with the shrimp larvae. So there should be from naups to full size adults in there now. I think I may add some rotifers tonight as well, though. Despite the fact that they are quite large, they don't seem to ever really have full guts the last couple runs I have tried. So perhaps they aren't very adept at capturing the larger prey? I am figuring rotifers may be the easiest for them to get then and if I add bbs, copepods AND rotifers, I am pretty much covering all my bases Ideally, I would do several "treatments" where a group of larvae get fed one thing or another and see how survival compares, but there weren't that many larvae so I think I will just throw my entire culture station at them...throw in some Tangerine pods, Tigriopus, Euterpina, etc.
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Re: Breeding Journal, Species: Alpheus armatus (Red Snapping Shrimp)
Tuesday, March 18, 2014 8:07 PM
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I have always used the shotgun method also. I figure the fish are more qualified than me as to what they can catch and eat!
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Re: Breeding Journal, Species: Alpheus armatus (Red Snapping Shrimp)
Monday, April 7, 2014 8:33 AM
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I had another hatch of these guys last night. I set them up in the fish bowl orb with rotifers, nhbbs, and RG complete. I can't seem to get these guys past five days...
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Re: Breeding Journal, Species: Alpheus armatus (Red Snapping Shrimp)
Friday, April 11, 2014 12:07 AM
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They got a ~25% water change today to remove some over grown brine and get some of the dead ones out--and there were quite a few of those :/
There were still some alive, however, so that's good news. Tomorrow is the day I usually lose them and I won't have too much time to really check in on them until Saturday. I wish I had time today to look at a few under the scope to see if they had any food in their guts.
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Re: Breeding Journal, Species: Alpheus armatus (Red Snapping Shrimp)
Saturday, April 12, 2014 9:17 PM
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I had at four make it to day 6! I just don't feel like they look as they have been eating a lot. But it is progress, none the less 
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Re: Breeding Journal, Species: Alpheus armatus (Red Snapping Shrimp)
Friday, April 25, 2014 8:44 AM
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Last run never made it to day 7.
I had another hatch last night. I put them in a 3L bottle with only Apocyclops copepods and Iso.
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