Breeding Amano Shrimp (Caridina multidentata)
Looking for a new aquarium challenge? If you've already successfully bred higher-order dwarf shrimp like red cherry shrimp, which hatch looking like miniature adults, you could take things up a notch by trying your hand at breeding Amano shrimp (Caridina multidentata). Their young hatch as larvae, making things quite a bit more complicated. Amano shrimp also go by Yamato shrimp, Japanese swamp shrimp, Japonica shrimp or Takashi amano shrimp.
Keep reading for everything you need to know about breeding Amano shrimp!
Table of Contents
Amano Shrimp Breeding
Amano shrimp are one of the hardest shrimp species to breed in the freshwater aquarium hobby. It was actually thought impossible for a good while, but through lots of experimenting, there are aquarists who have managed to pull it off. Keeping Amano shrimp in your peaceful community tank, however, is quite easy. Overall care for these great algae eaters in a freshwater tank is easy.
There are 4 things to focus on while trying to breed freshwater Amano shrimp: inducing breeding, breeding/carrying of eggs, raising the young, and acclimation to freshwater. Two of these variables are easy to pull off (the first two, to be precise), while the other two will be a little more difficult.
Compelling your Amano shrimp to breed will require a sexed pair of shrimp, stable water parameters, and a food source.
Sexing Amano shrimp
Female Amano shrimp will be larger, averaging around 1.5"-2", and have brown, dashed lines along their bodies. Males are a little smaller, averaging around 1"-1.5", and sport dots along their bodies rather than dashes. Females can have a bright or dull green "saddle" on their back, which is actually where the eggs develop in their ovaries.
Keep in mind that it's difficult to sex Amano shrimp at a young age. At roughly 3 to 4 months, it becomes more prominent which is which.
What will you need?
- Pair of sexed Amano shrimp (one male Amano shrimp and one female Amano shrimp)
- High-quality shrimp food
- Sea Salt Mix (Instant Ocean Sea Salt Mix is recommended; NOT table salt, pickling salt, aquarium salt, etc.)
- Aquarium light (to grow saltwater algae)
- Container (to hold the saltwater and larvae)
- 2 air pumps with accessories (airline tubing, check valve, control valve, air stone, etc.)
- 1-gallon container (for dechlorinated freshwater)
- RODI or RO water
- Hydrometer or Refractometer
- Flashlight
- Pipette or eye dropper
- Syringe (with a decently sized opening)
Before Breeding
Once you've collected all the gear you'll need for your Amano shrimp breeding project, it's time to prepare for the moment of truth.
- You'll be setting up a saltwater jar using one of the air pumps with its accessories and saltwater mix. Try to aim for 30-35 PPT saltwater (1.022-1.026 Specific Gravity).
- Once got your water mixed, you can add the airstone (optionally with a sponge filter attached) and have it pump out a gentle stream of air.
- Position the light above the container and allow it to mature. Bugs may fly into it and die, creating Ammonia, which is a nutrient required by algae to grow (so no worries about that!).
- Over time, water will evaporate, causing the salinity will go up. Top off the evaporation with RODI or RO water to maintain the right salinity.
- After a while, the jar will be filled with diatoms and other sorts of algae growth.
Breeding Parameters
Water parameters should be kept stable within the acceptable ranges.
- The pH should be between 6.5-8.0
- The temperature should be consistent between 70°F-80 °F
- GH should be 5-15
- KH 1-10
When you're trying to breed Amano shrimp, food should be readily available. Algae in the tank can be an adequate food source, but is not always present in the right quantities.
If there is not enough food available, you can supplement with blanched vegetables and prepared fish food.
How do Amano shrimp breed?
Once your Amano shrimp are sexually mature (4-5 months), if the above-mentioned requirements are met, they'll breed. No intervention needed on your part!
Amano shrimp breed after the female molts. The female amano shrimp will attempt to hide, but also release pheromones into the water column. Male shrimp will sense these pheromones and will find her in order to mate. Afterwards, the female will carry the fertilized eggs in her pleopods/swimmerets until the eggs hatch.
This is considered the easy part of breeding Amanos: they will breed readily as long as the female is ready.
After the shrimp have bred, the female will keep the eggs in her pleopods/swimmerets for 3-5 weeks while they develop. Once the third week rolls around, you should prepare the 1-gallon container you have ready and fill it up. Set up the air pump and the accessories so there is a good amount of flow. If the female were to release all of the eggs before hatching, the flow from the air stone would keep the eggs well-oxygenated and fungus-free.
Allow the water to get to room temperature and then transfer your berried female. Watch closely, as the eggs may hatch soon or take another 2 weeks.
Raising the Larvae
This is going to be the difficult part, so be warned. These guys are TINY!
After the eggs hatch, the Amano shrimp larvae have roughly 1 week to survive in freshwater. Turn off all surrounding light and shine a flashlight at one spot on the container. The Amano larvae are attracted to light and will move towards it, making it much easier to round them all up.
Place the larvae in a temporary container, like a betta cup. You may have to repeat this step multiple times, as not all of the eggs will hatch at the same rate. Once you have rounded up as many as you feel like, transfer them into the saltwater jar. Acclimation is not required.
Watch closely as the larvae do their thing, floating around and eating algae. They will do this till they metamorphize, which will take around 1.5 months.
To keep the water in the larva container clean, you can use the flashlight trick you used to catch them earlier. Point the flashlight to one corner and then use some airline tubing to siphon out 10-20% of the water. Replace with clean water matching in temperature and salinity. Use the drip method if you're worried about shocking the shrimp.
Feeding the Amano Larvae
The larvae are much too small to eat any regular foods, including very tiny items like baby brine shrimp. Instead, they should feed on the algae growing on the rearing tank container walls. Naturally grown diatoms and other algae are the best food sources for them, after all!
Supplemental feedings are not necessary, as this can easily foul the water and kill all of the larvae. If you really feel like you should feed them, like if your diatom population isn't up to par, spirulina powder is an acceptable food. Use just a small pinch.
Capturing and Acclimating the Larvae
It is easy to tell when your Amano larvae metamorphize. They will swim forward rapidly, mimicking what they would do in the wild: swimming from the ocean, upstream into brackish, then into freshwater for the rest of their lives. Congratulations, they are now actual shrimp, albeit very tiny ones.
Once this happens, it's time for you to act. Warning: this is a little difficult! Catching the fry can be tricky, as they are quite fast.
- Attach a small piece of airline tubing, approximately 2"-3", to the syringe and stick it into the container.
- When the shrimp stop swimming, quickly move the syringe near them and start pulling on the plunger. This may take several attempts, as they will try to evade the airline.
- Once you have a few captured, squirt the them out of the tube and/or syringe into a cup. Make sure there is enough saltwater to cover them. Once they're in the right spot, acclimation will take approximately 24-36 hours.
- Take a long piece of airline tubing and attach an air stone to one end and a control valve to the other.
- The airstone end goes into the tank, preventing any baby shrimp or preexisting shrimp from being sucked up. The control valve end goes into the cup. Start the siphon by sucking on it very lightly.
- Once you've got the water flowing, slow it down to roughly 1 drop per second. It is recommended to check the cup every few hours, to ensure it doesn't overflow.
- After acclimating for 24-36 hours, slowly pour the contents of the cup into the tank. The diluted saltwater should not affect the water parameters drastically.
Amano shrimp care
If all went well, you've now got a bunch of small but fully developed Amano shrimp on your hands. These can live with various peaceful freshwater fish species or with other shrimp, especially when they've grown large enough to avoid being eaten.
Caring for these hardy shrimp in your fish tank, as mentioned, is easy. They eat pretty much anything, from diatoms to algae wafers, sinking pellets and frozen foods to dead fish. They also consume algae, even pesky types like black beard algae, helping to keep your aquarium looking its best. Call them the janitors of the aquarium hobby!
Keep your Amanos in a well-planted and fully cycled single-species tank or community tank. A tank size of at least 5-10 gallons is ideal. Add plenty of shrimp tubes and other hides, and choose peaceful community fish as tankmates. Larger and more aggressive fish may bother or eat your Amano shrimp.
You can read more about these algae-eating shrimp in the full Amano shrimp care guide.
Frequently asked questions
It's unlikely, but you'll have to separate the larvae from their mom anyway. They need to be in saltwater until they metamorphose.
Conclusion
Voilà! If your baby Amano shrimp have gotten this far, you might just have pulled it off. Not many aquarists can do it, so feel free to comment on this post to brag about it. We'd love to hear your experiences, tips & tricks and even if it went wrong and why.
Mine hatched today !
Thanks
By the way, in my first attempt, I had missed about 25 of them, since they were hiding under rocks. They had grown to about 8mm, which means they had managed to molt several times in sea water (which the literature often claims doesn't happen). Judging from the decline in their number from hatchlings to shrimplets, it must have been a minority that pulled this off, but it's good to know nonetheless.
Fits in with the occasional report of amano shrimp procreating in fresh water - some tiny fraction of offspring seem to be very hardy indeed.
I hope I can pull this off.
Thanks,
Clint
How often should the larvae be fed per day?
How long does it usually take for them to metamorphize after they hatch?
Thanks for the info, I'm attempting my first hatch!
I have a sixty litre aquarium. 21 dec C (70 deg F). Over the past week I have had Amano shrimp babies. Some have been in the aquarium a couple of days before being transferred to salt water and they have been okay. (trying to say the aquarium water quality is probably okay). I have just plants and 10 shrimp in the Aquarium. No fish in the aquarium. I have 'API Aquarium salt' mixed with my Aquarium water in a 2 ltr container that sits in the aquarium. I use a refractometer to measure salt content. I have tried 35 PPT mix, a 20 PPT mix, and a 15 PPT mix. These different mixes kill off the baby shrimp. From being translucent they turn white like the salt water has kinda cooked them. I have read that they can be directly introduced to the salt water.
I'm just wondering where I might be going wrong. I'm going to try reducing the PPT even further. Even keeping them in just the aquarium water to see what happens then. Any help would be appreciated.
Thank you in advance, Richard
I've installed a "maternity tank" right next to it where I keep the berried females. After I did a large water change (60+%) there yesterday, four out of five of them had released their spawn this morning. All of the mothers and the fry seem fit and healthy, although I can't tell wether some eggs hadn't been quite ready. It's an interesting finding though: Seems like you can trigger spawning with a water change. I'd caution to only do that with females near the end of their term, though, that is when the eggs have been carried for a month or so and have the light color.
Thanks!
Regards, vikki
Wondering if you could help me, I have 4 Amino shrimp and 2 of them are pregnant. I have only just noticed as they have been hiding for ages the eggs look very dark brown will they go lighter before I need to move the pregnant shrimp or do I remove them now? I don’t want to agree them out.
Thanks Lucy x
It has been in my community Tank about a week, when I shine a light on her the eggs seem light in colour, with no direct light they seem dark.
I have used an old pitcher with water from the community tank and aeration, I have transferred the berried mother into this.
Now I need to prepare a salt water container with aeration for when they hatch? Mother can return to community tank and larvae transfer to salt water.
I'm very new to this but got so excited when I saw her ?.
Please help me raise these little eggs into beautiful Amano Shrimp.
Don't become discouraged if you lose a batch of larvae. This stuff is super finicky! The female will become berried again soon. Good luck :)
My larvae are 30 days old ( in salt water) I have observed maybe one specimen who is aleready a fast little shrimp … difficult to catch … should i wait few days more and start reduce slowly the salinity or I should catch each one of them separately, the minute I observed a change? I guests they suppose to metamorphosis at relatively the same moment !?
Was thinking theoretically could I drain the freshwater tank with the new larvae in it (almost empty) then add salt water? And then when they ready for fresh again could I drain (half empty depending on size of tank) then slowly acclimate by adding fresh water and after acclimating slowly diluting by adding more fresh water and and draining the old half salt half fresh water? Or dose there eventually need to be no salt water in the final tank ? thanks
Was wondering if theoretically when the eggs hatch into larvae could I just drain their tank down (almost empty) then add salt water and when I have to acclimate them could I just drain again (half empty depending on size of tank) and slowly introduce fresh water instead of changing their tanks and trying to catch them all?
My first attempt was unfortunately a failure. A power outage that lasted several days during the cold months killed my larvaes.
I tried again this Spring. As luck would have it (or Murphy's Law), there was another 3 days power outage a few days after the first hatchings, but I managed to save a batch this time.
I diligently watched and supplemented a bit every now and then, and in the end, I managed to get 14 mini shrimps. They are still tiny but growing well, now in their breeding box in my main tank.
This article is super helpful and amazingly detailed. Thank you for that! I do have a few questions.. I may have just read some of the info too fast, but I figured I would try getting in touch anyway. :)
I just bought a single Amano shrimp today and upon releasing it into my "baby tank" (a small tank I have dedicated to growing my newborn mollies and platies until they are big enough not to be eaten).. I noticed it had eggs! She has been furiously exploring the tank and not hiding much. Although she is fanning the dark clutch of eggs very frequently. That being said, I'm not sure how long she has been carrying the eggs.. so I am unsure about when to transfer her to her own little maternity tank so the babies don't get eaten by.. my other babies.. lol. Also, would it be okay if after the babies hatch, I would move the mother back into her original tank, and then after collecting the babies into a temporary container, make what was the maternity tank into the saltwater tank? And then add the cup of babies in until they are ready for freshwater? Does that even make sense?
Please let me know if & when you have time. I hope you can decipher my series of questions, haha!
Thank you,
Nicole
Hope it worked out, but if not, just try again!
Have week old larvae from my first attempt and curious about water changes…do I replace the water with salt water or conditioned water? If with regular conditioned water, won’t that reduce the salinity. I don’t have a refractometer to test.
Also couldn’t find any live phytoplankton so am using Seachem Reef Phytoplankton bc I didn’t have enough time to let algae, etc set up in saltwater tank…is this ok? How often should I give them 3-4 drops in the tank? Should I be feeding something else, can I drop a cholla piece or something from my fish tank in to help form altar…so many questions ?♀️?♀️
As for Seachem Phytoplankton, I haven't tried it. We usually rear these guys in tanks whose walls are covered with algae and other microbits, which is enough for them. Let us know if it works! A cholla piece could be good if it has algae. You can also place round rocks in a water-filled bucket with a strong light pointing at it to grow algae and diatoms on there. As mentioned in the guide, a pinch of spirulina can work, but any supplemental feeding means you really have to keep an eye on water quality.
I know, so many questions, and so many different methods as well. As we've said, be prepared to lose a few batches before you figure out what works for you. It's sad but always a learning experience. Good luck :)
Does this mean there is a problem with the mother or the eggs?
I wish I had read your article before I tried. I was only watching YouTube which there weren't that many of them about raising the larvae. Now that I have read your information, I think I will try again unless the eggs turn out to have a problem because they're not being fanned. Thank you for posting the instructions.
Breeding sure is difficult ***sigh***
Thanks in advance
—Sunny
All this being said, you can always try. If it doesn't work, mom will produce another batch soon enough. So that would be: remove mom, pre-mix salt separately, and use this mixture to raise the salinity in the freshwater container with the larvae. Let us know how it worked out if you do give it a shot :)
I just noticed our post says 2-3 months for metamorphosis, which is a bit too long. It's more like 40 days. 20 is very little, what was the temperature? As for the acclimation, that sounds pretty good. We prefer drip acclimation, but your method appears to work fine too. As for the survival rate, yes, that actually sounds very acceptable, especially if that was the first time you tried this. It's normal to lose entire batches and have 0 survivors. You'll probably get a higher survival rate as you refine your technique.
I have a 55 gallon tank, freshwater, with a decent supply of natural algae. It got a little out of control during conditioning, and I could never really bring it back to zero, so now it's just part of the aquascape. But something about my tank conditions is allowing at least some number of the fry to survive to maturity. I have 1 tiger pleco, 8 neon tetra, 6 raspora and 8 nerites in there as well. I also seem to have a limpet-friendly environment, the little water fleas are all over the bottom.
Anyhow, another female is preggers again, just noticed today, so I guess we'll see if the second round of shrimp survives to maturity. At some point soon i'm going to either need to start a shrimp tank or donate a ton to my local store.
Tank parameters:
55 gal fresh
Large rock piles, mopani driftwood from Amazon (website, not river) - maybe the wood is leeching salt, idk
Two cryptocorenes, 6 dwarf anubias, java moss
temp: 76-78
PH ~6.8, hardness hasn't been measured in a while
Food sources:
Natural algae
Shrimp King complete sticks
Tetra gold flaks for the fish
My inclination is not to mess with things and just see how it goes. If this tank produces 40+ additional shrimp a year, I'm just going to be donating a lot of shrimp.
Feel free to update here as well.