Taiwan bee tank help.

[herrwibi]

Need some help 

I currently have a mix of taiwan bee/mischling tank but looking to start another tank of just pure taiwan bees.

I'm looking to add a few red wines/shadow pandas/blue bolt/King Kongs. 

Would there be any issues with this? As I know all the off spring will be 100% taiwan bee off spring but mixed .

What would be the best mix from the ones above to out in a tank . This project is to potentially sell some locally but also to strengthen the gene in the mischling tank.

[sdlTBfanUK]

It takes many generations of breeding to get a purity in a set line/pattern/colour, ie blue bolt or red wine, and those are you hope you have bought.

Mixing will produce a multitude of fantastic colour/patterns etc and makes it very interesting and colourful to look at. The genes of cross bred won't be known though so selling them on you will need to make that clear to purchsers as they may be buying one type and that will probably have babies of a different colour/pattern etc. You can see the result of my mixing here (note I bought some blue bolts, red wine and red ruby only but got this mix from just those),

I assume most breeder/sellers go to a lot of trouble to get a steady gene line that will produce shrimplets of the same as the adults, ie redwine that have red wine only shrimplets by keeping only the one type in a tank. You will be ending that and it is a mega job to then go back to that later so be sure you want to do it from the start.

I loved my mixed/assorted tank though!

[herrwibi]

5 hours ago, sdlTBfanUK said:

It takes many generations of breeding to get a purity in a set line/pattern/colour, ie blue bolt or red wine, and those are you hope you have bought.

Mixing will produce a multitude of fantastic colour/patterns etc and makes it very interesting and colourful to look at. The genes of cross bred won't be known though so selling them on you will need to make that clear to purchsers as they may be buying one type and that will probably have babies of a different colour/pattern etc. You can see the result of my mixing here (note I bought some blue bolts, red wine and red ruby only but got this mix from just those),

I assume most breeder/sellers go to a lot of trouble to get a steady gene line that will produce shrimplets of the same as the adults, ie redwine that have red wine only shrimplets by keeping only the one type in a tank. You will be ending that and it is a mega job to then go back to that later so be sure you want to do it from the start.

I loved my mixed/assorted tank though!

Selling would only to keep the population down thats all. I love my taiwan /mischling tank but there are too many crystal mischling if that makes sense.  How many tanks do you have and what size is your mixed taiwan bee tank?

[sdlTBfanUK]

I have 3 tanks at the moment, that Taiwan bee shrimp is a 35L (dennerle shallower type) and it has mosquito rasbora in it at the moment. The taiwan bee shrimp in the pictures got wiped out about a year later when the heater stuck on and cooked them all, I was gutted. I reset the tank to have another go but then covid came along so I stuck some fish in there until everything got back to normal with the postal/deliveries etc. Then about a year ago I ordered some shrimps but it didn't work for some reason I couldn't isolate at the time. I have just bought a new TDS meter and if that is right then the TDS readings I was getting from the old meter were way off (maybe that was why the shrimp didn't work?????). I shall just keep doing my usual weekly 2L water changes with pure RO for now until the TDS is right (down to 200 now) and then think about having another try with some shrimp, though a move is looming so I may wait until that is over first. The fish have done very well in that tank in the interim and better than having an empty tank! There was also a killifish but he has died (naturally) so just the rasboras for now.

The other tanks are 25L with a male Betta and a 40L with small tetra and red cherry shrimp.

[herrwibi]

4 hours ago, sdlTBfanUK said:

I have 3 tanks at the moment, that Taiwan bee shrimp is a 35L (dennerle shallower type) and it has mosquito rasbora in it at the moment. The taiwan bee shrimp in the pictures got wiped out about a year later when the heater stuck on and cooked them all, I was gutted. I reset the tank to have another go but then covid came along so I stuck some fish in there until everything got back to normal with the postal/deliveries etc. Then about a year ago I ordered some shrimps but it didn't work for some reason I couldn't isolate at the time. I have just bought a new TDS meter and if that is right then the TDS readings I was getting from the old meter were way off (maybe that was why the shrimp didn't work?????). I shall just keep doing my usual weekly 2L water changes with pure RO for now until the TDS is right (down to 200 now) and then think about having another try with some shrimp, though a move is looming so I may wait until that is over first. The fish have done very well in that tank in the interim and better than having an empty tank! There was also a killifish but he has died (naturally) so just the rasboras for now.

The other tanks are 25L with a male Betta and a 40L with small tetra and red cherry shrimp.

Tank looks amazing, sorry to hear about your shrimp. What shrimp will you be going for this time? Will it just be a mix again or will you focus on one?

[sdlTBfanUK]

I expect I will got a few blue bolts and some red wine/ruby, and possibly some black, I like the original Taiwan bee shrimps best! I would like to get back to the assortment as before. I may just get each type as an individual delivery though so I can be sure that everything is sorted now with the tank and water to enable them to survive in it. I can only hope the TDS being too high was the prior attempts issue, but until I have adjusted the water down to a better level of TDS and got some shrimps livinng in it (for at least a month) I won't really know?

Would love to see some pictures of your setup or shrimp if you have some handy!

[herrwibi]

9 hours ago, sdlTBfanUK said:

I expect I will got a few blue bolts and some red wine/ruby, and possibly some black, I like the original Taiwan bee shrimps best! I would like to get back to the assortment as before. I may just get each type as an individual delivery though so I can be sure that everything is sorted now with the tank and water to enable them to survive in it. I can only hope the TDS being too high was the prior attempts issue, but until I have adjusted the water down to a better level of TDS and got some shrimps livinng in it (for at least a month) I won't really know?

Would love to see some pictures of your setup or shrimp if you have some handy!

Going back to your mix of colours and patterns? its what i love about my taiwan/mischling apart from i have more crystal like shrimp than taiwan.

 

I've attached a few below . Excuse the mess of my crystal tank still deciding what to do on the right hand side. My favourite shrimp is the red wine with the one strip next to the bluebolt. ( i think its a red wine) Hopeful you can confirm. Couldn't seem to upload them into here so i've had to do external hope this is ok.

https://ibb.co/pWLGp2G

https://ibb.co/VpwhQsD

https://ibb.co/pvT098D

https://ibb.co/sJHMpkL

https://ibb.co/F08gr8x

https://ibb.co/jRKQKsq

Edited October 16, 2022 by herrwibi

[sdlTBfanUK]

Great photos, I especially like the bigger/longer tank. Having the smaller tank at least means you can remove the excess of crystals as the Taiwan bee shrimp grows.

Picture 2 has a red ruby (mostly red with a white patch on the back and tail) and at the base of the right stick is a red Mosura (mostly white with dark red band behind the head), both very pretty! The others, red wine, panda and blue bolt are also high quality and pretty shrimps. As of course are the crystal shrimp and it is good to see they are doing so well with all the varying sizes you have!

I think the photos may have been too high file size (4MB) to attach, can't remember what size the limit is.

I checked the parameters of my (TB tank with rasbora fish) tank yesterday and the GH (9) is way off for caridina shrimp so I will probably leave that tank with the fish until I move as then I can reset everything, won't need to move the water, probably change the substrate etc etc.

I have water lettuce, as it appears you do in your big tank? How do you keep its roots so tidy, I have to cut the weekly, but it never looks as good/tidy as yours. I am even thinking I may do away with it when I do redo the tank at this point, but yours looks perfect! I tried an alternative but as there is duckweed also in the tank (not planned but impossible to remove as the tank is now) that didn't work, but I would probably try that instead, assuming I can get it again?

[herrwibi]

Thank you, i would of never have known what half of these shrimp are . I know the standard taiwans but once you go into the realms of red ruby and red mosura i'm lost until now. 

Makes sense hopefully all goes to plan and you can get back to keep taiwan bees. The first batch i had i killed and that was due to inexperience but constant 10% water changes and keeping the TDS balanced with dripping it in( i never done this before until now) has helped. The big tank is 170l and i find the parameters don't really move.

I had water lettuce in the crystal tank but in the mixed its only been giant salvinia . I love how it looks and every week or two i have to ditch some due to the growth. If you want some let me know and i can ship you some. Excuse the water level in the big tank that was mid water change.  

[sdlTBfanUK]

That looks very nice, I will make a note of that so I can use that floating plant when I redo the taiwan bee tank. With the water lettuce I als have to discard some weekly as it grows so fast, but the most annoying bit is the roots grow so quickly that every week they reach the bottom so it is a real faff to keep trimming them. I won't want any at this stage though as if I put it in that tank it will probably get duckweed attached and then I will have the same problem when I put it in the newly set up tank - thanks for the kind offer/thought though! I'm pleased you managed to attach the photo! That giant Salvinia does look nicer than my water lettuce.

Shrimp aren't very messy, quite the opposite in fact, so there isn't the neccesity to do much maintenance to keep the water parameters stable. My tanks GH has probably risen as there are only fish in that tank for the passed couple of years, and I have only done 2L weekly water changes, which was what I was doing with the shrimps! The main thing here that causes TDS fluctuations is down to evaporation in the winter time when the tank water is warmer than the room/ambient temperature.

[herrwibi]

It's the reason why i got rid of it and just kept giant salvinia instead , easier to remove and it grows really well as you can see from the picture attached . In the crystal tank i did have water lettuce and giant salvinia but found the salvinia got trapped underneath it .

I've just ordered two condensation trays for my two other tanks to keep it down and help with that. If you dont mind what are the shrimp circled in the photo? I thought blue was a red wine/ yellow ruby red with two stripes ? don't know what the red is though?

[sdlTBfanUK]

Those circled shrimps,

blue circled  -  red wine shrimp and blue steel shrimp (not blue bolt).

red circled  -  red wine shrimp (just darker than the other, maybe because it is younger/smaller). In fact it is so dark it looks black, until you zoom in!

yellow circled  -  technically probably classed as a red wine still as it has the 2nd white band, but is really between red ruby and red wine. Red ruby only has the white spot on the back and white on the tail ends. 

You will occasionally get ones like the yellow circled one that aren't really one or other pattern/colour, and which in a purity tank might even be considered substandard or culls by some. To me the more variety the better and they are just as beautiful, and at least with caridina shrimp you won't get any boring ones, as happens with the neocaridina type when mixed. 

In the second picture, on the far left, is that a black crystal shrimp I see?