Jump to content

Does lighting affect shrimp breeding?


Callan

Recommended Posts

I was wondering if any one has experimented with lighting and times of lighting of shrimp tanks? I have had people suggest to me in the past that they have literally set up shrimp tanks with CRS and CBS in small tanks and have used no lighting at all. They have claimed that when they have eventually checked the tanks the shrimp have breed? I find this hard to believe and I understand lighting needs of low and high light for certain plants. This is just concerning shrimp.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

There's several theories on light intensity/colour, vs shell thickness/colour. Ive noticed better shell thickness with 10000k, vs 6500k, whereas colouration (depth of red/black) would be more of a genetic trait/selective breeding.

Good lighting is also responsible of biofilm...etc, which is a important food source.

IMO, lighting between 6500-10000k would be ideal.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

An interesting topic, I was wondering if perhaps shrimp like many fish could have light sensitive eggs. If so it might not be so evident in more domesticated shrimp like CRS etc, but could be a very important successful breeding factor with less commonly kept and bred shrimp.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Thanks for the replies so far it would be good to get some more feedback. I understand where you are both coming from and you both make valid points. I had one person (and I know some BS) tell me that he literally set up a CRS tank, did nothing with it for months, no lighting anything and claimed they bred like flies. I personally doubt this and think that it would have to be beneficial to shrimp health to get some form of UV. I have seen problems with fish from a lack of UV.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I know for a fact that day length influences Shrimp breeding like it does with fish, I am seeing native shrimp with saddles everywhere I go at the moment and they have not been saddled for months. This is also a recurring yearly effect, as for strength I have not looked at that one but BB will be all over that, BB has really good observation skills (its the small thing that make the difference)

Bob

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Thanks Northboy, what is recommended. This may explain a couple of things my side.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hi Mate

Living in the Tropics like I do, I run about 10 hours a day, natural where I can and all my tanks are out side with no heaters, so they get some natural day light at some time of day, just depending on where they are.

I am experimenting with some new very strong LEDs at the moment, these ones are stronger than T5 fluros, but I don't know the Kelvins or temp range of them yet.

Bob

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Wish we were that lucky down here. The electricity company love me...They let me know how much every quater..Ha..

I am going to try about 10 hours a day and see if this works for me. I have noticed already that there is definately more activity in the tanks the last couple of days.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

With in creased lighting I would also keep an eye on tank temp. Many of the lights on tanks greatly heat the water, and heated water can be good with regards to quick shrimp growth and breeding, but has the down side of also burning the shrimps short lives out quicker.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Increase and decrease in light is a breeding trigger for some species, Winters shorter days = rest and build up time and the days getting longer in Spring = time to breed. That also gives stronger young and longer life to what ever you are keeping, year round breeding will shorten the life of any thing.

It would be very interesting to do the experiment with what BB said about the light quality having an effect on shell thickness, I know from keeping Reptiles that the quality of the UV in your light has an effect on the Calcium and bone building in Reptiles so therefore it makes perfect sense

Bob

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Yes I have seen this as well when I kept snakes and bearded dragons. I have seen bearded dragons with twisted spines but never thought about the UV being a possible cause. The strangest thing I saw was two eggs that had stuck together and it actually hatched with them as siamese twins. They were joined back to back. It was the strangest thing to look at, but didnt survive for long. I didnt have the heart to cull it straight away. I am using a double T5 on my four foot tank and it is divided into 4 sections.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 3 weeks later...

Thought I would give a quick update to those members who graciously took time to respond. I have increased my lighting schedule to 12 hours on both of my CRS and CBS tanks. I have found that there are at least half a dozen berried females in my three footer and I have berried CBS & CBS in my four foot divided tank. "Finally, Yeah" I believe that this is due to the increased lighting periods. The only other thing that I started doing was increasing various powders to help keep a consistent bio film in the tanks. This may have also contributed but I couldn't confirm this. Others may be able to confirm this. Forgot to add that molting in the tanks definately increases so obviously this has caused the shrimp to become berried. I also noticed that the bio film that I add with a syringe increased activity of the shrimp in both tanks. Thanks to all who contributed.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Thought I would give a quick update to those members who graciously took time to respond. I have increased my lighting schedule to 12 hours on both of my CRS and CBS tanks. I have found that there are at least half a dozen berried females in my three footer and I have berried CBS & CBS in my four foot divided tank. "Finally' date=' Yeah" I believe that this is due to the increased lighting periods. The only other thing that I started doing was increasing various powders to help keep a consistent bio film in the tanks. This may have also contributed but I couldn't confirm this. Others may be able to confirm this. Forgot to add that molting in the tanks definately increases so obviously this has caused the shrimp to become berried. I also noticed that the bio film that I add with a syringe increased activity of the shrimp in both tanks. Thanks to all who contributed.[/quote']

When u say u added powders to increase bio film what products are u talking about?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Powdered barly grass, bee pollen, kale, super greens, crushed and combined into a powder and then I syringe into moss and also on surface. I do this every second day. I have also been adding the bee pollen and supergreen tablets which dissolve quickly onto feeding trays. I have even been feeding my bristlenose these tablets and they love it. They are breeding like crazy.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
  • Join Our Community!

    Register today, ask questions and share your shrimp and fish tank experiences with us!

  • Must Read SKF Articles

  • Posts

    • beanbag
      Update to say that after a few gravel vacs, front wall scrub, moss / floating plant trim, that the condition seems to have improved.  My current theory is that it is due to waste / debris management, where "stuff" like that brown mulm accumulates in the substrate and behind the HMF filters.  Maybe some tanks can somehow deal with it, but mine can't.  Also another experienced shrimper suggested that maybe those "shell bugs" don't just live on the shrimps but also in this debris.  Maybe this is the reason some tanks fail due to "old tank syndrome" where all they need is a good gravel vac? Also, I am guessing that plant trim helps too because now more of the nutrients and light go into growing algae instead of more plants? Well anyway for this tank I will try weekly water change and monthly gravel vac / plant trim.  For my next tank, I'm thinking of something like an under-gravel system where this mulm can fall down and I vac it out.
    • sdlTBfanUK
      Good to have an update and good to hear you are getting shrimplets, so hopefully your colony will continue and you may not get to the point where you have to cull some to stop over population. These type of shrimp only live 12 - 18 months so the adult deaths may be natural? If you have the time I would do weekly 25% water changes, adding the new water via a drip system and do some vacuuming clean of the substrate each week, even if only a different bit each week! See if that helps in a few months and if it does then stick with that regime? It should help reduce any build-ups that may be occuring!
    • beanbag
      Hello again, much belated update: The tank still has "cycles" of 1-2 month "good streaks" where everybody seems to be doing well, and then a bad streak where the short antenna problem shows up again, and a shrimp dies once every few days.  I am not sure what causes things to go bad, but usually over the course of a few days I will start to see more shrimp quietly standing on the HMF filter, and so I know something is wrong.  Since I am not "doing anything" besides the regular 1-2 week water changes, I just assume that something bad is building up.  Here's a list of things that I've tried that are supposed to be "can't hurt" but didn't prevent the problem either: Dose every other day with Shrimp Fit (very small dose, and the shrimp seem to like it) Sotching Oxydator Seachem Purigen to keep the nitrates lower Keeping the pH below 5.5 with peat Things that I don't do often, so could possibly "reset" the tank back to a good streak, are gravel vac and plant trim, so maybe time to try those again. One other problem I used to have was that sometimes a shrimp would suddenly stop eating with a full or partially full digestive tract that doesn't clear out, and then the shrimp will die within a few days.  I suspected it was one of the foods in my rotation - Shrimp Nature Infection, which contains a bunch of herbal plant things.  I've had this in my food rotation for a few years now and generally didn't seem to cause problems, but I removed it from the rotation anyway.  I don't have a lot of adult Golden Bees at this point so I can't really tell if it worked or not. Overall the tank is not too bad - during the good streaks occasionally a shrimp will get berried and hatch babies with a 33-50% survival rate.  So while there are fewer adults now, there are also a bunch of babies roaming around.  I guess this tank will stagger on, but I really do need to take the time to start up a new tank.  (or figure out the problem)
    • jayc
      If that is the offspring, then the parents are unlikely to be PRL. I tend to agree with you. There are very few PRLs in Australia. And any that claim to be needs to show proof. PRL genes have to start as PRL. CRS that breed true after x generations doesn't turn it into a PRL. Neither can a Taiwan bee shrimp turn into a PRL despite how ever many generations. I've never seen a PRL with that sort of red colour. I have on Red Wines and Red Shadows - Taiwan bee shrimps. So somewhere down the line one of your shrimp might have been mixed with Taiwan bees and is no longer PRL. It just tanks one shrimp to mess up the genes of a whole colony. 
    • sdlTBfanUK
      Sorry, missed this one somehow! The PRL look fantastic and the odd ones look part PRL and part Red wine/Red shadow in the colour. They are still very beautiful but ideally should be seperated to help keep the PRL clean if you can do that.  Nice clear photos!
×
×
  • Create New...