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Hello! I was wondering whether someone might be able to help me ID this shrimp, which I found near Lilydale Lake, just northeast of Melbourne. I usually only find the translucent glass shrimp, and the occasional red cherry shrimp that someone must have released from their aquarium. But on this evening I found a large night-green shrimp, which was 5-6cm long, much bigger than any of the female glass shrimp nearby. She was pretty majestic, so I just took a few pictures and left her be. But what is she??? Those are tea tree leaves below her.

Artoo-D2!

About a year ago I became infatuated with the Nymphea family, and since then have been on the lookout for new varieties I don't already have. Anyway, the story started a few weeks ago when I came across someone on Gumtree selling a tri-colour lotus, and as you can imagine I jumped at the chance as I hadn't ever grown it before. However, when the lotus arrived, it was a great deal smaller than the one I had bought (I had paid for the most mature plant he was selling and barely got a seedling), and in addition it was very badly damaged (and as some of you probably know, when a small lotus loses its leaves there is a great chance that if it has a very small bulb it won't re-shoot). Surveying the damages I decided that there would be no harm in potting it up, but soon after putting the lotus in my tank its remaining leaves seemed to melt away from the damages, and within no time it had only one small leaf left, and within an hour it lost that last leaf and I reluctantly decided to ask for a replacement lotus as I was very sure that it would not re-shoot given my experience with lotuses in the past. Needless to say the seller was not very nice, even resorting to name-calling and other abusive behaviour. As I had spent $35 on the lotus and postage I didn't particularly want to be left out of pocket that much (especially after his behaviour), so I opened a PayPal dispute and put all the information I had into my message to PayPal, certain I would win and this situation would soon be a thing of the past. Over the next week I waited while my $35 laid in the balance and the pot in my tank that contained the minuscule bulb seemed to be doing nothing. Yesterday morning I found that I had lost the dispute and I went to check up on my most recent flop of a purchase and weep that I had yet again fallen victim to PayPals pitiful claim resolution, but I instead found this... Karma!

I hope i dont get B10 to the prizes. Pretty crap but its all i got haha

A3 for me today :)

My M. parva sparring. Excuse the horrible quality.

Thanks for the kind words @jc12! Yep, I bought a ton from Dave, too. As for what I have, I now have Malay reds, average reds, red/greens, greens, and pinks (plus my tri-colours now). I'm thinking of getting a Nymphea belem from AGP soon, though. What do you have? That's the one downfall of Gumtree, isn't it? There's no review system like eBay. And I did say "tri-colours"! I was generously sold a huge tri-colour by a member of another forum at a heavily discounted price. I only just unpackaged and potted it up about an hour ago but it already looks great. I just need to untangle a few of the leaves.

Massive thanks @KeenShrimp!!! This little stunner is settling in well! Will keep you posted on its progress!! So very very cool!! Thank you!!!!!!!!!

Hi guys, I moved a few tank inhabitants around and have noticed something interesting: I moved OEBT mixed grades in with Pumpkin cherries thinking the colour combo would look awesome ( I have to say, it does ?) : some of my blonde tigers that are clear or that displayed a pale blue while in a blue tiger- only tank, have now turned light orange as they forage together in the tanks and there are more pumpkin cherries than there are tigers for now. The shrimp are very healthy, my parameters are are stable and exactly where I want them to be. Shrimp populations are quite small. This is quite similar to what I have noticed in my other tanks : my large DAS females turn a pale hue of the coloured shrimp they hang out with : one in my tiger tank is quite an impressively light blue colour for a native, another DAS that hangs out with orange rilis sometimes goes orange-ish. I suspect it might be the desire to camouflage themselves in the group from predators? I have large Otocinclus groups...just speculation here. Does anyone have this happening in their tanks? At this stage I am unsure of whether the blonde tigers are staying orange, or reverting back to blonde/ light blue throughout the day...

Yeah I've had a similar experience! My light blue and blonde OEBT change colour a lot. The light blues can be a sort of dark blue-brown one week and then a much lighter blue the other. Blondes will go from dark amber to a... blonder colour? haha. Water parameters not really changing, but ph is higher (about 7.5). If anything the colour changes seem to sync up with their mood. When they are hungry and out foraging they will go lighter than when they are chilling on the mangrove root which is their favourite spot.

I know that substrate colour can influence the colour of the Neocaradina group - when you use a light substrate the shrimp go paler possibly to blend in with the substrate and conversely if you use a darker substrate they become darker. However the Tigers have been surprising a lot of us by their ability to change colour from tank to tank. I think we have shown how Disciples Tigers have changed colour completely in several different buyers tanks, we think due to change in PH but now with your experience perhaps it is a camouflage effect to not stand out. They are a fascinating group of shrimp indeed!

I use blackworms and my wild caught altums love it so do the Otto's. I never fed to the shrimps, will try it out today. Thanks for the tip.

OzShrimp thanks for the advice will endeavour to have my posts reach ten by the end of today, it's is now "Crystal" clear thank you "Cherry" much.

F16

BOOOOOOM C4!

Ref the skinny looking otto, do you have a sponge filter, if the food level is down they may be chewing the sponge clean, eating pieces of the sponge as well that gets into their gut blocking them making it impossible to eat resulting starvation. I lost a batch of albino BNs fry just getting to a good size and noted the sponge filter was vey chewed up. They became thin and noted their stomachs were dark in colour (my guess afterwards was bits of sponge) causing a blockage. All my Catfish now have box filters in place replacing sponge filters, problem solved.

Thought I'd get in early "B4" everyone else!

Thanks for the +1 on avoidance. Taking on all advice! Thanks ?

We might have to make witty/funny comments a norm.

I can't recommend rainbowfish enough! There's a rainbowfish for every situation, I swear! You get ones that take brackish water, soft water, hard water, ones that get gigantic, ones that are tiny, ones that take the cold and ones that like it hot... and don't even get me started on the colour forms of the same species you can get!

@Cryptocorynus, I like your choice of plants...I love crypt balansae too. I also like crypt parva, echinodorus sp. and aponogeton crispus. Simple plants but IMO beautiful and not too demanding. I am keen to set up another plants only tank and have my first go at CO2 and try crinums and MLPs. For lotus, I currently have green tiger, green/red tiger, malay red tiger. red tiger, tri-colour and cardwell. Don't ask me for their scientific names. LOL.

Hahahaha still nice shots.

Hi @NoGi, To set up my camera for macro is a fuss involving a tripod. I was sitting with my phone yesterday, waiting for someone to pick up a loop like a wheel, but I was too late: here is a terrible quality, unimpressive photo of my evidence ?

I got the huge tri-colour from someone called emboli on AL. And you have a keen eye - it is, yes! Thanks @KeenShrimp! I can only hope, but I'm sure he'll pull through with flying colours!

I am so sorry @Cryptocorynus. I have also had terrible experiences on Gumtree. Hopefully that little guy is a trooper for you!?

I've had quite a bit of luck there, actually, but recently I've met a few unsavoury types, I admit. It's all a matter of luck, I guess. I don't want to go into too much detail about it, but I've recently been looking into Ech. "Deep Purple" since Jeffrey Belbin lost his a while ago and found someone on Gumtree selling what he called "purple swords". To put a long story short I inquired as to whether they were actually "Deep Purple" as to have him say to me, "All I know as a million years ago they were purchased at pisces as purple swords. How deep I wouldn't know!" and later "I never said they are deep purple as I mentioned pisces deep purple leaf structure doesn't look anything like my purple ones". However, after I told him about why I was inquiring (as they are now extremely rare) he then within hours created another ad advertising them as "Deep Purple". When I asked him on his new ad why now he knew they were "Deep Purple" he said, "I was always sure ... and I know where I purchased the from". These are the sorts of people you get in this hobby. - people willing to mislabel plants for monetary gain without any thought of what doing so might cause down the line (especially among rare plant collectors). It makes me sick!

As you said karma! Dont trust gumtree mate its one of the worlds largest platforms for fraudsters :)

I am sorry about your Gumtree and PayPal experience. Personally I prefer to buy livestock and plants through recommendations/forums. If from forums, I will check the seller's previous posts and post counts to judge how trustworthy he/she is. I am a huge fan of lotus too and have collected about 6 different varieties, although not all of them are growing healthily. I am still learning how to care for them well. My tri-colour lotus cost $10 and was bought from a member of another forum. His previous posts on the forum showed him selling them fairly regularly and seems trustworthy. I have had a tri-colour lotus melt completely and went dormant, and to sprung back to life after I did a rescape more than a year later, and it is now one of my strongest and healthiest growing plant. Hang in there. I am sure this little guy would grow up nicely for you! :) What lotus do you have? I have bought a number of different lotus from Aquagreen. Check them out when you get a chance. I am not affiliated to them in anyway. Sorry mods please remove if I am not allowed to name a non-sponsor.

Yes Taitibees can breed with CRS. It takes several generations to get interesting results but depending on the actual genetics of your Taitibees the results vary from breeder to breeder. Here are just a few I have bred using Taitibees with CRS, CBS and TB.

Lol yeah :P

I've been using some 30watt 6500K Landscape spotlights for two months. They seem to be growing my plants(and algae) pretty well, but I'm curious how they would compare to some LEDs made specifically for aquatic plants. Has anyone used these before?

I use a microfibre cloth when wiping my external glass.

My trick has always been to wipe it off using newspaper. Must admit to only using it on mineral build up though.

Thank you guys. @fishmosy : I am feeding it to DRNS and DAS.

%##$ &*(@) *&%* !@# (*~#)(!$%^& !#$(&*!%$~)~)!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! ❤️

Congrats @OzShrimp You have not won anything with this Pick Bwaaahahaha!

D10 thanks baz. Newbreed you da man cheers for the prizes

https://vimeo.com/165753666 Well this was intensely satisfying! Experimenting on how these things can be killed..... Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Made the 'mask' come out

There are still a few people breeding them. I have a good colony going. I think there is potential with these guys but I've yet to explore it. @waffle might have some interesting results soon ? Not much love for snowballs. Only real shrimp lovers appreciate them ?

I have a third turned off as it was making too much algae. These are 3W Cree LEDs, the reds are 3W Osram. All selected as they were the correct spectrum. I use a day/night controller which simulates sunrise to sunset. Each driver controls a third of the LEDs with one spare. Yeah it's running at 50% of its potential capacity.