They are starting to colour up nicely. 

Those berried girls have a ton of eggs, seems like they are carrying way more then CRS/CBS.

They have pretty much split into two colour types, the red and the brown-black. Thinking I might split them into two colonies by colour, and try to line breed them to get the brown and red types with stronger colours. Probably wait till after the shrimplets drop. Might give me enough time to convince the mrs I need another tank.

Lol, always helps to have a legitimate excuse to get more tanks!

 

They have some very nice colour, some of them look very green too.

Yeah these guys have a lot of potential. I'm really looking forward to what will happen once they are line bred.

Watching with interest.  I've kept these a couple of times and have seen them loose a lot of colour each time - ie buy from Dave @ Aquagreen and get some good solid brown/red individuals but over the course of 12 months I seem to end up wth mostly transparent with the larger ones mottled.  Currently adding more leaf litter and varying the diet to see if I can get some colour back. .. I dont know if the good coloured genetics dies out in my population, or the same individuals moult and become clear over time.

Interesting to hear. How are you keeping yours? What are your water parameters? What have you been feeding them up to this point?

The ones in this thread came from Nats Fish, who originally sourced them from another breeder. I suspect therefore that these will be pretty well acclimated to life in aquaria and hopefully hold their colour.

Realised I haven't posted the water parameters for this tank.

I've just been using my tap water - pH 8.13 medium hardness GH 80ppm.

Parameters after water change today was:

Temp. 27*C. I usually keep it at 25*C but it was a hot day today.

pH: 7.95

TDS: 140

GH: 80-100ppm

KH: 40ppm

Ammonia: 0

Nitrite: 0.1ppm

Nitrate: 5ppm

I have been dosing the tank with pinches of Bee Shrimp salt because the snails are growing quickly and are starting to produce young. So the demand for carbonates is pretty high. Had a couple of losses before I started dosing which I think were related to problems during moulting.

I think I will start mixing my tap water with a bit of RO to bring the pH down closer to 7.

Edited November 15, 201411 yr by fishmosy

Had a bunch of shrimplets drop last week, as well as some new snails appearing in the tank.

The shrimplets are tiny, much smaller than CRS. Nevertheless, they are growing rapidly. Hard to tell if they have much colour yet.

Looking great mate! Can't wait to see it full of shrimps.

Edited November 15, 201411 yr by Sprae

The snails are breeding too

I appear to have two types: Stenomelania cf. aspirans and Stenomelania denisonensis.

Stenomelania cf. aspirans is the large red one (pics in earlier posts). This was only recently described (paper below) as being found in Australia as it has a pretty restricted distribution in Northern Australia. Unfortunately these guys seem to produce by brooding and then releasing swimming veliger larvae. The adults get to around 80mm.

The other species Stenomelania denisonensis is the golden type. According to Glaubrecht, these are conchologically indistinguishable from Melanoides tuberculata or Malaysian Trumpet Snail - MTS. That is, you can't tell them apart by looking at their shells. I've got to agree because the babies look exactly like little MTS. The adults seem to like the high pH water and I've now seen four little ones cruising around.

Glaubrecht, M., Brinkmann, N., & Pöppe, J. (2009). Diversity and disparity ‘down under’: Systematics, biogeography and reproductive modes of the ‘marsupial’freshwater Thiaridae (Caenogastropoda, Cerithioidea) in Australia. Zoosystematics and Evolution, 85(2), 199-275.

Edited November 15, 201411 yr by fishmosy

The Chameleons (and snails) love kale

This and the blue-ish tiger pattern above are my favorites so far.

Edited November 15, 201411 yr by fishmosy

Interested in whether your Chameleon shrimp retain their colour Fishmossy.

 

This rather fun photo below of the shrimp and a Waterhouse snail competing for silverbeet (just like Kale - yes they love it!).  You can see a lot of transparent juveniles as well as the adults that have "faded" (lost that deep claret red colour).  Since this photo was taken I've been adding more leaf litter and varying their diet in an attempt to get more colour into them but it hasn't made any difference.  My "colony" had been in this tank for  ~6 months.  They persist and breed but are certainly not thriving for me... so its possible my water parameters are just not optimal.  The sandstone rocks make the ph ~7.5+ and I'm wondering if a more acidic environment might improve them.  I've been adding indian almond leaf as well as eucalypt and black wattle but the ph hasnt dropped.  2 dKH,  5 dGH, EC ~350-400 µS/cm

 

 

 

 

So far the colour has been holding well. The browns occasionally go to red, particularly after a water change, so I believe it is stress related.

I'm also trying to reduce the hardness and pH of the water - parameters listed in previous posts.

The juveniles are still small. The largest are approx. 7mm and have just started colouring up (light brown). I'm waiting until this gen reaches breeding size before splitting them into seperate lines just in case they dont colour up.

Interested in whether your Chameleon shrimp retain their colour Fishmossy.

 

This rather fun photo below of the shrimp and a Waterhouse snail competing for silverbeet (just like Kale - yes they love it!).  You can see a lot of transparent juveniles as well as the adults that have "faded" (lost that deep claret red colour).  Since this photo was taken I've been adding more leaf litter and varying their diet in an attempt to get more colour into them but it hasn't made any difference.  My "colony" had been in this tank for  ~6 months.  They persist and breed but are certainly not thriving for me... so its possible my water parameters are just not optimal.  The sandstone rocks make the ph ~7.5+ and I'm wondering if a more acidic environment might improve them.  I've been adding indian almond leaf as well as eucalypt and black wattle but the ph hasnt dropped.  2 dKH,  5 dGH, EC ~350-400 µS/cm

 

 

 

Hey Grubs, here is something you could try to boost colour in your shrimp. I added some IAL to my tank the other day. Without thinking, I dropped in 4 large leaves. A few hours later and the tank water was quite stained! I did a large water change and removed three of the leaves, but a bit of tannin remains. Anyway since then the shrimp have been very dark in colour.

I'm also wondering if your substrate is dark? It seems pretty light in your pic. That could cause the shrimp to go clear/pale.

Are the kale and silverbeet leaves blanched before adding, or just dropped straight in?

Blanched veg or leaves will just make it softer quicker for the shrimps to eat it.

Fresh leaves or veg will take a few days to soften if you don't blanch them.

So both ways are okay.

Great way to ensure there is food in the tank when you go on holidays.

Blanched leaves and veg can be eaten in the first 1-3 days, then the unblanched veg and leaves will start to soften after 3-4days.

I keep my kale leaves in the freezer. Sometimes I blanch them to thaw them out before they go in, other times I'm lazy and they go straight in. it doesnt seem to matter as both my chameleons and snails are straight onto it.

My CRS though like it blanched though, bloody spoilt brats.

I microwave until they sink... which normally means 1-2 mins which brings them to the boil and probably cooks half the nutrients out of them.  ...or I dry the leaves without blanching, and then just break off dried fragments and add to the tank - they float for a day or so and then sink in a softened state.

 

Lately I've been blanching stinging nettle leaves (also weeds the garden!) - the shrimp go nuts for them.

 

@fishmosy - substrate is a lot darker than it looks in the pic^^.  I have added small amounts of IAL, but not enough to stain the water (say 3cm sqare).  Might go nuts and add a whole leaf.  This should bring the pH down also...  a tea bag might help too!

Edited December 2, 201411 yr by Grubs

Yeah, see how you go. Shouldn't affect the pH too much if your water is well buffered (or hard) like mine is. Interested to see whether it works.

Time for an update.

 

My chameleons are doing well. Had some more breeding success, with some more shrimplets appearing in the last few days. The juveniles from when the adults first arrived and from the previous round of breeding are starting colour up, mostly reds and blues but a couple have the stripe down the back and some tiger patterning as well. I've found them to be pretty slow growing, they are around 15 -18 mm now. maybe I'm just impatient!

 

My typus in the tank with the chameleons.

 

 

 

 

 

You got 'em to breed, wicked, I've got a few Chameleons, real cool Shrimp, mine are brown with white stripes or pure black.