This first post is more of a teaser than anything, but after 103 long days of waiting, I have a settled Lysmata kuekenthali! I'll have more full documentation, explanation, and the print files for the kreisel design I used available soon, but for now, a blurry video of the first successful settlement:

That is fantastic, congratulations on the well-deserved and hard-won success!!! I'd been contemplating designing/printing a kreisel insert (though put that project on hold since my vase approximation has been working surprisingly well thus far - successfully settled porcelain crabs and sexy shrimp!), so am looking forwards to hearing more about your setup! For the whole time period, did you just feed freshly hatched baby brine shrimp? How are you removing them as they die off/grow up (depending on whether you also are adding phyto)?

Edited August 13Aug 13 by Kathryn Lawson

Thanks! It was primarily newly hatched artemia (day hatched to about two days old), but I occasionally supplemented a slew of whatever copepods I had and every couple of weeks added some phytoplankton. Oddly, very few water changes or other interventions of any sort, about 3 over the full duration. The molts would sometimes be visible in the tank, but eventually broke up, dissolved, or were otherwise consumed, and I believe most of the dead larvae were eaten by live ones. Don't think this shrimp got a lot of that, though, it's been only two larvae in this batch since the end of May.

Pulled it out, took some pictures, and transferred it into a holding basket in a proper tank.

For reference, that is one well in a two well slide, the water is maybe 4-5mm deep so the shrimp is probably around 9mm nose to tail.

Wow, do you have cycled media in the tank outside of the kreisel chamber? I'm wondering how on Earth you managed only 3 water changes with constant feeding (and likely dying, when no phyto is available for them) of artemia! In terms of detritus, too - how fine of a screen are you using? Maybe the copepods handled it? Either that or I'm over-feeding artemia to mine, lol! I set up twice-daily small water changes in my vase kreisel with peristaltic pumps which seems to maintain water quality, but still am using a 10ml pipette once or twice daily to remove debris from the bottom and outflow screen (mostly dead bbs but also some molts and dead larvae).

How are you doing your artemia hatches? I have one of those dish hatchers with the scoops in the center, but a few months in of cleaning and re-setting it every few days is becoming rather tedious and I'm contemplating ways to streamline my process.

I just started them off in the tank water they were collected in then new salt water. I saw a very small amount of detritus build up outside the kreisel section and there is definitely a copepod population, and even a little water cloudiness in the last month, but aside from the film on the surface it appeared mostly fine.

For feeding, I aimed to only add enough artemia to be consumed within 12 hours or so - both to reduce the fouling of the water and to keep the artemia closer to their hatch time. I used the disk shaped hatchers for a long time but broke one screen, so eventually I bought a pair of Ziss hatcheries and they have been good and easy to use so far. I actually don't even use a light to settle them - the egg shells float pretty well with modest aeration so I just harvest the main solution until the end where I disconnect the air and get the last bit before the eggshells on the surface.

I think the feeding quantity for 50ish larvae after a month or two is like 2/3 of the column of a 5 mL pipette, but this varies with density. For the two larvae in this run, they would never eat through enough artemia for them not to be in the water, so I just fed like 0.5mL or so twice a day to make sure there was food available.

A week and a couple days in, the second still hasn't settled, and none of the batch from May 21 have settled at 3 months in.

The one that did settle has gained a good bit of color, though, and molted only a week after settlement. It was a big difference in behavior from larva to settled shrimp, but a pretty big difference in behavior from day one settled to day two as well - definitely expending less energy and preferring to hide much more (like the adults.)

Kudos! Following along. How many have you gotten out of each batch?

The first batch had some equipment issues that meant a month in, it was only two shrimp - one of the two has settled. The second batch has maybe 2-3 dozen and should be soon. There could be a third batch another few weeks later - I thought I had collected fire shrimp larvae, but not 100%, and some recent fire shrimp larvae I got look probably different from how they looked. Will have to see when they settle.

So is it 103 days from inception to settling? I've always been curious of their lifespan, but I guess by the time they get into a tank they've probably lived about half their life (wild caught adults.)

Either way, still very cool work!

A second one settled, this time from the second batch, making it a 99 day settlement. While it sounds like it's skewing down, the second one from the first batch still hasn't settled by day 118, so seems like a good bit of variability. Also, it doesn't appear that temperature plays a huge role - I will see with the second batch, but while the first batch was 24-25C the whole time, the second batch had its 25W heater stick on after a week or two, and while I eventually caught it, it would only push the temps to 27C, so I let it go. A 2-3C difference for nearly the entire duration and the settling times at least appear to be pretty close so far.

What's more, the first shrimp has molted 2-3 times already and is nearly twice as long as this second one in its two weeks of being a juvenile.

New one:

Congrats on the second settlement!! And the first one doubling its size in two weeks, that's impressive! What are you feeding the settled ones, and are they still living in the kreisel? I'm debating when/how to switch over my settled sexy shrimp babies from artemia and relatedly, when to move them to a grow-out tank (which I need to decide upon and set up, lol).

I keep the newly settled ones in a basket held onto the side of the tank with a magnet. In it there is a little cover, a little macroalgae, and a little piece of ceramic media that has some aiptasia, since they should eat it at some point. As far as I can tell, the settled shrimp are opportunistic omnivores, so I've just been putting in a little of what I feed the rest of the tank, but I've been adding some newly hatched artemia to be sure and they may be able to do alright just off the biofilm - hard to tell for sure.