Just a couple of pics of our RCS

[Jenbenwren]

We've had a little Cherry bomb go off in our tank so I tried to get a few pics to share.

Edited May 30, 2014 by Jenbenwren

[ineke]

You have some nice Reds there. Congratulations

[Jenbenwren]

Thanks Ineke :-)

[smicko]

A few nice ones indeed good to see little shrimplets.

Cheers mick

[newbreed]

There are shrimplets playing everywhere in this tank! Great work Jen!

[Squiggle]

Awesome stuff, always smile when I see shrimplets, well done!

[Jenbenwren]

There's more shrimplets popping up everywhere! I can't believe how many there are and the females are becoming berried again so quickly! Shrimplets even survived in our com tank and the girls are getting their first saddles. Think I might have to start thinking about putting the lighter ones back in the com tank now the plants are growing again and the fish that were biting and/or eating the shrimp have died. Although one pale girl in the shrimp tank looks like she may be close to a sunkist color but not really sure.

[Shrimp Aqua]

Some nice reds there ,congrats well done.

[K9932]

Great photos and great colour! :)

[OzShrimp]

Got some good colour going on there, i think alot of people forget about the humble reds i know i do :)

[Jenbenwren]

Think I might have to start looking at moving some back to the com tank before they over run the tank. There's at least another 100 shrimplets on the back of the tank and amongst the plants plus a few juvies and adults. Hard part is deciding who stays and who goes. The darkest red ones will get to stay and there's 1 very pale male that will go and maybe the ones with a white band around them. I'm starting to think that the white band might be genetic, not environmental, as it seems to only affect the shrimp that came from one female that has the band and it doesn't affect their health/mortality in any way.

[fishmosy]

Do you have a pic of the shrimp with the band? I'd be interested to see them.

Great work on getting your shrimp breeding so well.

[Jenbenwren]

I'll take some pics later when the lights come on. Everything I've found about shrimp with the band has said its due to a lack of minerals and they normally die with 48 hours of the band appearing. But these girls are born with band, not all the shrimp born at around the same time have the band and they all seem healthy, breed & grow as well as the others, and so far there's been no RCS deaths since they were moved out of the fish tank and since rehoming the fish that liked to eat shrimp there's been no losses in the fish tank either.

[newbreed]

Look forward to seeing these banded ones too! Congrats Jen! Very happy cherries!

[andy-Eco-tank]

Your RCS are looking good.

This morning I got a delivery of 60 RCS can't wait to get home to get them in my tank.

Typical this day is just dragging out :(

[Jenbenwren]

Here's a few pics of some of the banded or ringed girls. They are a lighter color as well.

Edited June 26, 2014 by Jenbenwren

[Jenbenwren]

The last pic is some of the darker reds that are turning up

[newbreed]

They look as though they are ready to moult!

[Jenbenwren]

I first thought they were cracks, but they never go away and the shrimp keep growing. 3 of them have distinct faint markings on their belly and they've always had the rings. Hard to keep track of the molts now as they get gobbled up pretty quickly now, but as the young ones are still growing and not dying they'd have to be molting wouldn't they?

[fishmosy]

Interesting pattern, just cant really tell from the pics what it is making the pattern.

[Squiggle]

Looks very cool indeed, very well done!

[Jenbenwren]

As we have a fair few RCS now and they are giving our Mischys a hard time at tucker time, I thought it might be time to sell off a few of our Cherrys. For over a week, everytime I was shrimpwatching, I was trying to decide which Cherrys would have to go. But when it came time to advertise them I just couldn't bring myself to part with any of them. I looked across the room to the fish tank and thought of the perfect solution. Much to the other halfs disgust I told him, 'That's it, the fish are going. I need their tank for our Cherrys before they completely overrun the tank and the Mischys need their own space. I'm the one that looks after them all and I can't bring myself to part with any of our Cherrys but I can easily part with most of the fish. Also our Rasbora Maculattas need to be moved out of the CRS tank now that some of them are berried and I can't part with them either. They can go in with Cherrys when their tanks ready.'

The only exception to the fish in the fish tank though, was to keep our cranky aggresive male bristlenose Chompchomp. He's be kept in a 57 litre plastic tub with a heater and dual sponge filter for now.

So now I'm setting up our 80 cm fish tank as a low tech planted tank for our Cherrys, Chompchomp and our Rasbora Maculatas. I decided to go with ADA Amazonia for the substrate and was told it would cycle within a week. I got stuck into setting it up and planting it with the few surviving plants from the fish tank and what I could raid from the CRS/Mischy tank and filled it up. I saw some Rasbora Maculatas advertised and they were pretty cheap so I ordered 20 and organized to pick them up 2 days after the tank was due to have finished cycling. They are now in a breeder net in the RCS/Mischy tank waiting for their new tank to be ready and 2 of them have managed to escape into the tank so I hope they are still to small to eat shrimplets. The tanks been running for around 2 weeks now and what a mistake using ADA Amazonia has turned out to be. The water keeps turning a murky mud color from the ADA. I've been having to do nearly water changes every day, as well change the filter wool in the filter daily. The last 3 days I've added a triple dose of seachem clarity to the tank and syphoning all the crud off the bottom every day as well. Fingers crossed it clears up soon and our Cherrys can move into their new bigger home.