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I was one of the lucky people who set up a tank for our amazing native zebra shrimp recently, thanks to our forum hero Northboy who made some available. These are an amazing little shrimp that look very different to a CBS, despite the conflicting perception often voiced by those who haven't seen one yet. They have a reputation for being very difficult to keep going in captivity. Like anyone, I spent a great deal of time reading about the habitat and water parameters, previous experiences of those who have kept them and so on. Unfortunately there's little to read and no long-term success stories. You just have to hope for the best really. The tank was running for some time before I added the shrimp so had a healthy biofilm going and plenty of brown diatoms. I added some leaves from an outdoor container which had collected rainwater and autumn leaves over the last few months. I added a mixture of rainwater and tapwater which is pretty normal for me, both are processed through a carbon filter before reaching my tanks anyway. The tank has a thin layer, perhaps 3mm of fine white silica sand as a substrate and decaying leaves as the only real structure. I have one inert river rock in the tank, positioned to break the return from a HOB filter. Probably my least favorite style of filter yet I'm running 2 on this tank plus an air stone. The temperature is 22 +/- 1 degree C, pH essentially neutral, GH an KH undetectable, EC around 60uS (about 30ppm TDS). I have never felt any need to use RO water for any shrimp I keep, including Taiwan/Shadow Bees. However for these shrimp, it is just impossible to keep the TDS that low. I've already grabbed 20L of RO from a mate (thanks shrimply!) because the EC had gotten to around mid 70s (uS) and I felt that the shrimp were less happy then. I'll be buying an RO unit, the ability to remineralise with correct salts from virtually 0 will be a real advantage with these - as Fishmosy is already doing with his. The zebras are constantly picking away at the biofilm layer but do not seem to take any offered food. This is in contrast to what others have reported - snowflake, Boss Shrimp Crack, Mulberry leaves and Dandelion leaves have all been completely ignored in my tank. I can't explain this as yet - do they prefer biofilm and only accept other food when it's in short supply? Perhaps snails are taking the food in other tanks and actually nobody's zebras take prepared foods? There's surely other alternative explanations that haven't occurred to me yet. One thing is certain, mine are doing ok with just biofilm - the female in the pic above is clearly developing a saddle. In the shot of 2 shrimp above you can clearly see a hydra too, so it seems like they're doing ok without added food too. BTW I have been removing the leaves just before they really start to disintegrate to help keep the water clean. When the shrimp were sent down there was a couple of berried females as well as some small shrimp. These are growing well but the nice surprise was to find a new one the other day. I would say it's about a week or so old, definitely from one of the berried females and born in my tank: I don't know if there's more that made it - I saw this shrimp one day for about an hour and then it was gone. I perform a daily head count on the tank and while they're mostly out and I count to within 10% of the known population, there's plenty of places to hide in the leaves. They're also quite well camouflaged even on a plain white sand.

Recently I was lucky to get some specimens of an undescribed species of Australian native Caridina from "Northboy" Bob. Thanks Bob for the opportunity. I don't think many people are keeping these at this point but I hope that will change as they settle into captivity over the hopeful coming generations. Anyone with these shrimp is most welcome to post their pics or experiences here if they wish. This Malanda species is quite a heavily pigmented shrimp with a tendency for some individuals to have orange-red colours and others blue-greens. It seems that large females are at the blue end but I have a smaller, saddled individual that is currently orange so the difference seems not to be strictly sexual. Bob sent down a couple of berried females and from these I have juvies in the tank. The're all quite orange. Sorry for the poor quality, it's a tight crop and the best I could get at the time. Here's a couple more where you can see a bit of the bluish colour on the females. A hint of the pale bands on the abdominal segments are also visible in these and the first shot. It's quite a lovely species of shrimp with some nice potential to colour up much more.

Yeah, all the Bristlenose I have in this new tank were all in the same tank with all my Shrimp, they would all sit together and eat the same foods at the same time, Shrimp would climb all over them, they'd all sit together and just chill out, mind you, I had 3 adults that were around 5cm and a bunch of babies that were 1cm, so they all got a long fine no worries.

Time to post up some of the pictures from my recent trip to Cairns with Northboy aka Bob. Once again massive thanks to Bob and Linda for putting me up for the extended weekend. I flew into Cairns at around 8.15am and by 9am we were at our first location sampling some typus and longirostris. When we got there, we were quite worried that there might not be enough water (or shrimp). Our worries were not justified though. Some habitat shots The typus were found in their greatest numbers hanging onto the white roots of the surrounding trees that grew down into the water. And here it is Unfortunately I wasn't able to get good pictures of the variation in colour of these shrimp. We were also able to find lots of longirostris. Below is a small sample after about 15 mins of netting. And here is why you need to keep a lid on your buckets. Typus and longirostris are very good climbers! Also found this little guy. Further upstream Through the culvert was a moss wall And after grabbing some moss samples, we headed off to the next spot in Cairns. And the result of this trip - a shot of my typus in my tank at home today.

@kizshrimp I've been motivated by your posts to get them up so I'll be doing my best to get them up this weekend. The Malanda habitat will be of special interest to you.

Noice! Are the eggs big enough to hint at direct development in fresh water? Faaa Bob's been holding out on me.

Brilliant. Sensational photos. @kizshrimp. FWIW mine also shunned mulberry but are now eating them. Same goes for Hikari micro wafers - they ignored them for weeks and I had to siphon them out - now they cluster on them.and consume one overnight. ...guess I'm letting the side down with no pics... but they look like ^^ :D

Hey Kiz, beautiful photos and a great writeup. Best of luck with them, but by the sounds of your set-up you dont need it. I can absolutely confirm that my zebs are eating Boss Aquaria Snow and Benibachi kale pellets. I have seen them eating it and there aren't any snails in the tank. If I haven't already, I'll post pics of them eating it in my zeb thread. HOWEVER my zebs do not eat Benibachi red bee ambitious. I suspect it is too high in protein and the zebs prefer a more vegetable like diet. Also note I only feed every 2-3 days. It sounds like your shrimp have plenty of biofilm to graze on for the moment. This may change as their population numbers grow, so they may be inclined to eat prepared diets then.

@yeswaitnosorry I keep RCS with my bristlenose in a community tank and I have seen shrimp climb all over him and he doesn't care. I think though it probably depends on the bristlenose

Ah, 3cm is not really a fry. It makes sense that predation avoidance would be a reason for colour change in chameleons, particularly given they are not a large shrimp.