Breeding Journal, Species: Lysmata rathbunae

General
Species:  Lysmata rathbunae
Social Structure:  Group of 5
Size of Individuals:  ~2 inches
Age of Individuals:  Unknown
Date added to Tank:  Late January/Early February 2014

Broodstock Tank Details
Size of Tank:  20 gallon
Substrate Details:  None
Filtration Details:  Live rock, live sand, bioballs, protein skimmer
Water Changes:  As needed, infrequent
Water Temperature:  ~80F
Lighting:  Fluorescent strip light
Lighting Cycle:  6AM to 9PM
Other Tank Inhabitants:  Amphiprion percula, Mithraculus sculptus

Broodstock Feeding Details
Food Types:  Live blackworms, pellets, frozen mash, mysis, enriched frozen artemia
Feeding Schedule:  At least twice daily

Spawning Details
Date of First Spawn:  2-12-2014 
Spawn Time of Day:  Not witnessed, assume after lights out
Dates of Consecutive Spawns:  2-15-2014, 2-16-2014
Courtship Details:  None witnessed
Egg Size:  ~1mm
Egg Color:  Bright green
Egg Count:  Not counted, estimate hundreds

Hatch Details
Hatch Date:  2-25-2014
Hatch Time of Day:  After lights out
# Days after Spawn:  ~10 (maybe 9)
Larvae Description:  Typical lysmata larvae, attracted to light, clearish


Larval Tank Details
Temperature:  ~75 F
Size of Larval Tank:  3-4 gallon fish bowl orb
Substrate Details:  None
Other Tank Decor:  Heater
Filtration Details:  None, live phyto used though
Lighting:  Ambient light from a nearby fluorescent strip light and a southern facing window
Lighting Cycle:  6AM to 9PM
Water Changes:  As needed to remove too large prey items

Larval Feeding Details
Food Types:  nhbbs, enriched bbs
Feeding Schedule:  constant

Metamorphosis/Settlement
Date of Settlement Start:  3-29-2014 (may have started earlier, but I only noticed on this day when I did a water change)
Days after Hatch:  32
Date of Settlement End:  3-29-2014
Description of Fry:  Look like miniature adults, but aren't as red.  Measure a little less than a centimeter 

Grow-Out Tank Details
Temperature:  ~80F
Size of Grow-Out Tank:  Mesh breeder basket in a 27 cube
Substrate Details:  None in the basket
Other Tank Decor:  Small amount of macroalgae, small gorgonian.
Filtration Details:  Live rock, live sand, protein skimmer
Lighting:  Reefbreeders LED
Lighting Cycle:  6AM to 8PM
Water Changes:  Not scheduled, infrequent
Size at Transfer:  ~1/2" or so
Age at Transfer:  ~ 5 days post settlement

Grow-Out Feeding Details
Food Types:  Mainly crushed flake, Oto A (what the clownfish get)
Feeding Schedule:  At least twice a day

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.

The group of five:

 
Eggs developing:

 
Spawn:

 
The ID is still a bit tentative until I get a chance to pull them all for more pics and closer inspection again.

Three shrimp with eggs now Guessing the spawns were the nights of Feb 12th, 15th and 16th. Hopefully will get some larvae in 10 days or so.

The eggs on one shrimp have turned clear/silver, so I will probably be getting some larvae sometime this weekend.

Had a hatch last night!  There have been other hatches over the weekend, but there was a problem first with the snagger light not working, and then with the airline getting clogged, so I missed the first two.  
 
I will try to post some pics later today.

Day 1 pics:


 

I got some more pics of the adults now that they have colored up a bit since purchase.  I caught and photographed two of the five, but they are representative of the group.  I have four that carry eggs and one that seem to only function as a male at this point since I have never seen it with eggs.  
 
Top views:



 
Side views:


 
I am between L. pederseni and L. rathbunae.  The brighter red coloring makes them look more like the L. pederseni pic in this paper (but perhaps the less "red" coloring of L. rathbunae is an artifact and not true to life?)
http://decapoda.nhm.org/pdfs/27306/27306.pdf
but the red stripe that is perpendicular to the abdomen about midway to the tail looks more L. rathbunae to me...and that is a "diagnostic" feature, so to speak, in the paper linked.  Hmmm
 
I guess the next couple weeks should help me decide!   L. pederseni will take a very long time to settle without a vase sponge as a cue, and L. rathbunae have a shorter larval duration compared to other peppermint Lysmata from what I recall.  I think I'm hoping for L. rathbunae since I don't have any tube sponges handy.  
 
Regardless of the uncertain species ID at the moment, I do think these peppermint shrimp are prettier than L. boggessi

I also found this article an article in SeaScope (Volume 19, Summer 2002) by Wittenrich about L. rathbunae that mentions they have tan/orange eggs...the Rhyne paper doesn't mention egg color of this species.  However, the additional wrinkle is that the Wittenrich article was written/published BEFORE the re-description of the L. wurdemanni complex by Rhyne in 2006.  So did Wittenrich actually have L. rathbunae?  Or did he have some other species, like L. ankeri that the Rhyne paper says has "pink eggs"?  Peppermint shrimp are confusing...  
 

I pulled a larva last night and it has pleopod buds. Not sure how many have those at this point. I will probably pull a few more over the weekend and check.

 
That is a day 18 larva

I pulled three day 20 larvae yesterday and each seemed to be in a different stage of pleopod development
 
#1

 
#2

 
#3

 
If they are L. rathbunae (instead of L. pederseni) they should start settling within a week I would guess.  If they are L. pederseni I still have 100+ days left

It's day 32 for these and I went to do a water change (it's been awhile...) and I saw that there were at least two settled shrimp





I added some flake food instead of just the bbs like usual.

This means that these are in fact NOT L. pederseni, but rather L. rathbunae like I was beginning to suspect.

Last weekend, after I spotted the two settled shrimp, I did a ~75% water change.  Over the next couple days I had significant die off of nearly all the larvae :/  I ended up with the two settled and two larvae.  Then this week all but the one settled one died! Ugh.  Yesterday I moved the settled one to a breeder basket.  Here he is in his new home:

 
Last night I saw this shrimp:

So I knew I would have a big hatch soon.  I found lots and lots of larvae in the snagger this morning.  This time I put them in a BRT with a gallon or so of broodstock water and then dripped in several more gallons of new ASW in.   I started them on nhbbs.

I have to say, these guys have been a bit trickier for me to raise than L. boggessi. I collected a big hatch awhile ago and put them in a BRT and I'm down to just a few. Granted, I haven't paid a TON of attention to them, but I treated a L. boggessi run similarly and I had much better results! I will collect the next large hatch and be a bit more dedicated. I think these Pepps are more attractive than boggessi, so I would love to rear them in larger numbers.

I had a large hatch a couple nights ago and just put them with the older ones. That tub is cycled by now and there are too few of the older larvae in there for me to want to devote the entire tub to them. I figure if I add the new hatch, I am more likely to remember to feed them and top off and what not. At least I hope so...

If the image posted here is correct ( ," target="_blank" rel="nofollow">http://www.mbisite.org/Fo...m.aspx?m=86617 , then I think you're correct with your Rathbunae ID.  So I think you have it right as Rathbunae, and I think it's valid to submit it as such.

The link takes me to the forum homepage, so I'm not sure what pic you're talking about...

But in any case, glad someone agrees Makes me curious what species Wittenrich worked with though because he reports an entirely different egg color than what mine have and we both claim we had L. rathbunae :/

Hydroids took over the tub that the last larval run was in.  I didn't have time to move them over the weekend and now there are only a couple left in that tub.  I collected a hatch from Monday night and set them up in a new BRT with broodstock water...just a few gallons.  I added nhbbs and an airstone, but I had to put the tub where there isn't a lot of light (I plan to put a light over them, but haven't yet).  I added a couple of more gallons of water this afternoon and also some RGComplete and more nhbbs this afternoon.  

Decided to just wait for the next big hatch rather than try to save the last hatch that were essentially fed once and then left in the dark...

In any case, the ONE I got from my first rearing attempts is 60 DPS


I just quick snapped that this morning. I will try to get a better pic tonight by removing it from that lighting.

Better pic:

Shann,seems you´re breeding L.wurdemanni.

I'm not sure I agree.  The pattern doesn't seem to match L. wurdemanni based on the Rhyne and Lin paper.  Of course, I could be wrong, but...

any chance you still have these? I would love to get some!