Breeding Journal, Species: Lysmata wurdemanni

General
Species:  Lysmata wurdemanni
Social Structure:  group of 3
Size of Individuals:  1.5 inches
Age of Individuals:  unknown
Date added to Tank: one on 7/4/2015 , two more on 7/12/15

Broodstock Tank Details
Size of Tank:  15 gallons
Substrate Details:  large PVC 
Filtration Details:  sponge filter 
Water Changes:  yes, once a month
Water Temperature:  78F
Lighting:  fluorescent CFL
Lighting Cycle:  14 hours day, 10 hours night
Other Tank Inhabitants:  2 Watchman gobies

Broodstock Feeding Details
Food Types:  frozen mash, Otohime B2
Feeding Schedule:  twice daily

Spawning Details
Date of First Spawn:  7/14/15
Spawn Time of Day:  after dark in evening
Dates of Consecutive Spawns:  assumed 7/1/15 since hatch was 7/15/15
Courtship Details:  unknown, eggs attached to swimmerets the next morning.
Egg Size:  tiny, but  unknown
Egg Color:  green
Egg Count:  unknown

Hatch Details
Hatch Date:  7/15/15
Hatch Time of Day:  assumed overnight, larvae found 7/16/15
# Days after Spawn:  unknown since this spawning was not recorded
Larvae Description: tiny shrimp bodies with lots of appendages, eyes not on stalks yet.  Not a lot of color, but these shrimp parents did not get astaxanthin as my boggessi parents did. Boggessi larvae were rather orange.


Larval Tank Details
Temperature:  ambient, 73F
Size of Larval Tank:  two gallon fishbowl, plastic
Substrate Details:  none
Other Tank Decor:none 
Filtration Details:  water changes, rigid airline connected to air, to keep water circulating
Lighting:  ambient CFL clamped to ceiling beam
Lighting Cycle:  14 hours day, 10 hours night
Water Changes:  as needed, perhaps once a week, or else clean water replenishes water siphoned out to remove detritus.

Larval Feeding Details
Food Types:  Newly hatched brine shrimp
Feeding Schedule:  twice daily

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: 
successive spawning events: 8/3/15
successive hatching events: 8/2/15


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.

check out Kathy's Clowns, llc website:
http://kathysclowns.com
Captive bred clownfish and more
(Wholesale to the trade.)

So excited to have finally found one! And it has eggs! 

check out Kathy's Clowns, llc website:
http://kathysclowns.com
Captive bred clownfish and more
(Wholesale to the trade.)

You bought it with eggs?  Awesome - hopefully you will soon have a bunch!  All I can find in my area are L. boggessi.  Happy 4th of July!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Ken

No kidding! I was so excited to finally find one!

check out Kathy's Clowns, llc website:
http://kathysclowns.com
Captive bred clownfish and more
(Wholesale to the trade.)

Indeed!.See how nice it looks
Since some years all peppers in the market are the "ugly duckling" L.boggessi.Even peppers imported from Asia,they are captive bred boggessi.Though wurdemanni are common in US waters,I collected my first stock in the Gulf of Mexico.Captive bred wurdemanni should displace boggessi in LFS,given they are much nicer.
Same happens with L.grabhami,though native Americans,you never see one in LFS,only imported L.amboinensis.The only grabhami  I could ever see was in the Public Aquarium at Havanna.

Luis,
Do you know if the peppermint shrimps hybridize? I found this one in a collection of boggessi, so I wonder about the parentage of the eggs.

check out Kathy's Clowns, llc website:
http://kathysclowns.com
Captive bred clownfish and more
(Wholesale to the trade.)

And now, they are everywhere….Another store had a bunch, so I bought 2 more, one with eggs. I can smell the spawn and hatch reports.  We start with the hatch of one……….

check out Kathy's Clowns, llc website:
http://kathysclowns.com
Captive bred clownfish and more
(Wholesale to the trade.)

One came in with eggs, and I thought that the old one also had eggs, but I could not find them yesterday.  Only one shrimp had eggs yesterday, and it was one of the new ones.  I wonder if the older one was fertilized by a boggessi, since it was purchased in a tank of boggessis. Perhaps the eggs were not viable.  If they were, the larvae did not make it to the snagger, which is running 24/7 in this tank. 
 
This morning I found a molt, and now two of the three shrimps are carrying eggs, one's eggs are very green and I think that's the one that molted last night. Pix to follow:
 

check out Kathy's Clowns, llc website:
http://kathysclowns.com
Captive bred clownfish and more
(Wholesale to the trade.)

Shrimp tank with molt

 
close up of molt

 
new egged shrimp

 
non-egged shrimp

check out Kathy's Clowns, llc website:
http://kathysclowns.com
Captive bred clownfish and more
(Wholesale to the trade.)

Very cool that you found wurdemanni! 

No,Kathy they don´t.Andy reported that somewhere.

thanks Luis, I should ask Andy for a reference.

check out Kathy's Clowns, llc website:
http://kathysclowns.com
Captive bred clownfish and more
(Wholesale to the trade.)

First thing I do every morning is check the snagger in the Wurdemanni tank. Nothing today.  
 
Checked the shrimps , and huh, only one had eggs this morning. While puzzling this with the flashlight, I caught sight of a larval shrimp OUTSIDE the snagger!  OMG, one of the egg holders must have hatched a bunch.  I turned off the room lights closest to the tank and shone  flashlight down the glass and started sucking shrimp larvae out of the tank with a transfer pipet.   I didn't get many, but some. Here's pix:

 
and a close up

 
I already had a fishbowl kreisel set up, so after a little acclimating, in they went with some NH brine shrimp.  Somehow, some brine shrimp nauplii had found the kreisel a few days ago, and still swim around in the food-less water , but i suppose they do no harm. I left them in there.

check out Kathy's Clowns, llc website:
http://kathysclowns.com
Captive bred clownfish and more
(Wholesale to the trade.)

So I was going about my business with fish room chores and all, and I'm checking out the goby in the wurdemanni tank, and all is well.  Then I see them! There were still wurdemanni larvae in the shrimp tank 10 hours after I left for work today.  I sucked a few more out with a transfer pipet and added them t the fishbowl.  I also added some harpacticoids from the boggesssi bowl, because, why not? 
 
Kirkendol says that they may die in 3 days if they don't eat the morning after they hatch, but I'm not worried about these guys, since the shrimp tank is loaded with harpacticoids that came from the sponge filter I seeded in a sump with lots of live rock, supplemented by whatever I'm culturing. I should get a pair of mandarins….
This tank is crawling with harps.

check out Kathy's Clowns, llc website:
http://kathysclowns.com
Captive bred clownfish and more
(Wholesale to the trade.)

Interestingly, I used a small cup to transfer the larvae into after I captured them, that had previously held dinner for the bigger fish:;Larry's Fish Frenzy. A piece was still in there.  Later when I went to try to get pictures under the scope, about 4 of them were playing tug of war over the food--proof that they like dead food as well as live food.

check out Kathy's Clowns, llc website:
http://kathysclowns.com
Captive bred clownfish and more
(Wholesale to the trade.)

Morning Larvae curled with tail under:


 

This evening's ad for Larry's Fish Frenzy:

check out Kathy's Clowns, llc website:
http://kathysclowns.com
Captive bred clownfish and more
(Wholesale to the trade.)

Last night there was another molt, and we again have 2 adult shrimps with eggs this morning.  So it seems that the shrimps release the larvae a day before they molt, and become egg bearers again.  I had thought previously that it happened on the same night.
 
I could find no larval shrimp in the parents' tank this morning.
 
The larval shrimp collected yesterday seem fine in their fishbowl kreisel, but I think I added too many NHBS, and I may have to figure out how to get them out…the boggessi bowl needs a good water change as well.

check out Kathy's Clowns, llc website:
http://kathysclowns.com
Captive bred clownfish and more
(Wholesale to the trade.)

Yesterday the wurdemanni's eyes went on stalks, and they seem overall bigger.

check out Kathy's Clowns, llc website:
http://kathysclowns.com
Captive bred clownfish and more
(Wholesale to the trade.)

They got spear legs a few days ago.
I added a terrestrial plant transplant warming mat under the fishbowl yesterday.  Today the temperature is 80F.  I'm hoping this will speed metamorphosis, as I've read from Shannon Pecheur's report: 24 days to meta at 80F and elsewhere, 21 days to meta, 10-14 days earlier than Kirkendol published at room temp (73F).

check out Kathy's Clowns, llc website:
http://kathysclowns.com
Captive bred clownfish and more
(Wholesale to the trade.)

Kathy,your pictures are outstanding!
Seems you are using a compound microscope,but are you lighting from beneath AND above?

Thanks Luis,
I am using a discarded (from work--they were throwing it away) Nikon dissecting scope, I guess it is compound: it has a wheel that advances or retreats the magnification and a 10x objective.  The max magnification then is 40x.  It has a large stage with a mirror under it.  The light that came with it broke a long time ago, so I just shine a flashlight through the hole where the light goes. 
 
I took these pictures by holding my Canon Point and Shoot camera (autofocus, macro setting, no flash) up to one of the objectives with the other one closed off. I then refocused the image by looking at the camera screen, and took the pictures.  It is awkward and I don't always get good results.  Often by the time I get everything set up, the subject swims away.  Or I'll get a perfect orientation of the subject only to have the camera automatically shut itself off. Sometimes it doesn't pay to be cheap.

check out Kathy's Clowns, llc website:
http://kathysclowns.com
Captive bred clownfish and more
(Wholesale to the trade.)

One of the wurdemanni hatched it's eggs last night.  The passive snagger is worthless for these guys… I got about 3 shrimps in it.  The rest I siphoned out after darkening the tank and shining a flashlight in a corner. There are still lots of shrimp nauplii in the tank, but I have enough.  I added them to the 2 or 3 larger survivors (recent deaths happened…) after a short acclimation. 

check out Kathy's Clowns, llc website:
http://kathysclowns.com
Captive bred clownfish and more
(Wholesale to the trade.)

still lots of nauplii in the adult shrimp tank. There was a spawning event last night as well. The adults stay at the darker side of the tank and the nauplii stay nearest the light source at the other end. This morning I made sure that the adults had plenty of chow to eat, and then I added some NHBS to the nauplii side. NHBS are also attracted to light so I saw them all congregating at the meniscus at the brightest corner. Wurdemanni naups were striking at the food!

check out Kathy's Clowns, llc website:
http://kathysclowns.com
Captive bred clownfish and more
(Wholesale to the trade.)

Hey April Kirkendol! How's this for training your shrimp?

check out Kathy's Clowns, llc website:
http://kathysclowns.com
Captive bred clownfish and more
(Wholesale to the trade.)

That's Awesome!!! 

http://www.fishtalpropagations.com/#!home/mainPage
"Making captive breeding easier."

Thanks Tal!

check out Kathy's Clowns, llc website:
http://kathysclowns.com
Captive bred clownfish and more
(Wholesale to the trade.)

Larvae in the shrimp tank are all gone, larvae in the fishbowl are doing really well. Eyes are on stalks and I think they are growing paddle legs.

check out Kathy's Clowns, llc website:
http://kathysclowns.com
Captive bred clownfish and more
(Wholesale to the trade.)

All have paddle legs now, but the numbers are decreased.  I though these guys were supposed to be easy….admittedly, I've been distracted by other things in the fish room.

check out Kathy's Clowns, llc website:
http://kathysclowns.com
Captive bred clownfish and more
(Wholesale to the trade.)

Why do you have the larvae 5 degrees cooler than the parents? 

Good question.  Parents are in with other fish, so I have a heater in the tank.  Kirkendol says that Peppermint shrimp can be raised at room temperature.  I didn't think it mattered, so I started them at 73, the temperature of the basement, then I read Shannon's shrimp reports, where meta came sooner in a warmer tank, and another publication where highter temps shortened larval duration.  Currently, I have a warmer under the larval fishbowl, which brings the temperature to 79ish.

check out Kathy's Clowns, llc website:
http://kathysclowns.com
Captive bred clownfish and more
(Wholesale to the trade.)

Interesting, I figured there was a reason. How many do you have left?

not many. these seem harder than boggessi!

check out Kathy's Clowns, llc website:
http://kathysclowns.com
Captive bred clownfish and more
(Wholesale to the trade.)

From my first attempt I would agree. Maybe now that MBI has them acuretly identified we can start gathering info on them being a "B level" species.

Thank goodness I got the Clarkii's done. Hard to get enough A classes. I first wanted Wurdemannis to get a class A. But I do think they are not as robust.

check out Kathy's Clowns, llc website:
http://kathysclowns.com
Captive bred clownfish and more
(Wholesale to the trade.)

I have one wurdemanni larva left, and no brood stock. This larva is fully developed, with long pleopods, but one of its spear legs got broken off and it is growing a new one. When/if that growth is complete, I can only hope for metamorphosis. Adult wurdemannis have disappeared from all LFS again.  It may be a seasonal thing when we get them in.  I would hate to have to wait until next year for this species.

check out Kathy's Clowns, llc website:
http://kathysclowns.com
Captive bred clownfish and more
(Wholesale to the trade.)

All dead now.

check out Kathy's Clowns, llc website:
http://kathysclowns.com
Captive bred clownfish and more
(Wholesale to the trade.)