My Caridina cf. Propinqua Project

First topic message reminder :

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.

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.

very interesting shrimp
are you hatching them out or do you have some parents doing it
good luck

They hatch out like a typical dwarf shrimp. The mum carries them under her carriage until they hatch. The difference with shrimp like these is that they are low order breeders. That means the babes hatch as larvae instead of a minature version of the adults.

ok cool info

With a couple more 10g tanks, I'll add Amano's and Ninja shrimp to the mix.

And we're growing....





Don't have to strain the eyes so much to see them now. Going to try and clean up the bottom of the tank a little bit tomorrow and add some fresh water. While not necessary, I'm going to see how they react to it. Plus add a fresh coarse of phyto.

Over in the low salt tank, there is promise. I managed to locate (2) floaters. Definately makes me believe it was an age thing that lead to the others not making it.

I've decided that I'm also going to create a freshwater test just to ensure they actually need the salt to survive at this stage.

nice

They are looking like shrimp now!
Love the way you are documenting the growth and what all you are doing!!!

Thanks. I love doing things like this. It's the fun of the hobby.

Reset both salt tanks. The brack tank wound up going sour. A couple of thoughts come to mind:

1) changing of the water as I did. May not have been a good thing. Need to find a better way to clear the bottom or just increase the circulation. Don't want to over do it as I'm pretty sure the zoea might be a bit on the fragile side at this age.
2) Temp. Which this one I am exploring more closely. Room temps seem to be in the mid 60s where they are located. The light really isn't bringing the temps up any. I'm looking for an alternate spot at the moment which would provide some additional heat for them.
3) Food source. The water stayed a nice green tint with the Nannochloropsis. I'm not sure how big the rotifers get if they would be too big for the larvae or not. I have the rotifers culturing just don't know as to how well the starter culture was as they were a "resting" culture.

One female hatched her zoea out last night and there is one in the tank that is hatching earlier than calculated. Found some zoea in the tank. She is now in isolation. Two more females are egg laden.

Test #2 at low salinity level has begun. There wasn't a whole lot of zoea from this hatching so the test group will be small. I'm only going to focus on the low salinity for this group with the small size. I'll go back later this evening to try and fish out the rest of the zoea.

Salt tanks currently sitting at 74F. I moved the light to the side of the tanks instead of hovering over top. This has seemed to put the temp right at the target level.

More zoea than I originally thought. Kewlness. Makes a larger testing group. No casulties witnessed in the past couple of hours. That's a better sign than last attempt. They seem to huddle in the middle of tank near the light. This is leading me to think temperature is playing a bigger role.

Now the next question will be feeding. Right now, I have added 2 tbsp of Nanno. The water has light green tint to it. I think what I'll do this time instead of using the dropper to mix up the water, I will extend the air tube down further and use it. This would keep the same amount of current in the tank at the same time as stirring up the plankton that settles on the bottom. I have increased the air flow just a tad from last time.

Sounds like progress being made even if only a little at a time.

Baby steps. :o)

I just read through this whole thread and it sounds like such an interesting project. I like seeing that you are learning through your mistakes & failures instead of becoming frustrated & quitting! Good for you!

Thx and interesting indeed. There is so much about our hobby that we don't know. Things like this intrigue me. Hopefully I will be able to stumble onto something much like I did with the Otos.

Interesting find. The female in isolation has practically hatched out all her eggs. The odd thing, I can only find a few zoea. I'm thinking I may have had her in there too long and the water quality wasn't as good as it should have been. Grrrrr.

I have another female who is just days away so I will clean out the chamber and place her in there.

Salt tanks have been prepped with fresh water and phyto. Added a bit of Micro Algae grow to encourage the phyto to continue to grow with the zoea.

New Rotifers came in today. These are live specimens instead of the dry eggs I received last time. I'll get their bottle set up in the culture station tomorrow. I also received some decapsulated brine shrimp. May give them a whirl too.

A random thought..... Spirulina powder as a food source?

Hmmmm....interesting thought. May have to try that at some point.

And the Rotifers are started. Since I couldn't find out at what SG the Rotifers were cultured at from the vendor, I am slowly drip acclimating them to 1.014. From what I have read, this is a good salinity for breeding them.



Prior to starting the drip, I feed about 4ml Nannochloropsis. I will feed some more once acclimation is complete.

This is one culture that I have to stay on top of because they say you need to harvest about 25% of it daily since they breed so fast. I believe they last about 8-10 days according to my research.

On the shrimp front, the next female is starting to drop larvae. Same thing as last one though in which there are only a couple in the water. I will be doing a water change today on the tank and try and determine the water quality issue. Two other females are berried and ready to go as well.

At least the rearing tanks should be all thoroughly aged and ready. This next round of testing, I'm looking at 1.014 and 1.005 on the limits.

Have a lot of zoea to work with from this female. I didn't think there was going to be that many when I first noticed the hatching yesterday. Today, I noticed that they all hatched out. I went to put the female back in the tank and I obviously stirred them all up.

I'm going to go two days with this group and then place them in the salt water. So far as it seems with this first wave of tests, the zoea that are placed in the salt tanks within the first 24 hours have been the ones to survive the longest. Keep in mind there have only been a few test groups to date and still have a long way to go.

There will be plenty of food available from this point on. The Nannochloropsis phyto's have done really well at all salinities. I've got some Tetraselmis going at 1.014 as well. Rotifers seem to be doing well with first harvest there around Tuesday. I'm not really sure how to go about that yet though. Not sure if I just pour them into an alternate bottle or if they need to be filtered out. I believe the filtering might just be when feeding so as to not add their water to the tank.

One of the other females has dropped her eggs and I'm sure that was my doing. When I went to put the latest female in isolation, I managed to get the wrong one. I'm sure that is the one that dropped her eggs. One other egg carrying female in line and should be going into isolation at the end of the week.

Love the drip set up! That looks like something I would do!
Thank you for keeping us posted on your experiment! It is turning into a very intriguing and educational read!

Fern wrote:

Love the drip set up!

That should be a good reminder to me that I need to buy more valves. ;o)

Naaa, I use a hair clip to keep a drip tube in my tank when acclimating, whatever works

absolutely. That's why I like these valves. They are only a couple of bucks for a pack of them. I'm able to dial in the right drip rate I want much, much easier.

Huh Never heard of those, they do sound handy!