How To Do Amano Shrimp Breeding

[Ch4rlie]

Have just returned from LFS today with 2 amano shrimps, one of them is a largish female carrying eggs

 
Now, this got me wondering if anyone has had any success in breeding amano shrimps.
 
As far as am aware with Amanos, the Amano shrimp larvae requires either brackish or full sw in order to survive, thats about the extent of my knowledge of breeding amano shrimps.
 
Just would like to have any up to date information at all if possible and see if I can set up a small tank for the purpose of tyring to get these shrimps to survive if its not too technical or difficult to do so.
 
Thanks

 

[Munroco]

http/www.fishforums.net/index.php?/topic/417860-amano-shrimp-have-bred-help/
 
unfortunately there is no ending to this story
 
https/gabhar.wordpress.com/2009/11/11/breeding-amano/this looks more likely to be useful

 

[eaglesaquarium]

I believe they require brackish water, but I could be mistaken.
 
 
Yup, thought so:  http/www.shrimpnow.com/content.php/129-Amano-Yamato-Shrimp-Breeding

 

[Baccus]

Riffle shrimp are very similar in requirements, but some people have had limited luck in a pond situation with no filter and plenty of detris and suspended algea. Im thinking hard water rather than soft might also be a contributing factor

 

[the_lock_man]

AIUI, the shrimplets require brackish water, and as they mature into subadults, they need to come back into fresh.
 
The problem with doing it is that, in the wild, the shrimplets are born in fresh, and are washed downstream into brackish, and then move themselves back upstream when they are big enough. I suspect that if you were to place the female in brackish, it would cause her problems - therefore, you would need an uncluttered small tank to house the female, keep watching her to see the shrimplets born, and net them into the brackish tank as soon as you see them.
 
Not easy when you have to go to work, and sleep, and eat, and play with baby humans. And talk to the wife. And watch the Masterchef Grand Final.

 

[Ch4rlie]

Have just read an interesting thread on someone's first attempt at breeding Amano shrimps.
 
Its does appear a lot of time and effort is required to breed amanos successfully, the most concerning parts for me is the salinity as I have never done brackish or SW tanks so thats completely foreign to me, also seems that shrimps need green algae water that requires some care with temps of around 75F / 24C and 24 hours of lights to keep alive as well.
 
All extremely interesting and is now stored somewhere in my brain for when am ready to do amano breeding when have the space and time to do so.
 
For those of you who are intersted, its a fairly old thread, from 2006, but fascinating nonetheless.
 
http/www.fishforums.net/index.php?/topic/132630-breeding-amano-shrimp/page-3

 

[eaglesaquarium]

Its worthwhile though if you can get it to work for you Ch4... In the US I've never seen Amano shrimp for less than $2 each, and its usually significantly higher.  A batch of shrimplets could produce hundreds to thousands if you learn how to do it.   Eventually, you could earn enough to pay for your entire hobby costs.   That's quite a nice pay off.

 

[TwoTankAmin]

I keep amanos, but I do not breed them. I have a friend who does a bit on this front, She will come and take my berried females and then its off to the races. I think she said she has about a 50% survival rate. She then returns the females to me as well as a few offspring. She does them in brackish, others do them in full sw. The shrimp begin as larvae in fw. They move downstream to brackish to sw salinity and survive on algae in the water. Some weeks later, after growing/fattening up, they move back to fw. It is an interesting process since once they return to fw, they are salt intolerant. There are a ton of articles on the net about beeding them and they area all pretty similar.
 
I have no interest in doing thisas I dislike saltwater itself (I even hate hatching BBS). I tend to have a tank for cleaning algae covered plants and to hold excess plants which will have between 50 and 100 of these guys. They decimate many kinds of algea pretty fast, At one time I had bn pleco fry in with them. Talk about an algae eating dream team.....
 
The shrimp you get in the hobby are basically farmed. The are normally cheapish to import but there were big problems in the past year. Flooding hit a lot of the shrimp farms and wiped them out. For months there were no amanos on the import lists. This helped to drive up the price. They have recently been back on the lists as I picked up a bunch for the NEC weekend back in March. The wholesale price has gone up but will hopefully come back down.
 
It is also not uncommon to order a box with a few 100 shrimp only to have them be DOA. Shipping shrimp is not as easy as one would think. They like to hold onto things and they are not able to grab onto a shipping bag. So one must include something in the bag they can attach to during the trip. Lacking this, they tend to freak out badly and to die a lot as well.

 

[Ch4rlie]

It is also not uncommon to order a box with a few 100 shrimp only to have them be DOA. Shipping shrimp is not as easy as one would think. They like to hold onto things and they are not able to grab onto a shipping bag. So one must include something in the bag they can attach to during the trip. Lacking this, they tend to freak out badly and to die a lot as well.

 
Ah, thats an excellent tip.
 
Do you know, when I got my Red Cherry Shrimps, I always buy a plant or moss ball or something, and by chance I include that in the same bag where the shrimps are, hence have never lost a shrimp.
 
Lucky!

 

[Ch4rlie]

Hmm, the more I think about this, the more am tempted to give it a try.
 
I have a 10 gallon tank currently running with endlers and microrasboras, they will be fine in the 3 footer tank with cpd's and harleyquins.
 
The assassin snails will simply go into the 3 footer too, the MTS and pond snails in there will make a nice feast for them

 
And simply try to get all the RCS, theres quite a few in there, though their numbers have droppped recently, not too sure why but in the 3 foot they can go.
 
Means the 3 foot will really be at capacity, so no salt and pepper cories for the time being.
 
Then its reseacrhing into brackish water and how to do salinity and no idea what equipment I need, currently there is a heater and HOB running so could take that HOB out and put in a simple sponge filter if needs be.
 
What else?
 
How do I make green algae water?
 
Do I need to buy SW from LFS to make this into brackish and keep it simple?

 

[eaglesaquarium]

Green algae... Research how to get rid of it, and do the opposite.

 

[Ch4rlie]

Green algae... Research how to get rid of it, and do the opposite.

 
Yeah, go figure!
 
Kinda ironic!

 

[Baccus]

From memory there is a technique with the larvae (because that is what the young amano shrimp are, not fully formed shrimplets like cherry shrimp etc), need to be born in fresh and then in three days approx they need to go into the brackish. The real trouble from there is telling at what point they need to go back into stages of fresh until pure fresh again. Oh and jsut to make it really fun for you the larvae/ shrimplets dont all grow at the same rate so you might need to be constantly shifting them through the final process from brackish to fresh instead of being able to do them in a lump sum.
I know these following links are for breeding Aussie native shrimp but they should give you some good insights into the head spinning process.
http/www.aquariumlife.com.au/showthread.php/60637-Caridina-Typus-Breeding
 
I am having trouble finding the other link I was thinking of that went through more techniqual stuff, but I will keep looking.
 
Just keep in mind the elements you will be fighting in the larval survial is timing, possibly temp, pH, gH and TDS also culturing the right green alage for the larval stage to feed on.
 
This might also be of help to you.

http/aquagreen.com.au/aqualog/?p=100
 

 

[Tooombsy]

I read a method of doing this before that seemed really simple, I'm going to give it a try soon as the amano shrimp in my community tank always have eggs.
 
http/www.aquariumslife.com/freshwater-shrimp/breeding-caridina-japonica/
 
Here is the link with full method.
 
Hope it helps and good luck
 
I'll let you know if i have any success doing it this way soon, as i have 2 females with clutches ready to try with

 

[Ch4rlie]

Well, am not going to rush into this, so a lot of research and planning required.
 
So its likely this batch of zoes will be lost.
 
But may be ready for next time