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https://youtu.be/IzMSYm14CCU done!

Hi fellow Shrimp lovers!! Thank you for allowing me to join. I kinda got hooked on shrimp accidentally. A little about me...I'm a registered nurse and also have extensive work experience and training in the dental industry. However, I'm on workers compensation, for a spinal injury I had in Feb 2011 at 23yrs old. I had emergency spinal surgery 6hrs after meeting my neurosurgeon as I was about to become paralysed and have no control over my bladder and bowel. Thankfully I had surgery in time to avoid becoming paralysed, but the rest of my body suffered. I have now had 5 major spinal operations on my lumbar spine (2 double level fusions, 3 microdiscectomies, and removal of facet joints and solid synovial cysts) and I have also had countless day procedures on my spine too. Anyway, about 12 months ago along came a MD fish tanks video suggestion on youtube and from then on, I was hooked! I wanted a planted tank with a community of fish. So about 6 weeks ago, I discovered an old 60L tank of mine on my garage. I cleaned it up and bought everything I needed (yep...my credit card hates me! Lol!) and I started cycling my tank. Next thing though I was getting algae everywhere. Brown algae...yuck! Now away from this tank, I fall in love with a 235L tank. I buy it but we need to put extra floor joists in and reinforce the floor. We also need to remove a door and plaster it up. Hopefully it'll be done in a couple months and I can start it up too! So I had been researching for ages. What should I put in my 60L to clean up this algae? I pop into my local LFS and I fall in love with a baby BN pleco. (Yes...im aware my 60L tank is too small but he'll be upgraded to the 235L before he is say another centimetre longer.) My little pleco was named Godfrey Macleay da Hoover. Those who are Aussie will know we have a store called Godfrey's who sell vacuums. Well lil Godfrey hoovered the vast majority of it up! However there was still a lot left, so I go on the hunt for something to eat it. I come across a "algae eaters" pack from an online LFS. So along came 3 nerite snails (Patrick, Bob and Gary) and 20 odd darwin algae eaters and red nose shrimp. I fell in love with them, so purchased another 20 of them plus 2 more nerites (Sluggo and Mrs Sandy P Cheeks). The shrimp, are to me, just called, "The shrimplets". So now, it's time a few nano fish. I have ordered 3 green neon tetras but now I'm leaning towards putting in some Aussie nano fish that may be found in the same, or close by, region. Im going to do some searching, but does anyone have any suggestions please? Quite a number of my ladies are berried at the moment. I read that they don't breed too well in freshwater set ups. Im hoping they do, as I would love to see them grow into a bigger colony. Anyway, I was never planning on getting shrimp, but here we are! I'm thinking of adding a few more red nose shrimp as I don't see them too often, and 2 jumped overboard when I was cleaning the tank 😞 (how do you pick them up quick enough to get them back in the tank?? They ended up passing away sadly.) I now have plans to buy 4x 30L cube tanks and getting some other fascinating species. I may even end up surpassing that 4 tanks, as im just in love with them and they fascinate me! I could watch them all day. This tank was to distract me from my pain, my operations, my very likely situation where I will never work again. But maybe these guys can help me, keep me occupied, and maybe even give me a bit of extra income, once I am off workers comp (not allowed to work or volunteer whilst on it. Not even really allowed to go study a course at TAFE, uni or college either!). Anyway, thank you for having me, I look forward to meeting you all and chatting about all things shrimp! 😊

Hi - those are dwarf west African cichlids, most likely a Pelvicachromis Pulcher variety. Apistogramma are South American. The only way to ensure the babies survive are to isolate the parents in the community tank OR remove all other fish inhabitants to another tank. Not to worry if you lose the babies, if they have done it once, chances are they will breed once again if they lose this brood. The pair will benefit from having a tank to themselves so they can breed and bring up the babies without losing them to predators.

I have finally got around to setting up my old Taiwan Bee shrimp tank (30L) which was shut down when I moved just over a year ago. I am using Tetra Active Substrate (clay based granules) this time, which doesn't buffer the PH but I will be using remineralised RO water once fully set/sorted. Eventually I hope to keep the Taiwan bee shrimps again but won't be rushing anything at this stage, I will see if I can get the water parameters right and try a batch of 10 (cheap) crystal red shrimp in a couple of months and see how they do for 3-6 months? I will keep the tank simpler this time with a lot less plants. The substrate is obviously releasing nutrients into the tank at this point. I added 50% RO water and 50% tap water (only using part tap water for the start up, will always use RO from this point) and next day parameters were, TDS 232 (200 the day before), GH 9, KH 6, PH 7.5 so is way off at this point but I will do a 50% RO water change in a week and hopefully it will be going in the right direction, not rushing? Tap water here is dreadfull, PH 8 TDS 300...........etc I do still have a new bag of the JBL substrate in the cupboard but decided it needs a bit too much prep for me for the moment. If it doesn't work out for the shrimps then I will get a killifish and dwarf Rasboras as I did before (or other fish that suit the parameters if they are off), but I will be taking it very slow with this tank this time. In reality it is unlikely I will have Taiwan bee shrimps before autumn even if everything goes well but hopefully there will be crystal red shrimp for the summer? I will keep testing for the 'cycle' but as the PH is likely to drop a fair bit and as discussed with beanbag on here before, that may not be as straight forward as with a 'constant parameter' tank, but anyway, no rush.

Maybe it’s time to give some feedback. I forgot the time I could see only 2 shrimps, since then the population has grown so much that I gave 30 of them a couple of months ago. Then again now I think the population went over 120 and I am giving again about 70 of them. Not sure why they died in the beginning, maybe they were quite old. They were fairly big! Or it was the planaria? I got rid of them and scuds. The second one was not easy. It was out of control so I emptied all the shrimp population from the tank and poured sparkling water for a couple of hours. Some scuds survived that! But eventually they disappeared in some weeks after manual removal each time I could see one. My only problem is that plants dont go well anymore. xmass moss, dwarf hair grass and anubia nana go very well but other plants progressively died. (Not suddenly) - Is it due to shrimp over population? - the sparkling water treatment ? - i can’t see other issue, i provide generous lighting, co, fertilizer (in soil and in water). I have a bit of algae but under control.

Hi all , Update on my tank , all 12 shrimp that were introduced into the tank and survived . They seemed very active which was good. Picked up my black galaxy fishbones today and some boa's added in. Hope this link is OK https://youtube.com/shorts/67KsnOqYYJI?si=3tD1N-0iHke2U_B-

@beanbag, Anything that is likely shrimp safe is probably not going to harm these "Shell bugs" either. Have you tried anything that is not safe for shrimps, but in super low doses? That might kill the shell bugs but not the shrimp. Here are some meds, USE WITH CAUTION and only in a hospital tank for experimentation of this specific case, namely, to find something that will kill "Shell Bugs". Trichlorfon/Dylox is useful for treatment of: Hydra, Lernia (Anchor Worms), Parasitic Copepods, Monodigenetic and Digenetic Flukes, Fish Lice (Argulus), Leeches. Malachite Green - has some use in controlling protozoan parasites. Might work in this case too. Formalin - targets similar parasites like MG above. Often used in combination with MG. Copper sulfate products - like Cupramine. For treatment of freshwater and marine ich (Cryptocaryon), Oodinium, external parasites, fungus, shimmy, and even algae (especially in ponds). Kordon's Fish Therapy Bath - use of citrus oils (oils include citrus, neem, and lavender oils) to treat termites, fleas, etc. Lavender Oil also has repellent abilities. Neem oil is reported to be effective as an insecticide as well as some anti-inflammation properties, anti-fungal and limited anti-bacterial. A lot of meds target bacterial symptoms, so I have avoided listing them above. Good luck, and remember - Don't treat the main tank with this. Only use these meds in a hospital tank.

Thank you very much! The green on the stones is algae, but it’s nice and balanced 🙂 the plants are Crypts and they have been bulletproof This forum has been there from the start (actually even before the start) sdlTBfanUK it is because of your advice that this is a no fertiliser tank- I bought some in the initial shopping list and you advised me not to use it! ( for shrimp health) I am very happy to have kept with this decision. A big YT name Father Fish (100k + subs) subscribed to my channel and left a really nice comment. This success partly rests on this forum and all of you that have helped with this build. Thank you very much

https://youtu.be/MeOoWj71ir8

I hope all is still going well and assume you will be adding the shrimp about now? The new tank will have enough food for a few shrimps for a few weeks but you may want to add a small bit of snowflake for when you are away. It maybe best if you leave instructions to not feed the new tank (very easy to overfeed with only a few shrimps, plus they may not touch the food if there is plenty of yummy biofilm anyway) while you are away as there should be enough in the tank and if someone overfeeds then that could kill the shrimp and/or cause ammonia spike. If you add a small bit of snowflake before your holiday that won't polute the water, but breaks down slowly. Hope you have a great holiday!

Well done!

Looks like the tank has cycled . Ammonia and Nitrites are at 0 with nitrates being at 20. Plan on doing another water change to bring this down and leaving it to stabilise for a few days and then add some shrimp from my other tank to make sure everything is OK before purchasing some black galaxy fishbone.

Sorry should of made myself clear , I do plan on adding some shrimp from my other tank if the ammonia is reading 0 . This will give me an idea if the tank is running OK. When the tank first started i added some Indian almond leaves and some cholla wood. They seem to have plenty of growth on them . I've already got some snowflake food. I have a medicine box I make so that my family and friends can go in and feed them once or twice a week.

Tank is going well. 85-90% water change done last week and ammonia drop within range 1-2 PPM. After testing a few days later this has dropped to 0.5-1ppm. Nitrates are rising nicely as well around 20ppm. Going to leave the tank another week and do a further 80-90% water change and leave for another few weeks. I'm away on holiday for 2 weeks so I'm not rushing it.

Sounds like you have made the necessary changes. Just give it time now.

Temp has been increased. Not long done a 80% water change, hopefully it dilutes the ammonia . Changed it with tap water and used dechlor since i'm only cycling. Saves using RO water and Gh+, also added filter booster and a multi powder which should help. Will do a full test tomorrow and see.

You need to increase temps to 26. A 50% water change now is a good idea to reduce the ammonia. Then your test kits might be more effective in measuring the changes. Ammonia level are likely to be higher than the test kits can measure right now. So reducing it with a water change will allow you to measure the changes.

That should help significantly. Don't be too worried if you don't detect Nitrites. If you have some beneficial bacteria now, Nitrites could be turned into Nitrates faster than test kits can pick up. As long as you see Ammonia reducing and Nitrates increasing, you are on the right track. What temp have you set the water to?

Currently 23 days and i've only got ammonia and nitrates. No nitrites as of yet. I can't find anything on the packing to help with cycling this media , doesn't seem to be any instructions. Starting using the filter booster but i have taken a seeded sponge filter from one of my fish tanks to hopefully help cycle and push things along . Just hope in the next couple of days i see some nitrites. I didn't using anything from a previous tank before today. I've just recently add a sponge filter that's been in a fish tank for over 6 months. Thank you, I've put in another sponge filter from a fish tank that's been established for over a year . I'm hoping this should do the trick and i should start seeing some nitrites coming through. Just to get some more bacteria in there as well i also just squeezed another filter into the tank to help.

Hope these linke are OK. Files are too big to upload through the website . https://ibb.co/n3NBkFr https://ibb.co/QKk4Bn0 https://ibb.co/GtpRhXf https://ibb.co/Xs0HKmH https://ibb.co/CtRX2X3

an old standard is Amazonia or the newer Amazonia 2.

It might be easier if you can tell us what substrate you have access to. We could list items that you can't buy or find.

Check these guys out! Superman and spidey fighting crime at the Hangover 90

Hi All, it’s been a while since I have posted. I closed down my shrimp room a few years ago but I seem to have increasing numbers of tanks showing up again! Currently I am still concentrating on my beloved hybrid collection - galaxy fishbone, pinto, zebra mixes in both red and black. As I lack space I’m just letting them breed indiscriminately in 2 x 210 litre tanks . I cull out any that don’t have good marking or depth of colour. The culls go into 2 tanks of 50 litre size and as I also get blue steels in the black tank I have a 60 litre tank for all blues. I also have a 30 litre tank with a beautiful male Betta with Red and Yellow Neos. As I am not so interested in my Neos I have 3 bathtubs outside for them . I have Reds , Blue/ Black and Yellows in the tubs and they breed very well out there. I have a solar fountain in each one , plants and moss but no filter or heaters and have had them out there since 2013. I top up with RO water and once a year empty about 1/2 the water out and refill. Luckily I sell a quite a few to a local Aquarium shop so the numbers don’t build up too much. Interestingly I have also put a lot of my hybrid culls outside too and they breed out there too. I don’t know what the water parameters are but they are thriving . Considering the extreme temperatures here in Adelaide it is quite amazing really. I will add a few pictures of my tank waiting to be culled.

That Betta ! 😍 Love those fins !

Hello again, I just caught out some blue/ black shrimp from the pond, unfortunately it was only 2C so they are a bit cold and I couldn’t get the blue to stand out in the picture. They are just left to breed and need culling but basically they are just left to have a good life so colour isn’t important. Next time I see some nice blues I will take a better picture I caught out 60 last week for the shop and the blue stood out beautifully once they were in a warm tank. The Betta was just fed some live mosquito larvae and was stalking them. Not the best pictures but shows his lovely long fins. He rests on the plants in between catching his dinner. I have also shown the bathtubs and my mulberry plants. Anyone with access to a mulberry tree can grow them very easily and quickly. I just trim a few stems leaving only the top leaf and stick them straight into the pot. The main thing is to keep them moist. Water daily in summer and fertilise each change of season. Mine all come from my original plant bought back in 2013 and have kept my shrimp in mulberry heaven since then. A big plus is getting to eat the mulberries while cutting the leaves off. They fruit twice yearly so a win all round looks like the pictures didn't upload oops! The betta

Metronidazole is used to treat a variety of bacterial and parasitic infections. I don't know if it will be effective on these critters. But if it was designed for bacteria and parasites, it should be fine on shrimps. I don't know anyone who has tried it because that medication does not target shrimp diseases specifically ... that we know of yet.

Great to hear they turned up and going well so far. The first two weeks are tough for them so you may lose some yet, but I will keep my fingers crossed they do well! Shrimp usually lose colour in transit (stressed) so the colours should also improve within a few days, and that may also include the eyes, not too sure with the OE? Enjoy watching them all!

Hi @Artishrimps, welcome to SKFA. This is a new hybrid to me as well. But since they are a hybrid of a tiger, treat them as Tiger caridinas. So similar water parameters as tiger shrimps.

Hi Simon, Sorry for the very late reply. I was in Sydney and getting stuff ready to go camping. Camping was loads of fun too! No yowies, but very cold 🥶 How is the heat in the UK? Still boiling hot? Are you watching the ashes? Seems like you are all set up with your freezer full of icy cold snacks! Love it!! Haha very funny about the Laguna Beach trip! 😅 I hope your lil Betta and cherry shrimp are ok, and still thriving. I have been looking all over for a betta and to see if I can buy one and keep it on hold, but no lucky yet. I still have to set up the tank anyway, so thats all good. I'm thinking though that I'll have to go find a betta breeder. I joined an Aussie betta group and there are some breeders in there, so hopefully I can find one I like. One day I may even do a sorority. I'm trying to decide what shrimp I want next. I tend to prefer cardina shrimp. Where I got my first gang of DAS, Hoang, the owner of the LFS, has an amazing collection of shrimp and so many to choose from. I got the 3 tanks off my mate! I'm not sure if I'll use them in my room, but I may set them up as quarantine and hospital tanks. The Biggest one though is fairly decent. Ooh if I could get a pic of my delicate blue eye's, I would upload it, but they escape me, but they are starting to get in their fins! Ok like they always had tiny ones, but now they are getting much larger and coloured. They are adorable! They are so tiny though and I'm feeding them baby brine shrimp, and micro pellets by hikari. So so small they are! Oh and I discovered that a couple of my female RNS are berried! Yay!! Apparently DAS larvae need brackish water to survive, but im sure I have a couple babies atm. Some are really tiny and they are smaller than the ones I bought. The ones I bought have definitely grown up. I'm going to get some more from Hoang though as I love his more than the other supplier. He has RNS too so I'll get more of those as well. Also, I'll make a separate post, but any ideas why my pH may be creeping up? I did have crushed coral in there, as my tank water only has a pH of 6.6 approx. Maybe that is ok for my fish? I'll have to do some research. If I could get it to hover closer to 7 I would be happier. Right now it's 7.6 on the regular api pH test, and saying 7.4 on the high pH test. Im going to try and do another water change today, probably a bit bigger one, and try to bring it down a bit. Not sure if its because of my rock. It does have white stripes in it and I wonder if that's limestone? I read somewhere that limestone can increase it. I hope I don't have to remove it, as I love the look of that rock. Anyway, I hope you and your family are doing well Simon. Speak soon 😊

That is definitely a blue dream and a stunning one at that! I think blue velvet are usually darker and less bright, ie like blue velvet in fabric which is almost black usually.

Hey, I went back and checked and in the beginning there were 7 high graded blue dream shrimp introduced to the tank. There are still some very blue guys in there. The shrimp were from https://www.aquarzon.com/ I got all the rare plants from them as well. I guess there can be naming differences between countries and so on, you guys are the experts:)- there are some really electric light blue, dark blue, blue black to black plus all the other red and see through combos! Incredible that 7 individuals can create such a thriving diverse population!

How about this guy?

Coming up on 3 years, I think its safe to say the shrimp are liking it, starting to throw some crazy colour mutations!

After reading through some posts on food and nutrition I saw someone mention nasturtiums, leaf and flower, is safe and tasty for shrimp to eat! See I have a huge nasturtium plant hanging on from this past summer. It has even made it through snow, that we got in early May! So I went and picked the biggest and tastiest looking flower, and popped it in the tank. They love it but the only problem is I have orange poop everywhere!! 💩🤣 Also I noticed I have a couple orange poop shoot shrimp. 🤣🤣🤣 Thank you for this recommendation, they love it! ❤️ Also do you think they could eat rosemary flowers? My rosemary is out in flower at the moment. Also my sage flowers fairly often too. Can herb flowers, apart from anything from the onion family I'm guessing, be given as well? Pics of my red/orange nose shrimp!!

What a great intro. And amazing story. Welcome to the forum. I see you have caught the shrimp bug and absolutely infected with the Multi Tank Syndrome (MTS). HAHA, I snorted. 🤣 Awesome choice to build a native tank. Pacific Blue Eyes (Pseudomugil Signifer) is highly recommended for such a tank. And they should be a little bit easier to find. Everything else might be a bit too big for a tanks with shrimp. I hope one of those species is CRS. My passion for the hobby really kicked off after I got CRS. Don't forget to leave enough money for other things like Substrate, TDS meter, other test kits, food, and plants. What postcode do you live in? I am about to throw out a large handful of Subwassertang (aka Fresh water seaweed) if you don't mind picking up.

Hi all! My name is Aedan Norris, and I just joined this forum. I am very happy to be a part of the community and to share my interests in the world of aquaristics. I am a novice aquarist and my passion for fish and the underwater world is just beginning to blossom. I have a small aquarium at home and am fascinated by the variety of beautiful fish and plants that can be kept in an aquarium. My current project is to create a planted aquarium with an emphasis on low-growing plants and scenic rocks. I am also interested in learning about and breeding different species of fish, especially those that peacefully coexist in the aquarium community. I am here to share my accomplishments, ask questions, and get valuable advice from experienced aquarists. I'm sure your community has a lot of knowledge and experience to share, and I look forward to your support and help in my aquarium journey. I look forward to interacting with you and learning new things about the world of aquaristics. Thank you so much for welcoming me and for welcoming me into your community! Best wishes, Aedan Norris.

@Kameaux it can depend on the type of shrimp. For Caridina shrimp, you can expect roughly around 20 shrimplets (rough estimate) per female, per clutch of eggs . For Neocaridina, you can expect roughly 25 (rough estimate) per female, per clutch of eggs. On average they can hold eggs twice a year. They maybe able to carry 5-6 clutches in their short lifetime. <- This is a gut feel count only. I have not sat around counting how many clutches my shrimps have carried over their lifetime. This does not account for survival rates in the first 2 weeks after they hatch. The first 2 weeks, I find, are the most critical for their survival. The availability of food the shrimplets can eat is a major factor in their survival. Of course, the environmental factors are also important like water parameters and temperature. I will let you do the math based on how many females you have. The males are not a factor. 1 males can fertilise several females. So the ratio of male to female in a tank should favour the female shrimps, if you want to maximise breeding rates.

Every time I have ever gone into a store to buy the test strips, the salesmen talk me out of it. It is almost like no one believes in the product - so what's the point of them even existing? Liquid test is certainly more accurate way to go.

I used to live in PA - but made the move down to Florida 13 years ago. BEST move I have ever made! Also new to the hobby - and the forum. Look forward to learning from yall.

Waiting for a rainy day, where I can put my feet up and relax to a novel (aka Crabby's mega update).

😀 All good bro. I'm still not finished reading that mega update.

Hey jayc! Just been lurking for a while, haven’t had anything to say - you and Simon cover pretty much everything. Might do a little update on the tanks later today.

Thank you both so much for all your help (and apologies for taking a while to get back to this site - had some health stuff come up but all is well now!) I got my tank light in (hygger 18W) and it looks SO much better. It seems that my tank is nearly cycled. Ammonia drops from 4ppm to 0ppm in close to 12 hours, but I'm waiting for the 2nd set of nitrifying bacteria to catch up. Nitrites haven't yet dropped below 2ppm. Nitrates are around 80ppm. My KH dropped to 0 a few days ago, and soon after that the PH started swinging, so I did a ~75% water change using remineralized RO a few days ago. KH and PH are back and stable, plants and algae are growing. Everything seems good and I can't wait for those nitrites to finally drop off so that I can add shrimp! I haven't done any topping off yet, but noted - if I do, I will use pure RO water to avoid GH creep. I'd like to add floating plants soon (especially interested in red root floaters.) Do those of you who use floating plants leave the lid on or off your tanks?

Get some of that gravel and pop it in a bucket or container. Put some conditioned tap water in and measure the initial parameters (GH, KH, pH, TDS). Give it a week or two and then measure again. Do the same with the rock. Easiest surefire way to see what the problem is. If it’s neither, then you’ve got some sleuthing to do.

Shrimp usually suffer from shock and stress when they are not given enough time to acclimate to their new home. That is why it is imperative that you do the Drip acclimation which is an important process for aquarists to learn, especially those who want to put shrimp in their tanks. It is considered the most straightforward and safest method of acclimating shrimps.

I do have gravel in the tank…nothing special just run of the mill stuff. I do have plants but do not fertilize there is one rock about 5x5 inches large driftwood Will do significant water change tomorrow thanks!!!

Hey all! Been a while. Here's a little update on my tanks (mostly for Simon and Jayc, who've seen them from the start). As a preface, I've been really, really busy this year. I've had little-to-no time for any of my hobbies, which is unfortunate because I've got a lot of them and love them all. As such I've barely touched my tanks - I water change every month or two, and feed once every 2-3 days. Sounds bad, I know, but most of my tanks have been doing really well, and I haven't noticed any changes from the mean. This week I've had a tiny break, after going on a holiday, and was able to clean up my tanks and restock one of them. I'm also lucky to have the time to write up a relatively comprehensive post. Obviously, as I'm sure is the same for anyone in this hobby, I could talk forever about my fish, but I'll try to keep it under control. I've got 5 tanks going at the moment, as well as two java moss tubs and a goldfish pond. For the tanks it's a freshwater 29 gallon, 3 freshwater 5 gallons on a vertical rack, and a saltwater 5 gallon. I'll run through them in order and talk about what's happened since I last talked about each tank. Please excuse the terrible photos throughout - I couldn't be fussed getting quality pictures of them all. 29 Gallon This tank was established almost 4 years ago, and is my oldest tank. It's gone through many phases of planting and scaping, but has featured the same staple fish throughout (those being the ones remaining). It has been dominated by lace fern, has featured huge crypts that touched the surface, has been filled 90% with java moss, and now has a more manageable & diverse jungle. This tank currently holds two male apistogramma nijsseni (Aegir, and Erik Aegirson), one male Calico Bristlenose (Mango), one Siamese Algae Eater, and eight Ember Tetras. My ember tetra school originally held 20 fish, and through the years I think I've only seen 3 bodies. One was yesterday, in the mouth of gutsy little Erik Aegirson. These fish are over 4 years old now, and are only supposed to live 2-3 years in captivity, so I'm calling this a success. I'll probably add to the school in a few months, once it gets down to 5 or 6. For now I'll let these old chaps swim together in peace. I originally had 3 calico bristlenoses, and actually an albino and a longfin regular, but sadly all but one have passed away. Honestly I only worked out the issue after the last death, maybe 9 months ago, which was that I was underfeeding. Bristlenoses definitely need intentional feeding, and I wasn't feeding heavily enough or with enough variety to sustain 5 adult bristlenoses. That being said, I did get two spawns out of my calicos, maybe 18 months ago? One spawn I left in the tank, and they all just disappeared within a couple weeks. So I pulled the next spawn, split the 60 fry into four 5 gallon tanks (dumb, I know, that was WAY overstocked). From the original 60 fry, I have a whopping... 1. Yup. That's the fish keeping hobby - failure with a cost. 15 died overnight, then the rest slowly got picked off by my bettas or just died (presumably from a lack of intentional food, which I'm only recognising in hindsight). Honestly, I just didn't have the knowledge or the correct facilities to raise them, and while the breeding was not intentional, I probably should've just handed the fry off to someone with the right tank. As for the apistos, Aegir's partner, Ran, passed away a month ago. She lived to a ripe old age of 4 (not bad for a girl who lived with males her whole life and spawned probably 8-10 times. She was a lovely girl, very well tempered, and a great mum. I sold most of her fry that grew large enough, only keeping a single pair for myself. The female of this pair actually spawned with her dad a couple times, and it made for a very entertaining situation. It felt like I was watching some B-grade drama. Ran didn't like this of course. I'm not sure what the cause was, but this female died maybe 6 months ago, leaving just Ran and the two males. The father and son now get along quite well; it's a nice relationship. The future of this tank will probably involve a new school of ember tetras, and eventually my 1 surviving calico BN fry will join Mango in this tank. I'm thinking of getting some black bar endlers for this tank to breed and sell, and perhaps eventually when Aegir passes I'll get a female nijsseni as a partner for young Erik. I'll continue to grow out the plants in this version of the scape, which I'm really enjoying. 5 Gallon (top of rack) This tank has just recently been revamped, and was restocked 5 days ago. It hasn't held fish since July last year, when my gorgeous betta Bear, along with 2 of my calico BN fry and a small colony of emerald moscow guppies, died. I was overseas for 3 weeks. My petsitter said she came in one day and they were just all dead. By the time I got back, the tank was an algae-filled mess. I'm ashamed to say I didn't even touch it for months, and only in December I worked up the courage to clean it out. It was dark for those 5 months, and most of the bodies degraded, allowing me to handle most of it with a gravel vac. I removed and washed the gravel, and changed over everything else in the scape. It's probably one of my favourite scapes now, and I've stocked it with a fish I've always adored - El Silverado endlers. I'm really glad I chose these; I've missed endlers so much. Going from the dozens I used to keep and sell, to having none for a couple years, it really left a hole in my heart. A little 2cm long, colourful and inquisitive hole. These little guys have so much personality. What with them being from Venezuela, I decided to give them hispanic names. We've got 'Ignacio' (or Nacho for short, from Jack Black's character in Nacho Libre), 'El Estepario Siberiano' (a big name for a tiny fish, taken from one of my favourite drummers), 'Frida' (named after the stern-looking famous artist) and 'Guadalupe', because it's just a great name for a fish. Following this line of thinking, I couldn't help myself from naming the largest Malaysian Trumpet Snail in the tank 'Inigo Montoya', in honour of the character from The Princess Bride. I'd like to imagine he's always looking at me, searching for vengeance, because chances are I probably killed his father (albeit accidentally, I'm sure). edit: I just noticed a couple fry in the tank already - I guess Frida was a tad pregnant. So happy with this! The future of this tank will probably just be as a species-only. I'm excited to breed endlers again, and I'll be raising the fry in the java moss tubs hopefully. I'm trying to avoid my old tendency of overstocking - I've got photos of a planted, healthy 5 gallon with 50 juvie endlers in it, and while it worked really well, it was a balance I'm not sure I can manufacture again. I'm really looking forward to enjoying these endlers though, and getting some fuller plant growth. This is a tank I can see myself keeping some shrimp in, too. If I see some well-priced and healthy cherries, I might just pop some in here. I miss having shrimp. 5 Gallon (middle of rack) I think I've finally found a sweet spot with this tank. I tried having it as an iwagumi style tank for 2 years. Something was never quite right, and the glossostigma would always get covered in algae and die, and the dwarf hairgrass I tried never grew. I probably gave this 2 or 3 shots? Spent too much money on tissue cultured plants, that's for sure. I bought some myriophyllum mattogrossense late last year, for my 29 gallon, and it did REALLY well. Probably my favourite plant now; it grows so easily, and looks fantastic. In months it's filled out the right back corner of my 29, so I tried it a few times in this middle 5 gallon. And after a few algae-covered failures, I've finally got it looking pretty good! The CPDs seem to like it. On that note, I have the tank stocked with 4 Celestial Pearl Danios (2m2f), and my one remaining calico bristlenose fry, who's a juvenile now and is putting on size. The CPDs are great; for whatever reason, despite what everyone says about them being shy, mine are super outgoing - lots of attitude, lots of displaying from the males. I've gotten eggs from them before and tried to raise the fry, but it's tough. I'll give it a go when I've got some free time again. Maybe next summer. . The future of this tank is hopefully one with very little algae and lots of nice plant growth. I'd like to get a nice aquascaped jungle going for the CPDs to nose around in. Ideally I'll get my hands on some floaters and if I do that I might just get some rocket killies. My original plan for this tank was CPDs, CBS and rocket killies, but until I find rocket killies for a good price it'll just be my CPDs. For some reason, rocket killies are really hard to find at my LFSs nowadays. Fingers crossed they pop up eventually. I miss those little guys. 5 Gallon (bottom of rack) This tank is currently empty. Aside from snails. It's a really sad story actually - last year, in July, I got 4 pseudomugil mellis, one of my dream fish. It was so exciting for me, and I was really happy to have them. I put them in this tank, and set it up as a riverscape. I was supposed to have 2 males and 2 females, but I'm honestly not sure if that's what I got - I know I had 2 males, but at least one of my 'females' looked more like a younger male. One of the males also looked unhealthy, but I only realised once I'd taken him home. He developed a spinal issue very quickly and died within a month. Then after another couple of months, one of my females just disappeared. I was totally stumped. But I thought I at least had a pair. After that though, my remaining female began to look more like a male, and after a couple of months of peace she (or maybe he) beat the male up, and he died. She (or he) was chill and happy after that, but like her sister, simply disappeared just a week ago. She was totally fine, very healthy when I left for a holiday two weeks ago, and when I got back she just... wasn't there. This is a total mystery to me. I've got no clue what happened, I'm stumped. Pretty devastated too. If I ever get the chance to keep these fish again, I think I'll try a 10 or 15 gallon, fully plant it out, and decorate around the tank with four-leaf clovers... or maybe just hang a rabbit's foot around the light. The future of this tank is hopefully brighter than it's past. I'm thinking I might try some other plants, see if I can get some cool native grasses or something - @Dave, let me know if you've got any suggestions for a 5 gallon with sand and root tabs. I might try some native shrimp in here, if I see any that are healthy, easy to get and well-priced. Despite a whole lot of talk on my part about trying natives, I've never actually done it. Other than that, the only thing I can see keeping in this tank would be endlers. I'm keeping my eye out for more wild types. 5 Gallon Rockpool Biotope Ladies and gents, the one you've all been waiting for. I talked about this idea I had in January last year, this idea of collecting stuff from a Victorian rockpool and making a tank out of it. Somehow, I never gave any update. I've got a massive post I had typed up in my notes app (I'll post that after I finish this), as well as a detailed write up on keeping Red Handed Shrimp in aquaria, and maybe I'll finish that and post it as an article sometime. It documents the entire thing. In short though - I collected 15 palaemon serenus (Red handed shrimp), 7 seastars, some seasnails and macroalgaes. Oh, and 4 adorable dwarf fully aquatic hermit crabs. There was practically no documentation on the keeping of anything I'd collected, so I went in blind. In short, the shrimp all died (aside from one which I had for a while before he passed - I think you could keep one just fine if you feed well, but they're very aggressive when kept in groups). The hermit crabs also all died. Those two things were crushing. I felt awful. I still feel kind of awful; how could you not? That said though, there were some good things. The seastars spawned, which was cool. I also had some new macroalgaes appear, as well as a limpet, a tiny anemone and some teeny tiny jellyfish! That was super cool. It's been a huge learning experience, and really fascinating. (Disclaimer - none of the images are current. Some organisms pictured are no longer present in the tank). The future of this tank is a lot more of my laidback aquariuming - I'm keeping this saltwater tank exactly like my freshwater tanks, and it looks pretty great. The seastars certainly aren't complaining. I don't even have to feed them, since they're algae eaters. I've really enjoyed this tank, and I'll probably have a go with one or two shrimp in the future. This tank is on my desk, so it'd be nice to have something that moves faster than glacial speed. Pond This'll be a short one. The pond has been a part of the property I'm living in since I've been here, and I care for it. There are 2 black adult goldfish, and 2 younger orange ones. A few juvies too. There are 2 kinds of lily, one of which has produced 21 flowers this year, and one lotus, which has produced 2 flowers this year. The goldfish spawned not last spring but the spring before, and hopefully they'll spawn again this spring. I feed them very occasionally - mostly they're eating mosquito larvae, bloodworms and other critters naturally in the pond. It's a really nice thing to have, and I'm very grateful for it. I know this isn't what you meant when you asked for an update @jayc, but I couldn't help myself - truth is, I haven't talked fish to anyone in a while and I had a lot of exciting things I wanted to talk about, to people who I know will be interested. Hopefully there are some lessons to be learnt in here for newer aquarists. I've had a lot of fun with these tanks though, and I'm looking forward to everything yet to come. Maybe next time I post on the shrimp keeper's forum, I'll actually be a shrimp keeper again. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go stare at Ignacio and El Estepario Siberiano as they try to flirt with the girls. Have a good one!