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In celebration of my zebras dropping another batch of shrimplets: First person to identify where the zebra (Caridina zebra) shrimplet is in this picture gets a prize from me. The fine print: As the prize, I have on offer either a Bucephalandra sp. "Kedagang" cutting OR as many riffle shrimp as you would like (within reason). Please note for members located in WA and TAS, there may be state rules preventing me from sending you plants and/or shrimp, but we will discuss options if a member from those states wins. Open to any of the other mods as well because only I know where the shrimp is. Sorry international members - this comp is open to Australian based members only. All you need to do is copy the pic above, use paint or another program to draw a circle around the shrimp and re-post the picture here in this thread. First person who correctly does so gets the prize.

Thanks for the reminder @buck. Ok update section 1. I have culled most of the second shrimplets from my second generation to hatch in this section. The 1 or 2 of the 6 berried females have started hatching shrimplets. Also bought my self another stud male i will miss my left kidney but my doctor told you can live with one. Ok hope you enjoy the pictures. my new stud, best by far. one of the best females, there is one or two better but they did want to pose. Contemplating getting a tank for them. you can see some of the new shrimplets. Happy BUCK!??!

you guys are blind.... so easy

I'm not sure exactly on numbers, guessing between 30 and 50. Its hard to count as they can hide under the rocks. I definitely have lost of a few of the originals and my survival rates for the juveniles have been low as I've had to physically move the tank a couple of times. I've finally got it settled in one position on my new rack so I'm going to concentrate on boosting the survival rates of the shrimplets.

Oh, so that's where shrimp crack is made.

Good afternoon my fellow Shrimp Keepers, I hope you are all having a great weekend, as promised the 2nd installment of the SKF interview. Today I have one of our own, Paul Minnet. He is a very well respected member of the shrimp keeping community and is a admin for a couple of the most popular shrimp related facebook groups in Australia and Overseas when he isn't to busy with his own business or his admin duties he is looking after his massive 21 sectioned RACK!!! SKF - Hi Paul can you please tell us a little about yourself? PM - I have had aquariums on and off most of my life have had at least one tank continuously now for over 25 years. In that time I have kept most types of fish. I discovered the joys of shrimp a few years ago while looking for an algae clean up crew like most of us started out with some reasonable red cherry and the rest is history. Question 1 - What is your weekly/monthly maintenance schedule? PM - I mostly do weekly Water changes 20% roughly on all tanks I clean up duckweed plants etc. every couple of weeks. clean filters every couple of months. Question 2 - What is your favorite additive/products? PM - I don’t really have a favourite additive I have tried a few different additives and booster products but generally feel there is no replacement for a healthy tank. Question 3 - What is your worst shrimp experience? PM - My worst experience is my recent disaster from rushing stocking the new rack and not allowing it time to establish and settle properly in the haste I caused too much instability and crashed the system and lost all my tb misch and tibee. Question 4 - What are the biggest myths in Shrimp Keeping? PM - The biggest myth I think is that shrimp require a small specific range of conditions to do well I have found this to be very untrue and that you can keep most shrimp in a wide range of conditions as long as the tank has a healthy biosphere. Question 5 - Unusual things that you use with your shrimps? PM - I feed dried anchovy fillets at times as well as dried shitake mushrooms which is probably a little odd. Question 6 - Can you give us tips on selective breeding? And how to improve the quality of our shrimps? PM - When selective breeding don’t always look for the best shrimp occasionally you can do better with the ugly duckling. ultimately but you are looking for desirable traits in the shrimp be it colour size vigour etc. Question 7 - What do you think will be the next big thing in shrimp? Will it come from crosses or line breeding pure species? PM - Shrimp genetics is still somewhat of a mystery I think there is a lot of interesting varieties being produced from taitibee lines. There is still a lot of room for new lines to come out of keeping pure lines in both cherry and bees still a few colours to be achieved. Question 8 - How do you mineralize and what WP do you aim for? PM - I use two mineral products primarily seachem equilibrium for gh and seachem reef builder for kh and ph I aim for a ball park range of 6.8-7.2 ph gh 3-5 kh 1-2 tds 160-190 using rain water. Question 9 - What food enhances the welling being of shrimps and increase shrimplets survival rates? PM - A varied diet of fresh foods like peas zucchini etc combined with a mic of commercial shrimp foods as well as things like rolled oats dried shitake mushroom etc. I find helpful to supplement there main food source from the tank environment. baby survival I think depends more on the tanks biosphere than it does on food you supply. Question 10 - How often do you cull? PM - I cull regularly picking out the rejects as you see them. I pick a grade point that is the minimum standard I want for the colony and reject everything that doesn’t meet that level. Question 11 - What is your funniest shrimp experience? PM - One of the more amusing moments would have been recently trying to take photos of the shrimp in the top tank of the rack I was standing on a bench seat with the camera and tripod setup on a second seat. I stepped back to focus for the pic the chair I was standing on tipped back nearly knocking me and the dslr camera and tripod onto the floor would of been very funny to watch but I wasn’t amused and haven’t tried it again since. I wanted say on behalf of SKF and its members, Thank you. Lastly Paul has also agreed to become a member of the admin on our facebook group "Shrimp Keepers Community".

Hi SKFers Just a headsup. yes these aquael unbreakable heaters DO look great and its wonderful they're not made of glass but of plastic instead. i decided to be a guineapig without muxh info out there on the net about their reliability or otherwise.. and so I've got them for most of my tanks. So they've all been running for an average duration of 3-5months i suppose. and now unfortunately I've had two fail recently with the same symptom :-( The power seems to constantly come off and on - (the led indicator keeps flashing) and the heater fails to actually heat the tank at all.. They haven't had to work very hard as my house stays very warm. I am disappointed!! i am sorry @newbreed -edit- oops i meant @neo2fx !! i did not spot the second failed aquael heater until tonight (this one was in the cull tank, issue could well have been going on for some time..) Anyway think I'll be avoiding this one from now on and stick with good ole fluval and eheim. I'm glad its spring now i can probably turn off the heaters soonish anyway and replace them in half a years time (i mostly keep cherries) I'd love to know if anyone else has much experience with these??? love n peace will

Here. Great game 'mosy. But it's sending me crossed eyed.

Section 3 I have sold most of the tibees & tatibees and tatibee mischlings. I want to concentrate on the pintos. I did realise how many shrimplets and juvies were hiding case it still seems like i have a lot. My red rili are also doing well. Will have to start culling some soon.

Ok update for section 2. My dreams of a tank full of Blue Bolts is coming true. So far every shrimplet born in this section is a BB. Oh yeah my chocolates are doing quite well too.

gw perps

haha but seriously this is my guess

Bingo! This one was a bit harder then last time!

Not it.

Zorba, I can't see your guess.

I used to breed them about 20 years ago. Hoping to breed these ones. They are 12+ months old so hopefully they'll pair up soon. Fingers crossed.

It might be even more entertaining to see the photos of what doesnt go to plan. :p

Not much I'm afraid. I did manage to move my sulky discus (no longer sulky and eating well) out from the hospital tank into one of the tanks on the rack. The plan is to fatten it up and re-introduce it back to the 4x2x2 once I get on top of the BGA issues there. Huge plans for the weekend. (1) Manually remove BGA in my 4x2x2 (a real pain). (2) Connect the chiller and canister to the shrimp tank on the rack. Currently it is running on sponge filters with some test cherries (black, red and yellow). I might chuck in some test mischlings too. (3) Move and clean out the hospital tank from the bottom tier so I can install lights, plumbing and sump for the rack. If I am super efficient and manage to get a leak test done, barring no leaks, hopefully I could get the whole system filled. Have I mention I am always quite optimistic. Not sure if I could get all this done in a weekend. Haha. Of course photos to follow if everything goes as planned. Waiting for you mate to DIY those LED chip so I can decide to swap to 5630 or LED chips! Get moving already would you!

If you have a HW unit with a copper tank inside, it normally will leach copper sulphate into the water as it is heated, although only minute amounts it is still enough to cause you problems, especially with shrimp.

hows the rack progressing dude!?

you can, well could of, if i didnt fk up and drill a hole in the wrong side xD used silicon to patch it so yea.. but im sure it would be fine still

IMO spend money on insulation, or spent money on electricity to heat/cool the room. I spent a lot more than I thought I would insulating mine (rockwool, silver foil, thermal break, air gaps, sealing tape, villaboard etc)... but now when its 42C outside my tanks are a cosy 27 max without additional cooling (fine for native shrimp). In winter (melbourne) it can get to -5 where I live - tank room hasnt been below 21 with heaters in 1/3 of the tanks. Insulation is one of those things that can be done on the cheap (2nd hand batts or ebay rejects) and IMO you can never have too much. For mine I get MASSIVE cost savings using a solar hot water heater controller ($100) to turn on a 20W exhaust fan that sucks in hot air from a glasshouse to heat the room. When the glasshouse is hotter than the tank room the fan comes on to suck in warm air until it hits the set temperature. If I didn't have the glasshouse already I'd be building a solar air heater (many plans on the net). Lots of insulation traps the heat overnight so the room may get to 27, and very rarely cool to 22. Water in the tanks varies less (24-25C).

So far I am having real problems finding any really useful information on this type of snail, they are not even as far as I can tell officially recorded as being in Rockhampton or the Fitzroy river. They are however recorded as being further west and I can only guess that they got to Rockhampton via our many floods. So far I have found that they have absolutely no interest in any prepared foods. In fact one of the snails "Bolt" who I deliberately dropped an algae wafer in front of, touched it with his antennae 3 times and each time pulled back away with a quick jerking motion like the wafer had hurt him, then changed direction and sulked by burying himself in the substrate. Where as the Ramshorn snails, Malaysian Trumpet Snails and pond snails all bee lined towards the algae wafer. The native shrimp, mainly Blackmore River Shrimp tend to wait until the snails have started destroying the algae wafers before coming and joining the living scrum of snails all eating the food. I will get some more nori sheets and see if the notopala snails show any interest in them, since I know the nerite snails loved eating the nori sheets. Another thing I have found is that the snails are very aware of any disturbances in the tank, even if you did not put your hand any where near them. One of the snails was munching its way along the front glass of the tank, and I needed to move something in the tank, but not actually near the snail. It reacted by pulling into its shell, but did not release off the glass. When I had finished in the tank it quickly resumed it nibbling across the glass. I am wondering if this quick reaction to something disturbing the water is what makes these snails doubly hard to find. Not only do they bury in the mud/sand/silt but when they detect a possible threat freeze and possibly dig to hide quite quickly. I have observed the snails bury themselves and it is pretty quick considering their size, its very similar to how an echidna will just melt into soil when threatened. Even with a known 7 snails in the tank, they are still incredibly hard to find within the tank. But they don't seem concerned by the tank lights and will blissfully roam about the tank, appearing and disappearing throughout the day.

My blue pearls

I know I'm a few hours early for Monday, but I have a busy day tomorrow and couldn't wait another week to post this photo! :) I *think* this is a shadow Taitibee (spot the uncontrolled breeding program)

WhooHooo best haul YET!!!!! In about 1 hr of scooping through weed, mud, sand in and around rocks and logs we found 4 ! Notopala snails. The other half even braved dipping his toes in the water and found one. These new 4 are much bigger than my existing 3 and so far I should be able to tell most of them apart, especially the biggest of the bunch, pictures to follow later.....

YAY Friday Oh wait, I'm working all weekend....

Happy Friday Some big fat mumma's hanging out :) :)

TGIF Everyone! Being good boys and girls by having their greens.

Sorry SD i forgot to put a pic today. Love you shrimp and pics. Brilliant! TGIF GUYS!!!

Its a rili cull but its blue lol

Thanks. I think they are called African Water Ferns that I bought at Perth Aquarium & Gallery Centre the other day.

A low quality photo of my Mosura JRB to share: Sorry for the poor quality. Too tired from work, and I was too lazy to setup the flash and tripod. (^_^")y

Found one of my Ruby Reds with the "Tigerschaufel" trait. By the way, really love the german name of the breastplate. "Tigerschaufel"