My Caridina cf. Propinqua Project

Zoea from Caridina cf. Propinqua (a.k.a Sunkist Orange Shrimp)

They will be washed out to sea today (moved to their salt tank).

I tried to get some shots last night of them and this is about the best I could get at the moment. They are so small. I'll try to snap some more before moving out to sea. You can just make them out as they almost look like arrows.



I'm going to estimate around 40 or so zoea in there at the moment. This morning, most of them where in the same corner as pictured above.

Time's running out on the remaining ones in the tank. Hopefully I will be able to find alot more today and get them moved over so they at least will have a fighting chance of survival.

Congrats. Keep them coming!

The wife would love some of those.

nice, congratz!!!

Congratz!

Oh very cool! So they are ones that need salt water to develop?

Yes, this is one species that require salt to develop.

Wow amazing work James.

Thx. That was the easy part. ;o)

Now to the difficult portion.

I think I goofed up a bit on this. I added fresh water to the sea tank before moving the zoea. Problem was, I didn't let it get to room temp first. The sea tank looks to be wiped out. The brack tank seems to be ok for the moment with the zoea still floating around in the current. I'll catch them moving from time to time.

I'll reset the sea tank today and move over more zoea if they are still alive in the freshwater. I looked in there this morning and might be around 20 or so still in there.

It happens to the best of us

Oh OUCH! Even those of us who have done this for years screw up. I know I do!

Always a learning curve with stuffs like this. You just don't expect self inflicted issues like these. It's all good. I may have acted to hastely anyway. Probably had more time than the initial 2 days as I was banking.

James you're giving me ideas. Has anyone ever tried to breed nerite snails? I have about 30 of them and always have eggs all over the tanks.

well...you could always gather em up and send them up my way. We'll drop them in the brack tank and see what happens. ;o)

If you would like some I can give them to you at the Jan 9th meeting.

That's a possibility. I would definately volunteer my project tanks for you as well if you'd like. I'm sure the zoea won't mind sharing. lol

I read 1 successful breeder let them lay eggs in the fresh water then moved the wood full of eggs to full saltwater. In the free swimming stage would they bother the zoea?

I don't think so. I believe the feed off of the phyto as well.

Last night as well, I pulled out more zoea and added to the sea tank.

Second female's eggs are hatching as of last night. Checked this morning and looks to be 100 or so (rough guestimate of course) zoea in the isolation container. She still had a few under her but would anticipate them being gone by this afternoon. Will move her back to the main tank then.

These zoea will stay there until Sunday at the latest.

Check of the salt tanks and I still see zoea floating about. The phyto plankton seeming to settle a bit much on the bottom even with the air flow. May want to try and do something else about that. But in the mean time, I just use the dropper to get movement on the bottom to stir it up again.

Can you use a piece of tubing with a couple of tiny pin holes along the back of the tank to create a small current of air to move the water? (diy bubble wall is what I use this method for with larger holes in the tubing)

An observation:

- Sea Tank: Nothing. No signs of life. After two batches of zoea. The first one admittingly may have been keeper error. The second should have been good. I'll clean out the tank and make one more attempt at sea water.

- Brack Tank: Good progres here. I only could find one zoea that didn't make it at this time. I still see many floating around.

Further observations:

- The zoea don't remain in a constant floating state. They will settle on the side walls.

Here's a shot of the fresh zoea that hatched out last night/this morning:


- The phytoplankton should be stired up a few times a day. With the low circulation in the salt tanks, it tends to settle on the bottom. I'm using a big dosing dropper to dispurse the sediment. Seems to be working fine so far.

Here's a shot of the salt tanks: (Brack is on the left and Sea is to the right)


- Back in the main tank, another female berried up nicely. She's packing a ton of eggs.

Sea tank was cleaned out and reset. I added a combination of Iso and Tetra phytos this time.

More zoea were added to both tanks. I didn't do anything with the brack except stir up the bottom and add some more Nanno phyto. Hefty amounts of zoea added. Not gonna spend a whole lot of time trying to count so we'll just say (2) dropper fulls. ;)

Back to the sea tank, it was the same. (2) droppers full of zoea added. Adjusted the air flow a bit to slow the current down just a smidge.

Observation:

To catch zoe, place the isolation container in darkness. This causes them to bundle up with each other at the bottom instead of free floating. Once the light source is added back, they start to slowly float to the top and hit the current. I only leave it dark long enough for them to congregate. Maybe it puts them in a "sleep" mode.

I currently have the isolation chamber on black out again to catch more for transfer.

Found another berried female today. She's only holding about half as much as the other one.

Observation: Sea water needs to be ruled out at the early zoea phase. Recently added zoea have perished. They don't last long at all in sea water. Tank will be reset, again, tomorrow and we'll drop the salinity to lower end of the spectrum. I'm going to shoot for 1.005 which was my original number I was looking at when I started my research.

There are now (3) berried ladies in the main tank. Awesomeness! Lots of zoea to play with in the future.

Speaking of zoea ... sea tank was torn down and reset at ~ 1.005. Now I give an approximate value in that the fresh medium was made up at that level. However, my phyto cultures are at 1.026 and 1.014. I added a few tablespoons of each as well as the freshwater that the zoea came. Think I got the remaining zoea from the freshwater out. All those went into the low salt tank.

Brank tank continues to do well. Have only seen a couple zoea that look like they didn't make it. But for the most part, all are still floating in the current.

Here's and odd thing. The zoea in the lower salt tank seemed to have perished as well. Very, very interesting. Maybe they were too old when I moved them and just didn't quite have the strength to carry on. I'll check it again this evening and see.

I will try this salt level once more with the new batch of zoea.

Plus note: Rotifers arrived today. Culture will be started either this evening or tomorrow.