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Peppermint Shrimp Spawn (L.boggessi)
Tuesday, May 31, 2011 10:55 PM
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No more than two hours after lights out my Peppermint Shrimp released the clutch and now I have several hundred larvae in the nursery! Upon observing them for the last two hours I have come to believe that the kreisel system is not the best method for rearing Lysmata and attempts to keep them suspended in the water column are unnatural and probably account for the low success rates in breeding this species. Let me explain my observations, the larvae are all attaching themselves to the sides of the nursery and arranging themselves in the same position, head down, abdomens gently beating in the water column. The nursery has been established for about two months and has plenty of diatoms and a nice brown film algae along the sides of the tank. Upon first glance I thought that perhaps they were getting caught in the film algae until I noticed that they are actually reaching out and taking a hold of the sides. I'm ruling out the possiblity that they are accidentally getting stuck because they have all taken on the same position (heads down abdomens gently beating in the water column), if they were getting stuck they would be every direction including being stuck on their backs and they are not. Then every once in a while they will release themselves move along in the current and then reattach themselves. They appear to be feeding off the film algae in the nursery. The set-up that I am using is a slightly modified version of the same breeding system that I discuss in my book "Breeding Berghia Nudibranches the best kept secret".
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Re:Peppermint Shrimp Spawn (L.boggessi)
Tuesday, May 31, 2011 11:02 PM
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Cool observations. I haven't worked with them personally but several others have. You can see journal in the "Invert Breeding Journals" forum. I'm looking forward to the book. Haven't gotten a copy yet.
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Re:Peppermint Shrimp Spawn (L.boggessi)
Wednesday, June 1, 2011 12:00 AM
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I had a quick look at the journal.....the larvae collection method seems like an awful lot of work (IMHO) and would add the risk of damaging the larvae. (I'm not knocking anyone so please don't misinterpret what I'm saying and their work is certainly appreciated.....I'm just working "outside of the box") Why collect the larvae if you don't have to? When my PS was ready to release I just moved it over to the nursery a few days prior and once the clutch was released moved "her" back again to the tank that has the mates. Took all of 2 minutes. Larvae aren't damaged by any type of collection method so they are happy, "mama" is happy....I'm happy. Plus, I have the advantage of running a full sump, filtration system (power filters, skimmer, UV) and water top-off on both the breeding tank and the nursery tanks and the larvae are completely separated from the filtration system!
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Re:Peppermint Shrimp Spawn (L.boggessi)
Wednesday, June 1, 2011 12:07 AM
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I've never done it but moving the adult (pre-release) seems to make more sense to me too. Thinking out of the box is great! BTW, my parents have a place in Elliot Lake area.
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Re:Peppermint Shrimp Spawn (L.boggessi)
Wednesday, June 1, 2011 12:18 AM
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Elliot Lake....neat! I've never been there but would love to go sometime! Moving pre-release seemed to make the most sense to me as well....more natural for all party's involved. Here's another interesting observation, if I turn the lights out and wait an hour or so the larvae all release from the sides of the nursery and float around in the water column. If I turn the lights on again and wait for about a half hour they all start to reattach themselves to the sides of the nursery.
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Re:Peppermint Shrimp Spawn (L.boggessi)
Wednesday, June 1, 2011 7:37 AM
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Babies (whether vertebrate or not) do seem to like facing into the current, watching for food to come to them. Why do you think that peps wouldn't be able to do that in a kreisel?
--Andy, the bucket man. "Not to know the mandolin is to argue oneself unknown...." --Clara Lanza, 1886
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Re:Peppermint Shrimp Spawn (L.boggessi)
Wednesday, June 1, 2011 10:03 AM
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 Originally Posted by Umm_fish?
Babies (whether vertebrate or not) do seem to like facing into the current, watching for food to come to them. Why do you think that peps wouldn't be able to do that in a kreisel?
It's not that I don't think that they would do that in a kreisel, what I am observing with the larvae in my nursery seems to strongly suggest that the kreisel method and trying to keep them suspended in the water column is very unnatural and works against their natural behaviour. Therefore, I would say that the kreisel method would be adding more stress to the larvae than not.
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Re:Peppermint Shrimp Spawn (L.boggessi)
Wednesday, June 1, 2011 12:57 PM
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Well, the reason I asked is that a kreisel affords them surface area to attach to and current to face into all the way around the circle. Does that make sense? I think a kreisel is probably a bit of overkill for these but I can't see why it would harm them.
--Andy, the bucket man. "Not to know the mandolin is to argue oneself unknown...." --Clara Lanza, 1886
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Re:Peppermint Shrimp Spawn (L.boggessi)
Wednesday, June 1, 2011 2:33 PM
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Originally Posted by Umm_fish?
Well, the reason I asked is that a kreisel affords them surface area to attach to and current to face into all the way around the circle. Does that make sense? I think a kreisel is probably a bit of overkill for these but I can't see why it would harm them.
It doesn't make much sense to me...the kreisel doesn't add any more surface area than a nursery. And my observations are that they are not facing into the current but are all facing head down that's why it doesn't seem to make any sense to me. Just based on what I am observing the kreisel method puts the larvae in an environmental state that seems to be totally unnatural to what I am seeing with the larvae. IMHO it doesn't seem to be a recipe to success from the start.
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Re:Peppermint Shrimp Spawn (L.boggessi)
Wednesday, June 1, 2011 3:10 PM
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You have more surface area in a kreisel because there is no place inside (if you use a kreisel where there is no water surface) where there's not a surface for them to grab hold, if they want to. There's no open top, so every side is a surface area. I don't know what your definition of "nursery" is so I can't comment on whether that would have more surface area than a completely enclosed tube for the same volume of water, but I doubt it. To be honest, from what I have seen and read not a lot of serious aquaculture people use kreisels with shrimp larvae. The people who are culturing the hard shrimp (L. amboinensis and L. debelius, for example) use tanks with rounded cone shapes.
--Andy, the bucket man. "Not to know the mandolin is to argue oneself unknown...." --Clara Lanza, 1886
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Re:Peppermint Shrimp Spawn (L.boggessi)
Wednesday, June 1, 2011 3:31 PM
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I understand what you are saying about the closed tube; however, a general rule of thumb in aquaculture is to copy or mimmick as best as you can the natural environment or provide an environment where the organism being bred is allowed to behave as naturally as possible....then adopt the necessary requirements to make it economically feasible for commercial ventures. The cone method has more to do with ease of cleaning (ie it eliminates someone going tank to tank to siphon out the bottom).
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Re:Peppermint Shrimp Spawn (L.boggessi)
Wednesday, June 1, 2011 5:54 PM
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Now the larvae are beginning to take "prey", this time around I have decided not to go down the normal route of NHBBS, instead I have been starting to feed them fresh water cyclops in the 200-400 micron range. Based on my experience with raising seahorses I have come to learn a couple of things: 1) artemia cysts are notorious for carrying pathogens (especially vibrio sp) 2) I have only found hydroids in association with this food source. and thirdly, one way to cut down on pathogens or disease is to introduce a food source from a different environment altogether. When we were raising seahorses we used a fresh water mysis (PE Mysis) in order to help reduce/eliminate disease.
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Re:Peppermint Shrimp Spawn (L.boggessi)
Wednesday, June 1, 2011 7:10 PM
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Originally Posted by however, a general rule of thumb in aquaculture is to copy or mimmick as best as you can the natural environment or provide an environment where the organism being bred is allowed to behave as naturally as possible So, you are aiming at 40,000 gal., sunlit tanks in the greenhouse and introducing huge plankton blooms to get prey density high enough?  Nothing about this process remotely resembles "natural" unfortunately. What we are doing is trying to find technological solutions that are good enough to get us--and the larvae--by, IMO, but they fall far short of natural. The cone design is not primarily to do with cleaning. It's an attempt to minimize larval damage from contact with hard surfaces and maximize the benefits of kreisel water movement (all the way around the central water return) while making cleaning easier. But it is my understanding that the first two issues were most important.
--Andy, the bucket man. "Not to know the mandolin is to argue oneself unknown...." --Clara Lanza, 1886
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Re:Peppermint Shrimp Spawn (L.boggessi)
Wednesday, June 1, 2011 8:15 PM
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Andy, I see you are on the MBI Council, may I ask what area of expertise you are bringing to the table as far as breeding marine organisms?
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Re:Peppermint Shrimp Spawn (L.boggessi)
Thursday, June 2, 2011 12:24 AM
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With regard to shrimp breeding? Not much. I've not raised shrimp. I have talked to one of the people who has raised the harder shrimp with regard to his reasoning behind the culture vessel choice (because I became interested in those type of vessels and am still looking for alternatives to learning how to fiberglass my own), I have talked to another of those who've been successful raising the harder shrimp about more general aspects, I believe I have read all of the books on the subject of rearing ornamental marine shrimp and many of the papers, and I have taken invertebrate embryology classes. But I have never raised shrimp. They aren't really my main interest, though they are always on my list. On the other hand, I have raised animals in kreisels and watched their behavior and I do a lot of thinking about the fluid dynamics of culture vessels. That's why your description of how your animals are acting sounds familiar to me. And that's why I questioned your conclusion with regard to the amount of available surface area inside your rearing vessel. You still haven't described this rearing vessel, so I still can't evaluate the specifics for myself but I still doubt it can offer more surface area. But the truth is that _more_ surface area isn't necessarily _better_ surface area (talking about "more" is really just a side issue from the original conversation), but again I have no information on what you are doing so I have no information with which to evaluate whether yours is better, either. Honestly, the "better" question is the more interesting one and where the discussion really ought to focus. The "more" question is just math and isn't all that interesting, IMO. If we could move back to my original question: Why do you think that peps wouldn't attach and make use of the surface area available to them in a kreisel (if attaching and making use of surface area is what peps want to do)? In other words, why are they more likely to engage in this behavior in whatever vessel you are using and less likely to do so in a kreisel? That's what I was originally driving at. Hopefully that gets us back on track. I want to apologize if I've offended you by asking these questions, which is what I think I've done by the tone of your last post. I'm not doing it because I'm trying to attack you. I'm doing it because I'm interested in your answer and I'm hoping that the conversation (a) results in me learning something, (b) hopefully results in other people learning something, and (c) in the end results in one step closer to a whole lot more captive bred animals in the world. Lively debate and the general increase in knowledge that ensues from it is the whole point of the forum structure. That's why I ask you questions.
--Andy, the bucket man. "Not to know the mandolin is to argue oneself unknown...." --Clara Lanza, 1886
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Re:Peppermint Shrimp Spawn (L.boggessi)
Thursday, June 2, 2011 2:55 PM
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But interestingly a new article shows successful raising of the difficult phyllosoma larvae of spiny lobster in a jellyfish kreisel.
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Re:Peppermint Shrimp Spawn (L.boggessi)
Thursday, June 2, 2011 4:28 PM
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Re:Peppermint Shrimp Spawn (L.boggessi)
Friday, June 3, 2011 11:09 AM
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Originally Posted by luis a m Forgiven Luis! Yes I have an identical thread there.....so forgive me for any dizziness!!  Quick update: this is now day 3...last night the larvae were swimming in erratic circles which leads me to believe that they went through some type of molting process because today they are all swimming normally again......but I am still at bench mark zoea 2. Tomorrow they should go through another major molt (zoea3) and develop tensile "fins". I have also noticed them still eating "meaty" food heartily and also grazing on the film algae on the sides of the nursery. I watched one very closely and it actually left a little "plow" mark in the algae about a 1/4 of an inch long as it gobbled away. Since my "female" is holding a clutch again I think that I am going to concentrate on "her" diet and focus on foods with a very high DHA (Docosahexaenoic acid is an omega-3 fatty acid) rather than EPA. DHA is important in the development of the central nervous system. Drawing on my experience breeding seahorses I learned that most marine organisms have the ability to convert DHA into the necessary EPA (Eicosapentaenoic acid) that they need but they cannot convert EPA into the necessary DHA that they need in development as a result you will see premature deaths in larvae or fry that are suffering from a DHA deficiency. So let's start right at the source and "pump mama" up with a high DHA diet while she is carrying the eggs.
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Re:Peppermint Shrimp Spawn (L.boggessi)
Friday, June 3, 2011 6:20 PM
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thanks. So this afternoon stopped by the fresh fish counter at the local grocery store and picked up some ingredients for "mama's" diet: 1- small fresh squid $1.39 2- oysters on sale for 0.99 ea $1.98 1- large scallop $3.00 1- small piece of marlin steak $1.64 (I talked nice to the girl on the counter and told her what I was doing...she giggled and cut me a corner off the steak, I think I would have preferred some fresh mackerel but they were fresh out...anyway the marlin is a more coarse meat and that is what I was looking for. 1- bag of dried red seaweed $3.99 (and of course a box of medium sized ziplock top freezer bags and a handful of hot peperroni sticks to eat on the way home  ) Once home, out came the blender and in went the squid, scallop, oysters, marlin and a small chunk of red seaweed (just enough to turn the whole batch a purple/grey colour once blended). Hit the blender button and let it blend away until it looked and smelt like a stinky thick milkshake. From there it was a matter of spooning it into the freezer bag, squeezing the air out and letting it lie flat in the freezer until fully frozen. Then I can break off a chunk or shave off slices for the Peppermints (mamas and pappas) and figure I have enough for about 3 months maybe. (The larvae I am going to keep on shaved FW cyclops...store bought BTW) I was so pleased with my gourmet, I put a bit on the end of my finger and introduced it to the broodstock....man, they almost lept out of the tank at it,....fought over it and then each went its way with a nice little glob of seafood goo! Nothing better than when you've spent all day in the kitchen and the guests love the meal! Didn't hear a burp tho. So today I measured the flow through on the nursery....3 gallons an hour... this gives me approximately a tank turnover of filtered water from the sump every two hours. (In other words it's a constant 100% water change in the nursery every two hours and its easier than maintaining a reef tank....that's for sure..life is good!) Also did a 5-gallon water change on the system....that took less time than a cup of tea. So all in all the system is working perfectly for Peppermints and their larvae,...next week I'm going to introduce a few snails into the nursery to help eat left over food....haven't decided which yet but I'm certain that I can co-breed snails along with the Peppermints (well we'll see) if not I'll set up another breeding chamber and toss them in that (the system is totally modular and I can pretty well add or subtract breeding chambers and broodstock tank set-ups in a few minutes).
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Re:Peppermint Shrimp Spawn (L.boggessi)
Saturday, June 4, 2011 10:45 AM
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Okay so it's now day 4, although I don't have the ability to accurately measure the length of the larvae at the moment, they look to be about 2-3 mm long now. No other major changes at the moment...their just doing what larvae do...eat and swim, but I have noticed that they aren't attaching themselves to the sides of the nursery as often as what they did the first day. I guess that would be because they can handle the meaty foods now and aren't interested in the film algae as much any more. Gearing up for the next major molt which will bring me to zoea 3, things seem to be moving along well because I can see that their tails are less heart shaped now and broadening out with slight notches. So things are still looking pretty good at the moment. Now, the way that the broodstock have been gobbling down the "new" food and the amounts of it that I can see in their digestive tract leads me to believe that I must have been starving these before hand and they certainly weren't getting enough (I had them on the FW cyclops as well up until yesterday's creation of the new food). Okay, I'm guilty...and I'm certain that this first group of larvae were probably not of the highest quality. Not only because of a "poor" diet in mama but this was her first batch as well. The broodstock were all very small and couldn't have been more than a few months old from post larvae. Now, let's take a look at the losses so far....after the first night I lost most of the larvae but that has more to do with me experimenting with this system and I most certainly had the re-circulation PF (power-filter) far too high (there is no chance for the larvae to be sucked into this PF because this PF draws water in from an outer chamber). The second day the PF was still too high and finally had to be turned off all together with just the input water turned on at a rate of 3 gals/hour to give the breeding chamber a constant water change. As the larvae get larger I'll experiment with turning the PF back on...what I might have to do is add a very small recirculation pump to the water jacket between the inner and outer chambers...we'll see maybe next batch, I don't want to introduce too many variables at this point (this is were I think we as hobbyists make alot of our breeding mistakes..we panic make a million changes and then lose track of what has been done and loose sight of all the causes/effects. The inner chamber of the breeding unit holds all the larvae and none can pass through to any of the filtration equipment or return water, here I am not using any type of a screen but rather a natural barrier. So, right now it looks as though I have somewhere around 10-15 larvae left give or take a few (for now I am okay with that number since the goal of the first batch was to prove out the slight system modifications necessary when adopting my system from nudibranches to crustaceans....this passed with flying colours, so a little pat on the back for me, and the first major goal is a complete success). This frees me up to concentrate and spend my efforts on dietary needs. Really looking forward to the next batch because of the major diet change for mama and it'll be round two for her. On batch two we won't make any other changes to the diet, the broodstaock on the new food and the larvae on shaved frozen FW cyclops....but that for batch two. Alright then...patiently waiting for the next major molt to occur and then we'll be at zoea 3.
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