France’s Marineland Has Rare Captive Breeding of Coral Shrimpfish

As we approach the opening of MACNA 2019 which this year is dedicated to Aquaculture, there appears to be lots of news and announcement about new captive breeding successes. The Antibes Marineland located in South of France, has a long history of Marine life breeding; they have produced hundreds of shark and rays that were shared with other public aquarium including over 100 Sandbar sharks (Carcharhinus plumbeus).

This 2 cm (1/2 inch)baby shrimp fish behave exactly like their parents.

They also started an aquarium fish breeding program that warmed up with some few clownfish, then they quickly scored some other interesting fish such as the Acreichthys tomentosus, the green aiptasia eating filefish, and other species of seahorses, dottyback, and even some shrimps like Hymenocera picta and Lysmata wurdemanni. We will keep you up to date with other success story coming out from them.

As for now their new very interesting breakthrough is with the Shrimpfish Aeoliscus strigatus, not the first time in the world but a very rare occassion nonetheless.

The eggs of shrimpfish develop in chains that quickly dissociate, then they hatch in 24 hours and their first accepted larval food was Acartia tonsa copepods. The 50 cute young shrimp fish at Marineland Antibes are now 50 Days old, and 2 cm long and they behave exactly like their parents.

At around 15 days they switch to their more adult gregarious behavior with their head down, with a length around 6 mm. If you like seeing a school of small normal fish schooling, you can imagine the beautiful sight to observe this miniature school of 2 cm fish, exact replica of their parents, swimming vertically in unison

Public Aquarium play a very important active role in developing the necessary science for the future of our hobby, and their achievements must be celebrated. We would like to congratulate the team of Marineland composed of Gillet Jérome, Mension Sarah, Billion Régis and their curator Catteau Jean Philippe for this achievement.

Some additional information that could be useful for other breeding programs is that the copepod eggs were supplied by CFeed and the microalgae by GreenSea

Vincent Chalias

Vincent is a coral passionate aquarist with extensive experience in the industry, travelling the world to learn about corals. His background is a master degree in Marine Aquaculture. He set up the first Indonesian Coral mariculture farms at the beginning of the century and spent over 20 years in Indonesia running them. He's been extensively diving and documenting corals all over the Indo-Pacific.