First batch of Amano Shrimplets

[BettaQueen124]

Hello, 

I have a few questions about raising amano shrimplets. This is the first time my female amano has been berried. I have an Aquarium Co-Op sponge filter getting prepped in an established tank for the tub I will be raising the shrimplets in, but now I'm getting worried that the sponge is too coarse and they will get sucked inside. Is this a valid concern? I'm also wondering how much salinity I should add to the water after they hatch. Multiple sources say different things, some say 14-15 PPT, others say saltwater levels of 32-35 PPT.

 

I'm really hoping to raise these babies right and any help is appreciated! Thank you!

Edited July 5, 2022 by BettaQueen124

[Zenzo]

If you are worried about the shrimp getting stuck in the course sponge, you can wrap the sponge filter with some fine filter floss and hold it in place with a rubber band. 

I am interested to read how this goes, as breeding Amano shrimp is challenging.

Good luck!

[BettaQueen124]

@Zenzo That is an awesome suggestion, I will definitely give it a shot and let you know how it turns out! Thank you!

[jasper5150]

So, Amano shrimp need brackish water to spawn. Are they able to berry up without it? I have 4 large Amano shrimp and it looks like two have eggs. I tried to get a photo. Maybe you can tell me if this is truly an Amano or not

[nabokovfan87]

On 7/5/2022 at 7:48 AM, BettaQueen124 said:

This is the first time my female amano has been berried. I have an Aquarium Co-Op sponge filter getting prepped in an established tank for the tub I will be raising the shrimplets in, but now I'm getting worried that the sponge is too coarse and they will get sucked inside. Is this a valid concern?

no you really don't need to worry.  I run a pretty strong filter with very strong flow and they swim around with no issues. Especially towards the lights.  I have them constantly in my 29G tank that have 4-5 females.  If anything, it's a source of food for fish, but in a shrimp only tank it won't cause any harm at all.  In freshwater you have about 3-4 days I believe to move them to brackish water.  In the brackish tank I had an airstone and the light, nothing else.  I wasn't successful with growth because I didn't have a viable food source for them.  Rotifers of some kind was what they need and I tried feeding frozen. 

As far as air, there are some reports of the developing zoes getting air trapped in their shell and then they can't swim.  I think the way to alleviate this was to make sure you didn't have too fine of a bubble on your air stone.
 

On 7/20/2022 at 11:49 AM, jasper5150 said:

So, Amano shrimp need brackish water to spawn. Are they able to berry up without it?

correct.  You'll see the little zoes swimming around in the water.  They are released in the current, then flow down river towards the ocean inlet to feed.

and yes, that's a real amano.

Edited July 21, 2022 by nabokovfan87
typo

[nabokovfan87]

On 7/5/2022 at 7:48 AM, BettaQueen124 said:

I'm also wondering how much salinity I should add to the water after they hatch. Multiple sources say different things, some say 14-15 PPT, others say saltwater levels of 32-35 PPT.

That's correct.  There is a lot of misinformation.  There was a REALLY good source I was following, I'll try to find it.  At the bottom of the page it links to a few sources. Be sure to click through to those as well. Once of them is in french, but use google translate, no issues.

https://gabhar.wordpress.com/2009/11/11/breeding-amano/

Edited July 21, 2022 by nabokovfan87

[BuzzDaddy21]

On 7/5/2022 at 10:48 AM, BettaQueen124 said:

raising amano shrimplets.

Will be keeping an eye on how you do this, very interesting.

I also have an Amano with eggs but I`m not setup to try and raise little ones or if I would have the patience or smarts to do so.

[BettaQueen124]

Update: hatched and seeming to grow! I'm feeding Seachem Reef Phytoplankton, 5-6 drops from a pipette every 4 hours. I have a sponge filter in with them, an Aquarium Co-Op nano covered with a cheap disposable filter bag. I'm getting lots of tiny bubbles but the flow is good and the zoe don't seem to go near it. I'm doing water changes every 3 days with a piece of airline tubing so as to not suck up any of the babies. My salinity has been sitting at around 18 ppt and it's been about 10 days, so my particular strain seems to do well with that salt level. My only disappointment thus far has been how many hatched. I have very few zoe, my female amano didn't seem to know what to do as I think it was her first clutch. She didn't help them hatch out like she should have. Hopefully she'll have a better idea of what to do with the next one!

Edit: just thought I would add a great video that really helped me get set up and ready!

 

Edited July 25, 2022 by BettaQueen124
Adding video

[Scot]

The amount of water flow on the surface of sponge filters is so low, that any shrimp nauplii (sp?) can crawl/skitter away.

eggs and fish fry that can’t swim yet might be held by the sponge, but the moment they can swim, they’ll get away from it. The light water flow is probably healthful for them as it assures they aren’t sitting in stale water.

[AnimalNerd98]

Sorry, I'm a bit late to the party, but hopefully this information helps. Most of the stuff I learned about Amano shrimp comes from the Shrimp King (specifically, his members only talk on the channel). I watched part of the video you linked too, so I'll just add some extra insights I learned from Chris. 

1) Salinity: Chris suggested about 0.8 ounces of salt for a 6 gallon tank (do your conversions as you like for your tank size). 

2) Zoe number: Chris mentioned that if they aren't fed enough protein, the adults (including mama) will snack on the little ones. This may be part of the reason why you see so few zoe, but to be honest, there are a lot of other considerations so take this with a grain of salt (pun unintended). 

In the past, I tried raising the zoe in a separate tank. I just netted out the berried females and put them in a 1-2 gallon container. Every day, I would check if they dropped or not and if they did, I would just net mom out. The babies could be sucked up with a turkey baster before I acclimated them to brackish (just dumping a cup or two of the brackish water every 5 mins or so before just dumping the whole container in). 

Hopefully this helps, I am going to give breeding amanos another go this summer. Good luck!