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Hey

I spotted a little glass tank at a local 2nd hand shop the other day, and at $5 I couldn't resist bringing it home It looks like in an earlier life it was a divided Betta tank, its long & narrow (40cm x 15cm) with cut-outs in the plastic trim for dividers.

So it's been leak tested, cleaned up, gravel replaced, desk lamp purchased and planted... voila!... a much nicer looking alternative to the tacky 2gal critter keeper that my glass shrimp had been living in.

Tank on desk (please excuse the mess surrounding)

FTS

Blurry Shrimp

I think I need to get some more colourful shrimp... even in such a little tank the glass shrimp are extraordinarily good a blending into the plants or substrate.

G_T

Never be afraid to try something new. Remember that a lone amateur built the Ark. A large group of professionals built the Titanic.

Make a little cave for them as they like it dark and sheltered when they moult.
I bet the light cost you more than the tank.

That was certainly a good find. I will admit I have been known to hunt them as well.

Have a look in [link=My Profile] http://www.fishprofiles.com/forums/member.aspx?id=1935[/link] for my tank info
Look here for my
Betta 11Gal Desktop & Placidity 5ft Community Tank Photos

Keith

Near enough is not good enough, therefore good enough is not near enough, and only your best will do.
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thats a great ind and it looks great! maybe look into some colored snails... like canas or apple snails... they tend to not much on plants as long as they are larger. i would suggest cherry shrimp, but i know the prices that the cost near you and over seas shipping sould be ridiculous and DOAs would be prevelant. trylocal clubs and LFS to see what kind of stuff they got arround... my glass shrimp colored up a bit once they settled in the tanks, but still good at blanding.. they get cute red stripes on their antennae and apendages sometimes... with australias lame restrictions it might be hard to find much, but maybe a small crab or something to fill the void...

\\\\\\\"an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of the cure\\\\\\\"

I bet the light cost you more than the tank.

Yup.. the desk lamp cost me a whole $15 from Bunnings... 6400K 11W CF globe included... I could have gotten away with a lamp that I had lying around, but the new one matches the tank so much better... all in all a pretty cheap little setup.

Unfortunately I don't have access to all that many varieties of shrimp or snail, and even fewer that would be suitable for such a small tank. I was thinking of adding some more local shrimp ... something along the lines of these guys maybe??

G_T


Never be afraid to try something new. Remember that a lone amateur built the Ark. A large group of professionals built the Titanic.

kind of filter can you use for shrimp and in a tank that small ?

don a tank that size can take a small internal, sponge filter or small HOB depending on the type of flow you need.

those shrimp are lovely troppo. i think they just might be prettier than cherries or at least close /:'

\\\\\\\"an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of the cure\\\\\\\"

Yes, Red Sea makes very small HOB filter that is good for tanks of that size.

Do you have access to Cherry Shrimp in Australia, G_T? The ones you linked to look pretty similar, though I'm guessing if they are like most other Caridina species they will need brackish water to breed successfully.

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I'm not your neighbor, you Bakersfield trash.

possibly they would need brackish, but i do know ghost sgrimp "fry" need full salt to develop properly.. i dont know if they need that... maybe somthing to research and possibly adapt your tank to a light or completely brackish. not all of the species need brackish to breed though, cherries can breed perfectly fine in fresh water, but i dont really know much about their breeding behavior yet.. i am still researching and tryong to find out. if anyone has clues on cherry shrimp i would be greatful sorry if i highjack your thread troppo!

\\\\\\\"an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of the cure\\\\\\\"

I'm using a simple air powered sponge filter on this tank ATM (attempted to hide it behind the najas)... with a low bio load and reasonable plant load I don't think I will need much in the way of filtration, but that statement will of course depend on water qual test results - if it stays good I'll stick with what I've got, if not I'll consider upgrading.

Unfortunately I don't know of anyone that stocks cherry shrimp in Aus... or even if they are legal imports. Cherries would be ideal for what I have in mind though so if anyone knows of any Aus suppliers please let me know

As far as requiring brackish to full salt for successful Caridina species breeding... apparently the breeder for my current shrimp species raises the larvae in brackish until after the first couple of moults then changes them over to freshwater.

I'd rather not go down the brackish route in this tank as I don't think that my plant selection would fare too well (maybe yet another tank is in order ); I'm really enjoying my plants ATM - I witnessed pearling in this tank yesterday... I'm excited (only ever been able to get algae pearling before, never 'real' plants lol).

Thanks for the comments

G_T

Never be afraid to try something new. Remember that a lone amateur built the Ark. A large group of professionals built the Titanic.

i can get cherry's...very expensive though

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''All the clown fish and yellow tangs in the world cant save you now!''

but i dont really know much about their breeding behavior yet.. i am still researching and tryong to find out. if anyone has clues on cherry shrimp i would be greatful

Cherries are pretty easy to breed. Basically, as long as you have males, females, and plenty of hiding places, you will see baby shrimp soon enough. When the females are ready to breed you will be able to see the yellow eggs in their ovaries through their exoskeleton. Once the eggs are fertilized, the females will carry them around on their swimmerets for a couple weeks until they hatch.

Oftentimes people have trouble breeding them because they only have females; the males have very little red coloration, so some stores just don't stock them.







(Breeder nets stop any fish from eating the babies.)

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I'm not your neighbor, you Bakersfield trash.

I think I scored a bonus with my most recent plant purchases (some of which ended up in this tank).

I was watching the shrimp tonight when I noticed THIS swimming around. The picture is terrible, but its really hard to get a clear pic of a fry that is less than 2mm long without a decent camera and macro lens. I have no idea what species it is, but the guy that does all the plants locally is also a breeder of several species of rainbow and blue-eyes so I assume that its one of those.

I'm pretty surprised as I rinsed all of my most recent plant purchases under the tap and went over every stem individually removing snail egg clutches and some random algae.

I hope that I can keep this little guy alive... I'm curious now to see what it will grow up to be!

G_T

Never be afraid to try something new. Remember that a lone amateur built the Ark. A large group of professionals built the Titanic.

Awesome... Do you know if the plants were grown outside? If so, it might be some sort of fish native to your area. I know when I would get in shipments of plants from Florida there would be all kinds of creatures that came with them - killifish, native snails, crayfish, etc.

Do you have something to feed the little guy? I hope the shrimp don't have a go at him.

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I'm not your neighbor, you Bakersfield trash.

Do you know if the plants were grown outside?

Yep... I think they grow most of their stuff in above ground ponds and I'm pretty sure they use mostly small native fish for mosquito control. There are some pics of the setup on their website (gallery)

We spent ages staring at the tank last night and spotted at least 1 more fry. Should be really interesting to see how many more turn up!

So far none of the shrimp appear to be showing any interest in the fry although now that they have cleaned up almost all of the algae that was on the plants I guess the shrimp will start looking for alternative foods soon - I've started supplementary feeding with crushed algae wafers and might add some green water from my outdoor tub.

G_T

Never be afraid to try something new. Remember that a lone amateur built the Ark. A large group of professionals built the Titanic.

A few things have happened over the last week or so...

Firstly, in addition to the 2 fry I found in the shrimp tank I found more swimming around in the bucket that I had dumped the leftover baby tears in. All of the fry that I could see have been transferred to this tank and are readily accepting crushed flake. So I now have about 6 fry in total .

Secondly, the fry have been identified by the local plant supplier as Delicate Blue-eyes (Pseudomugil tenellus). As I suspected they are used for mosquito control in the plant growing ponds.

Thirdly, a lady at work was having a clean out in preparation for selling her house and has very kindly given me a never used 5 gallon tank kit. Its only a cheapo little kit with glass tank, lid & sponge filter but it was free so I'm not complaining. I'll need to sort out some lighting for it but that's not a huge priority ATM as I've only put some java fern and moss in there for now; hopefully the room lighting will be enough to keep that going for a week or so until I sort something out.

And lastly... the most exciting thing (to me anyway) ... I have come into possession of approximately 40 Cherry Shrimp!!! (A BIG thank you to Brengun who put me in touch with the supplier ). The cherries are all in the new 5 gallon tank for a bit of a quarantine / adjustment / observation period and then I'll have to work out what I want to do with the two shrimp tanks and all the shrimp and fry long term.

HERE is the best pic I've managed to get of one of the new shrimp.
I'm pretty impressed with how they have coloured up... that pic is of one of the nicest coloured ones so far and was taken after 3 days in transit and only 24 hours after going into the tank.

G_T

Never be afraid to try something new. Remember that a lone amateur built the Ark. A large group of professionals built the Titanic.

Gee they are a good color aren't they, GT? If I wasn't keeping my tanks for more fish ordered I would have got some of those shrimp myself.

Those are some excellent-looking Cherry Shrimp. Did you be sure to get males as well?

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I'm not your neighbor, you Bakersfield trash.

I didn't specify that I wanted both male and female, but I'm pretty certain that I ended up with a fairly even mix - there was a good mix of sizes, a range of colour from almost clear to the bright red of that pic and at least 3 berried females (One of which may have dropped already as I have seen a couple of minute little shrimpies scooting around today that I hadn't noticed before).

G_T



Never be afraid to try something new. Remember that a lone amateur built the Ark. A large group of professionals built the Titanic.

THATS GREAT TROPPO!
your shrimp tanks are going to be marvelous!
congrats on the fry as I am sure they will be nice to kep arround in the future in other tanks!
take care of the little guys and they look great!
when are we gonna get some FTS or pics of the new tank???


\\\\\\\"an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of the cure\\\\\\\"