:)

[ekfishlover2011]

Shedding equals growing, growing equals getting older... 2 of my little cherry shrimps decided to shed today! One now looks almost full size, finally. My pure red one is the one that shedded, so now she just has to wait for the males to catch up and they can start breeding! Im so happy, because that means these four werent a complete waste, because if they are growing that fast than by the time i get the already berried females next time i go to store these guys will be breeding too! So instead of this being my far behind clan this could be my kickstart clan, and by the time i get the large numbers to actually get a colony going my kickstart clan will have started it themselves. :)

[korith]

Shedding can be a stress response I think when they are put into a new environment. Sometimes the female shrimp will drop their eggs too. Nothing to really worry about they should be ok. Now that you got your shrimp, my advice leave the tank be. I find my shrimp do better the less involved I am. Once you got their tank, and water parameters set up properly, they can be left alone, with just a bit of feeding.

[ekfishlover2011]

They seem happy, always carefree munchin away at their moss. Are they eating the plant or something on it?

[Strider199]

I read they eat the decomposing matter on the plant or moss. But any algae found is free game. I don't think they actually eat the java moss I have with them, but your right, they constantly seem like they are harvesting from it.

Glad it's working out well ekfishlover2011. Just don't over feed them.

[ekfishlover2011]

I havent tried to feed them, since they have been nomming on moss, but i have my apple snail in there because he doesnt like the medicine my fish get (even though the nerites never seem to mind it) and i thought there was algae on the glass but turns out it was dirt on the outside, so no algae except the castle and whatever the shrimps are eating from java moss, so i figured id give him a tiny chunk of algae wafer. He was too slow. So ive decided nevermind to feeding the snail, because then i overfeed shrimp. Hes so fat he cant close his door the whole way anyway, so i think hel survive until friday when i do my water change to end round of medicine and he can go back home again. To WC the shrimps, should i just scoop water out with a cup to avoid sucking up my expensive critters? They can clean the gravel themselves, right? No need to vaccuum?

[Brhino]

if you don't vaccuum the substrate it will eventually fill up with shrimp poop (it's tiny, but yes, they do poop). If you're using a wide-mouthed gravel vacuum, it won't suck up any shrimp particularly quickly, so if you see one start to go up the tube you can just pull it out quickly. Most of the time they're smart enough to get out of the way anyhow, and you can usually "shoo" them away from whatever area you're working on.

[ekfishlover2011]

Okay. Do i have to do that every week or...? Im new to properly cleaning the tanks, ive got WCs down pat, now i just need to get ornaments. I used to clean them whenever they looked dirty, but i read somewhere they have a biofilm that gets on them and your not supposed to take that off. I was like, "Oh. Oops." So no more of that unless really actually dirty dirty. But yea, how often does a shrimp tank need vacuumed?

[Brhino]

not very often, especially since you only have 4 in there right now. Certainly not like a tank full of big pooping fish. You'll start to notice a buildup of little brown specks here and there... that's when you know it's time to clean up.

[ekfishlover2011]

Okay, so like ornaments, only when dirty dirty. Im going to get 10 more and 25 ghosts (to feed while i wait for cherries to breed) and my test kit and a new magna-float so i dont have to share between tanks and a new shrimp net for same reason whenever they call me to go get the test kit that they sold out of three weeks ago and are still wondering what happened to the truck. Then maybe well get somewhere. Is it okay to put the water from the store in the shrimp tank if i know that that water was only used in a shrimp tank? They have completely separate tanks for all of their fish, 10gal per freshwater species (sometimes more than one species, but u get the point. For some reason all the saltwater tanks are connected). The cherries and the blueberries dont even have plants, each tank has a piece of driftwood and some mesh in it and that breed of shrimp. So i know that nothing is in that water other than shrimps and wood. Is it safe, or should i net them out of that water with my new net and safely add just shrimp to the tank?

Are Apple snails predatory? Aka, will he eat my babies when i start getting babies if they get too close to his mouth? Ive seen him catch and gobble on a huge swollen pellet of betta food that flaoted past him once, and im suddenly wondering if that can happen to a baby shrimp that passes by... Hes a really fat snail. I never knew how to tell weight on a snail before him lol.

Edited to add on italisized area.

[Strider199]

I've read that Lady Hobbs just dumps the bag of shrimp into her tank including the water from the store, but thats just not me. I float the bag and add just a bit of tank water every 5 minutes for about 20 minutes than I use my net. I place it over my bucket and slowly pour the lfs water into the net. As the bag gets neat empty, I tip it really fast and all the shrimp hit the net ( I still check the bag really well to make sure no one stayed behind). I then place the net into the tank and gentle introduce the new inhabitants.
It may be over kill but the last time I bought some CRS from Big Al's I noticed what I thought was a piece of dead shrimp or food in the bag of shrimp. It looked like this one shrimp had grabbed it and was holding onto it like it was feeding. As I placed my shrimp into the tank this shrimp started to dart about with this ball thing tucked tight against it. I watched this for a moment and then noticed that the ball thing was actually alive and starting to move. I got my baster and sucked at the worm like white thing but it wouldn't come off the shrimp. After about 10 minutes this shrimp just lay on the bottom and the worm like things (ended up there were two of them) started to leave the shrimp. I sucked up both of them and the shrimp and under hot water they went. The shrimp had already passed on. Don't know what those white worm things were but they looked like small leaches about 1/8 inch long and flat.

I hate adding lfs tank water into my tank.

And to answer about your snail attacking baby shrimp, those little guys have feelers just like their parents and when something hits a feeler, off they go. I don't think your snail will catch one unless it's already dead.

[ekfishlover2011]

OK thanks. That was nice and helpful! :)