raising harlequin shrimp

[aquatictec]

We forgot to collect them the first day so we missed most of them. We collected about 20 larvae on March 1st. We put them in a white bucket with aeration from a rigid airline and added rotifers. On the second we added 2 species of phytoplankton, some unknown copepod species subculture from our rotifer tanks, and some week old baby brine. They appear to be eating the baby brine. Our plan is to keep the water slightly tinted with the live phytoplankton, to monitor the brine shrimp level, and keep our fingers crossed that they make it past day 5.



We have been trying to raise harlequin shrimp for some time now and was hoping someone might have some insights

Greg Smith
Aquatic Technology

[KorL]

Update? Any survivors?

[aquatictec]

check the link below for where we are so far

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/sh....php?t=2445470

[Reef Frog]

Great project. Are you using any live rock or other substrate to provide shelter & perhaps a place for the copepods to congregate on? I was wondering if any of your disappearances could be attributed to cannibalism?

I the wild I would suspect larval and adolescent shrimp would also feed on dead microlife. Have you experimented with prepared plankton food like very small krill or something like fish or prawn eggs or maybe cyclopseeze? I was wondering where these shrimp are found in the wild? Best of luck with your project.

[aquatictec]

parvo copepods are planktonic as are the larval shrimp

they drift/swim in the current

[aquatictec]

For the next batch which we hopefully will get within a few weeks we sterilized the whole system and will put a new seeded filter sponge in.
the larva only feed on live foods suspended in the water column.

[aquatictec]

We just had another batch on Easter Sunday April 5, 2105. Since our last attempt we have redesigned the strainer to slow down the water velocity going through it. We think the larvae were getting sucked into the old strainer. The new strainer has a much larger surface area for the water to drain through. Unfortunately the density on our copepod culture was low. We added some fresh hatch brine shrimp on Sunday to supplement their diet. As of Tuesday there is still some brine remaining in their culture vessel. We added 7 quarts of copepods on Sunday, Monday and Tuesday which only produced a density of 4 copepods per ml in the harlequin culture vessel. Usually it only takes about 4 quarts to bring the density up by about 6 per ml. Our entire copepod culture system only has about 100 quarts with a production capacity of about 50 quarts max per week.