Has anyone seen this blue on black Bee variant?

[Dsetz 36]

I recently acquired a diverse colony of bees: red and black pintos, golden's, a blue morph. They are throwing some blacks with very dark blue lines. Is this a standardized variant anyone's seen? 

I have seen lines with whitish blue stripes but these are almost devoid of white. I'm intending to segregate them in hopes of establishing a breeding pool.

[Crabby 586]

They’re beautiful! Not sure if I’ve seen that variant before, looks similar to some dark blue bolts though. I’d definitely line breed them!

Edited March 20 by Crabby

[sdlTBfanUK 1,072]

Welcome to the forum!

Those are beautiful and I haven't seen ones with blue before. The thing I liked with a mixed caridina tank was you never know what will come next, and they are never boring in colour or markings.

Good luck with trying to get an established line and hopefully you will keep us informed along the way.

Simon

[Dsetz 36]

Thanks, I think they are very beautiful too.

Yeah the melting pot colony is knocking my socks off with possibilities. I am also seeing Blacks and Reds with yellow tails. It's slight, but worth chasing.

I'm going to start slow and get one or two other tanks up for those lines, but I'd like to get the golden out and split up the blacks and reds and fishbones/skunks/zebras eventually. 

[Dsetz 36]

Here's a pic of a yellow tail. It's more pronounced from below. I've noticed it on both black and red pintos. Gonna segregate these guys too. May try to bring in some Tangerines to see if they affect it.

Gosh I need like 10 breeder tanks now lol, thankfully I have a handful stowed away.

[Crabby 586]

9 hours ago, Dsetz said:

Yeah the melting pot colony is knocking my socks off with possibilities. I am also seeing Blacks and Reds with yellow tails. It's slight, but worth chasing.

I'm setting up a caridina tank soon... you're tempting me to do mischlings :D

That black with a yellow tail is INSANE! That is such a stunning variant! The red and yellows look great too, giving me some Flash vibes.

[Dsetz 36]

Yeah with the amount of morphs on the market to start with, I bet you could find some fantastic variants going the mischling route!

I'll have to try and get a photo of the yellow tails from above, it's not nearly as bright unfortunately, it kind of takes a yellow, white and golden together to tell they are separate hues.

[Dsetz 36]

Sadly, I believe the yellow is mostly a result of lighting. I got really excited when I saw a red shrimp with yellow stripes, then he turned slightly and the light changed and he was normal... In my observations it only occurs on the shrimp who have taken on golden color instead of white.

My hopes are this is evidence of localized shadow gene dominance. I am going to try breeding King Kong Yellows into this group in hopes my theory is correct. It took every bit of wisdom I had to not just order them last night with my breeder supplies, I don't want to chance introducing disease to my main colony.

Ordered supplies to setup three 10 gallons and a 20 long. They will all have Matten filter dividers, so I'll have 9 segregated enclosures. Once they are up and cycled I intend to get some more blue bolt, and yellow and red King Kongs to experiment with my theory about shadow genes.

[Dsetz 36]

Well, I've got all the supplies for my breeder tanks. Now just working on rearranging, get my RO machine fixed and it'll be hurry up and cycle. I don't have any heaters and don't want to buy any so hopefully seeding the new tanks with mulm and filter cleanings will speed things up significantly. Think I'm going to buy a bottle of bacteria too, and am overstocking the main tank with cholla and whatnot to transfer.

 

Question- Should I cycle with 50:50 tap:RO, or would straight tap be ok? My spring water is very base and hard. I've seen that my pH should stay above 7 while cycling. I'm wondering if I can't cycle with my spring water, ph 8+, I'm not sure about gh/kh(could/should test) but the waters usually 300+ tds from the well, and very iron rich. Ofc once cycled I'd change 90%+ water to hit the shrimp parameters. 

 

Before I leave, I found another couple of very fun morphs. They are red zebras with a uniform and complete black undertone that results in a maroon tone darker than Wine Reds. The one pictured has such fantastic stripes!

[sdlTBfanUK 1,072]

Beautiful shrimps you have there.

You can cycle with tap water and  then do 90% water change as you state once the cycle has finished. You are very very lucky  if you are having this sort of success using (even part) tap water? What PH are they living in at the moment and how long have they been in it?

Simon

[Dsetz 36]

Hey, thanks for the advice. I do need to find out more about the iron issue as I read they might be sensitive.

No I am not keeping these bees on tap water that would be beyond miraculous, neos don't do super well in my tap.

I bought this colony 2nd hand a few weeks back. It was a weird story of a breakup and a girlfriend ending up with the dudes shrimp for 6 months, on top fin flake and distilled top offs. The plant is densely planted, which I believe is the only reason they surthrived.

Before I got a test kit I topped off with distilled. They are a stable 6-6.5 ph, about 130 tds atm, 4 gh, 0kh and around 260 mS.  0amm/0nit, don't have a nitrate kit yet. The plants man, the plants. Lol.

[jayc 2,995]

20 hours ago, Dsetz said:

I don't have any heaters and don't want to buy any so hopefully seeding the new tanks with mulm and filter cleanings will speed things up significantly. Think I'm going to buy a bottle of bacteria too

Hmm that's not the right way of going about cycling a new tank.

Beneficial bacteria need a suitable environment to live and grow in:

- Temperature = 26-27 degC. If you don't have a heater to get the temps that high, it will take many extra weeks for the BB to grow. Not absolutely critical for a heater, but are you patient enough to wait. Is it warm where you live? According to weather.com, it's 17degC in Three Forks, that's certainly not going to speed cycling up even if you add mulm from another mature tank.

- Oxygen = so lots of water circulation and something to break the water surface like air stones and filter outlet splashing the water surface.

- Food = an ammonia source.

- pH = BB thrive in alkaline environments. So your tapwater, which is hard and above 7pH, is perfect for the cycling process. BB start slowing down at 6.5pH. Any lower like under 5pH and they start dying out. Don't waste RO water during cycling, you will need to change out the water completely after the cycle anyway. Once the cycle is complete and you detect 0ppm ammonia, change out all the water and add water that is adjusted to the livestock you are planning on keeping in that tank. 

 

[Dsetz 36]

I was hoping you'd weigh in jayc.

Yeah yeah ok I'll buy a heater. I'm going to cycle all the filters in one tank so that works.

Looked at my tap earlier, I quit wasting kh reagent after 15 drops. I read somewhere the bacteria can utilize kh as well, oddly enough, so super I guess. Definitely won't be wasting any media in the tanks until shrimp water goes in.

I've got some ammonia on hand I'm going to go add now.

Here is the super filter 9000 in action. "More filter". "That's not a filter, this is a filter". Sorry. Hehe

[Dsetz 36]

I finally succumbed to aquabid, ordered 11 black galaxy nanancys, a blood vomit plant and some syngonathus. The tiny plants are fascinating me. I'm thinking an aquascape that makes the shrimp look giant would be fun. Also thinking a shrimp zen garden could be entertaining.

[Dsetz 36]

Ok so this vendor had some hot plants, also shipping on Monday are a Red Xyris, 3 Eriocaulon Vietnam, and a Red Downoi.

I'm so excited to not look at java moss or whatever this stuff I have is. 

Need this other tank to cycle so I have somewhere to put all the moss and crypts that have overgrown this smaller tank. With the temp cranked up to 80 F, an added air stone and bottled bacteria every day I am seeing about .75 - 1 ppm ammonia conversion a day but it's not clearing it yet. Nitrites about .5ppm. Nitrate test arriving soon. I'll keep feeding it ammonia.

Got the RO machine fixed. My membranes are tired and producing around 30 tds, which is primarily kh I believe as it's coming in around 1 to 1.5 and about 0 gh. Honestly I dont think it would produce 0 kh even with new membranes given my near liquid rock water.

I am not seeing any reason not to run with it for the buffering capacity the kh offers. I'm frankly a little confused why Caridina culture leans towards 0 kh, especially given the proclivity of shrimp keeping in nano tanks that are most vulnerable to rapid acidification.

Long rant eh. I'll get pics up after I get the plants and make changes.

[Dsetz 36]

Ok ok ok. Disclaimer, shrimp are the most highly addictive substance known to man.

Got the nanancies and the plants and both are cuter than buttons! 

Making progress cycling the new filters but not quite there. A few more days and I can get this plant infestation out of this tank.

 

Nice blue genes to compliment mine on these 2.

 

Solidarity, or through the looking glass? Does the nanancy stay true to his brother or join with his new blue brethren? Lol.

Some classic blacks. One or two poor patterns but over all, nice bold healthy shrimp. 

 

The tank after a rework. Moss mountain in the back left and java fern? crypt? jungle on the right. 

 

The new darling plants! Clockwise from the left; 3 Eriocaulon vietnam, 1 Red Downoi, 3 (5!) Syngonanthus uapes, 1 Blood Vomit, and 1 red Xyris sp. 

I'm super pleased with these and could see making a repeat order to build my stock as some of these are pretty slow growing.

 

An update on the blue on black shrimp. As they age we see the blue zebra lines were the result of a metallic blue back stripe and the zebra stripes become white. Still a showstopper I think. And it appears someone beat me to blue zebras: https://www.vinshrimp.com/products/oe-blue-zebra-young-3-pcs

I'm going to see if I can't get some of those.

 

Anybody use Band? It's like an obscure chat room ebay. Fricking amazing sellers group on there for the USA. Tonight I placed bids on some gene shrimp: 3 boa shrimp and 6 good stardust males that are both heavy in Vin/Starfish genes

If I can get into both these lines of shrimp I'll chill the F out and just work on developing my lines and crosses. And avert sure and impending spousicide. I told her killing the shrimp after killing me would just be spiteful, cruel and foolish. 😅

Ok, see ya later.

[jayc 2,995]

Wow nice shrimp.

[Dsetz 36]

13 minutes ago, jayc said:

Wow nice shrimp.

Thanks! I hope to improve them. This breeder says he gets 1 good one out of 10. I'm an optimist so that seems alright. Hopefully the metallic will transfer.

[sdlTBfanUK 1,072]

Very nice, I like the tank layout and the shrimp are beautiful!

Simon

[Dsetz 36]

6 hours ago, sdlTBfanUK said:

Very nice, I like the tank layout and the shrimp are beautiful!

Simon

Thanks, I'm sure going to be happy to get the jungle out of there though. Sometimes I go days without seeing some shrimp. When I moved them I discovered a mesh of moss I hadn't seen and was being overgrown, I suspect there are more.

[Dsetz 36]

Welp I ended up ordering 3 boa juveniles, 3 boa culls, 6 stardust gene males and 2 extreme blue bolt. 

I really lucked out in that this breeder is super friendly, knowledgeable, experienced, and culls like it's fun. And knows/is local to the USA Vin importer. 

Pics next week!