Queensland Algae Shrimp - Caridina wilkinsi

[Proto]

There isn't a thread on them here and I'm wondering if anyone breeds them and what information they can provide to successful care. 

From what I can gather on the internet, they are capable of breeding in fresh water but aren't as good cleaners as say Darwin Algae Shrimp but beyond that information seems to be quite limited.

Anyone able to provide any further insights?

[fishmosy]

Shoot me a PM and I can email you the scientific papers that mention them.

Note you might find some more info looking for "Caridinides" wilkinsi, not "Caridina".

[Proto]

That may explain things a bit. I see them sold online in a couple places as caridina but more info comes up in Google With caridinides (along with a couple accounts of people breeding them for the last few years).

So I guess it's confirmed that the genus is cardinides and not caridinas then?

If so it may be safe to keep the two natives I've been trying to decide on together (the other being chameleons shrimp) without hybridising.

Edited November 11, 2014 by Proto

[fishmosy]

Based on a paper published by De Graves and Page this year, Caridinides is not a valid genus, so we should be calling them Caridina wilkinsi. Tim Page is the leading authority on Australian freshwater shrimp.

However, everything that will have been published prior to this year will have used Caridinides, including the original description in 1926.

Proto: I've emailed you those papers mate.

[Proto]

Thanks fishmosy. I feel more informed and the whole caridinides search has led me to be in contact with a few people who have kept and bred wilkinsi successfully so I've jump on board and decide to order a few and see how it goes.

[fishmosy]

Excellent. I'm really keen to see how you go, so be sure to post your setup here.

[Proto]

Well they'll be arriving today (hurrah) still on board with driver for delivery. Should be some pics later on.

[jayc]

interested in the pics

[NoGi]

+1 on the pics. If you need someone to take some macros for you *cough* *cough* 

[Proto]

No pics just yet, got a little side track acclimatising them and all that, then as soon as they went in the tank they hid.

 

1 was DOA (or rather, 1 was missing it's head entirely and the lower half of it's body remained all milky white)..cannibalism...

 

The rest were fine though (ordered 15 but got 23, 24 if you include the dead), have noticed two distinct colours (navy blue and a warm reddish brown...both are still mostly clear but the hues) and there's one that has a more yellow/green hue. There's orange eyes and black eyes and various slight patterns going on....so a lot of genetic variability (at least on the superficial level) to play with providing they live.

Should get pics up in the next day or two and may be a better representation since they may colour up a bit more when they settle in.

[Squiggle]

Wow dude, they sound amazing & I'm definitely keen to see some pics!

[Proto]

Totally not the best images (phone cam) and most of them are still hiding in awkward places (and most are small...there's 3 big ones in total which I assume is max size and the rest are about a third their size)

 

The full range of variety isn't shown in the pictures but you can see different eye colours and some very minor differences in pattern, probably won't notice much difference in colour though (ie the bluer ones are either hiding or changed colour)

It's still only been approx 24 hours though so who knows if they'll start being less shy in the coming days/weeks

[warren63]

Nice. Thanks for sharing

[Disciple]

Nice shrimp

 

Good luck with your breeding plans!

[Squiggle]

Fantastic dude, best of luck with these & make sure you keep us up to date!

[fishmosy]

Nicely done mate.

[Proto]

I've been observing them quite a bit the last few days and I honestly can't sex them (apart from the berried females obviously). Size doesn't appear to be an indicator, the berried females I have are all on the small side (around 1cm) while there are a lot of others from 1cm to 4cm in size (most are on the smaller side though), it's possible all the small ones are female just not all are berried but that seems unlikely. No saddles yet (or at least none that I've noticed). Makes the concept of line breeding a little more complicated but hopefully ways to sex them become obvious with more observation.

[Proto]

woo! Ok I secretly thought these guys had mostly died on me due to how elusive they had been but I suspect it may have been temperature related (today was a warm day, chillers aren't on because it wasn't that warm) normally my tanks are at 24 or 25 (because guppy endler hybrids are my usual fair) but the temp in the tanks seem to have climbed to 28 today and suddenly shrimp were visible all over the place in both of their tanks (I put 5 in one tank and the other 15+ in the main tank, safety net/survivability testing/so far glut doesn't seem to be a problem for them).

 

There's two distinct egg colourations (yellow and navy blue although no good pics of that lady, she's one of the more coloured and patterned shrimp but she was shadowed by some leaves)  and a female that appears to have dropped her eggs early (no shrimplets that I've seen) has resaddle (yellow green)

 

Again, not great pictures but it's the best I've got.

[fishmosy]

Looking good mate.

[Squiggle]

Fantastic stuff dude, well done!

[jayc]

Nice. They look like Darwin Algae Shrimp.

[northboy]

Hi All

 

I am butting in SORRY, but the QLD algae shrimp should be Caridina longirostrus and they look the same as the DAS and eat algae well.

 

The Wilkinsi come from slow heavy weeded creeks both in and out of the water and heavy soil base to the creeks to, they do eat algae but not as well, breeding them is not hard as they have large eggs and don't require lots of care. Most of the creeks that I see them in are dry at them moment so the recovery will be slow.

 

Longirostrus come from swift flowing creeks for the most part and graze rocks for algae and bio cover most of the time. These guys have small eggs but are breedable

 

Bob

 

Foot note, the size of the egg of the native shrimp make the difference in breeding, large egg= easy   small egg= hard

Edited December 30, 2014 by northboy

[Proto]

Just a quick update on this, no pics because they look the same.

So in the tank that originally only had 5 (ie the plant nursery for new plants/grow faster damnit with regular glut and ferts) that's a back up/survivability testing there's now at least 8, 2 of which are carrying eggs and 1 of which is saddled so at this point appear to be fairly hardy and breeding.  Mostly clear but two distinct colourations (clear with reddish/brown stripes and cream spotting being one and yellow hued bodies without any noticeable patterning being the other) so all signs seem to be good so far.  Don't noticed them as much in the other tank (that had the other 16ish) but it's far more heavily planted so unless they're up the top of plants or against the glass that's not surprising, can usually see 2 or 3 at any time.

[Proto]

Nice. They look like Darwin Algae Shrimp.

I'm starting to think some of them are, or at least the qld type (longistrus or however it's spelt...I'm on my phone) there's just two significant forms happening that I'm not convinced they are the same species.

On another note, the smaller of the two types. A few of them are the colour of coke with beige skunk and tiger striping so that should be interesting in a couple generations.

[northboy]

I have to put my 2 cents in again, you can not use colour to ID native shrimp, they do have a standardish colour pattern but it will change with stress and water conditions and where they come from. For ID it is rostrum/ nose, body, tail and head shape, roughly for ID.

 

When native shrimp are described they are preserved and depending on what they are preserved in they are all red or white, so colour dose not get a look in and is not used, as I have banged on about we use colour to grade and group our shrimp from OS, but with natives it is totally different, this is NOT a shot at you it is for every one to read, I am sending a email shortly to try and get line drawings to use as ID points and I might do black and white photos to put with it to help the point.

 

Where did they come from? they could be 2 types C. longirostrus and C. indistincta, if it is them the nose will tell you.

 

Bob