Red Beauty

Here's with another red beauty to share, though she does not show a thick shell appearance as her ruby red counter part. Her overall appearance still strikes a 10/10 score (at least for me). These 2 pictures simply make her looks like a shrimp toy model.

Ruby red in the making

An upcoming star in the making... About 4months old and it has a deep red appearance. Lets see how this guy will fare in 2months time.

The species of Green shrimp

Recently got these green guys from LFS and have been trying hard to figure their true identity. Neocaridina or caridina? Though their body structure point to a neocaridina strain, several online sources claimed they are Caridina. Well its still good to find it out myself. As usual. these guys are going to stay with my side for experimenting crosses and to determine their identity. Hope I can get some interesting findings and crosses.

Dirty Yellow

Took a shot of one of my big fat yellow female. It seemed to be a long time since I had a outright decent shot, and this photo had been a good evidence of my rusty skills.

Snowballing

Colony has been increasing well lately. Here goes one tank of snowballs. Enjoy...

New shrimp products- AQUASPID

A few of our very aquatic hobbyists have gathered to form a group to push forth a series of shrimp related products-AQUASPID. I, being a hardcore shrimp fan, am proud to be the team leader in this project of which one of our dear group member is a biologist and the other a hardcore planted tank expert. The 3 of us have spend tremendous effort in sourcing and experimenting many kinds of raw materials and chemicals in order to derive a range of shrimp products. With a total of combined 30plus tanks, we have try out every means to determine the well being of keeping shrimps which run from a mere Malayan to a priceless king kong. This process is not easy I will say, painful but rewarding. With that we sincerely hope every shrimp keepers out there will have a chance to try our very new products and do able to find joy in keeping these wonderful creatures.

Launch of AQUASPID will be in 2010, most probably the start of the year, In the meantime,
series of "sneak previews" where samples of the products will be given out FOC to test responses read feedbacks.

Updates will be done here and at my site AQUASPID soon.

Please stay tuned and do support.

Thanks.

Regards
Spid on behalf of AquaSpid team

Different types of Algae

Kudos to the blog writer.

This blog contains come important information about shrimp breeding and keeping. I like the description of the algae part as some algae identified were important food source for shrimplets, especially small shrimplets like CRS.

Here is the link- http://www.aquariumalgae.blogspot.com/

Articles added

Hi all,

I have updated and wrote some articles related to shrimp keeping at my main site www.aquaspid.com. Do take a peek if free.

Cheers.

PLANTS and BIOLOGICAL FILTRATION by Diana Walstad

http://www.aquabotanic.com/plants_and_biological_filtration.htm

Some good stuff to share.

Cheers.

Saving dying shrimps

Here is one tip for the month-

If you ever encounter dying shrimp colonies, meaning one or two shrimp die off one by one each day, its good to catch the remaining ones, adjust them well to another tank. Parameters need not be the same for the new tank.

The another tank that housed these remaining shrimp has to be a stable old tank.

Meanwhile please sterilize the problematic tank. How to sterilize ill post some steps in the future.

Cheers.

Yellows

I have been into yellow shrimp for quite some time. These shrimps are tough so to speak and their breeding rate is comparable to our dear cherries or sakuras and snowballs.

However one thing that keep me back is that their color tone never seems to improve. Faint and transparent-like of yellow seem like the norm for these yellow creatures. I have yet to able to have a single piece of thick shell yellowish like shrimp in my colony till this date.

Despite so, the yellow eggs are the one that make those females looks wonderful.

Fenbendazole

Fenbendazole is used mainly as one of the deworming medicine for animals like horses, cats, dogs and even fishes. However fenbendazole exist in many various forms whereby some may be fully soluble in water while others need acid to make it solvent.

Recently I imported this powder and tried it few tanks of mine to determine the effectiveness. Im very satisfied I would say. Not only did I eradicated all those planarias in the tank, not a single animal, be it shrimps fish or snails die in the process. Furthermore other parasites that loiter in the substrate like thread worm were killed in the process. Ill stressed the medicine I got is fully aquatic and is not the normal deworming powder found in pets store.

If you wished to eradicate these unsightful creatures which prove very harmful to your shrimp. You can take a peek here.

http://www.aquaticquotient.com/forum/showthread.php?t=59411

Cheers.

Goldens -great breeding tools...

Most mutated species came from these golden guys whom they themselves are mutated ones too. Genes play in shrimps is real interesting.

Blue vs Red Ramshorns

Crossbreeding of blue and red ramshorns.

The shrimplet was there watching the fun too. Haha.

Shrimp Store has been set up at AquaSpid.com

Hi all, AquaSpid shrimp store has been set up to provide some of the basic necessities meant for shrimp hobbyist. The store will contain both livestocks and shrimp products ranging from food supplies to shrimp accessories.

Pardon for the lack of items at the present moment. More items will be updated once available.

At the moment please stay tuned.
http://www.aquaspid.com/Home/shrimp-store/shrimp-products

Conditioning of Shrimps

An updated version has been loaded to my site.

http://www.aquaspid.com/shrimp-keeping/conditioning-of-shrimps

Hinos tank

This tank only contains hinos and higher grades.

All this while has been aiming to maintain and improve coloration.

Tap water paramenters in Singapore

Data given by PUB - http://www.pub.gov.sg/general/Pages/WaterTreatment.aspx

"On Monday, my tap water ph reading is 8.2, on friday, its 7.3!"
"On a water change on monday the chloride level in the tank seems alright, on another day its seems to have a strong chlorine odour."
"Breeding or raising discus is not as easy as what it used to be!"

The above are some comments I heard from few discus hobbyists who change their tank water 100% daily.

I guess not only discus suffered, other aquatic fishes or shrimps do suffered if a large water change were to be practised. As a matter of fact I often practised 80-90% of tap water change for shrimp setups. However that was about a year or two ago when Im dosing chemicals like formalin, methylene blue, bifuran, etc and even anitbiotics like tetracycline. And if theres any chance of me doing that again with the current tap water. The answer is a definte NO. Reason being I have lost too much shrimps due to heavy water change. Shrimps are small and unlike fishes who are able to show symtoms if they are sick or under bacteria attack. Even so, exact medicine availble for treatment is not readily available at present. Therefore to judge whether they are alright after a major water change is difficult for anyone.

So I do recommend shrimp hobbyist in Singapore do play cautious when comes to water change and to prevent disease-prone shrimps, purchase shrimps from reliable sources. Right now I only top up my CRS tank with distilled water. Those tanks with high nitrates, i do try praticse a 10% water change each week or if budget allow i will shop to add more cannister filters.

Cheers.

A German Site to Share

One fabulous german site to share. This site covers many areas in terms of shrimp and clayfish rearing. I typically like the shrimp diseases section the most. Its very informative!

Do take a peek for those shrimp enthus.

Kudos to the site adminstrator again.

http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=de&tl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.crustakrankheiten.de%2Fcrusta-blog

DIY Air bubble Container

Here is a cheap DIY equipment that allow more oxygen exchange with the surrounding and prevent my dear lighting equipment from getting wet.

I used a unused gravel cleaner plastic bottle, cut a small hole at the side for the suction cap and place the top of the container above water level.

Ruby Red

One of my favourites. Those thick shell on its head and body is very mesmerizing!

Orange Sakura

This reddish orange sakura do pop up once in a while in my sakura colony.

It seems hard to stabilise this color due to low quantity.

Why should I use Aqua Soil for substrate?

One interesting article to share.

http://www.aquajournal.net/na/notes/001/index.html

Dead old shrimp

One picture of a 8month old dead 2.3cm CRS. She did her part though by contributing 2batches of small shrimplets.

Rosy cheek

I think she is shy in front of camera.

Harvesting planaria

I will probably be very rich if these guys can sell.

RO/DI water

Do we need RO/DI water or even distilled water in order to shrimp?

Personally I felt its not a must especially for shrimp keepers in Singapore because our municipal tap water here has very somewhat very close readings as those to distilled water, except for some heavy metals that were present in our water pipes.

In my early days of shrimping, I used to believe in optimal water conditions for species like caridina. Thus I went all out venturing into buying distilled water from supermarkets to change water for my CRS tank. At first it all works quite well, everything works alright-minimal deaths, shrimps eating like crazy, however as time passes, passion died down and I switched back to direct tap water change where water is only filter by a one stage 1-micron sediment catridge- purpose of this catridge is to filter off large heavy sediments.Initially, slow deaths (dying off one by one) seems inevitable But after a while, shrimps are back in action. Population is still gowing. Unlike previous way, this time I do not place too much calcium rich addictives into the tank.

Therefore I come to conclusion captive-bred shrimps are still able to adapt well to certain environment changes.

PEST indeed!

Photos courtesy of www.shrimpdiseases.com

Copepods are a group of small pests jumping around in our tank. They are often use as indicators of good water parameters- water rich in micro-organisms. Beside copepods, we have the cyclops, seed shrimps and many more. Often shrimp sites and many sources say they are harmless in which I doubt so.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copepod
Recently I did an experiment by setting up a tank full of these small jumpers and creatures, hoping to see better percentage of offsprings that survive. To my horror that 2months of experimenting kill more shrimps than it can possibly produce. 9 out of 10 pieces of pregnant CRS which were placed into the tank after cycled, die within 1 month. Most offsprings which hatched and visible all vanished within these 2 months.
During these 2 months, all parameters are well maintained. No major happeings. No addition other stuffs except some bacteria powder to substain the population of these tiny crustaceans.

I not very sure whether these pest are the killers but I am sure they are not well liked and I guess the only way to get rid is by introducing fishes. I have set up another tank, initially full of these small pests, has introduce "boraras" and introduce another 5 pregnant crs. Will observe and see how it goes.

So meanwhile please stay tuned.

Happy Chinese New Year

Wish all people out there A PROSPEROUS "MOO" YEAR.

Red Legged CRS

One of my outstanding male who was so busy chasing females that I was having so much difficulty in having a close up steady shot on him.