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Exciting times in my shrimp room


ineke

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I haven't updated much on my shrimp room lately so thought it was time.

I have just had my lighting updated thanks to the sale of some of my culls and Eshrimp - I did some house sitting for him and his lovely wife, looking after their dogs and shrimp/fish room- I now have Aqua One plantgro LED lights. What a difference they make - I can now see my shrimp without having to use extra lighting and the moss should start growing much better too. So I have 3 x 3 foot lights per side of room.

My TB / Mischlings are breeding madly with babies everywhere but the TB percentage is quite low so I have removed heaps of what I think are males leaving only berried females , babies and my male Shadow Panda in that tank so he will be the father to all the babies hopefully improving my TB percentage. I should have done this a long time ago but somehow just never got around to it. My females are mostly F6/7 so I should get better percentage now.

I am in the process of putting new substrate in half the tanks possibly more depending on how far the new substrate stretches. I am using Elos instead of Benibachi in the hope that it doesn't buffer my tanks quite so low - I have had my tanks sitting around 5 to 5.5 even after taking a lot of substrate out .

I have finally cut back on the number of Cherry tanks and now only have 4 dedicated tanks - Black, Blue Velvet, Yellow and blue gene Red Rili- I won't keep any culls now although I will continue to cull heavily.

I have most of my tanks now setup for Crystal varieties , TB/ Mischling , Tibees and very soon thanks to BlueBolts some OEBT. Hopefully I will be able to start breeding some Pintos and more fancy Tibees - I just love Tibees- their colour and variety is so beautiful .

As I have plenty of tanks I am going to pick out berried females and have maternity/ grow out tanks so I will be definite about the females and then have the best males in tanks of their own so I can pick out who breeds with who- something I have been very slack about, basically just letting anyone breed with anyone.

So that is where I am at the moment - finally going to do selective breeding properly and about time too me thinks! Now I can see my shrimp properly I no longer have any excuse to be so layback.

Once I have finished redoing the tanks I will take some pictures - of the shrimp as well- to show the difference the lighting makes.

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Thanks for the update....awesome work. After months/years, the reward to shrimp keeping is in the selective process IMO.

Love to see some pics....

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BB with the new lights I have found several beautiful F2 Tibees with blue colouring. I am not sure of the sex yet but they will be used in my Tibee projects - and with the OEBT if they are female. It's great to be hit with a new wave of enthusiasm and direction :)

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I am using Elos instead of Benibachi in the hope that it doesn't buffer my tanks quite so low 

 

You're using Elos substrate? Elos Terra Black? or Brown?

 

And where did you get it?!!!

Tell!!!

 

Oh, and you know what we keep saying here... pics!! 

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I'm using Elos Terra Black. I don't know where you can get it as Eshrimp got it for me here in Adelaide. I'm amazed how it makes the water go crystal clear,it looks similar to Benibachi and has great buffering qualities but most of the writing is in Japanese so I don't know a great deal about it. Apparently stem plants love it but I mainly have mosses now. Eshrimp swears by it and his big Crystal colony is thriving, he also uses it in his planted Discus tank and that's pretty awesome too!. I know it is expensive as the bags have $100 on them and they are 9.5 kg bags. I got these as a thank you for house sitting so I am very lucky indeed.

I have had no problems with setting the tanks up and putting shrimp back into them within 24 hours. If I just siphoned the old stuff out I could put the Elos straight into the established tank but as I need to redo them soon any way I am emptying them and redoing them all. 

Photos to follow soon I promise -just waiting for hubbies phone as that takes better pictures than my DSLR.

my OEBT arrived today courtesy of BB (thank you Marcus they are beautiful

: LOVE : ) -what a gorgeous pair he has sent me , such a beautiful blue with orange devil eyes they are dripping as we speak. YES pictures very soon!

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Good to know Ineke.

 

I've heard of the benefits of Elos. Just never found them in Aus.

 

C'mon Eshrimp - spill the beans. 

 

I've not used Elos substrate, but I'm assuming it will be similar to Cal Labs' Black Earth Premium.

Would like to know it's lifespan as well before it looses it's nutrient and buffering capabilities.

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Awesome news Ineke! Sounds like the bug is biting harder now!

Look forward to the update pics, your setup was already outstanding, must be amazing now!

I admit my enthusiasm has spiked since I have been able to select breeders easier and feel like you have some control of the potential outcomes. Can't wait to see the bubs you create with those OEBT and Tibees! Watch this space!!

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JayC I believe Elos lasts approx 2 years- again any info I have is from Eshrimp , he has been using it for quite a while for his planted tanks.

Jamie I felt a bit like I was stagnating and not going anywhere but since coming back from my 7 week break and finding heaps of berried Mischlings and Tibees I feel re enthused. I have just caught approx 100 babies from my Mischling/ Tibee/ TB tank - I got to 70 when my son rang and then stopped counting. I have white Tibees , a beautiful fully black/ blue ??? Tibee or TBM not sure who the parents are and excitement plus I think I have my first Pintos. The pattern isn't fantastic but I'm pretty sure they are Pintos - I have tried taking pictures but they are still so small the camera can't focus on them. There are at least 4 - 2 Red and 2 black. I was looking at them and thought they were quite strange then realised what they were. They must be from my F 2 Tibee and my TB - can't wait to be able to see the pattern more clearly and get some photos up. I will need to read up on them and find out where I go from here to "fix" the pattern.

I have caught out 3 berried Tibees and put them in the OEBT tank - they can breed once with the Tiger plus I will know the babies are from the Tibees and hope I get some more Pinto types from this drop and by then I will know what the babies should be bred back to.

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Yes, Ineke!

Where are the photos?

 

I'm very jalous of your OEBT...they sound amazing! : OOO :

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I know I'm very slack with pictures - I wanted to wait until all the tanks are redone but I will get some taken later today. First I have a party to go to with little preschoolers YAY NOT! But maybe CAKE!

The OEBT are gorgeous they certainly are going to send me in another direction - my poor cherry colonies are getting less and less!

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I know Squiggs but you know me and pictures   : GRIMACE : I  have taken heaps of pictures today just have to troll through them to see if there are any good enough to put up

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I know Squiggs but you know me and pictures   : GRIMACE : I  have taken heaps of pictures today just have to troll through them to see if there are any good enough to put up

I'm sure whatever you post up will be awesome! :D

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Here are some pictures -I can't get a full room view so you don't get a real idea of the difference and the lights are just sitting on top of the tanks at the moment but Alan is going to hang them for me so they will be out of my way.

I have a few pictures of the ??? Pintos -the Reds came out to play but the Blacks are not obliging at the moment bu tthey do look the same. I am pretty sure these must be from the surprise dip Tibee BB did for me in his mongrel tank. Just not sure which one! Also a picture of an F3 Tibee from my TB and Tibee- a little black and white guy. The quality of the Pinto pictures are not great as the babies are still pretty small and I don't have a macro so just zoomed to get the patternDSC_0541_zps40db11f8.jpg

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I'm loving the tank with all the babies in - the patterns are interesting even though the babies are still quite tiny - the new lights allow me to get a better idea of what they are. I have quite a few white babies coming through-I have some whites from Ninja's breeding that have BB parantage - and some are showing a touch of blue others look to have a bit of black striping so probably Tibees babies so they will be very interesting too! There are heaps of babies all swimming around quite happily with no adults in that tank at all. I will just take out any that are really interesting as they mature and also any that I think are females for different breeding projects. there are a lot of Mischlings in there but unfortunately I don't now know their F number -Mums were F7/8 but I don't know if they are from TB, Mischling or Tibee fathers so may have lost some F factor in them. I'm not worried as now I have my 2 main males- the Shadow Panda and the OEBT in tanks with females only and will be able to keep track of the babies. My female OEBT molted yesterday and the male has been searching for her -well as he is dancing and she is hiding i take it she was the one that shed- it was definitely a tiger because the eye area shows orange! so maybe a berried Tiger soon too -fingers crossed

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Squiggs they are Pintos aren't they? I haven't really learnt a lot about them but going by BB's journey I'm pretty sure they are.

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I think they are on their way to being pintos, there's a bit more to it than just crossing bees & tigers, you have to get more of a semi striped pattern for a traditional pinto or a spotted head pattern for the spotted pintos. The pic below is some of Ol Gan's pintos from Germany, this should give you an idea of what a pinto shrimp should look like. :D

image_zps83d48b71.jpg

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yes i know they are very early in the process and that's what i meant by fixing the pattern. i need to find out now where to go so i dont lose what has been started.

i forgot to add a picture of my extreme black ?KK or ?Tibee. here is the little beastie very tiny and still looking a bit blue

2014-09-25171525_zpsc42d4672.jpg

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woohoo 2 more blue babies found not sure if they might be a bit smaller so from a different drop. I was just starting to pull my TB/Mischling/Tibee tank down -caught the adults and thought there were no babies left but one of the Tibees had I thought dropped her eggs but there were heaps of very tiny babies everywhere so lucky I checked before I started siphoning. I caught a few but they are so tiny I will have to leave them for a week or so to let them grow a bit. That means my redoing of tanks has stalled - only managed to do 4 but never mind plenty of time to get the other 6 done once the babies have grown a bit.

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Tanks are looking great Ineke and the results of your all your hard work are already showing in those AMAZING babys CONGRATS

The Elos importer is actually located here in SA about 1hr away from adelaide. I always buy it from a LFS on anzac highway since they most always keep stock of it for serius planted tank people and now shrimp people, but most stores here in Adelaide can order it in. Its not cheap but the main reason that i swear by it is that it gives me results in ALL my tanks both planted and shrimp.

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