Anyone w/ experience in culturing mysid shrimp?

[Louis Z]

I know people have them in their refugium and display tanks. Yet I was looking for someone that actually cultures them in seperate system. Looking for anecdotes, short cuts and trial/error experiences.

 

[Anonymous]

Look in the library at
http://www.seahorse.org/
they have an article on it

 

[esmithiii]

My understanding is that the mysis shrimp used for food for our fish are primarily a freshwater species and do not thrive in salt water. Maybe you are referring to copepods and amphipods? Photo of amphipod

 

[Louis Z]

thanks Dan, I already have that article and the PCM - just wondering if anyone on the board has gone thru it already.

 

[Louis Z]

funny esmithii we were posting at similar times. I do know the difference between the three. Yes the mysis most often used is mysis relicta. That is what PE mysis is. I do not know if the San Francisco brand is the same. They are fw and are harvested up north in the lakes. The species I am after is the Americamysis bahia or there is an Almyra species. These thrive and breed in SW. I can catch these in shores along the gulf coast yet I would have to deal with potential parasites that I really dont care to do. So I have ordered some lab cultured mysis.

 

[neenish]

Here's a link that raises/sells marine mysid shrimp (they call it Mysidopsis bahia on their web site).
http://www.instant-algae.com/prices/index.htm
HTH.
Brian

 

[delbeek]

There is a PDF file on this site that outlines Mysis culture:

http://www.epa.gov/OST/WET/disk2/

Jay Hemdal also wrote an article on his mysis culture techniques at the Toldeo Zoo. You can contact him there and ask him to email you a copy.

Aloha!
JCD

 

[Louis Z]

thanks neenish, I ordered from them. Randy handles the transactions yet its shipped from Florida. He has stated to use rotifers as feed yet I found some other articles that state poor survival rate on rotifers alone. The use of brine shrimp nauplaii is suggested for better survival after 20 days. I had the rotifers and instant nanno come in today and the mysis get here tomorrow. The Hemdal article published in SeaScope Fall of 99 is very helpful. My only concern is that I am getting shipped 1000 of these guys and articles suggested to stock 20 to 40 per liter to limit aggression and mortalities. I did ask for smaller qty yet the 1000 is the minimum. My other concern is some articles stated to used aged SW which I dont have plenty of. Most of this is mixed new yesterday. I thought I was crazy for spending this cash yet I see how much PE Mysis is and dont feel so bad. If I do have some failure in some tanks I have others set up so I dont have a full crash. As long as I can keep some alive not all will be lost and allow me to follow the Hemdal article for the live ones and the freezer for the ones on the brink.

 

[Louis Z]

thanks JCD. All the info does help. I have many parameters to watch and many ways to set up the tanks now. I just hope the aged seawater ( or should I say my inadequate prep) ruin my endeavor. I realize you have filtered SW and probably dont have to encounter inland culturing blues. As for mysis usage at the W. Aquarium does it need to be alive to feed the seadragons? Or has the use of frozen mysis been a good substitute for CB offspring?

 

[delbeek]

CB offspring??

We don't feed live mysis ... we feed live penaied shrimp. When the dragons were small they were feed shrimp larvae, the free swimming planktonic stage is called a "mysis" stage ... but they are not mysid shrimp. They get live shrimp a few times a week, but mostly we feed them Hikari frozen marine mysis ... they prefer those over the PE freshwater ones, plus they are smaller. Our seahorses like the PE ones more.

Aloha!
JCD

 

[Louis Z]

these guys are small, stay in the water column and some move along the bottom. I dont see many perched on rocks or caulerpa. Didnt see the death (failure) yet that I had worried about. I used Kent salt with 1 large live rock and live sand set up 2 days before. The water I had mixed about 5 days before. The temp is at 72'F. It helps to use the opaque white tub and golden sand to see these guys clearly. I put some in a 20glass tank with pure carribean aragonite sand(very white) and had to look more to spot them. As for collecting the 1 and 2 day old larvae I guess the glass tank would be the better. I also put some (10) in a tank with 1.020 SG yet their packing water was 1.012 - they did seem to struggle yet some did live. I did try some particles of frozen food that I had after feeding the fishes. I let some particle rich water drip in and could see them go for it. Well I will keep updating to let everyone that is interested know. JCD I was thinking Tank Raised babies instead of CB but are they or are they WC?

 

[jamesw]

Louis,

I'm pretty sure you're talking about M bahia - it's very common here on the gulf coast. The EPA requires companies that discharge "treated" seawater to test a water sample on M. bahia first. This is used to determine the no effect concentration and the lethal concentration for certain chemicals, etc.

What cracks me up is that the environmental engineering companies that do these tests charge between $.30 and $3.00 PER SHRIMP!

So, if you get good at culturing these puppies - maybe you can retire early...

Cheers
James

 

[Louis Z]

If I live long enough. Once my wife sees the online charges and walks into the garage shes going to freak. She told me not to set up alot of tanks in our temporary place. I paid .15 each but its the minimums that got me. These lab places dont bother with small amounts. I have been collecting around galveston and got the glass shrimp and acartia sp. copepods but I have a difficult time in acclimating to synthetic SW. I get these really large bacterial blooms that asphyxiate anything I get. I netted some of the glass shrimp and just the transfer of water on the net gave me the bloom. My collecting times are limited. So I have to rethink my setups for wild caught stuff in time for the spring blooms(5 months). There is another copepod that I am after in addition to the acartia. Maybe you can help me with ideas. The other fear is bringing in some nasty stuff. I had some worms on the glass shrimp so I would have to culture these to avoid the parasites. Yikes!! more tanks and some kriesels!!

 

[delbeek]

JCD I was thinking Tank Raised babies instead of CB but are they or are they WC?

Okay I THINK I understand what you are asking. The leafy seadragons are tank raised from wild collected males carring eggs. The males are then released once the eggs have hatched, and the young are raised for sale to public aquariums around the world. This is all done under permit in Australia. We feed them on live panaeid shrimp to begin with ... then we work with them to get them onto frozen mysis.

We also have a few weedy seadragons that we got from the Long Beach Aquarium. These were bred, hatched and reared in captivity. They were thge first in the world to do so. We used the same procedure with them; live food first then frozen.

Aloha!
JCD