Can an old dog learn shrimp tricks? A new shrimpkeeper's journal

[Jawjagrrl]

We got shrimplets for Christmas! Sort of? My original berried shrimp (orange) and my snowball (OG) both "delivered" during the night of the 20th? With so many floating plants, moss and cholla wood, I figured there were lots of hangout spots. There are also Male endlers and scuds, so some got eaten most likely.

After lots of time scanning every time I was in the kitchen (often during the holidays), I finally spotted a tiny shrimplet on the 23rd, but larger than I expected:

Could a 3 day old shrimplet be this size? Or did someone have babies earlier and I totally missed it?

Only seeing the same one (pretty sure) and it appears dark green. I do have a dark green male, but my berried females were white and orange. No green females. Guess I have some line genetics homework to do!

Here's the little guy/gal this morning, seems large enough now to be less concerned about hiding:

Any thoughts about parents welcome, did not expect this color as a gen1. The tank has:

Blue dream males/female

Cherry/Bloody Mary m/f

Orange m/f

Yellow/green males

Snowball female (read that this is not davidii, but another neocaradina).

I had berried red, white and orange shrimp leading up to this shrimplet. I still have at least one berried red. 

Thanks for following this little glass box saga if you're still reading!

Edited December 30, 2021 by Jawjagrrl
Corrected autocorrect of Davidii

[Jawjagrrl]

WOAH. I have more shrimplets after all. I have a little ring to keep an opening in my floating plants. I added a tiny bit of fry food in case there were more. Today that ring synced up with the only white part of the substrate, so fry food hit the quartz.... and there they were! 

At least six,  but probably more. Impossible to see on the dark aqua soil. Adults for scale:

And am I seeing rilli banding on some of them? That should narrow down the possibilities of line given some comers can be produced in different ways. Exciting indeed!

 

[Jawjagrrl]

Happy New Year!

Did tank maintenance this morning, a bit nervous on how to best remove excess floating plants and not baby shrimp or scuds. Seems a fiddly process so far. 

But man, are these little guys cute! Seeing a lot more of them the last couple of days - I guess they are large enough to feel secure in this setup.

Caught them with "Mom" shortly after:

I know shrimp are not parental, but I see the shrimplets around the two females that carried eggs quite a bit. 

How old might these guys be? I feel like they are pretty large relative to the adults for only being a week old. Will post a query in another thread about genetics - these are gen 1 crosses with "skittle" parents, but I wouldn't consider them brown per se? They look just like the Jade male. 

[dmurray407]

On 1/1/2022 at 12:25 PM, Jawjagrrl said:

a bit nervous on how to best remove excess floating plants and not baby shrimp

So fun!!!  I've had my shrimp for a couple months now-hopefully they will have babies some day. I had my doubts after my first shrimp became a rainbow fish smorgasbord. I put new shrimp in a separate tank and they are doing great. Actually, I was looking at my big tank (with the rainbow fish) this morning and saw a shrimp poking her head out from under the rocks. I suspected that there were a few left in there, but this is the first time I've actually seen one. Excuse the grungy corner-because I've suspected there might be shrimp left I don't vacuum that area very thoroughly. I had asked my grand daughter if she wanted my clown loaches (meaning some day) because I wanted to get some pygmy cories instead. She came and got them right away and I've been sorry ever since because I have lots more gunk in my tank without them. I think I'll be heading to the LFS in the next week or so to get a new "cleaning crew" (may start with some otocinclus...) ETA-I would love to move the shrimp from the "Rainbow Tank" to the smaller one, but I have no idea how to catch them....

Edited January 1, 2022 by dmurray407

[Jawjagrrl]

On 1/1/2022 at 1:37 PM, dmurray407 said:

I would love to move the shrimp from the "Rainbow Tank" to the smaller one, but I have no idea how to catch them....

Shrimp pretty consistently "jump" backwards when they perceive a threat. I've seen catchers have a net some distance back and approach the shrimp from the front with a tool until it jumps back into the net.

I moved 5 juveniles to another tank today using a clear pasta fork that I've adapted for the tanks with clear tape around the outer prongs so it is more like a small strainer, but transparent. The shrimp didn't notice it that much. I added some fry food to the top in the floating plants and waited until a few of them came up to nibble - scooped them right up. They love the new tank so far, hopefully they are large enough that the kuhlis can't eat them 🤔

AND! I realized today that these shrimplets may be older than I thought - I don't think they can reach 1/3 parent size in two weeks. I spotted tiny ones on a rock this evening that might be my Christmas shrimp? Looks like mamas that I thought dropped eggs managed to have some without me realizing after all. 

[Jawjagrrl]

DEFINITELY had shrimplets at two different times! Can anyone that has bred neocaradina before weigh in how old these two different aged juveniles are here? The older one is a very dark green (to the right) and the youngest are much paler green - first spotted yesterday (left and center). For some reference, the blue dream and orange shrimp are breeding age adults purchased as juveniles in September '21.

I did have two berried females release eggs on the 23rd, one orange and one white. I did think there were others with eggs but never saw shrimplets.

Edited January 11, 2022 by Jawjagrrl

[Jawjagrrl]

A mixed feelings post today. On the upside, I have shrimplets everywhere. At least 3 different hatches with interesting results. Research on neocardina genetics has left me puzzled by my oldest juveniles that are such a deep green they almost appear black. Mothers are orange (davidi) and snowball (palmata). I've seen green lines from both on breeding charts, but not this dark. My one green male is also dark olive in color and was sold to me as a green jade.

I'm also seeing reversions to wild type that I suspect are OG babies like this one that I think is actually really cool.

But there are also very pale peridot green babies and even a few pure white ones!

But also sad news. I was excited to have 4 pregnant females (which is almost all of them) at once, about the same time berried - a red, a bloody mary, the orange and snowballs again. They were looking pretty close on the 17th:

Sadly I found the more translucent one being fed upon late last night, eggs were gone/eaten? She seemed perfectly normal just a couple hours earlier. I've tried to research info on why this might happen when the rest of the tank is thriving and I've seen normal molts recently. The reds are household favorites and we were excited for first babies.

But then I also had this happen - the other female red that I believe to be a bloody mary or painted red appears to have the dreaded ring of death.

She has been like this for a day or two. Still seems to be acting normally, but afraid I'm going to lose her too. Is it possible the molt she went through prior to being berried was insufficient for the space she needed for a large clutch of eggs? 

Anything I can do for her? Tank parameters are very stable, no changes other than a top up of maybe 1 cup of water a week ago. Advice welcomed. We had just started talking about perhaps separating out the colors we have both sexes of to try an build colonies, but this has left me feeling a bit deflated about it.

 

Edited January 26, 2022 by Jawjagrrl
Typos

[Jawjagrrl]

Better news today! OG has released ANOTHER batch of eggs during the night and already has males chasing her about. My berried red that appeared to have a full white ring is still doing her thing and actually looks better. Not sure if she shed the outer shell and a new one has formed underneath the newly exposed shell, but the line is greatly diminished today and she is a lot more active.

So OG has had three sets of babies, the orange one set, the orange and red set to deliver plus the red female I lost may have released her eggs before died. I've moved 5 of the older babies to another tank (see photo below - have not become Kuhli loach snacks.... yet), but how many shrimp is "too many" for a 2.5gal setup?

Have been reading Walstad's noted on 1gal jars for neocaradina shrimp - no heater or filter. With small numbers of so many colors, this has some appeal to keep purer lines of the various colors. Anyone here have experience with her method, or other ideas for cost-effective small setups for shrimp?

[NoobNerd]

On 10/6/2021 at 11:35 AM, JettsPapa said:

Below is some basic advice I wrote up for beginning neocaridina shrimp keepers.  You might find it useful.

• Neocaridina shrimp (Neocaridina davidi; red cherry shrimp and the other available colors) are one of the easiest ornamental shrimp to keep, with a wider range of suitable water parameters than caridinas. Their parameters do overlap, but it's a narrow range, and not something I'd recommend for inexperienced shrimp keepers. I don't have any experience with caridinas (at least not yet), so I won't address them here.
   
• 6.8 to 8.0 pH is usually the recommended range for neos, with Gh from 6-12 and Kh at least 4. There are supplements you can add to the water to raise the hardness if yours is low. They will tolerate a wide range of temperatures, but around 72° F is generally considered best. At higher temperatures they will grow faster and breed faster, but they will also not live as long. Basically, higher temperatures accelerate their lifespan. Shrimp are sensitive to copper in the water, though the small amounts in commercial fish and shrimp food won't hurt them.
   
• If you’re curious about how many to start with, the answer is as many as you can afford, but if money is a factor (which it often is for most of us), you can get a nice colony going with 10 or so. Of course, it will take longer than if you start with 25, but you’ll still probably get to 100 sooner than you expect.
   
• There are many color varieties, and they will readily breed with each other. The results will generally be brown or clear after a few generations. For this reason, if you want to maintain a specific color it's best not to mix them. Even if you do stick with a single color you'll need to remove undesirable colors occasionally. The amount of culling you'll need to do will likely vary depending on the purity of the shrimp you start with. From my personal experience my red shrimp need a fair bit of culling, while the blues ones need very little. Many people do keep and enjoy mixed colors, and there's certainly nothing wrong with that. If you do cull, you can have a separate dedicated tank for them, or add them to tanks with fish. Even in tanks with dedicated shrimp hunters you'd be surprised how many will survive, especially given adequate hiding places. I occasionally see one in my 65 gallon tank, and my big angelfish just loves shrimp.
   
• To get the most enjoyment from shrimp, keep them in shrimp only tanks, or just shrimp and snails. You don't have to worry about predation, and they'll also be more visible if there aren't predators in the tank with them, even if the predators are too small to be a threat to adult shrimp.
   
• Even if they are the only things in the tank, they will feel more secure with hiding places, especially when molting or when a female is releasing babies. Dense plants are a good option. Java moss, guppy grass, Süßwassertang, and pearl weed are some good choices. A pile of rocks, sized so that the shrimp can crawl inside, is also a good idea.
   
• They are sensitive to changing water parameters, so most experienced shrimp keepers recommend limiting water changes to around 15%, and the new water should be close to the same temperature. If you do larger water changes, it’s even more important to temperature match the water.
   
• Since they need biofilm to graze on, and are very intolerant of ammonia and nitrites, it's usually recommended to let a tank run for at least 3 months before adding shrimp, and 4 months is better. You might get by with adding them sooner by adding a sponge filter, plants, substrate, etc. from an established tank, but you still aren't likely to have as much success as you will if you're patient and let the tank "season" (I know this from first-hand experience).
   
• In addition to the biofilm, they will also benefit from being fed. There are several commercial foods especially for shrimp, but I've also given mine several kinds of fish food, and they've eaten all of them. While there are mixed opinions about it, many people believe they also benefit from blanched vegetables once or twice a week. I've tried several things, and mine seem to prefer zucchini and spinach, followed by sweet peppers. I usually feed those late in the evening and remove any uneaten portion the next morning. By the way, shrimp just LOOOVE freshly crushed snails. Mine will swarm all over one.
   
• If you use CO2 in shrimp tanks keep it around 10 – 15 ppm, and definitely below 20 ppm. They often can’t tolerate the pH swings and/or elevated CO2 levels at higher concentrations.
   
• Of course, if you want to establish a colony you need males and females. Females are usually larger, and have better color, so when selecting them in a store you can get all females if you aren’t careful. It’s not difficult to tell them apart, even on shrimp that are the same size. The abdomen (the rear half) of females is larger than males, with the bottom line sagging down. Males’ abdomen is thinner, and it’s pretty much a straight taper from front to back.
   
• As they reach maturity, females will develop a “saddle” on their back. This saddle (usually yellow) is the unfertilized eggs showing through their shell. They're ready to breed when they next molt, after which the fertilized eggs will move down below their abdomen where she will constantly “fan” them and juggle them around with their swimmerets to keep them aerated. Unlike some shrimp, neos don't have a larval stage, so they’ll hatch as fully developed, but very small, shrimp after about 4 weeks.
   
• If you suddenly notice the shrimp swimming around the tank more than usual, it’s probably nothing to worry about. When a saddled female molts she releases pheromones signaling she’s ready to have her eggs fertilized, which gets the males swimming around trying to find her.

• If you notice a shrimp with a lighter colored lateral line on top, that's called a "racing stripe", and is a harmless feature that's common with some color varieties. It will typically get wider, with the edges more ragged, as the shrimp gets older.

• Don't worry about your tank becoming overstocked. They have a very small bioload, and a 10 gallon tank can hold hundreds of shrimp without becoming overcrowded.

Do you have any recommendations for something that can significantly increase water hardness with minimal impact to pH? Or is it a situation where you want to add something to harden the water like crushed coral and add something like driftwood to buffer the pH? My issue is that my tap water sits lovely at about 7.2 pH so I don't really want it to go much higher but it's in the upper range of soft/lower range of hard...

[PineSong]

Thank you for keeping this journal. I just got caught up on it and learned a lot from you and those who provided some answers, too. I have my first shrimp right now and I appreciate seeing how your shrimp start is going!

[JettsPapa]

On 1/25/2022 at 8:16 PM, NoobNerd said:

Do you have any recommendations for something that can significantly increase water hardness with minimal impact to pH? Or is it a situation where you want to add something to harden the water like crushed coral and add something like driftwood to buffer the pH? My issue is that my tap water sits lovely at about 7.2 pH so I don't really want it to go much higher but it's in the upper range of soft/lower range of hard...

I'm afraid I'm the wrong person to answer that question.  My water is 8.2 pH, with high GH and KH, so I don't have any experience with that.  Hopefully someone else will be able to help.

[Jawjagrrl]

On 1/25/2022 at 9:16 PM, NoobNerd said:

Do you have any recommendations for something that can significantly increase water hardness with minimal impact to pH? Or is it a situation where you want to add something to harden the water like crushed coral and add something like driftwood to buffer the pH? My issue is that my tap water sits lovely at about 7.2 pH so I don't really want it to go much higher but it's in the upper range of soft/lower range of hard...

There are others here that can speak much better to keeping Ph down and hardness up than me 🙂 I have 7.1 out of the well but 300Gh, so my water is pretty perfect for these guys. I've done things like adding a beach shell or a small amount of crushed coral in with my gravel under the aquasoil. The shrimp tank has perhaps 1/2 cup as does one of my 5s. Even though both are heavily planted, the ph stays around 7.5. My third tank also has a tiny amount, less plants... but runs around 7? Since all of these have shrimp I have opted to keep fish that are good with neutral to slightly basic parameters. Otherwise I'd drop the coral, run a but of peat and consider caradina, but since this is my first time with them I opted for an easier type.

[Jawjagrrl]

On 1/26/2022 at 12:23 AM, PineSong said:

Thank you for keeping this journal. I just got caught up on it and learned a lot from you and those who provided some answers, too. I have my first shrimp right now and I appreciate seeing how your shrimp start is going!

If nothing else it helps me track events and dates. And if others can learn from my learning, even better. Good luck with yours... what kind did you get?

[PineSong]

I got yellow neos from LRB. So far, they are all still alive and more active as time passes. Fingers crossed. 

Edited January 27, 2022 by PineSong

[DaveO]

I have orange LRBs. Love them.

[PineSong]

On 1/26/2022 at 2:35 PM, DaveO said:

I have orange LRBs. Love them.

I want those next, once I am sure I can keep them alive.  Everyone in my household is acting like I'm housing aquatic roaches, but I find the candy-colored ones cute. No black shrimp for me!

[Jawjagrrl]

Been a couple of weeks and things are still quite happy and stable in the shrimp tank. I have shrimp of all sizes EVERYWHERE. The tank has been running since late August? and has matured nicely, if overrun with plants. A good thing given how many shrimp must be in here. That they come for food immediately tells me it's quite a few. MOD NOTE: PICTURES ARE FLIPPING UPSIDE DOWN IF MORE THAN ONE ADDED - doesn't happen if file has been edited first, which is how I corrected all but this example.  

I moved out two wild type to the QT setup with the endler fry this week and they are doing fine. Fry are two weeks old now and growing nicely. I've moved seven that are extreme dark green/black over to my 5 gallon with kuhlis, endler male and dwarf crayfish. My bloody Mary is STILL PREGNANT?!?

OG is berried again and so is my blue dream female. With any luck daddy is one of the blue males, but we'll have to see. I may have gotten lucky with the orange mama last month as I spotted this little guy today:

Also red ones, which may have been released by the berried female I lost last month.

Time to decide what I am going to do with my box of water skittles. Try to separate out colors and preserve them? Just let them do their thing? OG is cranking out mostly wild type as she is the only N. Palmata (see below). I could try the Walstad jar idea and try to move out like colors into tiny colonies of 2 or 3 and keep this tank as a catchall? I have a pair of red and orange and a trio of blues. OG's oldest babies are breeding size or close to it and the darkones are indistinguishable from my original jade male, so I need to decide soon. Spring is fast approaching here in Georgia, so ambient room temperature should soon stay above 65.

Never expected this to be my favorite tank, but it is! Would welcome any advice about what might make the most sense moving forward with them.

Edited February 11, 2022 by Jawjagrrl

[Guppysnail]

Tiny. They will hide the first week or so since they are snacks for everything. Once you see them they have already molted a time or two. Congratulations 

[Jawjagrrl]

On 2/11/2022 at 10:10 AM, Guppysnail said:

Tiny. They will hide the first week or so since they are snacks for everything. Once you see them they have already molted a time or two. Congratulations 

I've been terrified to remove excess duckweed from this tank for fear of losing shrimplets! At least the bright colored ones are easier to spot - OG babies are almost impossible.

[dmurray407]

On 2/11/2022 at 9:10 AM, Guppysnail said:

Tiny. They will hide the first week

I must be the most unconscious shrimp keeper ever-I look, but have never noticed females with "berries" but all of a sudden, I will find little tiny shrimplettes in my tank-they just appear 🙂

[Guppysnail]

On 2/11/2022 at 10:20 AM, dmurray407 said:

I must be the most unconscious shrimp keeper ever-I look, but have never noticed females with "berries" but all of a sudden, I will find little tiny shrimplettes in my tank-they just appear 🙂

Depends on other stocking sometimes. They are more vulnerable when berried so tend to hide more when fish are about. 

[Jawjagrrl]

On 2/11/2022 at 10:20 AM, dmurray407 said:

I must be the most unconscious shrimp keeper ever-I look, but have never noticed females with "berries" but all of a sudden, I will find little tiny shrimplettes in my tank-they just appear 🙂

I only realized my blue dream was berried today because she was swimming on the front glass and I saw eggs wiggling in the flow. She is so dark I can't tell through her shell at all. The bloody mary is similar, but I've had a close eye on her since seeing the ring of death a couple of weeks ago. I think one more molt and she'll be ok. I only have endler males in the tank that ignore even shrimplets, so everyone is usually out and about unless recovering from a molt.

Edited February 11, 2022 by Jawjagrrl

[Beardedbillygoat1975]

I find benign neglect the best strategy. I just keep up on water changes, don't let the duck weed and water lettuce completely cover the top and feed good foods. The neos are very self sufficient. 

[Jawjagrrl]

On 2/11/2022 at 2:25 PM, Beardedbillygoat1975 said:

don't let the duck weed and water lettuce completely cover the top

Any advice for removing extra without potentially removing newborn shrimplets? Or do they prefer other parts of the tank? I would remove more, but any time I do, I always find scuds to rescue. I have potentially as many as 60 that are less than 5-6 days old atm.

[Jawjagrrl]

Well, it's been a hot minute since I updated, lots going on with other tanks and life in general. But things are busy in the shrimp tank for sure! Babies everywhere in colors I wasn't expecting, like yellow:

The white pearl palmata OG is a shrimplet MACHINE. She will release shrimplets and within 72 hours is berried again without fail. She has been this way consistently since late October last year. I'm reminded of an old country song Loretta Lynn used to sing about being pregnant again every time I see all her wild type offspring. Here she is eating with a bunch of her children from different hatches, all wild type since she is the sole palmata I have.

At least two of her oldest female children are berried ATM, including one that also has the back racing stripe - one of my yellow males has a stripe also as did one of my jades, but I lost him too early to breed with her.

I thought all the action was happening with OG and the red/orange ones, but then I started realizing how many dark shrimp I had - my one blue female that always hides has clearly been busy! None of these blues are original and one of them is berried now too. My bloody Mary female released babies last week and is looking to have the white ring of death again - but continues to do well despite this for 3 months now?

I moved about 7 of these dark shrimp to another tank - so dark they were almost black. In bright light I can tell they are super deep blue except one that is chocolate... and also berried!

She actually appears black on the bottom and brown across the top, with an almost iridescent sheen. Her tank has kuhlis and a dwarf crayfish, so we'll see if any shrimplets make it. It's very dense with many hiding places, so perhaps. 

But I have a plant mystery in the original shrimp tank - something is eating them! Leaves are not dying back on the crypts or lily,  but clear nibbled edges like I might find in my garden! Possible suspects:

Many, many shrimp

Male endlers

Scuds

Bladder snails

Some kind of leech/worm (not planaria) that seems more interested in protein.

I do feed little amounts of flake 2-3x day and an algae or shrimp wafer every 2-3 days. Hardly seems like underfeeding?

Still thinking about reorganizing into color specific colonies before breeding is too out of hand - my scape from scrap entry could be a contender as is the QT 3gal that currently has just two of OGs wild babies and my new endlers for a breeding project. The hobbiest that I got the endlers from threw in a very cute green dragon/blue eyed yellow bristlenose pleco cross - pic for fun:

Hopefully he'll move into one of the 55s I am starting to get revitalized for a (mostly) SA setup this summer.