What's Jan doing when he's on vacation? He's working on his aquarium and makes an awesome discovery! At 2am, my Lysmata amboinensis starts fanning with its swimming legs (pleopods) , where eggs are attached, and sets around 500 larvae free!
The larvae float near the water surface because they are attracted to light. Under the microscope, we can see the shape: like a small shrimp, but with the peculiarities of a larva. In the larval stage, it is plankton and floats free in the water. This is done with the pereiopods (walking legs), which branch in two in the larval stage. The endopodite is growing bigger whith each molting and changes to an exopodite, which is long and waves to move the shrimp larva around in the water column! It recedes towards the end of the larval stage and disappears when the shrimp starts its benthic (ground-based) life.
Further on, it is visible that the body of the larva is free of any nutrient reserves, such as amber globules that would hint at fat deposits. This means that the larva is dependent on food immediately after release! Therefore, it is currently not possible for me to go on rearing my shrimp larvae, because I don't have the right food at home. For the future, I'm planning some changes: For breeding I'll use phytoplankton like "NYOS Phytomaxx" and I'll raise Copepods to provide nutritious shrimp feed immediately after hatching! My 2nd Shrimp is already bearing eggs as well...
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