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Retirement and forum shutdown (17 Jan 2022)

Hi,

John Howell who has managed the forum for years is getting on and wishes to retire from the role of managing it.
Over the years, he has managed the forum through good days and bad days and he has always been fair.
He has managed to bring his passion for fish keeping to the forum and keep it going for so long.

I wish to thank John for his hard work in keeping the forum going.

With John wishing to "retire" from the role of managing the forum and the forum receiving very little traffic, I think we must agree that forum has come to a natural conclusion and it's time to put it to rest.

I am proposing that the forum be made read-only from March 2022 onwards and that no new users or content be created. The website is still registered for several more years, so the content will still be accessible but no new topics or replies will be allowed.

If there is interest from the ITFS or other fish keeping clubs, we may redirect traffic to them or to a Facebook group but will not actively manage it.

I'd like to thank everyone over the years who helped with forum, posted a reply, started a new topic, ask a question and helped a newbie in fish keeping. And thank you to the sponsors who helped us along the away. Hopefully it made the hobby stronger.

I'd especially like to thank John Howell and Valerie Rousseau for all of their contributions, without them the forum would have never been has successful.

Thank you
Darragh Sherwin

What is this?

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06 Jun 2009 15:21 - 06 Jun 2009 15:26 #1 by Daragh_Owens (Daragh Owens)
I just found hundreds of these in my Crystal Red Shrimp tank, they were not there at noon today. They are about 2mm long and drifting around in the water. There are also lots near the bottom on top of the substrate. The only other occupants of the tanks are Thai Micro Crabs.

I assume they are some form of daphnia, can anyone confirm and also does anyone know if they are harmful to the shrimp or crabs and how to get rid of them...



Short video clip




Daragh
Last edit: 06 Jun 2009 15:26 by Daragh_Owens (Daragh Owens).

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  • Valerie (Valerie)
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06 Jun 2009 21:35 #2 by Valerie (Valerie)
Replied by Valerie (Valerie) on topic Re:What is this?
Cool ! :)

Valerie

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06 Jun 2009 21:59 #3 by gerryberry (Jeff Daly)
There some mad looking dudes Daragh

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06 Jun 2009 22:52 #4 by derek (Derek Doyle)
i would guess at crab larvae.

30 tanks specialise in african cichlids, angelfish and various catfish

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06 Jun 2009 23:04 #5 by Acara (Dave Walters)
I would have guessed at the crab larvae,as Derek suggests,but thats only going at the other tank occupants.

always on the lookout for interesting corys.pm me if you know off any!

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06 Jun 2009 23:56 #6 by Daragh_Owens (Daragh Owens)
Yes the word back from German invert forum supports that they are indeed lavae of the Thai Micro Carbs which is pretty amazing, I only have them a few weeks and I lost 3 of the 6 I got!

Unfortunately there are no successful breeding report, though someone had lavae that lasted 9 days.

I have just shot another video and will post when it uploads. In the meantime here is a link to models of crab lavae and they match in all the key points, eyes, long fanned tail bit, spike out of th "shell" etc.

www.panzerwelten.de/forum/showthread.php...8&pid=11056#pid11056

I will be watching these very carefully over the next few days.

Daragh

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07 Jun 2009 01:06 #7 by Daragh_Owens (Daragh Owens)
Video uploaded at last:




Daragh

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07 Jun 2009 01:33 #8 by JohnH (John)
Replied by JohnH (John) on topic Re:What is this?
That is really awesome, brilliant video - best of luck with progressing beyond the previous nine-day 'record' - you might become a 'first breeder'.

Good luck, and well done so far.

John

Location:
N. Tipp

We're just two lost souls swimming in a fish bowl - year after year.


ITFS member.



It's a long way to Tipperary.

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07 Jun 2009 10:33 #9 by Acara (Dave Walters)
Great stuff.I presume you'll be busy researching the raising of them,but guess if it aint known to have been done,then there'll not be much info out there.Good luck with raising them,no better man for it,a pioneer in the field of crabs.:woohoo:

Good to see the microscope getting plenty of use.

always on the lookout for interesting corys.pm me if you know off any!

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07 Jun 2009 12:23 #10 by Daragh_Owens (Daragh Owens)
Unfortunately the vast majority of them are gone this morning, just a coupl estill bobbing around. It seems from the video that they look more like the lavae of crabs that breed in saltwater than fresh. To-date it was thought they were 100% fresh, but that may explain why no one has bred them. There is so little info out there, but at least now there is a video of the lavae.

Daragh

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07 Jun 2009 12:59 #11 by Tom (Tom Brecknell)
Congrats on your success, looked up to see what crab’s looked like, lovely little fella’s, well done.

There will be more spawns and you'll learn a bit more each time........Tom.B)

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22 Jun 2009 00:39 #12 by Daragh_Owens (Daragh Owens)
Well after the "success" of getting larvae from these little guys I decided to expand the poplulation and ordered some more from a different source, I planned to keep them in different conditions to see what suited best, there is so little authoritive info available. They arrived safely, but to me they seem a diiferent species, much smaller and differently proportioned than the originals so now I have two types of crabs that no one knows bugger all about :-)


Daragh

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22 Jun 2009 00:40 #13 by Fishowner (Gavin fishowner)
If they cross breed you will then have 3 that no-one knows about ! lol

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22 Jun 2009 08:49 #14 by sheag35 (Seamus Gillespie)
Daragh could it be a juvenile form of the above or is it just plain unlucky.... knowing you you'll have success anyway...best of luck with your crabs.... whoops that sounded wrong but you know what i mean ;)

Fishkeeping the Only way to get wet and wild

currently 25 tanks, and breeding is the aim of everything i keep
location:Limerick

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22 Jun 2009 20:40 #15 by Daragh_Owens (Daragh Owens)
:-)

The latest batch of crabs are so small it is possibel they are the same species but I have my doubts as their proportion of body to legs and their movements are so different. I don't really mind either way, but if they are the original, I have a bit of growing on to do first!

Daragh

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22 Jun 2009 23:35 #16 by Fishowner (Gavin fishowner)
Darragh, are they red claw crabs, often called Thai Crabs?
Also have you kept red claw crabs, would you advise them to be safe for a community tank or not?

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23 Jun 2009 00:36 #17 by Daragh_Owens (Daragh Owens)
No these are all white, usually referred to as Thai Micro Crabs (Limnopilos naiyanetri). Sorry but I don't know anything about red claws and my invert book seems to have gone for a walk at the moment.


Daragh

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02 Jul 2009 01:05 - 02 Jul 2009 08:33 #18 by Daragh_Owens (Daragh Owens)
I have had more larvae from these guys, videoed them again, this time with a normal video camera of them still in the tank:



I also got some more crabs from a different supplier but they turned out to be about a quarter of the size of the originals and they had larvae after only a few days, microscope video of them here:



Now I just need to figure out what species they are and how to raise the larvae!



Daragh
Last edit: 02 Jul 2009 08:33 by Daragh_Owens (Daragh Owens).

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02 Jul 2009 11:09 #19 by derek (Derek Doyle)
really strange alien looking creatures. i would imagine that some of the larvae should survive and grow if you can supply small enough food particles. (plankton). but great great patience and binocular strenght eyesight are required.
this is real pioneering stuff,well done and the videos are fantastic.

30 tanks specialise in african cichlids, angelfish and various catfish

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10 Jul 2009 00:33 #20 by derek (Derek Doyle)
daragh, how about an update on the crabs!

30 tanks specialise in african cichlids, angelfish and various catfish

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10 Jul 2009 00:44 #21 by Daragh_Owens (Daragh Owens)
AS was fairly clear from the last video I posted they were definitely different crabs. I have confirmed that it the case and the smaller ones I have, that is not the ones I had at the show, are the true L. nayianetri. The ones I got from USA that I had at the show are something else entirely and no one has been able to ID them yet on any of the German forums, I had more larvae from these today so that is three times in a few weeks and ther are only three of them! They are still in a shrimp tank and I suspect the shrimp to be eating th elarvae so as soon as I can free up a tank I am going to move out the crabs to their own tank.

Here are a couple of photos:

Real L. nayianetri - female with eggs, these crabs are tiny, carapace about 4mm across.


Real L. nayianetri - front the front.


Mystery crab that was originally bought as L. nayianetri, these are much larger carapace of about 10mm.


Daragh

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10 Jul 2009 20:13 #22 by derek (Derek Doyle)
great stuff daragh, keep us updated on your findings. i was recently chatting to a professional tanganyikan cichlid breeder from england, and we were discussing the forum which he often checks out, and he was very complimentary about your posts and particularly the photography.

30 tanks specialise in african cichlids, angelfish and various catfish

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10 Jul 2009 21:00 #23 by 2poc (2poc)
Replied by 2poc (2poc) on topic Re:What is this?
Any ideas on how to grow them on successfully Darragh?

Salinity/Hardness/Food/Temp/Current ?

So many variables as well as these to consider...

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10 Jul 2009 22:23 #24 by Daragh_Owens (Daragh Owens)
2poc wrote:

Any ideas on how to grow them on successfully Darragh?

Salinity/Hardness/Food/Temp/Current ?

So many variables as well as these to consider...



The short answer is no :(

The answer is in some combination of above. If only the wholesalers would be more accurate with catch locations you could learn so much on the conditions of their natural envirnoment, however numberous locations have been given so far.

It seems 6 days is as long as anyone has kept teh larvae alive and there is not much detail on the conditions they did that in.

I managed to extend from 24 to 72 hours the lifes of the second batch using 24hr lighting, green water and spirulina powder. However I strongly suspect that based on the volume and frequency of larvae produced that these are like ammano shrimp and require a marine cycle to go from larvae to crab. I have plans to try a few things, just need the time to play around.

Daragh

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