DIY Kreisel

[charlesr1958]

For those of you interested in raising invertebrate larvae or even fish fry, I thought I would share the little breeding station I put together. I've been trying to raise harlequin shrimp larvae and at first tried the bubbles in the corner routine only to have the larvae killed by the bubbles, no matter how slow a flow I tried. A kreisel is really the only way to go when dealing with such delicate larvae.



For more details on how easy this is to put together, please see my shrimp page.

And this is what a two day old harlequin shrimp looks like:



Hope it is of use to you breeders out there.

Chuck

[lcstorc]

Very cool. I hope you have good luck with them.

[sasquatch]

Charles! you are a man of many talents! all the research Ive done on shrimp rearing was dismal at best, I will follow this with much interest, Thank you. Steve

[jg2269jg]

give us more details on the tank size you use. have you reared any shrimp yet, where do you keep this tank at. do you keep it covered for the photo period please more details it sounds like something i would like to get into eventually and i just got done reading the articles provided and i like it
Thanks alot good post

[charlesr1958]

The tank size shown was custom built only to allow it to sit in front of my reef tank's sump, any sized tank could be used of course, but I have found that by keeping them narrow and the compartments somewhat small, it has far more benefits than any downside, such as keeping the copepod density high enough for the larvae to have a chance at them. In a larger compartment, it would of course take a great deal more food to reach the same concentrations. It also makes daily partial water changes a breeze as it only takes a quart or two, and by having a pump compartment, such water changes are also safe for the larvae. The only downside I have seen is that you do have to keep up with the water changes, but imagine that would be an issue regardless of the tank size used.
No shrimp settlement yet, just started this project and as I go along, am putting together what I hope will be a one stop harlequin care and breeding webpage. Am learning a lot though, because what little info there is about them online, has so far proven to be wrong. They are very unlike other shrimp species/larvae. They also eat A LOT!!! I just loaded their section with copepods two days ago and I have to go jump into the ocean yet again to catch more, in fact, I gotta go!...lol

Will be glad to answer any questions though from what I have learned so far if you or anyone else gives it a go, but fair warning, its not for the faint hearted, and expect to fail quite often. One tip though, which should apply to most shrimp species, get the "cyclops" copepods, they stay up in the water available to the larvae, the glass crawling pods are useless as the larvae either ignore them, or have trouble yanking them off of the glass. And make sure you have TONS of copepods before hand...lol (brine shrimp is all but useless and can even cause very high losses, according to a recent study) Pods, is the way to go.

Forgot to add that I do not use any lights over the Kreisel, it just attracts the larvae to the suface and have the back and one side painted black to block the light, what light does get to them comes from the pod section which has an added benefit of drawing the larvae away from the mesh screen side of the kreisel. They are going to go to any light source no matter what, and figured I might as well take advantage of it.

The Cyclopoida species that I can catch by the thousands as they swarm in the kelp beds.





One more image, then I really gotta go!...lol This is a shot of the kreisel at day one, had to use the flash on the camera because of the dark background and it made the larvae's eyes shine but also brought out the pods as well, shows the size comparasion well though.



Chuck

[charlesr1958]

Just learned the hard way myself that sexy shrimp can and will also spawn every two weeks. After I got home from catching about 10,000 pods, aint joking, it was so easy the bucket was thick with them. I noticed by chance that the sexy shrimp had some larvae kicking around in their tank as well, I just pulled about 70 of them out and put them into the kreisel, By putting one under the scope, I can tell their age at being at the 2 day mark also, that is when they do their first molt as well. Time to collect more sexy shrimp and harlequin shrimp and get the egg production kicked into high gear.

Sexy shrimp first molt, which it did right in front of me under the scope...lol



At two days old:




oh, and on top of all that....

2 day old clownfish eggs to boot:





BUT..since there is no way I can culture rotifers, simply because I can not get them here, I guess they are doomed to be coral food, although my wife is insisting I catch them when they hatch and put them in with the shrimp larvae, I guess I could, but without the proper food....oh well, at least the wife can't say I did not try...lol

Chuck

[charlesr1958]

Originally Posted by sasquatch

Charles! you are a man of many talents! all the research Ive done on shrimp rearing was dismal at best, I will follow this with much interest, Thank you. Steve

I hear ya, there is not anything available that I could find on harlequin shrimp, not of any use at least. But for other species, this study shows that BBS is a very poor food choice, and enriched BBS is even worse! Go figure.

http://www.educacion.uanl.mx/publica...vi/pdf/A18.pdf

Chuck

[charlesr1958]

Just added a 1mb movie of the kreisel in action, full of copepods of course...lol, oh, and the light is only over the kreisel section to make the movie possible, its normaly on the far right side over the pod/phyto compartment.

Kreisel Movie

Chuck

[jg2269jg]

nice movie keep us updated on how it goes

[boozeman]

very cool

[Cassette87]

Karma to you, that's amazing

[Dentoid]

Chuck this is fascinating work! Your research will pay off someday. Keep it up, I'm following closely!

[vdituri]

Great info Chuck!

When does Kreisel the movie hit IMAX? Just kidding.
Good luck with the shrimp farm.

[charlesr1958]

Thanks all! But it is going to be a long learning curve before I get this species figured out, if ever...lol Will post with any success' or failures, I expect more failures than anything, but that goes with the turf.

Chuck

[Elmo18]

Beautiful! Just beautiful.

Best,
Ilham