Photoburst: Red Taiwan Bees

Bloodied Red Wine

Bloodied Ruby Red

"Here's looking at you, kid" 

Photoburst: Moar Bees

Girlfriend is back in town. Spent the weekend hanging out with her after picking her up from the airport. It's nice to have her back. She'll help me greatly with this blogger. I'll give her a few days to rest then ask her to help me with my articles. 

I managed to get a few photos in during the week when I was at my parents for dinner. Hope you guys enjoy!!

Cheers!

Shrimp Spotlight: Red Bolt!?!

With recent turns of events, my Red Wine/Ruby Red colony has experienced quite a turn-around and started showing signs of vigor and robustness. With babies surviving and adults shrugging off their winter chills, my colony is starting to reproduce again! I find myself with more and more babies very week! With the 4th batch of babies maturing into young juveniles, my other young female adult have made it past her pregnancy and given birth to the tank's 5th batch of babies. This newest batch is quite small (the brood consists roughly of 10-15 babies) as the mother is still young and this may be the first time she experienced giving birth. I expect this young mother to carry more and more as she mature.

The main focus of today is the POTENTIAL of me having a Red Bolt. Now I am aware that are photos of "Red Bolts" floating around the net. I want to say that this isn't my first experience with these "Red Bolt." Another German hobbyist reported and documented what he called a "Red Bolt" a while back. When I received my Red Wines from a buddy, he informed me that his Red Wine colony were throwing out random colored Bees that were similar to "Red Bolt" or so he said from what he was able to gather online.  My saying POTENTIAL and constantly quoting of the word RED BOLT is due to the fact that I am not 100% sure that what I have is truly a "Red Bolt" and not just a horrible Golden Bee. There is a fine line, and I don't want to be the guy to sell someone on the idea of a crappy Golden Bee as a "Red Bolt." There are far too many profiteers out there quick to label something to make money, I don't want to be THAT guy. I'll continue to track and monitor the development of this "Red Bolt" until he/she is older and I can further determine what he/she really is. To be honest color isn't quite "BOLT" status like their bluer cousins but ehh... beggars can't be choosers. Regardless, this will be either an exciting confirmation or an interesting beginning to some fun breeding experiments!

Here are photos!!

A small update before I conclude the post. With regards to the cycling of the rimless 10G, I'm almost 100% certain the tank is cycled and good to go. I just haven't had time to really test the parameters for confirmation but I will this weekend. As for the Japanese Black/Red Bees, I've noticed that the JBB have released their second brood of babies. The JRB female are still berried and showing great signs that they'll be carrying their clutch to maturity without fail. The BlackBees from the first clutch are growing up super fast and they have just amazing colors! I cannot wait for some free time this weekend to work on the tanks and take some photos! I also have a secret project I've brooding that I'm exciting to start. ALSO ALSO, there's a big event coming up next week. Folks following should definitely stay tuned!

Until next time!

Cheers!

Photoburst: C'est Bee

It's a friday and the GF is in another country... Nothing left to do but grab a nice cold beer, find a comfy chair, setup the X-T1, and snap a few pictures.... Enjoy! ^.^

Captured the "defensive stance" pose

Big 'ol gal

Young'n

Japanese call these "Mothra"

Artsy off-focus

Heard you guys like macros?

Fatty #1

Fatty #2

In regards to the most previous post and puzzle, I wanted to thank folks for participating and Infamouz23 for solving the puzzle! Great work Mr. Detective!!

Photoburst: Fire // Ice

Fire

Ice

I figured I post up a photo of my Red/Blue Taiwan Bee for my followers to see as it's been a few days since my last post. The photo of the Blue Bolt is an old one and folks following me on forums might have already seen it, but Red Wine is a new photo taken today  The photo might seem a bit rushed as it's nearing my bed time (the ZzzQuil is kicking in and I'm starting to fall asleep) so please excuse the poor photo.

With regards to the Stainless Steel Wire rack housing my dual 10G rimless tanks, the newly added tank is now in the second week of it's cycling process and everything is so far so good. Nitrate and Nitrite are both at 0 ppm while Ammonia is still at 2p2 ppm which is pretty amazing for anyone with experience cycling ADA AS. I predict within a week the ammonia will drop off and the tank will be safe to add plants and shrimps. I'm going overdose the tank with CO2 and ferts so I can grow a centerpiece for that tank and then once moss and other assorted plants grows in and then dial the CO2 back and flush the tank before adding shrimps.

I also spent the past week setting up 3x 10G tanks for the rack at my parent's home. The folks seems to be really getting into shrimping as my parents are always so curious about their behavior observed during feeding. I'm going to devote this weekend to finishing up the rack by finally settting up the remaining 3x 10G tank. Total tank count for the rack will be 8 tanks. It's going to be a busy week!

PS: A small sidenote for my readers. A question/pizzle for you -

Scenario: The shrimps inside my 8gal Red Taiwan Bee tank has been breeding proactively for months now, even into the onset of winter. Since adding shrimps to this tank, I've experienced a total of 4 clutch release (births I should say) from the Red Taiwan Bee mothers. Of these 4 releases, only the first and last (most current) batches have shown signs of babies surviving.  Given that all else are the same, why is it take only the first and last batch of babies have survive. Parameters are kept EXACTLY the same.  This means PH, GH, KH, and TDS are all kept within the same parameters. Procedures such as bi-monthly water changes and fert dosage are kept the same.  First batch of babies released sometime near the ending of summer and the second/third batches of babies occurred during the onset of Fall.

Question: Why is it that only the first/last batch of babies have survived thus far? What could have happened during the second and third batches that would have caused babies to die?

Tip: Second batch of babies occurred during the end of fall and the third batch of babies occurred during onset of winter and while I was away in Japan. 

Answer: TO-BE-REVEALED!!! On next post.

Prize: Hmmmm. I'll add a prize for those that can make the correct guess.  Shrimp toys (those cool miniatures I have), shrimp foods, moss, or even live shrimp. I'll figure that out when the time nears, but it'll be awesome and fun. I promise! 

As always, thank you for reading!!

Cheers.

Shrimp Spotlight: Ruby Red Taiwan Bee

Today is a bad day as I'm feeling a little under the weather, so i'll make today's post brief. I really like the Ruby Red Taiwan Bee. If you remember, I had a clutch hatch a month back, unfortunately, all babies died off except a Red Bolt. I'm still trying to diagnose what the problem is, but the tank has a low baby survival rate. Very interesting stuff! I'm formulating a hypothesis that I will put forth to the test on this current clutch. We'll see how it goes.

Thank you for reading!

Photoburst: New kids on the block!

New addition to the family

I'm just so excited to find the new batch of babies just born into the tank. This new guy was birth sometime last night to today. He or she is a young Red Wine/Ruby Red in training. The tank is starting to really get homey for all these guys as mommas start releasing her babies.  

Tiny baby

Newly born babies have a tendency to stay put to where they originally hatched. This sort of behavior usually last a few days for newly born babies as they need the time to situate themselves. This means you'll definitely want to have a nicely filled tank where babies feel safe and secure.  This is why I like moss and tend to have a lot of moss inside my tanks.  Fluffier moss like Fissidens is great because it offers a lot of folds where babies can snuggly hide between.  As they reach the week old mark, they will start moving around and explore their new world.  I'm spotting a few more newly hatched babies and they're all so CUTE!

Thank you for reading!

PlantProfile: Flame Moss

Flame Moss

It has been roughly 3 weeks since I tied the flame moss on these lava rocks and I am pretty amazed at just how quickly it took for the moss to establish itself and start growing.  As of late, I've been more inclined to tying my moss on rocks rather than my traditional practice of tying it on Stainless Steel Mesh.  I feel like attaching moss on rocks gives the moss a bit of character and really adds to the overall potential of the moss when it has a chance to fully grow and establish itself.  A while back, a buddy gave me one of his mini fissidiens growing on a piece of lava rock and I think that's when I became hooked on this whole rock deal.  I'm still a big fan of tying moss on SS mesh, but there is something about flame moss that just screams to be tied to lava rocks.

   

Mossy

This is an overview of the entire tank inside my room that a few folks who visited for the Pandas didn't have the chance to see. Unfortunately, being that the tank is inside my room, most folks will never have a chance to see how the tank look besides seeing it in pictures.

This is my 8gal rimless tank housing Taiwan Bee - Red Wines and Red Wine variants. My Dragon's Blood Red Wines comes from this tank. I got these wonderful shrimps from the same buddy who gave me the mini fissidens. I'm so lucky and very grateful to have great friends.

The tank itself is pretty simple.  The tank is mainly comprised of moss growing on rocks and/or on driftwood. The centerpiece, as you can see in the middle, is a piece of driftwood with fissidens fontanus growing all over it's entirety.

In the front, I have an experimental piece of moss housing unit (more like a clamp) that is holding down my mini x-mas moss. It's been clamped on that device for a good part of a month. Growth is terribly slow, but it does show signs of growing.  All the moss are very healthy without signs of any algae development. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that none will develop as this tank is currently very balanced.

Thank you for reading!

Shrimp Spotlight: Red 'Dragon' Taiwan Bee

Red Wine - Dragon's Blood

Had some time today, so I brought out the camera and took some photos of my Red Wines.  Please allow me to introduce to you my Dragon's Blood Red Wine.  She's a youngster but her dark marbling is delightful to look at.

Cheers.