Well....a majority of the zoea didn't survive the night. I expected that. I just couldn't take the risk of isolating the females so quick after their arrival. It was a tough call. I just seperated (3) more ladies that are berried. Normally, I wouldn't keep them in the same container, but not knowing how long they have been berried and the fact that zoea were already found, I think this will be the best call.

The Amano lady is STILL holding her eggs. I may have to try and find a better way of tracking when "exactly" they get berried but have to be carefull not to disrupt the process. If her eggs would have hatched, I would try and capture the last couple of Ninja zoea and try to rear them with the Amano zoea. To give an idear as to how long she has been holding, there is all kind of algae growing in her isolation tank. From diatoms to green algae.

We'll see where we go from there.

On a side note about the Ninja's, these guys are just simply awesome. I really hope I can be successfull with this group. Every day I check on the tank, they are a different color. It's just simply...well...awesome.

A few more zoea hatched out from the Amano. Some eggs were dropped and she's still holding about half of them. Very interesting I must say. Think I'll fish out what zoea I can and start moving them to another container. This one they are in is pretty crudded up.

No further hatchings from the Ninja's. The three ladies are still doing fine. I'll be constantly rotating the water in their container until the eggs hatch and then will harvest the zoea.

Full hatching has finally arrived.

Returned home from the movies late last night. Went down to turn off the lights and found that the Amano mom has finally released all the remaining eggs. I know she's like ... "FINALLY!!" I went ahead a moved her back home where I'm sure she is glad to be with plenty of food, friends and hiding spots. Looks like only a handfull of eggs were unhatched.

I will begin flusshing them out to sea this afternoon as well as introducing phyto into the tank. Will monitor from here.

And here are the latest hatchings:



Very nice group here. Still undecided at the salinity I want to go with. Tank starts out with (6) cups of fresh water. Started the phyto coctail drip. Adding 1 1/2 cups during this round. Taking a temp reading at the moment.

Next Amano is in isolation.

Ninja's still holding and we're waiting on those zoea.

Came home to find this:


Hundreds of C. Serratirostris zoea ... and a molt. These guys are very small. Now, with this many zoea, what I thought were larger eggs, obviously was an illusion. The eggs at first glance looked to be the about the same size of C. propinqua even though the shrimp species is smaller. Very interesting. I'll try to observe the next berried lady closer. There is still one in the isolation chamber but can't get a good view of her.

So...busy night ahead. I have to fish out these zoea and get them into a rearing tank. The female will be placed back in the main tank. And we wait on the eggs of the last female to hatch.

On to the Amano zoea. I'm not happy with what I found. It appears that I had a pretty big die off today. I still see quite a few floating but no where near what was observed this morning. I am begining to think I may have introduced them either too soon or too quickly. It's about the only thing that I can think of at the moment. I haven't gotten the SG to where I want it as yet. They will continue their downstream journey today and should reach the sea by night fall. I'm also thinking that I may be adding too much phyto to begin with. I will scale down to 1 cup next time.

Which leads me back to the Ninja's as I have to get a phyto drip for them going as well as washing them out to sea. These guys are gonna be at brack instead of full sea to start with. Depending on how many hatch from the remaining female, I may put that batch at full salinity.

More pics to follow.

Morning check. Ninja zoea don't appear to have fared the day after the transfer. I'm kicking myself for how I did it. I only saw a few floating in the current. I'm thinking of pulling them out and putting them in with the Amano's. If I do this, then I will move the other Ninja ladies into this tank following my normal routine. This way there will be no transferring of zoea.

The Amano zoea are still doing fine. Really dark in the tank as to be expected but since there are a good amount of zoea in the tank, I can see them as they drift to the sides.

I have one Amano and two Ninja ladies that should be hatching out very soon if not last night. Lights aren't on this early in the morning to check.

Looks like I may be losing my Amano zoea. Temp is holding steady at 78, ton of phyto growing in the tank and the current is nice and good. Not sure what the reasoning would be. A little confusing to say the least. I never did reach the salinity that I wanted to acheive so I'm wondering if this may be a factor. I'll get a reading shortly to see. I'm really starting to doubt the light intensity while the tank is this dark with phyto. I think with the next lady, I'll try to increase the intensity.

Over in the Nina tank, those zoea are still hanging with me.

Last of the Ninja's hatched today. I moved the female back to the main tank. I have the zoea under light and air bubbler in their specimen container for the moment. I'll move them to salt water tomorrow in a more permanent setting.

Very hard to see how many Amano zoea are still hangin with me, but I can catch some passing by the sides from time to time. It is starting to get the same way with the first Ninja tank as it is getting darker as the phyto grows.

I'm going to go with a better lighting system which should allow more light focus/density in the individual tanks. I think this will help greatly.

Ok, so we are over a week into both the Amano's and Ninja's. Visibility is definately tough that's for sure. I still continue to see zoea floating by in the current so I'm pressuming all is going well. The Amano zoe has grown quite nicely. Sure would be nice to capture some pics. I occassionally shine a flashlight in there to try and get a better look into the tank. I can see some zoea floating as well as some that are "bobbing/twitching" near the bottom. The ones near the bottom are of concern even though the current remains nice in the tank.

Someone recently offered me an idea to increase the current without affecting the bubbler too much. Think I'm going to try this on one of the upcoming tanks and see where it leads me.

Two more Amano ladies are waiting to hatch their eggs. And, yesterday, I discovered a berried Ninja. These two seem to be keeping the project at full speed. I need to get a restock of the Propinqua and Red Nose. It may be the tank as the Propinqua don't seem to be actively breeding like they did at the beginning. The Red Nose are all female so there definately won't be anything going on there for now.

Need any more "carrying" Amanos? I have at least two in my tank - last I looked. You're welcome to drive your butt up here and take them (you're not that far away) and even keep them as long as I get some babies.

lol ... wished you woulda mentioned it earlier. We bought our car in Rockville and was just up there. ;o)

Okay. Offer still stands. It would have been fun to try and shake her out of the plants or wood...many of mine are serious hiders when the light is on. Ever shown a flashlight in the tank at night about a hour after the light goes out and seen all the glowing golden eyes?

Check of the zoea tanks today is not good. I didn't see any floaters. :o( I'll get a better look in just a bit. I thought I was closer this time judging by how big the Amano's grew to. But...that may still turn out to be a good sign. We'll see. With the other two ladies expected to hatch out any day, I'll be right back in the saddle.

Speaking of hatching, I found Ninja zoea in their tank! Yikes! Their carry time to hatching is obviously a lot shorter than I expected. I'll try to fish out as many as I can so as to not waste this cycle. There are at least (3) berried females that need to be isolated today as well just in case.

Definately like that we are ramping up progress. I'll be in better shape within a week to restock the Propinqua and Red Nose just as soon as I find a good supplier.

I should hire someone to be my official zoea catcher when this happens. You think .01 per zoea is good? . My goodness that took a long time. I know I didn't get them all but hopefully got a vast majority of them. They are being washed out to sea as I type. I'll add phyto a bit later.

Getting ready to isolate a couple of the Ninja ladies if I can get them. They do hide very, very well.

I really need to finish the rearing station. It gets a bit difficult to break down a tank while keeping the others going. I'm thinking of getting a vanity light to where I can use CFL bulbs. The question with that would be if it will generate enough heat to keep the temp up in the tanks. Time to go on a scavenger hunt.

Will be ordering fresh phyto cultures as well to replenish them. I've gotten a little be lax with it and it hasn't done as well.

Interesting observation just now. I went down to wrap things up for the evening and did a check in on the zoea. It appears that they are all dead! Very strange in that there has hardly been any salt added to the tank as yet. I'm a little confused at this. I'm wondering if it could have anything to do with capturing them and then transferring? Not sure what to think. I have isolated one berried female in a rearing tank so we'll see where this brood takes us.

Check on the Amano ladies this morning....bad. They both dropped all their eggs with very few hatchings. Very odd on this one. Have to go back and review to see if I may have missed something. Could have been due to all the activity going around the tanks with constantly moving females in and out. Just a possibility. Back to the main tank and we'll wait til next time.

Ninja ladies still holding theirs. I'll move two more into the rearing tanks and see what we get.

New phyto cultures ordered to replenish the stock. Going to go back to the original (4) specimens instead of (2).

It appears that all the Amano eggs that are going to hatch have do so. I'm thinking of combining the two groups as they are not overly large in numbers. Phyto will be introduced today as they are flushed out to sea.

The Ninja's are still holding theirs.

There's enough zoea in both tanks to have two test groups. Looks to be a few hundred in each tank. Group A is being washed out to sea currently. Unfortunately I am only set up to drip sea water one tank at a time. Time to hit lowes for more tubing and ramp this part of the project up. Wonder how well a 4way gang valve will hold up to salt water?

Might run out of time this evening to wash the second group out. What I will do if time permits is to get it started with just the phyto cocktail. Then tomorrow I'll continue filling the tank with the full sea water.

Zoea doing well. I did a slight increase in the current. It doesn't look like it is throwing them around but does appear to be keeping things moving better. This round included 1 cup of phyto cocktail. The water is not as green to start with. My aim is to hit upon the right amount where the phyto will actually grow with the zoea and then taper out at the end of the zoea planktonic cycle.

I'll start trying to develop the test rearing containing using the 2liter bottles. The idea behind that is the funnel shaped bottom (inverted bottle) should keep both zoea and phyto suspended and in constant movement. I have some ideas in my head so we'll see if I can make one happen and see how it performs. Capacity wise, the amount of water will be about the same. Space will be smaller on the horizontal plane which should greatly decrease dead space.

Next Amano lady is now with eggs.

James, for your pregnant Amanos, have you ever seen where the area they carry their young it is yellow-orange in color? There is a substance there, just not the normal looking stuff. Is this possibly the beginning stages of pregnancy or is this a bunch of dead babies? The mother is constantly stroking them like normal, but it is the first time I have seen it. Turn the lights out and hit it with a flashlight and the whole area glows. I think I have 1 male Amano in my tank (confirmed) and about 17 total.