Rod's Shrimp

We have a few shrimp in a tank with a betta. He's normally pretty friendly and tolerant of his shrimp and snail roommates, but that's just this one fish, others are much more aggressive. Even so, his room mates were chosen to help keep his tank clean, and with the understanding that any baby shrimplets will almost certainly become snacks, if not the grown ones. until fairly recently the shrimp mostly hid and were never seen out in the open, just peeking out from behind a sponge filter. They've become more brave lately, but that may be short -lived, as the fish has become a little more curious about their area (the tight space under a cholla wood log and between the log and an ornament) where we tried to give the shrimp a space where he could not bother them....



 ...well, he's discovered that if he tries really hard he CAN fit in there. One of Bill's favorite activities is squeezing though tight spaces, like between the bamboo shoots and the glass, and between the p…

So I ended up scooping out the floating debris that should have been a layer of substrate on the bottom of the tank. I really wish I had kept the label so I know what to avoid for the future. Oh well. This morning I decided that I needed to do a background. I like the look of a plain black back wall to the tank and I never think of it to do it outside with a can of spray paint while the tank is still empty and dry.  There are lots of youtube videos telling you how to use masking tape and plastic to keep from painting the sides you dont want painted and what paint is best...
I will tell you a secret. As long as you can still reach the back of the tank you can paint it even with shrimp/fish in it. You use acrylic craft paint and a  cheap brush. I got both from a Dollar store and paid a whopping $2 total and it has done both my shrimp tanks with lots of paint left over and lots of life left in the brush. It hides the wires and hoses in the back and gives a nice neutral background. The …

The baby Blue Velvets are getting bigger ...and there are quite a few blue ones, so maybe Don wasn't the daddy, maybe the red/Rili/other odd colours are just random throwbacks to earlier genes in the breeding line, or maybe Don Cherry was the dad, and only some of them are red/other colours because Momma's genes are strong enough to breed mostly blues regardless of having a red dad... anyway, they are getting bigger, and there's another batch on the way any day now.

Look, you can see the eyes!



And.... there's a pregnant Crystal Red Shrimp in there now, so it's going to get crowded in the 10 gallon. ...So I've decided to start a 16 Gallon tall tank where I'll move the adult blues and the CRS in a few weeks. (because the adults are easier to net and move) and over time the blue babies too to keep all the blues in one tank separate from the not so blue Neocaridinas.

I had 3 small bags of different substrates that I had picked up from a fellow hobbyist who was …

I think this one is going to be a momma soon too!


You can't see it very easily because of her strong colouring, but it looks to me like she's got a belly full of eggs.

Yesterday someone asked me on Facebook "aren't Betta's aggressive toward shrimp?" after seeing the photo of Betta Ray Bill and one of the red shrimp in his tank.

I responded to that question with "You don't want to just stick a Betta and a shrimp colony into a tank together. But, every fish is different. Our Betta is very curious but friendly toward the shrimp and snails in his tank. He did chase the shrimp at first and will shepherd them away from the water surface at his feeding times. ( this is my food you stay down in the corner) the shrimp are getting braver now that we have made some changes to the landscaping to give them more places where he can't get too close. That said, we put cheap but full grown shrimp in there for a reason. If they ever have babies the fish will almost certainly eat them. The shrimp in his tank are there to help keep it clean and provide entertainment. The colony for breeding have a shrimp only tank."

Just hours later,…

It was a little disappointing that all the babies we had seen either hadn't any colour yet, or looked like cherry shrimp. Today we saw a few swimming around and at least one of them is blue! Yay! And Momma shrimp was out and about this evening, still doing well. hopefully this next group of babies will have more blues. Now, what you all probably came for, baby photos.
This one is the one from the store. (https://rodsshrimp.blogspot.ca/2017/06/new-neighbors-and-landscaping.html)