New Caledonia south (bis)

[Matuva]

Hi Damien,

sorry to hijack the title of your previous thread 

Though, this title is perfect for those pictures: 

I have set a tank with the water and soil of the creek, and this time it seems to work. Water is KH: 0, TDS : 30.

The one at the bottom is pregnant. This did happen in the tank , and I also have shrimplets. 

Sorry for quality of pictures, they are from a phone.

That being said, these critters leave me perplex: I caught them in the wild, but they really look like the Hue bee (aka Princess Bee)...

Edited February 6, 2017 by Matuva

[fishmosy]

Very cool shrimp mate. And well done on the breeding. 

Do you have the option of putting them under a microscope? If so, look for supra-orbital spines (see the article on Paratya / glass shrimp in the library). Chances are that these are one of the Paratya species native to New Caledonia. 

[Matuva]

Great suggestion fishmosy. I'll try to do that.

Great write up BTW ?

[fishmosy]

Thanks mate, I'm currently updating the article to include some recent info on hybridisation and taxonomy. 

[Damien]

Great to see Matuva! 
Interesting to see if the shrimplets will grow in your tank.

Hope we will succeed in breeding them.
My shrimplets don't survive in mine...

Thinking about rebuilding my entire tank. You'll have a lot of plants for your others aquariums :)

[Matuva]

Thanks Damien.

The first shrimplets continue growing ;) They are now 4/5 millimeters big, so I can identify them as the ones from the chocolate shrimps with a cream stripe on the back, the one on the left on 1st picture.

I have yet to see the black & white beauty eggs hatching. I'm very impatient about that.

At least they are still alive, and still berried

Damien, time to swap to water & soil from south?

[Matuva]

, I have new shrimplets

As the black & white beauties have no more eggs, I bet these are black & white shrimplets. Now I'm excited

[Damien]

Looking forward on how they'll grow in your aquarium.
Fantastic news :)

[fishmosy]

Good stuff mate

[Baccus]

Please Please Please More pictures.

They are amazing shrimp and I wish you the best of luck with them.

I am guessing that no matter the colouration/ patterns of the parents you will get varying colours and patterns in the offspring, the offspring may even be chameleon- like in not sticking to a set colour or pattern in the aquarium. I guess the only way to tell would be to set up LOTS of tanks with individual pairs, matching a set male with a set female and then seeing what offspring they throw. And from there selecting the most desirable offspring and pairing them up again as single pairs to see what they produce. I think it could go either of two ways, either the shrimplets will be carbon copies of their parents or more likely you will find even greater variations between the original pairs and future generations.

[Matuva]

Yes, I understand with what you say Baccus. I caught a 10th of new ones today, including some black tiger looking like. That's a thing I was wondering about: are all the different colors I find are just offspring's, or are they trully different?

Here are some pics of the new critters. Sorry for the poor quality, I really need to buy a better camera, rather than the one from my phone.
They are "reddish" for the moment, they will be black & white in 2 more days, after they settled in their new home and calm down.

This one has more white than the others

Edited February 25, 2017 by Matuva

[Baccus]

With the red and white/ clear bands they look almost like a cross between a rilli and a crystal.

Have you managed to catch any in the act of breeding (long shot I know with a planted tank) but it might be worth keeping an eye out to see if males of any particular colour/ pattern show any preference for females of similar colour/ pattern. That to me would be a clear indicator of the shrimp being the same species or at least close genetically. If however the males just mate with any available female my guess would be that they are all the same species and the varying colours/ patterns you are seeing is natural selection at work. Namely throw out a mix of colours into an environment and the surviving colour/ pattern gets to breed while the more conspicuous ones get predated on and effectively remove their colour/ pattern from the population with only the odd throw back individual cropping up time to time, taking the chance that conditions had changed and that colour/ pattern could now be viable.

[Matuva]

I have added a chiller on this tank and set the temperature at 22-23°C. I have also moved the 5 CRS and 3 white bees I have left in that tank, as it's parameters are the best for them. They become very active, instead of hidding like in the cherries tank.

As for the local ones, I believe there are different species. I have to re-order a book about those shrimps to narrow things. My last book was borrowed by a buddy who left to Canada and "forgot" to give my book back ?

[Matuva]

Aaaargh! Found 2 huge planarias in this tank today

I have dosed No Planaria, just hope it is safe for these local shrimps...

[Matuva]

Well, it seems No Planaria has done what it is made for. I saw a lot of planarias suffocating since the 1st day of treatment.

I have made the 30% water change after 72h, sadly, I found one CRS dead this morning

[jayc]

Do another small water change by doing a surface gravel vac.

[Matuva]

Around 10% or less?