ID Macrobrachium

[Beacon]

Can anyone ID these two Macrobrachium? They were collected in Coastal North Qld. Two very different patterns but collected in the same creek. 

 

The Green one with orange arm pits is approx 10cm and the highly spotted/patterned one is approx. 6cm (excluding long arms).

 

[northboy]

Being costal, East  I assume it will be M.tolmurem, they are both Tolmerum, on Male and the smaller one looks female, It wont be M. lar because it has the wrong main claws and it can not be M. rosenbergi as they are from western rivers. 

 

They are good fish hunters, but are great to keep,

 

Where did they come from?

 

Bob

[Beacon]

Thank you for the ID. They are fun to watch. I must have two males & two females as I have two of each colour. The girls are stunning. So far they get along as they have a lot of hides in a well planted tank containing just the four macros. I presume they may cannibalise & I will have to split them up as they will outgrow the tank. Not sure how I will manage the tank space. I am hoping that two girls will live together peacefully???

 

There are no fish with them as we learnt the hard way....they "rumbled" the rainbows in the bucket on the way home. Luckily there were only scales and no lives lost. The rainbows have all grown scales back & have coloured up nicely. I did have to treat the rainbows for anchor worm (lesson learned about wild caught!).  There is also a small group of empire gudgeons which were so small when we got them that we thought they were hardy heads. The collecting trip was originally to collect a few hardy heads. Turns out they are the only thing we didn't get. The gudgeons were caught with a small fish net waved in front of the kids faces as they were swarming around their face masks. I became suspicious of their ID when they started turning orange...

 

We also have a beautiful freshwater crab named "Shelley", which we think is Varuna litterata. She has moulted twice. The first moult was the morning after we got her & we were so stumped as to who had caught the second crab without us knowing. She hand feeds & often comes to the front glass with claws outstretched, waiting for food. She isn't supposed to get bigger than 5.5cm, so hopefully she should now be fully grown if I have ID'd her correctly. We have gone through a lot of plants working out what she will eat & what she will leave alone. She lives with 3 neon tetras (oops - we count the neons every morning & so far so good).

 

Another tank has a colony of freshwater shrimp (collected on the same trip)...I have no ID on them yet. They share a tank with hillstream loaches. There are now a lot of berried females and shrimplets, so I think they have settled nicely.

 

We did manage to find a Blyxa aubertii which sent up seed heads very quickly & there are now a few 2cm sized baby B aubertii spread throughout the tank.

 

Phew!! Bummer I have to split them into so many different tanks when they originally came from the same creek. 

[northboy]

Your crab will get to 6cm or better across, I have one that is 7 across, feed lots of veg, peas, mango, banana any thing except spuds and in moderation, OH and pop the pea out of its shell.

 

To ID you shrimp don't use colour, it don't work for Aussie shrimp and every one try's to use colour because it is how the OS shrimp are named, you have to use the rostrum and body to ID them, Location is another good way to ID to.

 

You need lots of hiding places for the Macros, because when they shed they are open to attack from the others, they are like a lump of jelly when the shed an need some where to hide and harden up, I work on 2 to 3 hides pr animal.

 

Bob

[inverted]

Got any photos of the other collected specimens?

[northboy]

Hi inverted,

 

I don't have any photos at the moment, but there is a number of really nice species up here and a couple are small, 7cm total length with nice colour as well.

 

I will see if I can get a couple of photos tomorrow for you.

 

 M. latidactylus

 

M. handschini   blue form

 

Are two nice ones

 

Bob

[Beacon]

Well, the smallest female macro is now carrying eggs. She is only around 2 & 1/2cm. I think I read that the eggs hatch to a larval stage & need a bit of time at sea. I have googled but cannot find much on M tolmerum. Can anyone verify the breeding/ larval stage etc. or have any experience keeping & breeding M. tolmerum? Also wondering if the females can carry unfertilised eggs & still go through the motions of fanning their bellies.

 

[Baccus]

They may carry unfertilised eggs, I have an unknown macro who only has a DAS as a companion along with endlers and rainbows, that often gets berried without a mate. I very much doubt the DAS would cross with her aside from being different species and huge size difference, but yet this female is often berried.