Cheap Nano Shrimp Experiment

Hello all,
Some months ago I set up a small Nano fishtank as an experiment.We had a large unused glass flower vase and I had a surplus of Neocaridina heteropoda (Red Cherry Shrimp, RCS) and I was interested in how well they would live in an unfiltered, small container without much food.

 As it turns out they did excellent - they got almost no food and as a consequence the Shrimptank was kept crystal clear - no algae what so ever and the shrimps kept multiplying. And they did look nice on the table and was an interesting thing to observe while eating :-).

 They had a bit of Java Moss and an Anubias for company and to provide some oxygen for them.

Oh well, - if you happen to agree, disagree or be madly in love with me, please leave a comment or a tip :-). It really motivates all blogowners to keep blogging!

All the best,
Kasper

Red Cherry Shrimp dropping eggs (AKA RCS, Neocaridina heteropoda)

Hello all,
As mentioned in a previous post, any new Red Cherry Shrimp (RCS) breeder will go through the following stages:
First month - why doesn't my Shrimps breed? Do they hate me? Are they dying? What Can I DO!
Second month - Wuhuu, success! They breed and they love me. I'm the best Shrimp-farmer ever!
Third month - Hmm, that is quite a lot of shrimps. I wonder what I should do...
Fourth month - AARGH! Shrimps everywhere, how do I get rid of them???

But just before stage two arrives, a peculiar thing will often happen.
A shrimp female, new to the whole egg-laying experience, will often drop her eggs. Anything can cause this - but normally it is because something startles her, causing her to flee and leaving the eggs behind. The eggs will normally be a yellowish colour and look like this:

Red Cherry Shrimp eggs

There is really nothing you can do about this, apart from trying not to startle her (e.g. do not knock on the aquarium, suddenly plunge your hand into it etc). But the good thing is that should she drop her eggs she is much less likely to do so the next time. And once they start carrying eggs around, this means the baby shrimps will shortly arrive.

All the best,
Kasper

Easy way of catching shrimps II - free shrimp trap Mark II

Hello all,
I've already showed one simple type of trap that works well with catching shrimps (RCS), scuds and snails. Here is the designs for that one.
This is another type, even easier and perhaps cheaper. It works on the same principles, and the most difficult element in building one is to find a suitable stone :-). I prefer this one at the moment because it it is better at catching snails, and should a small curious fish get trapped (guppies are great at this) it is easier to liberate it.
Picture guide:

 Any type of plastic bottle is cut into two parts. A stone is put into the bottom part. The top is inserted into the bottom, tightly. And, presto, the trap is done.

 Put a few tasty morsels into the trap and within half an hour a bunch of shrimps, snails, and scuds will have colelcted inside it.

 This is after 45 minutes - at least twenty RCS shrimp, in addition to a few snails and scuds. That means it is feeding time for the larger fish :-).

All the best,
Kasper

Easy way of catching shrimps - free shrimp trap

Hello all,
As known to everyone who has ever kept Red Cherry Shrimps (RCS) or any of their cousins, the Shrimp-experience goes something like this:

First month - why doesn't my Shrimps breed? Do they hate me? Are they dying? What Can I DO!
Second month - Wuhuu, success! They breed and they love me. I'm the best Shrimp-farmer ever!
Third month - Hmm, that is quite a lot of shrimps. I wonder what I should do...
Fourth month - AARGH! Shrimps everywhere, how do I get rid of them???

True story, more or less :-).

Beautiful red cherry shrimp

In my experience, once the RCS have established themselves they breed like rats and need serious culling (i.e. the process of removing breeding animals from a group). Now I've both sold and donated a lot of shrimps to other fish-keepers and have now begun using them as a natural source of food for my larger fish. This is all fine and great, but catching the little buggers can be quite a challenge, and after ruining an aqua scape several times I decided to get sneaky!

The following is the first shrimp trap I made and it functions very well. I'll be back in a couple of days with the other, larger trap I constructed later.
Again the concept was to use what ever I had in the house and you can use anything similar to the ingredients I used.

Shrimp trap

 This is the trap: A small plastic container (cleaned, of course), with a small hole cut from the top. I siliconed a small stone to the bottom to get it to sink to the bottom and a few strings to be able to easily extract the container again.
When a bit of food is put inside the container and it is left alone the shrimp will enter the opening, but will (because, lets face it, they are stupid) be unable to get out again.

Full shrimp trap

 This is the trap after an hours submersion - at least fifty shrimps have fallen for my trap :-). And all the hungry fish were soon mightily pleased!


All the best,
Kasper

Dwarf Puffer tank - 5 gal nano tank

Hello all,
the last of the three nano tanks is devoted to the wonderful little dwarf puffer - Carinotetraodon travancoricus. This has got to be one of the most character-filled fish I've ever had the pleasure to observe. It does not swim - it floats :-).

The tank today

Details: 20 l Dennerle Nano Aquarium, small Dennerle filter and 11W lamp. No heating.
Sulawesi Black gravel with a few roots etc.


Site:

Inhabitants:
 Carinotetraodon travancoricus (Dwarf puffer):

 Hymenochirus boettgeri (African dwarf frog)

Turned out these little froggies are the perfect tank mates for dwarf puffers...

 Epiplatys annulatus

The tank also used to house a small group of Epiplatys annulatus, but I couldnt keep them alive for longer than half a year. Beautiful fish.

Older pictures:

All the best,
Tokasper

Cryptocoryne Country - 5 gal nano aquarium

Hello all,
Next to the Shrimpfarm nano aquarium is its twin, the Cryptocoryne Country. It has housed a lot of different fish, from Aphyosemion australe Killis to Tateurndina ocellicauda. Today there is a single Betta splendens swimming around in the tank (with several shrimps and snails as company, I do believe there's even a small Heterandria formosa surviving the hunting tendencies of the Betta.
Its a nice little planted Nano Aquarium, plenty of cover for the Betta, which seems very happy and produces a nest every week, although it has never seen a female.
I know Betta owners normally give their fishes names, but no name has yet appeared to suit the pretty Betta.

Details: 20 l Dennerle Nano Aquarium, small Dennerle filter and 11W lamp. No heating.
Black gravel with a few roots etc.
Site:

 The Blue Betta splendens:

Big, fat Betta - will eat any shrimp, insect or mosquito it can catch!

Pictures from the last years:

 

All the best,
tokasper

Shrimpfarm - 5 gal fish tank

Hello all,
I've been lucky enough to persuade my wife to let me have one of the windowsills in the living room. I began with one medium Nano aquarium (20l / 5 gal) but this soon become two and then three aquariums.
This is the oldest one and is now almost two years old in its current 'scape'.
Details: 20 l Dennerle Nano Aquarium, small Dennerle filter and 11W lamp. No heating.
Sulawesi Black gravel with a few roots etc.
Plants: Hydrocotyle leucocephala, Taxiphyllum spec., (and used to have 2x Cryptogryne wendtii). the grassy steppes or lawns in front are made by sowing Cladophora (a nice type of green algae) onto pieces of slate.
Inhabitants:
Boraras brigittae (down to five of the original ten)
Heterandria formosa (somewhere between eigth and fifteen)
Numerous Neocaridina heteropoda (RCS)
and various snails: Anatome helenas and Marisa cornuarietis.

 The threesome of aquariums :-):

 Various incarnations from the past two years:

Boraras brigittae

Boraras brigittae

Boraras brigittae

Neocaridina heteropoda, RCS

From back when I tried to combine the tank with an orchid - didn't work out too well. Maybe I'll describe the failures of that experiment sometime.

 All the best,
Tokasper