Shrimp Journal 6

I was super excited to start with real caridina shrimp. The aura blues are a kind of an in between shrimp. Scott let me order some supplies on Amazon. I got a couple new lights, some airline connector valves, and my first crystal red and crystal black shrimp. I love these shrimp. My favorites are the ones with more white to red/black, two little white dots on the back of the carapace in the black/red. I only ordered five of each, so it's going to be a while before this colony starts doing anything. 

Shadow pandas were my next mistake. I thought for sure getting some shrimp from someone local-ish would be a good thing. I drove an hour and a half to the next big town. It was someone in a Facebook group I'm in. Her health is poor and she was looking to start cutting back on her shrimp. The shrimp looked nice, the tank looked nice. I got six of them and she put in one little golden bee shrimp.  Two weeks later and she messages me asking if I would be interested in buying the last 10 she had. She just can't take them dying off one at a time here and there anymore. She must be doing something wrong. I thought I must have been doing something wrong because I was down to only three left of the six. Hard no from me. I don't want to buy anymore of your shrimp that are dying! I had gotten a few blue bolts from some I trusted online the same time I got the crs and cbs. They're in with the remaining shadow pandas. 

I've got three tanks on the rack and a bunch of supplies. Yellow and lime green neos, blue cobalt neos, orange rili neos. Four tanks now on the bench on the South wall. Blue velvet neos in the corner, Blue Bolts/ Shadow Pandas/ Golden bees/ Cherries, my console my broken heart shrimp I just got in yesterday in  with the CRS/CBS, and a new 5.5g I just set up the other night as my latest caridina tank. Four tanks on the bench on the west wall. Red neos, blue dream neos, green neos and arua blues, and a cycling caridina tank. I wanted ghost bees for that tank, and joined an import pre order group. I had put in a tentative order the first day for them, but told him to hold off while I tried to save up some more money for something else. The agreement I have with the hubster is all my tip money from grooming dogs is mine to do whatever I want with the shrimp. I don't spend any money from either of our checks, but I can buy as many shrimp and tanks and whatever I want, and he can't bitch about shrimp taking over the world. Well when I realized I wasn't going to have enough money to make the min order for anything else, I asked for an invoice. Someone had come in on the third day of the pre order and bought 300 ghost bees and there were none left. 

To console my broken heart, I ordered shrimp from Barbee Bees and The Garden of Eder. Grant and Steve where both having specials. From Steve I ordered 10 juvie low to mid grade mosura blue bolts. They should have shipped out yesterday.

From Grant I ordered 10- f5 to f7 tibee oebt x CBS michiling x ghost bees, and 10 Red Tibee(Safari/DM genes). These got here yesterday. They are so fun!!! So many different patterns and colors. I put them in with my CRS/CBS. I'll just let them have a free for all, and then start pulling out interesting ones I want to select breed. 

Black Tibees

This one has some neat orange throughout 

 From the Red Safari tank

And then this one just because it's my fav shrimp. This was from the first caridina order a little bit back. 

The shdaow/bb tank has new occupants. I was running out of room so I took the cherries from the walstad jar and slow dripped them and put them in that tank. The little blue bolts are doing well. 

I haven't lost another shadow panda since the last one earlier this week. The golden bee is still thriving, I hope. It seems to be bigger than it was a couple weeks ago when I got them, so I hope it's molted successfully since it came here. Two of the cherries are berried. One has a very nice solid color red, for a rili, but it's got bleed through all over it's body. No good defined margins, just random blotches of clear. One of the males and a few of the females look like once upon a time in their lineage they were blue bodied red rili. Their undersides and legs are blue-ish with poor red color over the top. I pulled them out of the cull tank to begin the walstad project. 

I am getting a few blue/red rilis from my velvets tank. I've set up a marina box and pulled three out of the main tank now to grow out. 

One of the greens is being a freak and turned this strange orange color this last week. I can't get a good picture that shows the color I see with my eyes. These have been the weirdest color changing shrimp ever. 

In the last little bit of space I have on the bench I set up another 5.5g tank for caridinas. I know eventually I'm become like every other addict here on the forums, and turn the tanks short end facing out so I can set up MOAR TANKS!!!! lol. For now I like being able to look in the long ways and see the whole tank. Scott is already talking about maybe putting up another bench/shelf over the benches I have for more tanks. I have room on the east wall between the door and the closet for a skinny rack. 

In the marina box on the bench is hundreds of amano eggs. The last time my female was berried I tried raising them out. I bought a salinity tester and everything. I'm also horribly impatient. I didn't mix until ALL the salt was dissolved. I filled a little plastic canister and moved the zoe over after a few days of them hatching. I think they lasted a week before they were all gone. I had the remains of the salt water in a gallon jug with a cap on it. I measured it the other day and the little indicator was pegged at the top. I wanted it to read between 17 and 20. I waited 30 days after the giant female molted and berried up again before scooping her out and putting her in the breeder box. Good timing too cause a couple hours later, I had a few free floating zoe. 

When I got home from work the next day I was bummed over shrimp yet again. All the eggs were on the bottom on the box. I could see eyeballs and everything. 

Not to worry it seems. They's hatching without her. Every time I see them bunched up in the corner of the breeder, I suck them out and transfer them over to the canister with the salt water.