[elf123]

Hi everyone,

Back in February I started my first nano shrimp tank. It's a Pico 3G. When I first started, I was checking parameters nonstop and just trying to make everything as perfect as possible. Thinks weren't perfect and I stumbled a little initially, but with the help of this forum & Rachel O'Leary you tube videos, I have learned so much. I've learned to let the tank do it's ecosystem thing. I try to keep it beautiful and healthy, but really, all I have to do is replace RO water to top off evaporation and do a water change every few weeks. The maintenance isn't much at all. I rarely test parameters anymore. I think it's been about me getting to know my tank and knowing when something seems off.

We started with a small batch of shrimp and ended up with just three RCS. I added four Bloody Mary's and one died. I had a big baby boom and then added four Royal Blues and one died in the first few days.

This tank is so fun and even my husband enjoys it now. It's so peaceful. Such a small tank with so much life and beauty. I thought I would share the early first-second month pictures and today's after I trimmed back some of the foliage. We have about 50 shrimp as this point with berried females. Our ages in the tank range from a week or two to older. Our LFS is going to take some of colony in exchange for goods when I need to offload some.

Have a great weekend everyone!

 

[pinkkiwi1230]

I love tank journals. Thank you.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G920A using Tapatalk

 

[randym]

Are all the babies RCS?

I would think with bloody marys and royal blues mixed in, you'd get some wild-type shrimp among the offspring.

 

[Yukiharu]

No worries about crossbreeding; BM are neocaridina and RB are caridina. Nice tank btw!

 

[TankPlanter]

What ferts do you use?
How often and what do you feed?

I have 3g RCS shrimp tank that lives at my son's preschool with Anubias, Java moss and subwassertang. I add a Flourish comp occasionally. Also Salvinia minima floating, as it's fun to watch them hang from the roots and swim to them...All other plants seem to need more ferts, dirt, etc so they just rot away.

 

[WaterLife]

Yep, like Yuki said, Blood Marys are Neos and Royal Blue Tigers are Caridinas, so those two won't crossbreed.
But I did see the OP said they had Red Cherry Shrimp, which are also Neos.
If I am not mistaken, Bloody Mary's are of a different mutation, so crossbreeding Bloody Marys with RCS, would result in wilds.
There is also the factor that nowadays, some Blody Marys being sold are actually wrongly labeled/identified higher grades of RCS.

 

[Zoidburg]

Well, both bloody marys and cherries are red... I understand that bloody marys come from chocolates though... and they are "easy" to tell apart from cherries if you know what to look for.

http://imgur.com/AJA57z0


I'm actually curious if BM/RCS would actually result in wild type offspring or if the offspring would be red like the parent mutations.


I have low to high grade cherries, some so red, they're a different grade of red from the high grade sakuras. Might be Painted Fire Reds, although the coloration doesn't seem to quite match many of the pictures. Then again, maybe the pictures aren't picking up the right coloration of red? The low grades were purchased from a local shrimp breeder who doesn't cull and has more shrimp than she can count, let alone sell! The mid to high grades have come from various local stores, but the LFS only sells Sakura grade from what I've seen. The chain seem to sell the Sakura to PFR(?) grades.

 

[randym]

I don't buy the long vs. short rostrum thing.

However, Bloody Marys and Painted Fire Reds are quite different, rostrums aside. (I have both...in separate tanks.)

The Painted Fire Reds have a flat, opaque look. They really do look painted.

The Bloody Marys are like rubies. They are a cooler, less orangey red, and they have a translucent look, like jewels.

Supposedly, the RCS/Sakura Red/PFR just have red skins, while the BM has actual red flesh, but I haven't checked that out for myself. Maybe the next time one dies.

I do believe that BM are descended from chocolates. Occasionally mine throw a chocolate offspring. The PFR never have anything but red babies.

 

[elf123]

I love the heavily planted.

I have never used any kind of fertilizer in this tank. I turn the light on for 6-8 hours per day and sometimes longer if I stay up late.

I feed them on Sunday and Wednesday. I either give one small Shirakura shrimp food and let them eat whatever they can in 2 hours or a scant 1/4 scoop of Shrimp Baby food by GlasGarten. I initially overfed and got a lot of detritus worms and tiny planaria. All nearly gone when I figured out a good feeding schedule and amount.

Bump: Here's the thing about my "bloody marys". I bought them from ShrimpUSA which I later learned is not reputable. There is no consistency in my BM's so as far as I know they are just higher grade RCS. So far, all offspring are decent grade reds. I'm not big in to breeding (yet) with my reds. My Royal Blue Tigers will be a different story. I have two high grade lines in there and hope they breed nicely and will cull those.

Mainly, its a fun and tranquil tank that I enjoy. The reds are neos and have a mild temperament. The Royal Blues (caridinas) are slightly more assertive/aggressive but still good. I've had no issue with them being together.

 

[Zoidburg]

I don't buy the long vs. short rostrum thing.

However, Bloody Marys and Painted Fire Reds are quite different, rostrums aside. (I have both...in separate tanks.)

The Painted Fire Reds have a flat, opaque look. They really do look painted.

The Bloody Marys are like rubies. They are a cooler, less orangey red, and they have a translucent look, like jewels.

Supposedly, the RCS/Sakura Red/PFR just have red skins, while the BM has actual red flesh, but I haven't checked that out for myself. Maybe the next time one dies.

I do believe that BM are descended from chocolates. Occasionally mine throw a chocolate offspring. The PFR never have anything but red babies.

From your definition, I've picked up some BM then, as these are more like a pretty dark red gem rather than just a red shrimp. The majority of the high grades are also male since there weren't many females of the same coloration...



I'd be curious to see pictures of your shrimp!


And I have a mixed tank atm... have two yellows (male and female) in with the various cherries (and the BM's - more male BM than male cherries - I hope), so might get some wild colored ones, too? Or perhaps orange? (so says the breeder, but there really isn't much in regards to shrimp genetics...)

I feed them on Sunday and Wednesday. I either give one small Shirakura shrimp food and let them eat whatever they can in 2 hours or a scant 1/4 scoop of Shrimp Baby food by GlasGarten. I initially overfed and got a lot of detritus worms and tiny planaria. All nearly gone when I figured out a good feeding schedule and amount.

Bump: Here's the thing about my "bloody marys". I bought them from ShrimpUSA which I later learned is not reputable. There is no consistency in my BM's so as far as I know they are just higher grade RCS. So far, all offspring are decent grade reds. I'm not big in to breeding (yet) with my reds. My Royal Blue Tigers will be a different story. I have two high grade lines in there and hope they breed nicely and will cull those.

Mainly, its a fun and tranquil tank that I enjoy. The reds are neos and have a mild temperament. The Royal Blues (caridinas) are slightly more assertive/aggressive but still good. I've had no issue with them being together.

From the pictures that I saw, it looked like you had some nice adult cherries, but I don't see any adult BM. Some of the babies do look like BM though!


Would love to see some more close ups of them!


I am over-feeding my tank at the moment, and I did get an outbreak of the worms/nematodes! New tank, been set up for just under a month now (well, started the journey about 2 months ago, but upgraded to a larger tank a month ago), and with any luck, should have 30+ baby RCS. No problems with algae, at least!

Started out with shrimp in a 90+ tank, but they weren't 'thriving', nor "reproducing". Was just losing a shrimp here or there, and it seemed like the females were berried, then they weren't, and no babies. Had a few (and I mean a few - out of *multiple* berried shrimp) babies survive up to a few weeks, but never seemed to make it to adult hood before disappearing.

So this shrimp tank is my first official tank (not counting a betta(s) that was "gifted" to me, then found a betta home for! [unintentional pun!]) and I think it's doing well, for a first timer. I should probably back off on the feeding, just worried that there might not be enough "food" in the tank. Being that they now mostly ignore the spirulina(?) pellets (not wafers) in the shrimp tank vs swarming them in the 90+ should of course tell me they are finding enough food! LOL I had to buy some new food to even get them interested in supplemental feedings! Bought Fluval Shrimp Granules, BorneoWild Bee Pollen and BorneoWild Bebi. No one sells shrimp specific food locally that I've noticed (ignoring the algae wafers and other "generic" fish foods that they can eat), and the breeder didn't tell us exactly what type of food it was that she buys (and thus sold to us with our shrimp). I wanted shrimp baby food just to be on the safe side, since we've had no luck with young shrimp previously.

Even had the occasional dead berried shrimp or shrimp dropping eggs, so finally set up a DIY egg tumbler and the next day had 7 or 8 babies? (previous attempts at artificial hatching were unsuccessful)




Regardless, I look forward to more updates on your shrimp tank, elf123!! :smile2:

 

[elf123]

I artificially hatched early on when starting my tank. I was having a lot of deaths and one was a berried female. I have a thread I posted on how I did it. I ended up with 10-12 babies. I couldn't believe it worked!

I find that food that doesn't fall apart much work better in my tank. Less stuff for detritus and planaria. I also found that the less I tinkered with my tank the better it did. Since starting, the only thing I switch out is my Purigen. I have rinsed out my sponge filter once in tank water that I switched out. I use only RO water and do not remineralize. Not sure this works for everyone but it has worked for me. My tank naturally stays around 76-78 degrees.

I took some close ups. My favorite cherry shrimp in my tank is a low grade. He has a cool way about him and I love his super long antenna.

Bump: One of my adult Royal Blue Tigers from AlphaBreedersPro

Bump: Alleged Bloody Mary

Bump: Baby about 1-2 months old. Hard to grasp how red they are. They look muted in this cell phone pictures.

Bump:

Bump: Old lady Bloody Marys, but still getting berried.

 

[Zoidburg]

Didn't see any in those pics that quite looked like BM (to me - but still learning what one IS! looks more PFR?), but wow! Stunning nevertheless! Love those blue tigers, too! Makes me want to get some blue diamond shrimp soon!


I prefer either the mid grade sakuras (the ones with clear "veins" in their shells - looks kind of like thick red lacing) or the BM.


I kind of get better photos with my 5 MP cell phone camera than I do with my 14.1 MP digital camera when trying to take pictures of shrimp... but been trying to play around with the digital camera's settings to try and get some better photos that way! Still, your pictures came out pretty well!