Blackwater Bloody Mary Neo Setup

[itsfoxtail]

On 8/24/2023 at 3:36 AM, nabokovfan87 said:

There is also the newer neocaridina species to try out too! 😉

I'm sorry, did you say newer?! Please indulge me! Newest I know of are the more perfected green lines. I'm always down for more awesome neos! 

[Chick-In-Of-TheSea]

On 8/21/2023 at 3:37 AM, nabokovfan87 said:

TLDR - Shrimp Tank edition

Feb 9th - 7 shrimp added to community tank (it went badly)
Feb 23rd - I found one shrimp, maybe 2. Community fish removed from shrimp tank.
March 2nd - I found 2 shrimp, then 3.
March 5th - Ordered shrimp batch #2.
March 7th- Arrived DoA, 1-2 survivors added to tank.
March 12th - Moved the tank due to room tank moving things
March 16th - Final group of 7 shrimp added to the tank.
March 21st - Feeding dish added
April 3rd - First berried female shrimp
April 13th - First real deep clean on the tank
April 19th - First loss due to molting issues, ordered secondary test method
April 30th - Discovered GH had severely crashed due to new testing kit
May 3rd - First colored up Shrimplet (female arrived berried)
May 31st - Actually had a decent method for cleaning the tank established.
June 8th - Between Adult and Shrimplet ~60 shrimp in the colony.
June 21st - First culls sighted, Amano shrimp added to colony
June 21st - Found Scutariella Japonica parasites, Prazi meds added
June 26th - Salt treatment #1
June 28th - Rili female discovered
July 9th - Salt treatment #2
July 14th - Amano Zoes released in the tank
July 19th - First Cull (11 shrimp)
July 23rd - Tank returned to normal service post treatment
Aug 8th - Switched to new food

Props to you @nabokovfan87 for such great record keeping! Do you usually track things electronically or jot little notes on pen and paper? Personally, I’m a jotter. I used to write all my water test results but things haven’t changed in a long time in that regard, so I have been jotting different things such as when I add root tabs or when I place a sponge in a tank to be seeded. The root tabs notes are especially important because if the leaves start to look transparent, I can look back at the notes and the determine if I need to fertilize more frequently. Speaking of which, just placed another order for root tabs. Also added a polishing pad; let’s give that a whirl. The stuff on a roll I’ve been using, I’m not totally happy with it.

 

On 8/24/2023 at 3:20 AM, itsfoxtail said:

Wilds would be so cool! There's a 'wild type' craze going on

Honestly, I admit I’m more enchanted by my wilds, which have multiplied enough to have their own 5.5gal tank. They are all different!

[itsfoxtail]

On 8/24/2023 at 5:12 AM, Chick-In-Of-TheSea said:

Honestly, I admit I’m more enchanted by my wilds, which have multiplied enough to have their own 5.5gal tank. They are all different!

 

The ones with white spots are to die for! They look so cool! I would've sworn they were a new type of caridina at first glance. 

[Chick-In-Of-TheSea]

@itsfoxtail The last photo- that’s my favorite! It is a female and has had babies. I hope they develop cool patterns. I always tell @nabokovfan87 I have Heinz 57 varieties of wild shrimps.

Also once and only once, a red shrimp was born, and it lives in my wild tank.  I started with a colony of blue dream shrimp and then all of these other things just happened. But one seller I bought 4 of the blue dreams from, one of the shrimps in that purchase was a clear shrimplet and may not have even been a blue dream. And their shrimp were labeled as “blue shrimp”, whatever that means. But I’m glad because it has made thing fun.

 

I have been considering giving all the blue dreams to my friend, going down to one shrimp tank, and just keeping all the wilds. Not 100% sure yet.

Edited August 24, 2023 by Chick-In-Of-TheSea

[Chick-In-Of-TheSea]

Sorry I hijacked your journal @nabokovfan87!

[nabokovfan87]

On 8/24/2023 at 3:12 AM, Chick-In-Of-TheSea said:

Props to you @nabokovfan87 for such great record keeping! Do you usually track things electronically or jot little notes on pen and paper?

You're looking at it. A journal is a great way to keep notes for me. Especially those moments when you can look back and re-inform yourself of some of the notes you've taken and lessons learned. 🙂

On 8/24/2023 at 2:46 AM, itsfoxtail said:

I'm sorry, did you say newer?! Please indulge me! Newest I know of are the more perfected green lines. I'm always down for more awesome neos!

One of them is commonly called snowball shrimp, but it's actually a new type of neocarodina (with it's own wild form 🙂 )

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neocaridina

Neocaridina cf. zhangjiajiensis is one of them.

Neocaridina Palmata is the most common secondary color line I've seen.

On 8/24/2023 at 5:29 AM, Chick-In-Of-TheSea said:

@itsfoxtail The last photo- that’s my favorite! It is a female and has had babies. I hope they develop cool patterns. I always tell @nabokovfan87 I have Heinz 57 varieties of wild shrimps.

It looks so much like the Australian line of amano shrimp.

On 8/24/2023 at 5:29 AM, Chick-In-Of-TheSea said:

I have been considering giving all the blue dreams to my friend, going down to one shrimp tank, and just keeping all the wilds. Not 100% sure yet.

We still gotta get you your own Gojira (giant amano for your shrimpy colony).

[nabokovfan87]

Just checking in on the shrimp and this very dark (probably molting today or tomorrow) female is trying to hide away from this pesky male. Color is ruby red.

 

[Chick-In-Of-TheSea]

On 8/24/2023 at 11:06 AM, nabokovfan87 said:

We still gotta get you your own Gojira (giant amano for your shrimpy colony).

They have them at LFS, but I don’t have a qt setup rn and I plan to qt any and all new shrimp. Unless of course, it wants to live in the community tank rather than with the neos.

[itsfoxtail]

On 8/24/2023 at 7:29 AM, Chick-In-Of-TheSea said:

But one seller I bought 4 of the blue dreams from, one of the shrimps in that purchase was a clear shrimplet and may not have even been a blue dream. And their shrimp were labeled as “blue shrimp”, whatever that means. But I’m glad because it has made thing fun.

 

It's the stories like these that I live for. I love the little accidental surprises that end up being people's favorites. It's just so wholesome and amazing.

On 8/24/2023 at 10:06 AM, nabokovfan87 said:

Neocaridina cf. zhangjiajiensis is one of them.

Neocaridina Palmata is the most common secondary color line I've seen.

 

I love snowball shrimp! I kept a colony for a bit before rehoming it. However I haven't seen the blue or amber pearls!! They look awesome! Definitely some research to do.

Also there's just something so magical about your red shrimp dotting the dragonstone. They look like little cliff climbers and I feel the need to draw little ropes for them to hang onto. 😅

[nabokovfan87]

On 8/28/2023 at 11:35 PM, itsfoxtail said:

They look like little cliff climbers and I feel the need to draw little ropes for them to hang onto. 😅

If we could only get the anubias to grow! 😂

I've got some stuff in a bucket for them and I'll probably toss it in there before bed.  More details tomorrow once I can check them out in the light of day.

[Chick-In-Of-TheSea]

On 8/29/2023 at 2:35 AM, itsfoxtail said:

Also there's just something so magical about your red shrimp dotting the dragonstone. They look like little cliff climbers and I feel the need to draw little ropes for them to hang onto. 😅

Hahaha, I love it!

[nabokovfan87]

A huge, massive thank you to @AllFishNoBrakes for hooking up the shrimp buddies with some very sweet botanicals.  I made some blackwater extract out of that and added it to the 75G.  In the side tank with the adult corydoras, I have some experiments going on which will be in that thread, but for the shrimp we have some wonderful new things to enjoy!

Keen followers here will also notice I have gone ahead and moved the second feeding dish into the tank.  The colony is large enough where it is a helpful tool at this point.  Last time I fed I was able to just split the food, make sure more shrimp had a bit easier time than this.....



Here's what we have today:



Of note, we have one regulation size alder cone now!


The "shrimp churros" are probably going to be my favorite new thing.  Very fun, very dense, and they look pretty awesome.  The larger canteloupe looking things are "twisty pods" which looks to be a piece of bark that was twisted.  If it is dropped into the tank without prep it will stay twisted and looks awesome, but upon prepping it with the heat it does turn into a cantaloupe peel. 😂




There is one other piece, but the name escapes me.  It's a type of piece of a husk/shell off of something and it's really cool.  I will have to have a proper, intense blackwater tank one day.  I already have the fish in mind and would love to have that going any moment, but alas we keep that on the "one day" list.



Upon adding the botanicals, the shrimp went absolutely feverish and were immediately swarming the new surfaces and textures.  I think I will hold back food and let the shrimp do their thing.  I am just going to monitor the water changes, ensure there's no issue with the colony due to adding in the tannin water in the tanks that now have those botanicals in them.

I do have more mini size alder cones which are in my QT setup and will eventually be added to the shrimp tank when the time comes.  Tomorrow is siphon day, then we will see exactly how dark and tinted we can get this tank!

[Maximus]

I'm waiting around until this fall twiddling my thumbs so I can go collect alder cones. I already scoped out some spots to collect from. Do you find them feeding on them?

[TOtrees]

Looks awesome, haven't been following the thread, but will moving forward. 

I also keep and breed bloody mary's. They're prolific, and what I love about them is the very low rate of culls. I've had them for 2-3 years, and the cull rate is still well under 1%. You can boost their color really well by feeding foods with krill; you'll see an improvement in successive generations. 

For botanicals, I got a large box of low-grade almond leaves, and it's lasted me years. Best investment ever. And they're a key ingredient in "tadpole tea", for raising dart frog babies. I also occasionally collect alder cones - for the time and effort involved (low), nothing releases tannins like them. Only downside is the debris from the woody seeds and cores after they fall apart (many many weeks after being added). 

[nabokovfan87]

On 8/29/2023 at 10:31 AM, Maximus said:

Do you find them feeding on them?

Yep they definitely do.

Wood isn't the type of thing where they "chew on it" until it's gone. They might graze on it one day, then the next day they are on the moss or glass or rocks, then back to the wood later in the week. My amanos are just about 24/7 on wood in the big tank, but they can. Be all over the place sometimes.

 

[AllFishNoBrakes]

Glad you’re digging the botanicals. Coco petals is the name you were looking for! Welcome to the blackwater life! Maybe one days yours will get as dark and tinted as mine ;)

[nabokovfan87]

A quick update for the day....

I siphoned the tank and it was a pigsty.  Luigi has been going a bit nuts on the wood and she left a big pile of mulm for me.  It has to have been a while before I had siphoned.  I did ~50% of the tank and got a lot of it.  I cleaned both filters and got the BBA off the intake tubes.  It's been a bit of work, but I'm thankful it's done.  I really don't like seeing the tank in that state and it's on me to push myself to get it done even when I really don't feel like doing the siphon on the sand.  It's challenging, but necessary.  I am trying to be a bit more lax on the water changes (volume and pace), but I know a siphon is something I just need to manage better.

Sidenote and a bit of encouraging news for anyone following along.  This is why I think once your colony gets to ~100 or so or more it's probably best to have multiple feeding dishes and divide the food.  Of course as soon as I dropped it Gojira took off with the food and I had to add more, but what you'll see is both dishes being used and more shrimp getting access to that food.

There is still some of the females that just can't be bothered and they like to graze.  This is why some powdered days matter.  It's the only way to really ensure every shrimp gets those nutrients.

[nabokovfan87]

I'm considering setting these ones up as starters for that second colony. I'm not sure what they are. They might be rili? I noticed it today. It's just a "white belly" which might just be poor genetics?

What do you think everyone?

@tolstoy21 have you seen anything like this before?

Unofficially this is cull #2 (for record keeping future me to worry about)

[tolstoy21]

@nabokovfan87 Only with my rili culls that have incomplete rili patterning.  I only keep orange rili and crystal reds, so my experience is limited to those two shrimp.

[itsfoxtail]

On 8/29/2023 at 1:43 AM, nabokovfan87 said:

If we could only get the anubias to grow! 😂

I'll just be parked here waiting for the anubias roots to take off so we can have lil makeshift climber ropes for them. I'm so ready.

On 8/30/2023 at 7:36 PM, nabokovfan87 said:

 

I'm absolutely no shrimp expert but in my experience the one on the far right is one that will probably eventually produce some rilis. The other two may start to look rili-like but a few generations later it'll just be hit-and-miss patterning on the carapace/head with a solid red tail. If you're looking to make your own strain I'd lean towards the little dude on the right!

[nabokovfan87]

On 9/2/2023 at 12:07 AM, itsfoxtail said:

I'm absolutely no shrimp expert but in my experience the one on the far right is one that will probably eventually produce some rilis. The other two may start to look rili-like but a few generations later it'll just be hit-and-miss patterning on the carapace/head with a solid red tail. If you're looking to make your own strain I'd lean towards the little dude on the right!

It almost looked like a tiger or fishbone a bit in some of them. Interesting stuff. I tossed them in the 75 with the rili and the ones that threw blue.  I just wasn't confident in what they would produce! I do want to setup a second colony, just need to be sure the intent there. So... They were just culles, doing really well in their new tank.

[nabokovfan87]

A brief tidbit for those who may find it interesting....

I was on discord looking for what would be just general servers listed under the aquarium hobby. Honestly, I've had some good and some bad experiences trying to find different things in social platforms and discord is no different. I think we're all used to that in this day an age.

I woke up on day 2 of being on this new discord server and one of the leaders of that community is being verbally abusive towards a member asking for help. They tagged the "shrimp help" users asking for support in their commentary. The hobbyist's question was simply, "I have been losing shrimp for a few days now, please help."

The response in the thread was fine, it was good information, but the way it was presented was along the lines of "I've said what you need to hear and I don't understand why you don't just do what I say."  Unfortunately, while this person has intended to be helpful, the people then jumped on and turned it into a group of many that were just laughing at and berating this poor person asking for help.  I sent them a DM offering any help I could and I replied in the thread with what seemed to be some pretty solid advice for this person and their situation.

1. Stability

2. Good genetics

3. Good care

That turned into the mob of people attacking me and 20+ quotes breaking down every single word I uttered just to tell me I'm wrong, I'm "new here," and that I shouldn't be giving bad advice.

So what was the bad advice and what was the main point of all the conversation? 

The conversation at hand was about the "correct" GH value for the shrimp.  As we all know, if GH is too hard you have shrimp that can have a very difficult time cracking through their molts.  As such, if it's too soft, same issue because it's not easy for them to break through the molt.

This led to a wall of links to parameters and screenshots from random social media posts and it was just a serious mess of a "conversation" that was not focused on being helpful for this hobbyist.  I think we all know by now it's not difficult to use search engines to find something that agrees with your point of view and it is often used as a justification for every argument on the internet as opposed to the attempt at having a real conversation about whatever topic at hand. It's very, very unfortunate. The moment I decided to leave this discord and stop engaging with the server was when I was told that if you didn't have your shrimp at 6 GH you were unfit to own them. That it was abusive care and so on. 

Needless to say, I focused on being encouraging, helpful, polite, and trying to offer guidance in lieu of extremes.  The words of Cory were in the back of my mind about how we need to be good stewards for the hobby and encourage people to succeed as opposed to simply condemn them for failing. We've all failed. We've all been there.

I pulled up all the research articles I had looking for information to provide details for my own education and just to verify, for myself, exactly what made sense for care. I know what my tanks are, I know what my tap water is at, and I've seen tanks in all sorts of parameters. I asked myself, well... What does nature look like for Neocaridina Davidi shrimp?

https://aquariumbreeder.com/water-parameters-everything-about-gh-in-shrimp-tank/

I found a study of some rivers in Taiwan that gives the conductivity and that can tie into how much calcium is in the water, but it's a bit confusing to determine the correlation there. It seemed to be "hard water," but I wanted to find a better answer.

I found a water quality report and that's about the single best thing I can seemingly find. 227 ppm (just under 13 degrees).

So, in their natural habitat, GH is about 13 degrees and just under 400 TDS.

This information might never be useful for anyone, but it's just going to be a note for me to keep when I think about where the animal I am keeping comes from.  It's so easy for us to think that the wall of nature behind the pet store is so far out of reach and out of sight. I really do enjoy learning about where things come from and seeing that habitat.  For shrimp, this means having amazing opportunities to learn from someone like Chris Lukhaup. My morning is watching a video by Tai about fish habitats in the dry season and reading water quality reports from Taiwan.  We have access to so much information at our fingertips and it's a great resource.

Be welcoming to a new hobbyist today. Be encouraging. Be a good steward and share something that makes you happy about the hobby today.

[Chick-In-Of-TheSea]

Sorry @nabokovfan87. That’s sad. I hope you sent the OP a DM inviting them to the CARE forum.

On 9/3/2023 at 11:43 AM, nabokovfan87 said:

turned it into a group of many that were just laughing at and berating this poor person asking for help

 

On 9/3/2023 at 11:43 AM, nabokovfan87 said:

That turned into the mob of people attacking me and 20+ quotes breaking down every single word I uttered just to tell me I'm wrong, I'm "new here," and that I shouldn't be giving bad advice.

 

On 9/3/2023 at 11:43 AM, nabokovfan87 said:

when I was told that if you didn't have your shrimp at 6 GH you were unfit to own them. That it was abusive care

And also my shrimp are at 80 gH. The LFS and breeder raised them in tap water, and in tap water they survive and thrive and have had lots of babies sooooo…. OMG, SOMEONE CALL THE SHRIMP POLICE!

[nabokovfan87]

On 9/3/2023 at 9:24 AM, Chick-In-Of-TheSea said:

Sorry @nabokovfan87. That’s sad. I hope you sent the OP a DM inviting them to the CARE forum.

I did!  They are in the facebook group as well. 🙂

On 9/3/2023 at 9:24 AM, Chick-In-Of-TheSea said:

And also my shrimp are at 80 gH. The LFS and breeder raised them in tap water, and in tap water they survive and thrive and have had lots of babies sooooo…. OMG, SOMEONE CALL THE SHRIMP POLICE!

Just so funny. I swear each youtuber that has shrimp has a different set of parameters.  It's becoming much more common these days to take the extra step when asking for help (or helping someone) to understand the water differences.

I vote flip aquatics to be the head of the shrimp police.  He's very kind in his advice and that's what you need!  Who will work on the uniform?

[itsfoxtail]

On 9/2/2023 at 2:58 AM, nabokovfan87 said:

It almost looked like a tiger or fishbone a bit in some of them. 

Fishbone shrimp would look sick!

On 9/3/2023 at 10:43 AM, nabokovfan87 said:

I found a study of some rivers in Taiwan that gives the conductivity and that can tie into how much calcium is in the water, but it's a bit confusing to determine the correlation there. It seemed to be "hard water," but I wanted to find a better answer.

I found a water quality report and that's about the single best thing I can seemingly find. 227 ppm (just under 13 degrees).

So, in their natural habitat, GH is about 13 degrees and just under 400 TDS.

Well I can officially say I learned something new today! I had no idea the TDS for wild neos was that high! It's amazing they can adapt to all these different parameters shrimpkeepers keep them at. I just find the resilience of fish so inspiring. 

Also I aspire to ever do as much research as you do. You always do that extra deep dive and it's so super helpful.