I get H. reidi fry every few days now, everybody is always pregnant it seems. However, I cannot keep them alive for more than 5 days or so, usually just a couple days. They simply disappear at night so I suspect the larger amphipods in the macroalgae stuffed nursery (Eclipse 12 with sponge filter over intake) make a midnight snack out of them. I notice too that my firefish will eat the newborns before I net them in the adult tank, so they must not be very crunchy. Actually, I collect most from the filter sock in the sump below when I come home for lunch. They are attracted to the light and get skimmed off the water surface. Every birth is around 11am, I can only net them if I am home early before they get sucked in.
My H. erectus are another story. They are born a little larger now that the father is starting to "tight pouch" them and hold them longer. He blows up like a balloon. They hitch within minutes, keep their tails coiled up in a ball and zoom around everywhere, very cute. The firefish in the adult tank spit them out so they must be crunchier than reidi and unpalatable. Since they are larger, they don't make it down to the filter sock. Instead, they get caught by the standard mesh plastic netting I have over the overflow intake. They get sucked in tail first so when I come home there are little heads sticking out peering into the tank. I really should use a larger mesh so they make it down to the filter sock, less stress, and easier than picking them out of the netting by hand.
I have 3 erectus that are 11 weeks old now, and 11 that are 3 weeks old. The younger 11 were held longer and born larger, and are growing noticably faster than my older 3 did. Everybody loves live baby brine which I have religously hatched everyday for 11 weeks. The older 3 will now only eat smaller pods occurring wild in the nursery, and weaning them to frozen mysis has been much harder than I read about. You need to use small shrimp (easy now that Hikari are seasonally running very small right now) that still have the eyeballs attached, and presented just right with a wiggle. This is only after a few have sunk right by them and got their attention. I cannot do this successfully very often, plus the eyeballs really fall off easily. Nobody wants frozen Cyclopeeze.
So, I sit and stare sick with worry that they are starving, and right then they will let go with an unbelievably large purple fece, so they must be finding plenty of pods. All those larger reidi-eating pods breed little erectus-feeding pods, and so goes nature....
Lest not to forget my 11 adults (9 reidi, 2 erectus), they eat an unbelievable amount of food. I need to find some sort of hay for them instead of expensive mysis. The younger ones are now starting to breed, and just like high school, spend all their time parading around showing off their pouches to the stuck-up females. Obviously, they do eventually get together though! That is quite the show to watch.
I feel responsibility to try and raise all the young, but it is simply way to much work to catch them in time or hand pick them out of the filter sock, and all for not. I hate to admit, but I think that unless they are erectus, the young will now get routinely thrown out every few days when I change the filter sock.
Sorry for the long post, I could go on and on.....
