Mysis... So many species!!!

[Lucie]

Hi guys!
I m looking for any links/books... related to USA wild saltwater mysis...
I need to more information before MAYBE thinking of a setup for breeding them

 

[Lucie]

up!

 

[rayjay]

Have you viewed this PDF yet? https://www.epa.gov/sites/production/files/2015-09/documents/culturingmysids.pdf
For me, I used a 40g breeder tank with divider wall, siphon tube, collection cup, sump and return. The mysid nauplii were captured in the collection cup and transferred to ten 10g aquariums. I could only put about a week's offspring together as they are so cannibalistic, needing a lot of tanks for the individual batches.
I have a sketch on my computer that I had made up quickly a few years ago for someone but I don't know how to e-mail the attachment to someone on this forum.
You CAN do minimal qtys just by using a tank with a LOT of small rubble. I started that way but to harvest I found it best to remove the rubble and then capture the largest mysids with an appropriately sized mesh net that allowed pass through of the nauplii and juveniles and then return the rubble to the tank.

 

[vlangel]

Have you viewed this PDF yet? https://www.epa.gov/sites/production/files/2015-09/documents/culturingmysids.pdf
For me, I used a 40g breeder tank with divider wall, siphon tube, collection cup, sump and return. The mysid nauplii were captured in the collection cup and transferred to ten 10g aquariums. I could only put about a week's offspring together as they are so cannibalistic, needing a lot of tanks for the individual batches.
I have a sketch on my computer that I had made up quickly a few years ago for someone but I don't know how to e-mail the attachment to someone on this forum.
You CAN do minimal qtys just by using a tank with a LOT of small rubble. I started that way but to harvest I found it best to remove the rubble and then capture the largest mysids with an appropriately sized mesh net that allowed pass through of the nauplii and juveniles and then return the rubble to the tank.

I have thought about trying to raise them by having small acrylic pillars on the bottom of a tank glued to a plastic screen frame laying on the pillars. Then when the adult mysis release the larvae, it was my hope that the tiny larvae would fall through the screen to the bottom of the tank. If the screen frame were a contained box, then it could be lifted up and placed in another tank so that the larvae shrimp could be collected. I have never actually tried this however so I can not say if it would work.

 

[rayjay]

I've never tried anything like that either.
What you might want to consider before doing it though is that many of the nauplii might drop TO the screen, and stay ON it rather than passing on down. Also, what passes through one way can pass through another way outbound if they choose.
Perhaps you could fashion the "box" so that it is a sturdy structure, with bottom supports to hold a bottom screen in place, add rock rubble to the box, and then place in the tank. To harvest, lift the box complete with rubble out of the tank and place it in another tank that is low enough in water level to accommodate the volume of box and rubble.
If the bottom mesh is appropriately sized, that will leave the nauplii in the first tank, transferring the adults to the second tank to continue production.
I found that I needed ten tanks so that cannibalism was minimal.
By the time the tenth tank is going to be used, the first tank mysids are as large as or nearly as large as the original mysid producers and can be used for more production or more food.
I was using 10g tanks as I was selling the mysids at the time, but you could go with 2.5g or 5g tanks depending on the scale of production you want.
For minimal use by most hobbyists though, a rubble tank alone would probably suffice and while it might be a pain to temporarily remove the rubble to sieve out the largest with a more open mesh to use for food, it still wouldn't be as labour intensive as doing the multiple tank methods.

 

[vlangel]

I've never tried anything like that either.
What you might want to consider before doing it though is that many of the nauplii might drop TO the screen, and stay ON it rather than passing on down. Also, what passes through one way can pass through another way outbound if they choose.
Perhaps you could fashion the "box" so that it is a sturdy structure, with bottom supports to hold a bottom screen in place, add rock rubble to the box, and then place in the tank. To harvest, lift the box complete with rubble out of the tank and place it in another tank that is low enough in water level to accommodate the volume of box and rubble.
If the bottom mesh is appropriately sized, that will leave the nauplii in the first tank, transferring the adults to the second tank to continue production.
I found that I needed ten tanks so that cannibalism was minimal.
By the time the tenth tank is going to be used, the first tank mysids are as large as or nearly as large as the original mysid producers and can be used for more production or more food.
I was using 10g tanks as I was selling the mysids at the time, but you could go with 2.5g or 5g tanks depending on the scale of production you want.
For minimal use by most hobbyists though, a rubble tank alone would probably suffice and while it might be a pain to temporarily remove the rubble to sieve out the largest with a more open mesh to use for food, it still wouldn't be as labour intensive as doing the multiple tank methods.

I really only wanted to produce them for my own 3 seahorses, so you are probably right. I have lots of 5 gallon salt buckets that could be used to nursery the young and larvae shrimp.
Its expensive but for now it is so much easier to just order them or ghost shrimp.

 

[andrewkw]

Good luck! It's my understanding they are very very hard to breed. I used to buy 500-1000 at a time and keep them in 10-20g tanks. I had to constantly feed them baby brine to stop them from eating each other. This was to feed dwarf cuttlefish. Considering you are in florida it might be easier / cheaper to just buy them. I don't remember the name of the laboratory grade mysids I used to get but they were based in florida. I bought through reed mariculture.

Additionally with wild sources in florida you could potentially just net some when you need them as well. I found the wild ones were much poorer condition then the ones grown in a lab though.

 

[Lucie]

Thanks Rayjay for the link (already saw it). For now i m not ready to breed them (lack of space, time and tanks), and still to ID some species. So far i can see 5 different species, one is like 95 percent of the total amount.
I collect daily easily about 6000 in 10 mn, mostly for feeding seahorses, and others fishs and corals.
I m concerned about possible parasitic issues because they are wild caught. Captive bred mysis are much safer regarding parasites but the amount of work is something to think about...
I see babies but they don t last long until an adult catch them...