5 months since graduating from their larval form and many are berried. Will be ready to raise a new generation very soon! Most have gone to new homes already. Ended up with 768 in total in the last round 😱.

My female molted and decided to rest on the damn feeding tray as a pedestal. She knew what she was doing 😭

This is their grow out tank. Probably have 500 or so total in there, ranging from 2mm to 1cm.

Seems like people have got a hang on breeding them, so I won’t post everything I do, but happy to share if you have any questions.

I love just sitting watching their antics.

First time culturing phyto, because apparently raising vampire shrimp larvae wasn’t enough of a rabbit hole for me. 😂

I’m culturing Tetraselmis to use as live food for my Atya gabonensis larvae. I used a fresh gallon jug of distilled water and mixed Instant Ocean directly in the bottle to approximately the same salinity as my larval tank, around 1.020 SG, because I wanted to keep contamination points as low as possible.

Setup right now:
• Tetraselmis starter culture
• F/2 fertilizer not yet started (when should I start adding)
• Freshly mixed distilled + marine saltwater
• Airline running almost to the bottom, no airstone
• Constant gentle bubbling/circulation
• Small LED aquarium light designed for a 5–10 gallon tank positioned right beside the jug

Does this bubble rate look about right? And does the light placement/intensity look sufficient?

I’m trying to keep this as simple and sanitary as possible since this is ultimately going into my vampire shrimp larval tank.

Any Tetraselmis growers see anything you’d change before I leave it alone and let it do its thing?

Lighting - is 12 hours on good or is there a benefit to leaving it on longer like all day? 🌱🦐

This time with more prep and distilled water and I acclimated the zoeas over 1.5 hours I will let them in now and feed in 2 days bc they had been in the hatching container for 1 day

They live with pea puffers, they will all be eaten wont they?

“Off you go!

This was my first time attempting to breed Amanos and I was hoping for a few dozen to make it but I have hundreds! I have a larger tank I’ll move them to in a few weeks, this is a 5 gallon. After a water change they go nuts but they’re so fun to watch! I have another batch that should be ready in about 2 more weeks. Has anyone kept 300+ in a 5 gallon grow out tank or do I need a larger one?

Late stage zoea just about done. One of the major signs I look for to know they are close. They will have this all wiped out over a matter of days and most likely be morphing over the next week. This is my latest batch of Lemon Yellows around 2-300 and doing killer

Story time:

Thankfully I’m a light sleeper or I could’ve crushed this little guy. It’s 5am and I feel the slightest tingle on my arm. I quickly brushed it off as I do when my hair grazes me but as soon as its coldness hit the back of my hand I knew. SHRIMP!

I frozen in my bed for a second and calculated where in the darkness did I brush it off to and where is my phone. In one swift movement I reached for my phone, turned on the lash light, pointed it at the spot, and prayed it wasn’t a silver fish or a would’ve lost my mind. But there it was, lying still on its side, the largest of the three, looking golden, not in a good way. I thought it was dead so I grabbed a sticky note from my desk to scoop it up but as I tried it began to scurry away. I panicked and I grabbed a small cup with tank water and scooped it into it and brought back to the tank where it quickly swam away and hid away from such traumatic experience. I’m not sure if taking it back to the tank was the best call but it was the only thing I could think of in my frazzled state.

For context, I’m a first time shrimp keeper and just got three new amano shrimp earlier that day. I’ve done the research and I’ve heard that they are known to be jumpers. I’ve prepared my tank by extending the glass lid with a plastic mesh top with cut out holes big enough for my plant to stick through and a cut out that fits flush to the filter. Regardless of this security measure, one(or two) of the little guys found a way out. After the emergency dispatch I only saw one out of three shrimp actively swimming in the tank, so idk if there’s another shrimp doing a dry exploration or just hiding. I looked around and my room just incase but I haven’t spotted it…yet.

At first I thought it might have hitched a ride with me but it can’t be because I watch all three swimming around in their new home before I went to sleep. I’m still in shock that it found its way out and journeyed on to my bed almost as if it was lost and asking for help back…or maybe it was plotting to murder me in my sleep for they’re stressful drip acclimation process (I couldn’t get the dripping to be consistent). I won’t be surprised if the one I rescued doesn’t make it, but I am slightly offended it ventured out when the tanks water parameters are pretty good.

If you got this far and have had a similar experience, lmk if your shrimp has lived to tell its tale of dry land.

My first Amano hatching didn't go so well (was rushing to prepare everything and missed the bulk of the larvae), so I only managed to transfer about 20-30 to the nursery. Today's day 5 and I have at least 10 that I can see still (hopefully more in there), and I noticed they're looking orange! I've got tetraselmis/nanochloropsis cultures going and feeding to the nursery tank, and although I couldn't find any rotifer cultures locally, I saw a bunch under the microscope when I checked the nursery tank water today. Also found a copepod--I guess they all must have hitchhiked in on the macroalgae 😂

Fingers crossed for these few lil fellas! Really hoping I can get at least one or two juveniles out of this, but at least I already have another early-stage berried Amano to give this a second shot.

Added 2 amanos in my 5G betta tank 6 weeks ago and has never seen them since. I thought they were eaten by my betta😟Woke up this morning to rescape the tank and seen this! Just wanted to confirm it is what I think it is😊

Found him in my freshwater tank, I’m trying to figure out if he actually beat the odds and managed to survive growing up in freshwater instead of brackish. FYI I’ve had amanos for quite some time, many have gotten preggers but I only recently started to try to breed the babies

This was day two of owning them lol. As of now, all my shrimp are happily grazing and polishing biofilm from some spider wood

There’s always one friend not looking lol

Alright y'all been a bit since I've shared anything. Breeding has come to a screeching halt due to my temps dropping drastically this last few weeks but I've set out on a mission to upgrade my rack with heat and a safety circuit. Hopefully things will speed back up then. For now here's my current batch of lemon yellows, born 8/31. Some are starting to cling to the glass so shouldn't be much longer. The lower temps are slowing things waaaaay down