Mystery snail eggs & inverts journal

[Chick-In-Of-TheSea]

Someone discovered calcium and catappa in the feeding dish (the stringy stuff is what the shrimp left of the lettuce). I’m only going to put catappa into a dish. That’s why my tank looked so dirty before. It was mostly decayed catappa. Fine for the tank, but to me, unsightly.

 

 

Edited July 8, 2023 by Chick-In-Of-TheSea

[Chick-In-Of-TheSea]

[Chick-In-Of-TheSea]

Tiger striped female

Edited July 8, 2023 by Chick-In-Of-TheSea

[nabokovfan87]

On 7/8/2023 at 3:53 AM, Chick-In-Of-TheSea said:

It was mostly decayed catappa. Fine for the tank, but to me, unsightly.

This....

Kind of an annoyance and hard to clean it out of the sand once it gets in there. Very fine and it's like this mulm / pulpy wood stuff sticking to the soil.  I had a spot under the feeding dish, and I'm not sure why, but it was just 1.5-2" deep with alder cone bits and no amount of siphoning was really making a dent.  I'll keep at it.

[Chick-In-Of-TheSea]

On 7/8/2023 at 9:36 PM, nabokovfan87 said:

Kind of an annoyance and hard to clean it out of the sand once it gets in there. Very fine and it's like this mulm / pulpy wood stuff sticking to the soil

Yep, and almost certain to result in a long shrimplet hunt in a bucket.

[Chick-In-Of-TheSea]

Today I found 2 shrimp with living Scutariella Japonica. I moved them to the wild tank which has medication in the water. Their treatment will conclude on Tuesday, so I may just do a separate QT tank, just for any more affected shrimp. Perhaps a critter keeper or something where I can know the water volume. Running a huge tote for a couple shrimp doesn’t seem feasible. Has to be clear so I can observe. Maybe specimen container again, but I can mix fenbendazole in a larger container. I would say salt dips, but they didn’t work for me and they were suuuuper hard on the shrimps. I want to avoid salt if at all possible because I had a bad experience. @Guppysnail has had great success with fenbendazole, and the treatment is short.

[Guppysnail]

On 7/9/2023 at 7:12 AM, Chick-In-Of-TheSea said:

has had great success with fenbendazole, and the treatment is short.

Just to clarify I’ve used fenbendazole for planaria and had no issues. I’ve never tested SJ but read online it worked well for SJ. It kills not just paralyzes. My understanding it binds to whatever allows the parasite to absorb nutrients and process to energy. It stops its ability to use nutrients and starves the parasite. 
I can say it turns planaria from smooth to lumpy and misshapen and quite dead. At one point I put a misshapen treated one in a dish of clean tank water to be certain. It disintegrated but never again moved. 
I’ve treated shrimp tanks so I can use them as egg scatterer hatch tanks. No shrimp issues but I wait months and many vacuums and water changes carbon and purigen before I return snails. 

[JChristophersAdventures]

@Chick-In-Of-TheSea What's in the media bag hanging in the tank (the shrimp seem to like hanging out there)?

[nabokovfan87]

On 7/9/2023 at 4:12 AM, Chick-In-Of-TheSea said:

I want to avoid salt if at all possible because I had a bad experience.

I'll let you know how round #2 goes for me.  I would try to do the 1 tbsp / 5G in a bucket if you can (or tub) just for the sake of seeing what that dose does to SJ.  If anything, for science so we know if it's feasible at all.

I dosed in more salt this morning.  I am HOPING that it's all preventative at this point and I've done well enough removing molts.  I need to get more salt, thankfully I had enough on hand this time around.

[Chick-In-Of-TheSea]

On 7/9/2023 at 10:08 AM, JChristophersAdventures said:

@Chick-In-Of-TheSea What's in the media bag hanging in the tank (the shrimp seem to like hanging out there)?

That's carbon; they finished a treatment and it's helping clear it out (along w/ water changes). They apparently like anything that's net-ish, just ask @Guppysnail 😂  Ask her about her table at the fish swap...

On 7/9/2023 at 3:52 PM, nabokovfan87 said:

I'll let you know how round #2 goes for me.  I would try to do the 1 tbsp / 5G in a bucket if you can (or tub) just for the sake of seeing what that dose does to SJ.  If anything, for science so we know if it's feasible at all.

I dosed in more salt this morning.  I am HOPING that it's all preventative at this point and I've done well enough removing molts.  I need to get more salt, thankfully I had enough on hand this time around.

I just restocked my salt w/ my last ACO order.  I am going to rest everybody for a week now.

Edited July 10, 2023 by Chick-In-Of-TheSea

[nabokovfan87]

On 7/10/2023 at 6:25 AM, Chick-In-Of-TheSea said:

I just restocked my salt w/ my last ACO order.  I am going to rest everybody for a week now.

I had to do the same. I didn't realize I was out until I went to add the big dose to the shrimp initially.  I also might have to modify / work on directions based on weight and not based on volume. Salt is salt until it's not the same salt and then you're arguing semantics of how "rounded" the spoon is and it's just not a fun time.

Given that we both know shrimp (neos) can be very sensitive to this stuff, yeah.... Kind of need some precision!

[Chick-In-Of-TheSea]

Treatment complete.

I’m so happy to 86 the plastic plants in the wild tank. 50% water change, moss on driftwood, rosette sword, cholla, alder cones.. all the fun things that shrimps love. Moved the media bag of carbon to their tank also. Another wc tomorrow. I hope the rosette sword does well. It was propagated on a runner in the Walstad jar. RR overnight so no bladder sneggs.

I had to add more sand. That was fun! So many shrimplets! Had to pour in one corner then gradually hoe it as they jumped back from the “wave”. Oh my. Due to their numbers I was only able to do this on half the tank, but that will suffice for now. Deep enough for the sword plant.

Not the best scape right now but it’s a start, and the water needs a top off also.

 

 

A bunch of them stress molted from the water change. It’s a good thing given how scutariella spreads. I removed those molts.

Bonus pic of Nibbles in the blue tank. Nibbles has been giving some of the little shrimplets piggyback rides. 

Edited July 11, 2023 by Chick-In-Of-TheSea

[Chick-In-Of-TheSea]

Put the background on.

Before

After

 

Edited July 11, 2023 by Chick-In-Of-TheSea

[nabokovfan87]

On 7/11/2023 at 11:43 AM, Chick-In-Of-TheSea said:

Those cones are no joke! Definitely going to stick to those or plant a stinking tree.

[Chick-In-Of-TheSea]

On 7/11/2023 at 8:43 PM, nabokovfan87 said:

Those cones are no joke! Definitely going to stick to those or plant a stinking tree.

The one in the front was really gunky from the 29g but they cleaned it and it looks brand new again.

[nabokovfan87]

On 7/11/2023 at 4:43 PM, Chick-In-Of-TheSea said:

After

Ah yes....  Such a nice shift when the background goes on.  Why don't they just make tanks with black glass! I know they do, but you get what I mean.  One day I'll end up modding a tank and having one of those black acrylic backs to hide an overflow or something. Mmiller's tank is ridiculously nice!

 

On 7/11/2023 at 5:44 PM, Chick-In-Of-TheSea said:

The one in the front was really gunky from the 29g but they cleaned it and it looks brand new again.

I was looking at my bucket of plants. The moss is all but mush it looks like. They are going to go bananas when they get the plants back.

[Chick-In-Of-TheSea]

On 7/11/2023 at 8:46 PM, nabokovfan87 said:

I was looking at my bucket of plants. The moss is all but mush it looks like. They are going to go bananas when they get the plants back

Had you kept a light on your bucket?

I did most treatments on the shrimp tanks without a light and kept the light on the bucket. I was moving the light back to the tank twice a day to do my molt checks.

[nabokovfan87]

On 7/11/2023 at 5:49 PM, Chick-In-Of-TheSea said:

Had you kept a light on your bucket?

Yep! It's all very low growing plants and I've got the bucket on a bucket so things are at a similar height. The bucket is very blackwater-ey and it's just the type of thing where there is so much moss.

One of the big issues in my tanks right now is temp. It's been low 100's this week and when the tanks went from 73 up to 74 or so it was like a death rattle for the moss. It all completely melted in the big tank. I'm trying to get it back to thriving but I've pretty much reserved it so that the moss is only in the shrimp tanks now.

[Chick-In-Of-TheSea]

On 7/11/2023 at 8:52 PM, nabokovfan87 said:

73 up to 74

A one degree difference?

Also that explains why moss doesn’t do well in the 29g (77 degrees) or Geppetto’s tank (80).

[nabokovfan87]

On 7/11/2023 at 5:54 PM, Chick-In-Of-TheSea said:

A one degree difference?

Also that explains why moss doesn’t do well in the 29g (77 degrees) or Geppetto’s tank (80).

They are like bears and trying to hibernate.....

Yeah, some are so sensitive that a small jump is detrimental. It's one of the reasons I've found why I struggle with algae and most of my plants just fall apart out of nowhere.  It explains a lot of the issues!

[Chick-In-Of-TheSea]

During maintenance on the other tank, I collected up the miscellaneous baby and juvenile Java ferns and gave them to the wild shrimps.

Epic MTS! I think this is the biggest one I’ve ever seen. Has a shrimplet on board.

 

Edited July 12, 2023 by Chick-In-Of-TheSea

[Chick-In-Of-TheSea]

I thought I lost a wild because what I pulled from the tank had eggs. It was actually a molt that had shrimp eggs (4) attached to it. I have them in a net above the airstone. We will see if they hatch or not. There are some swimmerettes attached to the eggs, I can’t get them off without damaging the eggs.

Thanks @nabokovfan87 for helping.

[nabokovfan87]

On 7/12/2023 at 4:55 PM, Chick-In-Of-TheSea said:

Thanks @nabokovfan87 for helping.

Net setup looks awesome!  You're very welcome. Always happy to help when I can!

[Chick-In-Of-TheSea]

I was in big lots buying soil so I could make this ghetto chili pepper pot…

… and I found this guy. He was cheap but on top of that 40% off because they are having a summer sale. So he was like $6.50 and I couldn’t pass him up. He goes good in front of the ghetto flower pot stand.

I got one for my friend also. Today is her birthday, and she had adopted 2 snails from me last year.

[Chick-In-Of-TheSea]

This is how I know everybody had a good meal today. 

It’s cute they all snuggled together. Zzzz…

Edited July 15, 2023 by Chick-In-Of-TheSea