Quick hello

[ineke]

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.

[sdlTBfanUK]

That is a truly fabulous red assortment in that first photo, almost every red varient, and the blacks have great colour and markings.

You are extremely lucky to be able to keep shrimp outside, and a real bonus if you can sell some to a local shop! Are the bathtubs somewhere sheltered from the sun/heat? Do you collect rain water, or even get much rain there? Do you feed the outside shrimp?

Would love to see the blue shrimp and the betta if you get time.

[ineke]

Hi again,

thank you I really love my reds and worked a long time getting the line going. I only introduced a few outside genes along the way from BlueBolts aka Marcus Lim who was also a founding member of this forum.. my biggest problem -and a good one to have I guess - is deciding which ones to keep !!!

as to the bathtubs they are outside under a pergola and next to a fence to protect from wind. They are in shade but in the late afternoon they have about a 10cm wide  full length area of sun pass over the baths through a gap between the fence and the tin roof. This allows a nice growth of algae to grow on the sides. I must have the right amount of plants and moss as my water remains crystal clear. A small amount of rainwater does get into the baths but rarely enough that i need to take excess water out. 

The bathtubs i feed occasionally with a small amount of Snow -soybean husks- , some black worm pellets for protein and mulberry leaves . All my shrimp love their mulberry leaves.  I have tried my shrimp both in the tanks and outside with just about every leaf and vegetable mentioned on the forum with limited success but mulberry leaves get eaten down to the veins every time .

i will catch out some blue shrimp and take some pictures tomorrow- they are what we call Blue Diamond as they come from black shrimp so the blue is much darker. I will also show my betta. A lovely mauve and white dumbo boy who I have had for 18 months . He thrives on worms and mosquito larvae . he doesn’t seem to eat the shrimp as I am having to thin out the population regularly.

[ineke]

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 

Edited August 15 by ineke

[sdlTBfanUK]

That certainly is a beautiful Betta, my first betta looked very similar, that was my first ever tank and fish! I used to feed my beetas with daphnia and mosquito larvae, before I moved, I don't have a pond here. so unfortunately my new betta only gets 'bug bites' now, though he may be eating baby red cherry shrimp from his tank when I'm not looking - the numbers of shrimp have decreased but the tank os very densely planted (translation to reality - overgrown)? I see some mosquito larvae in your photo and remember watching my betta chasing them around, great to watch and means less mosquitoes around, so a double win?

Those shrimp do look black, but blue velvet can be virtually black so maybe that is what they are. I especially like the ones with the brown stripe along their back! 

I also used to collect dry leaves from outside for the shrimps, mainly oak but I thiink there were some mulberry occasionally? I used to have that floating plant you have as well but the roots grew so fast it was a weekly job trimming them so stopped using those when I moved. Is that in one of your outside tubs as I see some duckweed in there also? What is kept in there, I see a red cherry shrimp or two I think?

[jayc]

That Betta ! 😍

Love those fins !

[ineke]

The Betta is beautiful I really love his fins although the poor boy gets tired very quickly .he loves to rest on the fern .

I had another breeding pair a few years ago and not knowing what I was doing i kept all the fry . it turned into a nightmare -we counted 300 babies - I think I did a write up about them. i had them in an over size 30” tank -3 foot dimensions but only 30” in length. I bred brine shrimp for them and changed 1/2 their water every day. I spent half my day everyday with water changes and setting up the brine shrimp breeding containers. 

It was an epic journey and one I never tried again ! I didn’t know that most people cull they fry very early on. 

The blues are blue diamond not blue velvet. I had some very nice  ones but once they were left to breed by themselves the black ones are starting to over take the blue. 

The floating plants in the tank are frogbit . There are some duckweed in the ponds but I throw that away about once a week -it’s a pest weed and illegal in some states - I never seem to get rid of it completely .

the tubs are separated into the different colours as much as possible. 1 has mostly Reds -Bloody Mary from my original chocolate shrimp, then another tub has blue/blacks and the middle tub has my fancy tiger culls. i did try the yellows outside but for some reason they don’t like it outside so they live in the tank with theBetta.

a few of the Betta babies eating live worms. They were mostly Dumbo Plackats so the short fin variety. A beautiful assortment of colours

[ineke]

I just checked and my whole breeding Betta story is in the forum under Bettas. The pictures were unfortunately lost but at the end -on page 4 I think I managed to find more pictures to show off dad and the babies. It's worth a read if you like Bettas and are thinking of breeding them 

[sdlTBfanUK]

I havee been through your betta post, I must have been through it before as there was a post by me, but it was years ago. It was very interesting and a shame most of the photos have now gone.

Probably a similar time ass your thread I went to my local garden centre and they were doing away with the pet department (assume it was losing money) and clearing that out. I saw a 20L bare tank that had 3 betta which looked like females that they were going to discard as they were 'left over' so I said I would take the fish and the tank, and they agreed. I didn't really want another tank but decided I would put it next to the kitchen sink so I ccould watch the fish whilst I did the washing up. The 3 betta never appeared to get  on but I only ever saw them when in the kitchen. After a week or so suddenly I saw a lot of what I first thought were baby daphnia, but turned out to be around 100 baby betta, one of the 3 adults must have been a male (short fin so looked like a female)  and that would have explained the agression? Now what do I do, I had no idea what was involved in raising babies and anyway was involved in a large project at the house at that time. Ordering anything online would take days to arrive and set up and I didn't have the time to drive around and pick bits up from various places. I did order some micro worms as food from ebay, you feed the worms yeast, and they arrived a few days later. The baby numbers dropped each day (all in that tiny  20L tank still) but I did manage to give away the 3 adults and about 10 babies before shutting down that setup. So I have a bit of experience of what you went through, and why you wouldn't want to do it again.

I did have the frogbit for sometime, then tried the larger water lettuce, but they both grew (espcially roots could grow a foot in a week) way too quickly and then I got the duckweed, no idea how that got in there, that stuff is virtually impossible to get rid of, without starting afresh. When I moved I finally irradicated it as the tanks were closed down for moving.

The betta I have now is just white with long fins and tail (not dumbo), I told freinds not to get a white one for me, but it actually works so well with the dark tank and black background, so I can see him from across the room! I do suspect he eats the young shrimp though, he is often watching something on the bottom of the tank! I rarely see more than a couple of shrimp at a time and we haven't had any heat above late 20s here this year to have killed any?

[ineke]

It does take a lot of dedication to raise the baby betta . I do think the Betta eat the baby shrimp although I watch my boy and the shrimp are too fast for him. maybe it’s his very long fins. I notice he takes his time to zero in on the mosquito larvae plus the shrimp in his tank are a bit skittish -  in my other tanks the shrimp won’t even get out of my way when I’m cleaning their tank but the neos flee the minute I start cleaning- I only get their feeding dish out to to clean left over food or to clean their filters -the caridinas seem much quieter in general. 🙂