Liveaquaria Orbi Kreisel

[ScooterTDI]

I picked up a kreisel tank from liveaquaria late last year because they went on sale for $99 (and I think they are still listed at that price.) I decided to try raising some peppermints just as a trial to see if it was well-suited as a larval tank. With only some minor modifications, it seems to be pretty great at gently keeping the shrimp larvae suspended. Settlement started at 22 days and nearly all settled by 25 days which is significantly shorter than reported elsewhere. I think physical damage can cause mark-time molts in which they regenerate appendages (particularly the really long 5th pereiopods) rather than develop further. The current in the kreisel was pretty gentle so I think there was minimal physical damage which allowed them to develop more quickly. I'm looking forward to working with some different species in this tank!

[DaJMasta]

Nice results!  I never had much luck with my kreisel designs but have definitely seen that my mesh bottom bucket method leave them with a lot of time at the bottom (I think coarser mesh lets them be closer to "floating" than fine mesh or an actual bottom of a vessel.)

 

I've got a bigger printer and hopefully soon a bigger sump and may try to revive those designs.

[Kathryn Lawson]

That's fantastic success, congrats! Do you happen to have a video showing how fast the water is moving around in there? Did you use baby brine shrimp or copepods?

I'm testing out a low-tech DIY kreisel which is basically a big, rounded-bottom vase in a heated water bath, with a mini sponge filter suspended in the middle of the vase with a cup on the top of the air tube that rises slightly above the vase's water level, which holds the bubbles in but lets the water gently overflow (hope that makes sense). So far it's been the best low-tech version I've tested, since anything else using air bubbles for movement seems to get my sexy shrimp larvae stuck on the surface regardless of the bubble rate. I've also been working on a 3D printer and am prototyping a printable kreisel insert for a standard 5g tank that would work more like your tank, though that's currently on hold because (a) the printer is having unrelated issues I'm still fixing and (b) the vase with sponge filter overflow seems to be working decently - my current batch of sexy shrimp larvae is living the longest of any so far... (fingers crossed!) 

[ScooterTDI]

9 hours ago, Kathryn Lawson said:

That's fantastic success, congrats! Do you happen to have a video showing how fast the water is moving around in there? Did you use baby brine shrimp or copepods?

I'm testing out a low-tech DIY kreisel which is basically a big, rounded-bottom vase in a heated water bath, with a mini sponge filter suspended in the middle of the vase with a cup on the top of the air tube that rises slightly above the vase's water level, which holds the bubbles in but lets the water gently overflow (hope that makes sense). So far it's been the best low-tech version I've tested, since anything else using air bubbles for movement seems to get my sexy shrimp larvae stuck on the surface regardless of the bubble rate. I've also been working on a 3D printer and am prototyping a printable kreisel insert for a standard 5g tank that would work more like your tank, though that's currently on hold because (a) the printer is having unrelated issues I'm still fixing and (b) the vase with sponge filter overflow seems to be working decently - my current batch of sexy shrimp larvae is living the longest of any so far... (fingers crossed!) 

That sounds like an interesting design! I haven't had any issues with larvae at the surface. Rather, they tend to settle on the bottom when I turn the pump off to clean the screen. I used baby brine shrimp early on and then added frozen calanus and frozen mysis for late stage larvae. Here is a link to a video of it with late stage larvae:

 

https://photos.app.goo.gl/7MayzXsur4CYfEEx9

 

The main modification is a 100 micron mesh covering the outflow to keep food and larvae inside. I used double sided tape (3m 300lse) to attach magnet sheet around the outflow and made a matching magnet sheet to which I attached the mesh with double-sided tape. So, the mesh was attached magnetically and it was easy to remove and replace for cleaning.

 

Sexy shrimp are next on my list of shrimp for the kreisel unless I can get something else to mate sooner. Let me know if you have any sexy shrimp to sell!

Edited January 29 by ScooterTDI

[ScooterTDI]

On 1/27/2026 at 2:28 PM, DaJMasta said:

Nice results!  I never had much luck with my kreisel designs but have definitely seen that my mesh bottom bucket method leave them with a lot of time at the bottom (I think coarser mesh lets them be closer to "floating" than fine mesh or an actual bottom of a vessel.)

 

I've got a bigger printer and hopefully soon a bigger sump and may try to revive those designs.

I've used improvised fishbowl kreisels in the past for blue stripe pipefish and they worked well. I know most marine fish breeders have moved to round tubs and shrimp breeders mostly use upwelling cylinder designs, but I like how easy it is to control flow in a kreisel. I never even thought about 3d printing one!

[DaJMasta]

The idea for printing was that if you had it against the glass, you could still see in like a normal kreisel, but that if it's mesh to the outside tank, the tank can be much bigger (or part of a running system) so water changes aren't such an issue.  The fishbowl had come to mind (even tried an upwelling design with a bubbler down a globe shaped tank), but I had sort of dismissed them as being a bit too small to do it without a lot of maintenance, and it seemed like you needed a fair bit of flow to keep things from settling (I think with a cylinder you need a lot less because you don't need the water to "sweep" the bottom in every drection.)

 

I later found that there were some significant advantages to using their own vessels (hydroid contamination) and kind of dropped the printed ones, but I was basically printing a cylinder with a mesh rear face and a piece of silicone airline tubing for a gasket against the glass (the larvae could get caught in narrow gaps and the amphipods could get in), then some kind of airlift pump to drive circulation from the outside in.  The more recent buckets I had some limited success in were basically a smaller printed bucket with a false bottom of mesh (I think around 200 micron), and while with minimal flow the larvae did spend a lot of time on the mesh at the bottom, because it was off the true bottom a lot seemed to survive ok.

 

Those kreisels are still $100 btw!