Shrimp Spotlight: Blue Bolt

Hi Folks!

Not much happening in my shrimping world as of late, but I wanted to provide an update with some good news. Some might already know, but a while back, I had a mishap. This mishap just so happened to cause a large casualty in my Blue Bolt/Panda population. This was... deviating, to say the least! I was down to my very last "pure" Blue Bolt (female) and Panda (male) that I was riding my hopes on. It was a big relief to discover that after moving the remaining pair to a new tank, they successfully bred and now I have a larger colony of Blue Bolts/Pandas Taiwan Bees to try to rebuild my once thriving colony. 

To my luck, it just so happen that my female and male were of exceptional grade. I'm very fond of my female so I'm sharing photos of her with everyone tonight! Please enjoy!!

Up Close and PERSONAL!

My ABSOLUTE favorite shrimp pose. Heads up, tail down ;]

Photoburst: Red Taiwan Bees

Bloodied Red Wine

Bloodied Ruby Red

"Here's looking at you, kid" 

Shrimp Spotlight: Blue Bolt/Blue Mothra

Love the gemlike head!

Berried Mosura Blue Bolt

Sorry sorry! I know this post was suppose to be a spotlight on the Orange Eyes Blue Tigers but I haven't had a chance to visit my parents to actually take photos. I'm hoping that this weekend I will find some time to devote to photography.

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!!

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!

Shrimp Spotlight: Panda Taiwan Bee

The Gang

Post before bed.  I hope you guys enjoy the picture.  This is shrimps from my 60P Panda Taiwan Bee Shrimp Tank.

Shrimp Spotlight: Mosura Blue Bolt

Burrr ICE COLD

Busy busy busy day!  It's getting too cold too fast!

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.

New Camera + Macro Lens

Sharing 2 photos that really stood out during my practice photoshoot session. 

My Pandas were experiencing a breeding slow down for 2 months after transitioning from the breeder box to the 60P. They're doing much better now in their new home. Breeding has also picked up since then so I'm really happy about that. Hope to get more shrimps soon! 

Thanks for reading!!

*This is a test upload from mobile.