Breeding Sakura Orange Neocaridina Shrimp

[Guppysnail]

On 4/26/2022 at 11:52 AM, Minanora said:

watch above the water line.

Mine cluster on the pothos root tangle behind my canister outflow.  I have to use a turkey baster and squirt them off before water change or I would lose a dozen or more each time. While the water is lower I still need to resquirt them.  I feel mean squirting them but it would be meaner to let them die dangling there.  

[DaveO]

I hope you have a great vacation. I love your shrimp journal.

[Minanora]

On 4/26/2022 at 2:00 PM, DaveO said:

I hope you have a great vacation. I love your shrimp journal.

Thank you. Me too... I'm very nervous about leaving all of my hard work and beloved aquatic pets.

[DaveO]

I'm sure you have made all the proper arrangements for your vacation time away from the tanks, but I do understand your trepidation. I have felt the same for shorter periods of time away, let alone two weeks.

[Guppysnail]

Enjoy your vacation. Try not to worry to much.  🤗

[Minanora]

On 4/28/2022 at 2:17 AM, DaveO said:

I'm sure you have made all the proper arrangements for your vacation time away from the tanks, but I do understand your trepidation. I have felt the same for shorter periods of time away, let alone two weeks.

I have. Even letting people sleep in our bed. Which is highly unusual for us. But my husband is worried about the dogs and I'm worried about the fish and my garden. I struggled with 4 days away in February. I feel better knowing someone will actually be here.

 

Good news is that feeding shrimp is pretty easy. Especially since I have so many. I can use the Xtreme beta food scoop for most of the food in every tank, for every dry food I feed.

In other news, I'm still seeing deaths every 24 hours in the sanctuary. I checked this morning and there were no deaths. Then I checked today around 7pm... 4 dead. However! Lots of babies in the sanctuary, lots... But still, the deaths are unexpected and make me nervous.

Haven't seen babies in the 75, nor do I expect to. Shrimp are living well in there though. I just add a few mineral junkie pellets every week and sometimes the Xtreme shrimp food. The amano like it and so do the corydoras...

 

Also, my plants may not pearl... But this shrimp does!

She was playing in the water that was coming into the tank during a water change. 🤣

[Lizzyduff]

Oh my,  what an emotional Rollercoaster! I hope you are able to find out the cause of the deaths soon. It's so stressful not knowing why.  One of my 3 shrimp tanks sprung a leak overnight last week. Woke up to the awful sound of a water pump about to catch on fire.  There was still about 1 inch of water in the tank so I was able to rescue everyone in time, I think. Didn't find any bodies so... shrugs. Unfortunately for them I had to unceremoniously scoop them up and dump them into the two other tanks at random. So now I have 2 skittles tanks and 1 brand new uncycled tank with only snails for now. Those little sh*ts are not easy to catch so I have no idea how I'm going to catch the ones I want to put into the new tank once it's ready. (((Banging head on desk))). I've noticed my blues are blue almost from day 3 or 4. My reds are the same. The yellows though... those are either clear or look like wild type until almost a month. I had a whole jar of culls that turned out to be yellows... SMDH.  Have a great trip,  try not to worry too much while you're gone.  When I go on vacation for a week in June, I might have to find a shrimp sitter here on the forum while I'm gone 😆 🤣 

[Minanora]

@Lizzyduff before I left yesterday I hadn't seen any deaths since Thursday. Feeding them more seemed to be the ticket.

Your tank leak is nightmare fuel! I'm so sorry that happened to you. Catching them can be a challenge but if you take a few hours it can be done very slowly and they don't freak out. I go very slow with my shrimp net and I don't try to catch ones at the back of the tank because they get wise fast  I had a dentist appt mid catch and left about 20 in a specimen container while I was gone and then continued my catch when I got home. They are fine without an air stone for a long time.

They're tough unless you starve them. 🤦‍♀️😅

Or let them dry for more then a minute.. Silly creatures.

[Minanora]

Moving on to my last water change on the shrimp sanctuary. I changed about 20% of the water before I left. I didn't drip acclimate them or do anything special. I'm going to be less careful besides the pH and KH. They're totally fine with small parameter changes.

The shrimp in my 75 go through 50% water changes with cold tap water that has a pH of 8 that gets added to the water in the tank that has a pH of 6.5. Tank goes from 78°f to 71°. GH is 18°, KH is 11°. I don't measure right after the water change. I probably should... Shrimp are still breeding and thriving in there!

There were so many tiny babies in the sanctuary before I left.... It'll be fun to come home and see the changes in the colony when I get home.

[Minanora]

Micro update

The shrimp in the 75 are still breeding and babies are actually growing up.

Shrimp in the chili ruins, population from 9 to now 50+.

The main colony is booming. The coloration is looking really good and there are, again, over 150 shrimp. I will need to sell some soon.

[DaveO]

Nice colony. Do you have to cull much to maintain the nice color?

[Minanora]

On 5/22/2022 at 1:37 PM, DaveO said:

Nice colony. Do you have to cull much to maintain the nice color?

Thank you. I'm not really sure how to gauge the amount. I've had to pull about 70 total out of the 350ish I've raised so far. Since my two culls, I'm seeing much better stability in quality. The second cull I did, I was very strict. I pulled every male that didn't have orange on his legs. Same with females, but those were very few. I also pulled every shrimp that was dark orange. Though I like the dark and reddish orange, it isn't true to the variant so I put them in the 75.

I'm hoping to continue the very strong Sakura orange line I have for selling/trading. Again, I like the rili and light/dark orange. But I want the best true orange shrimp to expand into the hobby if they come from me. I want even the most meticulous breeder to be satisfied with my contributions to genetic diversity into the same variant. I will keep my culls in the 75 and offer my excess to my future pond.

[Minanora]

Well, there's sooooooooooo many tiny shrimp in the sanctuary....... I never got around to that water change.... Yup. Oh well. Everyone is alive and the plants are happy so, there's that. I'll take tank parameters at some point! Look at meh bebbeehs! ❤️

 

And the heater is hidden by the rotala finally! wooooo! Just ignore the mulm. haha.

[Minanora]

The light is off in the tank right now.... It's kinda gross looking. I haven't cleaned the glass in a long time so that may be part of it, but yeah, it's hazy and needs a water change for sure. I also just need to move a huge portion of the population to my sons tank and the fry growout tank.

My thought is to reduce the population to 15 adult shrimp. Now I know why people recommend a 10G for a colony as minimum size. 5G is mildly difficult to manage. Which is funny because there are over 50 in the 2.6G and the water is crystal clear. Weird.

That tank only looks green because of the duckweed filtering the light. I have to scoop it out weekly.

The internal filter is hardly moving water at this point. That tank hasn't had a cleaning since December.

[Minanora]

This weekend I will probably clean its filter cartridge to help with the water movement. Also planning to talk to the LPS to see if he wants to try selling the shrimp. I will give him a bunch for free if he's ready for them. I'd like to see more people in the hobby with hardy shrimps!

[Torrey]

On 5/31/2022 at 5:42 PM, Minanora said:

This weekend I will probably clean its filter cartridge to help with the water movement. Also planning to talk to the LPS to see if he wants to try selling the shrimp. I will give him a bunch for free if he's ready for them. I'd like to see more people in the hobby with hardy shrimps!

ORD 😍

[Minanora]

Micro update. I'm taking fish in to the lps tomorrow. And giving him some shrimp. He has a shrimp tank set up now but it's a lower pH than any of mine. So I'm just giving him some to see if they survive. If they do, I'll sell them to him.

Um, other than that. I've been neglecting maintenance and things are surviving. 75 is happy. I need to take care of my shrimp tank though. It's getting out of control. All the plants need a trim.

Mim had more babies. I need to separate her from Merlin. The growth on her tail has expanded to both sides. Merlin harassing her to make babies has to be exhausting for her. I'm going to move her into the grow out tank. Maybe she'll eat some of the unexpected guppy fry.

[dan12boy]

On 6/19/2022 at 12:04 PM, Minanora said:

Micro update. I'm taking fish in to the lps tomorrow. And giving him some shrimp. He has a shrimp tank set up now but it's a lower pH than any of mine. So I'm just giving him some to see if they survive. If they do, I'll sell them to him.

Um, other than that. I've been neglecting maintenance and things are surviving. 75 is happy. I need to take care of my shrimp tank though. It's getting out of control. All the plants need a trim.

Mim had more babies. I need to separate her from Merlin. The growth on her tail has expanded to both sides. Merlin harassing her to make babies has to be exhausting for her. I'm going to move her into the grow out tank. Maybe she'll eat some of the unexpected guppy fry.

Just dedicate the maintenance to when you have a free day so you can both do things while sitting and watching them. I wish my guppy moms ate the fry, they just completely ignore them, now I gotta grow the babies out so I can give them to my lfs and that takes forever for me. 

[Minanora]

On 6/19/2022 at 7:01 PM, dan12boy said:

Just dedicate the maintenance to when you have a free day so you can both do things while sitting and watching them. I wish my guppy moms ate the fry, they just completely ignore them, now I gotta grow the babies out so I can give them to my lfs and that takes forever for me. 

Free day. LOL. 😛 What's a free day? For real though. I spend my "free days" hiking up ridges on our "preserve" property doing fire line work. I carry a chainsaw on my back, bar oil, water, pickaxe, fire extinguisher, fire blanket and some dry nuts. haha. This time of year, I have no free time. But I get into really good shape!

Today I did change water in the shrimp tank! I sucked up a ton of baby shrimp. I have them all in a bucket of dirty tank water. 🙂 I'll fish them out later this week. Tank is looking... better, I guess. No deaths.

GH: 19 degrees

KH: 9 degrees

pH: 7.6

Nitrates were at almost 80ppm.

Water was brown when viewed from the side without the light on. Woooo. Best tank keeper ever!

 

I did prune the plants and cleaned the sponge filter out. Things are looking better. There's soooo many baby shrimp.... it's crazy.

[Guppysnail]

On 6/20/2022 at 11:55 PM, Minanora said:

There's soooo many baby shrimp.... it's crazy.

Tiny terrorists I say 🤣. I’m glad they are doing so well for you. 

[dan12boy]

On 6/20/2022 at 11:55 PM, Minanora said:

Free day. LOL. 😛 What's a free day? For real though. I spend my "free days" hiking up ridges on our "preserve" property doing fire line work. I carry a chainsaw on my back, bar oil, water, pickaxe, fire extinguisher, fire blanket and some dry nuts. haha. This time of year, I have no free time. But I get into really good shape!

Today I did change water in the shrimp tank! I sucked up a ton of baby shrimp. I have them all in a bucket of dirty tank water. 🙂 I'll fish them out later this week. Tank is looking... better, I guess. No deaths.

GH: 19 degrees

KH: 9 degrees

pH: 7.6

Nitrates were at almost 80ppm.

Water was brown when viewed from the side without the light on. Woooo. Best tank keeper ever!

 

I did prune the plants and cleaned the sponge filter out. Things are looking better. There's soooo many baby shrimp.... it's crazy.

You did good so don’t stress! Did a lot more maintenance than I know I would…only pruned my plants like once lol! 

[Minanora]

It finally happened. I dumped a bunch of shrimp into my son's tank per his request. I had a bucket of water that I siphoned out of the sanctuary. I knew there were shrimpletts in it so I let it sit for about a week due to laziness. Then finally captured all of the tiny shrimps and dumped them directly into my son's tank. So far so good. I see lots of them hiding in the plants. I didn't drip acclimate them or even compare the water parameters. Little buggers are hardy! 😄

Population in the sanctuary is still booming. They make a lot of poo.... It's kind of impressive. I siphoned out a ton over the last two water changes.

It's cloudy but I'm slowly getting it cleared up, still. Population is too high for the size.

[dan12boy]

On 7/2/2022 at 11:00 AM, Minanora said:

It finally happened. I dumped a bunch of shrimp into my son's tank per his request. I had a bucket of water that I siphoned out of the sanctuary. I knew there were shrimpletts in it so I let it sit for about a week due to laziness. Then finally captured all of the tiny shrimps and dumped them directly into my son's tank. So far so good. I see lots of them hiding in the plants. I didn't drip acclimate them or even compare the water parameters. Little buggers are hardy! 😄

Population in the sanctuary is still booming. They make a lot of poo.... It's kind of impressive. I siphoned out a ton over the last two water changes.

It's cloudy but I'm slowly getting it cleared up, still. Population is too high for the size.

That carpet is so beautiful!! 

[Minanora]

On 7/3/2022 at 4:58 PM, dan12boy said:

That carpet is so beautiful!! 

Thank you! It needs some maintenance but I'm very happy with this scape. It's really beautiful when the water is clear. 😅

[dan12boy]

On 7/4/2022 at 11:01 AM, Minanora said:

Thank you! It needs some maintenance but I'm very happy with this scape. It's really beautiful when the water is clear. 😅

If/when I create a shrimp sanctuary...a shrimptuary I'll see if I can get that kind of effect but maybe with pearlweed since right now in my fry growout tank my pearlweed is trying to carpet for some reason...but not complaining!