New & Old

Been really busy with work and decided to start 2014 with a bang!  I haven't had too much time to post but that doesn't mean my shrimps haven't kept busy.  I've been keeping up with maintenance for the rack at home and the 10G at my GF's is looking great!  All the brown algae is now gone, and the shrimps seems to be a lot more active now with the cleaner and clearer water.  I've been dosing the tank with CO2 and ferts for over 2 months now with no negative results, so I'm breaking down many of the "dont's" of shrimp keeping.  Also, my weekly water changes a around 40% which is another big "no no" in shrimp keeping.  I've also been trying out my more secret experimental concoctions.  It's too soon to tell, but so far there hasn't been signs of any negative effects.    

I've been recording videos of some of the strange, but funny, happenings during the weekly water changes. These little guys are super lively, and are always actively swimming and climbing, YES CLIMBING! They climb up and down the moist tank during water changes. When the GF has time to help me edit and upload the videos, I'll post for all to see.

Well... time for some pictures!

hi

da curl

our newest taiwan bee baby :)

PS. I started a few new tanks in preparations of a new home for the now growing Taiwan Bee family.  Can't wait for the tank to cycle and I can't wait to show you all what it looks like!

Stay tune!

Berried TB!!

Good news everybody, one of my female TB is berried!!  It looks like she was impregnated sometime this weekend.  I checked Friday night and didn't notice any new berried females, but during feeding today, I noticed the female had a much better belly than usual.  Turns out she's pregnant :)  Originally, I purchased the 12 Taiwan Bees on October 22, 2013.  It's been around around 4 weeks since introduction to the tank, I'm every surprise the female was comfortable enough to get berried.  I hope she stays strong and healthy until delivery.  I'm unsure which male impregnated her, but I track her gestation and separate her in.  I hope another Taiwan Bee male impregnated her, but only time will tell!!  Stay tuned!

My special lady!

....Dat belly...

Fatty momma

Can you see her eggs?

The little guy

Full tank shot

Unique Panda Pattern :)

Full Tank -10G-

Bucephalandra sp. "Midnight Blue"

Bucephalandra sp. "Samantha"

Newborn PRL CRS

C. Flamingo

PRL CRS Female

PRL CRS Female take 2

...getting back in the water...one foot at a time...

Quick update on me - I've finalized my living conditions and have moved out of my parents. Unfortunately, this means I am no longer able to provide the daily upkeep for my rack.  Because of this, the shrimp rack has fallen into shambles and so I've decided to redo the tanks.  This is going to provide me with a good opportunity to reevaluate the types of shrimps I want to keep and shrimps I want to get rid of during this time as the hobby has grown so much since I've been away.  So many new exciting shrimps to keep!!!  The next couple of weeks will be devoted to cleaning and clearing stuff out.  Stay tuned!

Now on to the fun stuff!  I've been keeping up with the 10G display tank at my girlfriend's house, doing weekly water changes, and tank maintenance.  The tank has really matured and undergone a lot changes since it's conception back in 2012.  The tank's original crystal red shrimps have been relocated to the 20L at my parent's house.  I managed to get my hands on some rarer Pure Red Line Crystals Reds a while back and now they've matured and are beginning to breed.  I have about 3 females currently berried with one that released her clutch last week.  I can already see tiny little shrimplets clinging on glass, moss, and the leaves of plants.  It's so adorable!!  The coloration of these shrimps is very vivid and the thickness of the shell is very prominent.

Also, I've added some new temporary tank mates for the PRL CRS to hang out with while I cycle a new tank.  Can you spot them?  I hope you enjoy!!

Blue Velvets

Hello Everyone!!

Just wanted to give a quick update on what's been going on with me and my shrimps.  Since I might be moving soon, I decided that it might be a bad idea to set up new 15 gallon tanks.  The Blue Velvets I bought  2 months ago have been doing extremely well.  As a member of the Neocaridina family, these guys are extremely prolific.  I would still recommend starting a colony with at least 10 shrimps for those who are new but thinking about jumping into the hobby of dwarf shrimp keeping.  Starting a colony with 10 will give a good ratio of males and females.  My 10 gallon is currently scattered with juveniles Blue Velvets swimming around.  Pretty exciting stuff!

I noticed juvenile Blue Velvets demonstrating darker blue coloration when compared to the fully grown adults. Some are transparent blue, while others are blackish blue.  Regardless, consistency in color is amazing!  Blue Velvets seems to be a very stable strain of neocaridina mutation.  The original breeder did a great job selectively breeding and stabilizing the color within this morph.  Since I currently do not have the proper camera equipment to properly display the true beauty of these guys, I am using a picture taken by my supplier.  Speedie, Nick, is relatively new to the shrimping hobby, but he is quickly ascending the ranks among shrimping experts!  His amazing skills with a camera have provided this hobby with some of the most strikingly beautiful shrimp pictures available anywhere!  This is as close as I can ever attempt to show how amazing Blue Velvets can really be.  Notice the coloration of the shrimp's exterior shell.  The blueish striping pattern on its back, the semi transparent blueish color, and its greenish inner head! This is a pattern distinctly unique to Blue Velvets. Also, notice this female's beautiful greenish eggs.  

Blue Velvets are slowly becoming one of my favorite Neocaridina species, along with Taiwan Fire Reds, and and Snowballs.  Caring for Blue Velvets isn't any more difficult than keeping any other Neocaridinas.  They prefer harder water, but will do fine in softer acidic water.  Like any living creature, stability is key!  Young shrimplets are more sturdy than adults.  They are more tolerant of water parameter changes and so they will be more forgiving for novice shrimp keepers.

Ideal Parameters:
pH: 6.4-7.4
kH: 0-10
gH: 4-14
TDS: 100-300
Temp: 68-82

Bee Show Tank pt. 2

I feel like it's been one of those "months", where things have slowed down, and I haven't had time to really update the blog.  Besides taking down my 15 gallon OEBT tank, nothing new happening.

I noticed my OEBT population dying off slowly from either a bacteria infection or an unknown cause.  Regardless, I decided to take the tank down and have a fresh restart.  I couldn't control the deaths so I just took out all the plants, and shrimps and bought new substrate.  Surviving OEBT are currently housed in a small 5 gallon bucket with an airstone.  One thing I found interesting is that most (90%) of the OEBT that did survive are OEBT Blues.  Many of the blondes died off, kind of an "extreme" way to cull for a desired trait.  I'm hoping the surviving OEBT Blues will increase my Blue offspring percentages with resistance to this bacteria infection.

The reason in deciding to go with an inert substrate is control.  I noticed that it was hard to get full control of my water parameters with ADA AS (known to buffer water parameters.)  This isn't to say ADA AS is bad, it's just not the direction I want to take.  The new substrate should be coming in Saturday.  I'm excited to get the substrate and start redoing the 2x 15 gallons I have laying around.  The substrate is inert black substrate. Should be interesting to work with.  [Note: I don't plan on growing fancy plants so inert substrate is perfect for my setup.]

Anyways, to the good stuff!  The 10 Gallon bee tank at my GF's house is growing in nicely.  The moss is growing very nicely on the driftwood, sadly I cant say the same for the carpeting plant.

This is a top view of what the tank looks like.  The moss has really grown, notice the healthy bright green color.  I had to trim the moss back a bit.  The new growth is starting to cast a shadow over the lower layer of moss.  I didn't want the top layer to cut off light to the bottom layer and cause the bottom layer to die, and eventually become undone and make the entire thing to float up.  [Note: Trimming plants will help stimulate healthier and lusher new growth.]  The Bolbitus in the back hasn't really taken off, not a big surprise as the plant is an extremely slow grower.  The carpet plant is terribly slow, probably still needs more time to establish it's root system.  I'll give the plant another month to prove me wrong.  The tank is still pretty "bare" but I'm going to add some Mini Pellia sheets.  Mini Pellia is an awesome carpet liverwort that is not only aesthetically pleasing, but it provides a lot of added benefits similar to moss.  Algae has been a constant problem for the tank.  Excess nutrients from the ADA AS and abundant of light is causing brown algae to grow on the glass. I was careful to not infect the tank with any Black Beard Algae (BBA) or green hair algae.  I made sure I dipped the plants in an H2O2 solution to kill off any algae spores that the plant might be carrying.  I'm controlling the algae growth with consistent water change and maintenance. [Note: I leave some brown algae on the sides and lower part of the back glass because it provides AMAZING grazing areas for shrimps.]  I think within a few weeks, as the plants grow more and the nutrient levels balance off, the algae will slowly disappear.  Staying vigilant is the key to beating algae.  OHHH, I also have a berried female CRS inside the tank!! My GF and her mom are both excited to see the babies!!  Will update when babies hatch.

Full Tank Shot

As for my other shrimps, nothing much has changed.  I moved the Blue Velvets (10) into their own 10 gallon tank.  The females are all berried and have been for some time now.  The first female should release anyday now, and others will follow shortly.  My Taiwan Red Rilis are breeding so fast and with females constantly berried, I'm currently going through a population EXPLOSION!!  Similar things are happening with my other Neocaridina species.  My Snowballs are pooping out babies so fast!  The crazy heat waves  must have accelerated their gestation period.  I have a very strange female Snowball the size of an Amano Shrimp.  (Rare because Neocaridina grows much smaller than Amano shrimps.)  Her cluster must hold anywhere from 35-40 eggs!  My Yellows are starting to breed again after the move to the 10 gallon tank.  I notice Yellows are much pickier than other Neocaridinas.  I had a few die off during the transfer, but the poplation is bouncing back.  My Blue Pearl population is growing at a steady rate so I've been culling for bluer coloration.  My Tangerine Tigers are all fully grown adults.  Some females berried up last week with others showing signs of developed saddles.  Typically, saddle females will get impregnate by males within a week.

Moss Carpet

Lately, there's been a lot of people asking me to show them how to grow moss on stainless steel sheets like I have growing inside a few of my tanks.  I've decided that I'm going to make a little guide for people to follow and have a better shrimp keeping experience.

I've explained in an earlier post that having moss is really important for anyone trying to keep and breed shrimps.  Keeping and growing moss will help increased biological functions, absorb harmful nitrates, increase water oxygenation, and also make for a more aesthetically pleasing aquarium.  Micro-organisms growing on moss will provide excellent food for adult shrimps and baby shrimps and it will also act as a shelter for baby shrimps to hide in while they grow.  Shrimps depend on moss during all stages of life.  Adults love grazing on the moss between feedings, so it's a good idea to have moss inside shrimp tanks.  Moss have very minimum requirements so its the perfect plant for low tech tanks or beginners looking for a plant that won't easily die.

We'll need a couple of things before we can start making our moss carpet.

Mini xmas moss is an excellent carpet moss because it has very thick and dense growth.  I use fishing line because once it's added to the aquarium it the thread becomes nearly invisible.  If you don't have fishing line, you can use cotton thread.  The main reason we use stainless steel mesh is because it's corrosive resistant and because it sinks when its underwater.

Ideally, you separate the moss into thin fronds and spread it evenly across the SS Mesh.  Do not compact the moss because this will cause the moss on the bottom to die because its shaded.  Thinly spread fronds results in healthier new growth.  Mini xmas moss will grow in a upward direction, filling in within a couple of weeks.  Try to get a nice piece similar to the one pictured.  Tying a corner of the mesh will help you tie the moss down easier once you have it spread on top.  Once the moss is evenly spread, I tie in a horizontal and then vertical direction.  I dip the completed moss in a bucket of water, shaking it around to free up the loose moss that didn't get tied down.

The final results should be a new sheet of moss that's evenly spread.  It should look similar to this.  Initially, I started off with enough mini xmas moss to make 3 sheets.  After 2 months, I was able to cultivate enough moss to turn 1 sheet into 6 sheets of moss.  I haven't touch the other 2 fully grown sheets because making the moss sheets is very time consuming.  I hope this guide was helpful for those wanting to grow moss and scape it into something nice.

Good lucky shrimp keeping!

New Bee Show Tank

Here is my new 10 gallon rimless display tank.  This tank was set up a while back, but because of the soil leeching ammonia, the tank has taken nearly 2 months to fully cycle.  I sunk the driftwood in about 2 weeks prior to adding  it to the tank.  The wood is manzanita.  Manzanita is a preferred wood of choice for hobbyist because it does not leech tannis and brown the water like Africana and Malaysian driftwood.  Manzanita also has very branchy characteristic, making it very appealing in nature scaped aquariums.

The tank is filtered with an Eheim 2213 canister filter and to help with water circulation, I added a Rio water pump attached on top of my undergravel filter.  This should help the water reach every inch of the tank.  Good water circulation is important because it will keep algae from growing on plant and gravel.  The intake for the Eheim 2213 is covered with a stainless steel strainer because it will help prevent sucking in baby shrimplets.  The tank is using ADA ASI as a substrate because it will help buffer the water parameters to ideal water conditions for shrimp keeping.  ADA ASI substrate is nutrient rich which is a benefit for people who wants to keep high tech plants.  I'm currently injecting Co2 into this tank to speed up plant growth and control algae.  The manzanita driftwood has weeping moss attached on the wood with thread, mini bolbitis, and regular bobitis growing in the back.  I'm hoping to carpet the tank and add some more midground platns in the near future.  Currently, the inhabitants includes 3 SS crystal red shrimps.

My goal is to someday keep Taiwan bees and be able to breed them.  The tank is currently using full RO water remineralized with Mosura Mineral Plus to achieve the desire parameters.  San Jose tap water contains lots of impurities that can kill shrimps so it's safest to use pure RO water and remineralize it yourself.  I try to keep a thicker substrate base because it's important to have a good bioloical filtration for shrimp tanks as they are sensitive to nitrate and ammonia poisoning.  Both aerobic and anaerobic bacteria are important, hence the canister and undergravel filter.

When deciding to keep shrimps, especially bee shrimps, it's normally safer to use driftwood as a scaping material rather than rocks.  Most rocks will dissolve over time which can increase and change the water parameters in a tank.  This can lead to a lot of problems because parameter swings kills shrimps.

Well that's it for today.  I'll update again as the tank develops and matures.

Equipment:
- 10 Gallon Rimless Tank
- Eheim 2213 Canister Filter
- Rio 90 water pump
- Eheim 'jager' heater
- PetCo undergravel filter
- Stainless Steel Filter guard
- Mini Co2 diffuser

Photo Update! New Shrimps!!!!

Before I start showing my new shrimps, lets revisit some of my older shrimps.

Taiwan Fire Reds Male/Female(berried)

  

 Single shot of my Taiwan Fire Red Female

Comparison between OEBT Blue and OEBT Blonde genes

Can you spot the ninja with the freaky eyes?

A OEBT blue with visible black-stripe pattern

My Snowball couple

 ====And... Finally... My new shrimps ====

Blue Velvets (Neocaridina sp. "Blue Velvet")

More Blue Velvets feasting with OEBT

Blue Velvets, OEBT, and a Black Eyes Black Tiger??

Tangerine Tiger (Caridina serrata var. "Tangerine")

Exciting development!

I just got some Blue Velvet Shrimps today!  These looks like Blue Pearls, but they demonstrate a lighter blue.  Blue Velvets are a color morph of the Blue Rili that has been stabilized.  I'm putting these badboys inside my 15G OEBT tank.  I think a mixture of Blue Velvets and OEBT would make the 15G are really awesome!  Acclimating them as I update this blog; I'll try to get some pictures up tomorrow.

I just placed my order for 10 Tangerine Tigers.  These guys should be really awesome.  Tangerine color with black tiger stripes.  I can't wait to add some more tiger species to my collection.

Here's a crappy iPhone photo of my CRS at feeding.  I can't spot any babies that had been released inside the tank.  I don't know if the freak heatwave wiped them out or they're just hiding.  I hope everyone is fine and doing well.  Good thing these guys are constantly getting pregnant.  The picture shows 3 berried females making a mad dash for some Mosura Shrimp Special.  Right now I have about 7 females that's berried with about half of them due to release their clutch anytime this coming week.  I've added a clip on fan on the rim of the tank.  If the week gets warm, I'll turn it on.  Fans make excellent alternatives to chillers.  They cost less, and consume way less electricity.  The only downside is the rate of water evaporation.  Topoffs must be done daily when using a fan.  I might add in some more moss so I can increase the bio-film in my tanks.  Moss is almost always a must for any shrimp tanks.  It really helps increase baby shrimp survival rate.