Breeding Journal, Species: Alpheus armatus (Red Snapping Shrimp)

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.

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!
 
 
 
 

 
Finally got a hatch from this pair!  I checked the snagger first thing in the morning but didn't use a flashlight and didn't see anything.  Around 10 AM or so I went down with a flashlight to check the fridmani dens and decided to peek in the snagger using the flashlight, and sure enough there were quite a few A. armatus larvae!  I bastered them out, put them in a 3L bottle with nhbbs and nanno.  I pulled some for pics, which are above but the weird thing is, I think they are already Z2.  The eyes look more like a Z2 shrimp larvae to me than Z1 and in the first pic you can see what looks like a molt next to the larvae...  I have looked at Luis's Alpheus sp. thread on marinebreeder and he had Z2 on day 2, but this would be at most 12 hours after hatch that they are Z2.  Perhaps they aren't...I don't know.  But they look like it.  Can anyone else chime in?  I am hoping it won't be severely detrimental that they didn't eat for those first several hours that I didn't realize they were in there.

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.  

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...

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.

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!

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

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.

Pics!  
Day 1, around 8 or 9 AM, IIRC




 
Day 1, PM



 
Day 2-AM







 
These guys are super hard to see. They are clear with pretty much NO color.  The "easiest" way to spot them (which isn't that easy) is to look for the eyes which are sort of reflective-blue.  In a couple of the pics you can see that one of them has eaten something....but it doesn't look like much.  There were no floaters this morning, so either those ones died, or they got their business sorted out and got into the water column.  They got a 100% water change today and got new nhbbs and rotifers.  I also put in some Iso.

Based on how long the spear legs are, perhaps Z4 already??

Done at day 5 :/

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. 

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.

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.

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!

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...

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.

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

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.

The hatch a couple nights ago must have only been a partial hatch. This morning the snagger had lots more Alpheus larvae. I put most in a 3L bottle with Apocyclops and some Iso. I had enough to also do a starvation control, so I took some and put them into a different 3L bottle that did not get any food (also, no phyto).

Still have some alive, just wanted to make a note of something.  Both hatches (a day apart) got Apocyclops as the first feeding.  When I did the first water change for each (day 3, IIRC) it was clear they had eaten all of the adults and only nauplii were left.  So they definitely seem to be choosing the larger prey based on this one attempt.  I don't have enough cultures going of Apo to only feed adult pods in high densities, but I will probably start scaling up for the next attempt with this species since they really seemed to be going for the Apocyclops.  Now they are getting nhbbs...

I saw a couple cruising around in the container with the 4-24 hatch, which means that I am now past my record with this species.  Hellllooooo Day 7!

The 4-25 hatch is gone, but there are still a few of the older (4-24) hatch cruising around.  Only 4 or so, but I'll take it!  They got another 100% water change last night.

Didn't find any during the water change last night, so I will call them dead on Day 8, which is the last time I saw them.  Now that's my record to beat  
 
I have some Apocyclops scaling up to use for these guys since they seemed to really clear out the larger adults pods and they all died when I tried to only feed nhbbs.  

Hatch last night.  I set them up as usual in the 3L bottle and added Iso and Apocyclops.  

Only a couple larvae alive.  I combined them with Stenopus larvae which are also getting copepods.
 
I suspect the large die off is due to the fact that this batch really seemed to get caught at the surface a lot. I don't think I was aerating strongly enough or something.  There were many that got caught on the side of the container above the water line.  Waiting for the next hatch...

Keep up the great work Shannon!