Glass Shrimp Photo

[Madmerv]

Found this guy in my community aquarium last night.

First shot is not focused properly but the best i could get of the whole shrimp.

Second shot is focused but couldnt get a head shot..:(

 

[Baccus]

Very nice, and good to see its showing that sort of colour in a tank environment instead of only immediately after being wild caught and then shedding its colours.

[Madmerv]

Definitely good camouflage in my tank as i didnt even know it was still there. Comes from a batch of glass i got for my pond. Put a few in the aquarium to see if they would survive and i thought they had all died.

[zn30]

6 minutes ago, Madmerv said:

Definitely good camouflage in my tank as i didnt even know it was still there. Comes from a batch of glass i got for my pond. Put a few in the aquarium to see if they would survive and i thought they had all died.

Great camouflage as you say they adapt well to their surroundings. I'm always pleased to see a shrimp turn up after a lengthy absence thinking they have passed.

[NoGi]

Nice photos, wild caught?

[Madmerv]

Purchased from Internet NoGi.

Ok i have seen this shrimp and she is berried. Would it be to much stress for her to be pulled from the community tank and put in a separate tank? Would she drop the eggs?

Would like to get a few more of these and try to get them to live in the pond over the summer.

Any suggestions for doing this with minimum stress?

[Madmerv]

Finally found her again and decided to go for it. Caught her and transferred to the quarantine tank.

She is stressing but i darkened it up and hopefully she wont drop the eggs.

 

Best shot i could get with her swimming flat out.

[Madmerv]

Good news.

Thanks to my daughters sharp young eyes we have spotted some shrimpets in the tank. Due to mum having really small eggs, way smaller than my cherries, the bubs are tiny but according to my daughter they look fully formed and not like a fry. 

Apart from some food for them is there anything needed here to get them through the first week or two? The glassies are of an unknown origin and from the eastern states. I did not know at the time of purchase but isn't it illegal to ship shrimp to WA?

 

[fishmosy]

Nice. Good luck raising the shrimplets. Not knowing exactly where the shrimp come from makes it difficult to know what you'll need to raise the shrimplets. Given the shrimps body shape, i would suggest it is a Caridina, not a Paratya, and maybe an indistincta type, or possibly nilotica. Given the shrimplets are very small, they could need microalgae as a first feed, but you could try something like Boss Aquaria baby shrimp powder as an alternative. Just dont overfeed. The shrimplets may even need brackish or even marine water if the adults were collected from a river system near the sea. If so, they will likely start dying off over the next few days. @Grubs has recently posted some info about the set-ups he uses to raise these kinds of larvae, so this would be well worth looking at if you want to go down this route. 

With regards to shrimp being illegal to ship shrimp to WA - The short answer is - yes ???

In the recent past WA fisheries have killed/confiscated some people's shrimp, including Australian natives from the Eastern states and even shrimp native to NT or WA. However I never saw any information from fisheries regarding the illegality of shrimp in WA, and when asked for this info by hobbyists, to my knowledge, the department was not forthcoming. Hence the whole thing has caused a lot of confusion. The end result has been that most hobbyists will not send shrimp to WA to avoid possible consequences. 

As hobbyists it is our responsibility to ensure shrimp in our care do not escape to the wild where they can cause substantial mayhem in habitats where they are not native. 

[Grubs]

1 hour ago, Madmerv said:

Thanks to my daughters sharp young eyes we have spotted some shrimpets in the tank. Due to mum having really small eggs, way smaller than my cherries, the bubs are tiny but according to my daughter they look fully formed and not like a fry.

Congrats.  First thing is to be sure the little ones you are looking at are indeed shrimp.  There are a few small "critters" we get in tanks that have legs and can be mistaken for baby shrimp.  The tell tales for shrimp are usually a long tapering body with obvious eyes and obvious long legs in the same position as with adult shrimp (larvae mostly have very short legs or the legs are folded under the body).  And the little "fan" at the end of the tail.  Apologies if you're certain of the ID already.  The "way smaller than cherries" makes me think you could possibly be looking at copepods or something else because cherry babies can be very small! :D  Pictures of palnktonic shrimp larvae and newly settled shrimp in this thread (different shrimp but they mostly look similar)...

If they look like mini version of the adults (obvious legs, antennae, eyes) and move/swim in a forwards direction then you are almost certainly looking at the settled "shrimplets" and not planktonic larvae.   If they got to this stage without adding salt to the water then you wont need to add anything now.  IME you've already won the battle. YAY!  I don't feed mine anything special at this stage - they graze on the algae covered sides and back of the tank and a small piece of mulberry leaf or sinking shrimp food is usually consumed the same as for adults.

..and might I say... that is a NICE looking shrimp!

[Madmerv]

Thanks for the reply guys.

I had already read the article and was thinking i had a 50/50 chance of getting shrimpets but there was no chance of going the full brackish water transfer as i have no more tanks. My hope was for full fresh water breeding. If they can not breed in fresh water then the adults will be transferred back to the community tank to live out their lives in pet luxury. As a bit of an eco warrior i would never let my pets get into the wild.

As nature has deemed me to old to see mini shrimp i just went to technology to help out. Grabbed the camera, full zoom, manual focus, 50 shots with incrimental changes in focus and this is the best one i got.

 

 

Looks like a mini shrimp to me.

I have put a bit of ground up bee pollen in there and think i might go a bit of mortar/pestal algae wafer also. Just a bit to add to the bio film. I will keep this post up to date in a week or two.

[Grubs]

100% that is a shrimplet.  If you can find one that usually means there are lots you cant see.  nice!

[fishmosy]

Are there any other types of shrimp in the tank? The eggs on the female pictured 31 Aug look too small to be direct developing, yet 10 days is too short a time for planktonic larvae to develop and settle out into mini shrimplets. Moving plants from one tank to another is an easy way to move shrimplets from tank to tank. 

[Madmerv]

There are no other shrimp in the tank and no plants have been put in this tank since it was nuked after removing all the old inhabitants. These shrimpets were tiny, like half the size if the smallest cherry i have seen. But like i said my eyesight is not what it used to be so the cherries may have been there for a bit before i saw them.

[fishmosy]

Maybe they've come through from an earlier lot of eggs. Dont know. Either way, since they have settled out onto the sides, the odds are pretty good that they will make it through to adulthood. 

[Madmerv]

Bit of an update here.

I found the male in the community tank and after days of trying managed to get him to the quarantine tank also. While the tank is not needed i thought a breeding program could be ongoing. Sad news but as i found the female dead the other day. Must have been the stress of being moved and dropping eggs within such a short period of time.

The good news is the shrimpets are all growing well and the male does not seem to be to stressed. Once they all get big enough not to be eaten by the tetras i will move them back to the community tank and not try to do this again. I hate losing my pets due to my own mistakes.

[Madmerv]

Another update here. 

The second female decided life on dry land was worth trying..:( 

9 of the original batch of young survived as did the male. All have gone back to the community tank now as the hospital tank was needed for the neons. That is another story as it looks like i have NTD after months of all being healthy and no new additions to the tank.