# Bred Amanos, need a beer



## Six (May 29, 2006)

So, after about a year of trying we finally got some amano shrimp larvae to settle out. We have about 12 juvies at about 1.5cm long. Boy are they cute at that size!! I'll have to take a pic- though they just look like a clear shrimp.

Anyways, it took a lot of effort and as the title says I could use a beer after all that work.  

Here's our process if you're thinking about trying it:
1. segregate a garvid female into a catch cup
2. allow her to release the larvae
3. pipet larvae into brackish water container (specific gravity, I'll have to check what we started with, it was a joint venture between myself and my fiance. he did most of the work.)
4 feed. feed. feed. feed more than I would ever feed a fish tank. (spirulinia powder)
5. 7 weeks later (ours were WAY later than most people state) they begin to look shrimpy and we start reducing the specific gravity of the water.
6. they metamorphosis totally while transitioning them into FW. (not just one day, mind you.)
7. shrimpers! 

Yea, that was pretty general but my main point in sharing is to say, give it a try! get more than 12! 

To give you an idea if I were to sell them, I think to offset the amount of work we put in they would have to sell at $250 each! It's a lot of work and trial and error. Worth it though.


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## HX67 (Sep 24, 2009)

Congratulations!

And just a bit of envy.


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## Andy Ritter (Nov 26, 2008)

Congratulations!

That does sound like a lot of work.

I guess that I shouldn't complain then about the $3 a piece that I paid for mine (even the girl that checked me out at my LFS said "Wow, those are some expensive shrimp").

Maybe with some more refinement you can figure out how to do it easier. Out of curiosity, do you think that you could put the female in another tank and then slowly increase the salinity, _before_ she releases the larvae? Then you wouldn't have to deal with the pipet. Keep in mind that I don't know much about these shrimp and don't know if that would harm the mother or not, but it just seems like it would work.

Thanks for sharing.

Andy


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## catfishbi (Sep 4, 2008)

wow great. they are very hard to bread


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## DarrylR (Dec 5, 2007)

Very cool did you use someones online journal to conduct your breeding process?

http://caridinajaponicabreeding.blogspot.com/
http://mikes-machine.mine.nu/breeding_yamato.htm


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## Big_Fish (Mar 10, 2010)

Nicely done! 

have one on me, I'm buying 

artyman:


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## Six (May 29, 2006)

Andy Ritter said:


> Maybe with some more refinement you can figure out how to do it easier. Out of curiosity, do you think that you could put the female in another tank and then slowly increase the salinity, _before_ she releases the larvae? Then you wouldn't have to deal with the pipet. Keep in mind that I don't know much about these shrimp and don't know if that would harm the mother or not, but it just seems like it would work.


The pipet wasn't the bad part really. hahaha.... A bit tedious but the whole part in the saltwater when they started dying was disheartening. We'd get a few to a decent size then they'd die. The overfeeding really seemed to help. The tank was a disaster after it was all said and done. Perhaps we could have done more water changes.

As for keeping the female in their, she may have been OK in the saltier water but we didn't want to risk it. I'm sure there is a better way... :/

DarrylR- 
We did do some research on when to put them into salt and when to lessen it when they're ready to morph out of plankton... I can't remember the sites we looked at- it was only for suggested time frames. Whatever site it was was either wrong or we have a different strain of shrimp (the latter is not all that unlikely from what I've read). OR we just did things differently and got a few to live.

I'll have to keep better notes next time so I can share a bit more info about the process. 
Darryl- the first journal you linked to had very accurate pictures. We definitely used a magnifying glass and microscope to see them with any detail.

Oh, and thanks for the beer!


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## DarrylR (Dec 5, 2007)

Awwhhh very nice accomplishment though!


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## jeremy1 (May 6, 2007)

Congrats on the Amano's. How many do you think you could get if you had no losses? Just wondering because it may be worth the trouble if you could get 30-50 shrimp out of one female.

Cheers,
Jeremy


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## Markw78 (May 6, 2004)

I'll second that on the $250 a piece! lol...

My first batch, complete loss after about 2 weeks.

Second batch, out of probably 100-200 larva, I think I moved about 24 to freshwater, and it looks like I may have about 15 left. I just moved the first one to my main tank. Sadly no ones berried up yet since May, though not sure I want to try again hah, though like the previous (2 month old post lol) I wouldn't mind having 100+ make it!


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## davemonkey (Mar 29, 2008)

Six, I know it's been 3 months, but CONGRATULATIONS!!

I'm wondering if success rate would be higher if you left the shrimp/babies in place and gradually made their tank brackish (you'd have to have only plants that could tolerate that obviously...or be willing to part with some and then re-scape later when it gets back to FW).

For example, if you had a couple dozen in a shrimp tank with Java Fern or whatever else can take the salt, just gradually start adding salt (a little each day or so) until you've got brackish coinditions, then let the shrimp do their thing. When you've got a great big colony that you're satisfied with, gradually turn it back to FW. Or do they need freshwater to berry-up, and then have to move to the salty stuff?


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