Rod's Shrimp

You may recall a few weeks ago we put a few ultra red cherry shrimp into the betta tank, and this was the result: They mostly hid behind the filter. This past week we moved "Don Cherry" the red cherry shrimp that was living with the blue velvet shrimp to Betta Ray Bill's tank with the other red shrimp. With his nonchalant attitude toward the fish he has encouraged the others to be a bit braver. We have also added more fern and a cholla wood log for them to hide near. The shrimp come out from behind the filters a lot more now.


Or at least sit on TOP of the filter sponges instead of hiding behind them.


Bill is a friendly neighbor. The shrimp are still not quite sure about him though. 

[UPDATE:  a couple more photos from today (June 22)]



Don and one of the Ultra Reds hanging out, out in the open.
Bonus: you can see one of the assassins in the second photo. :)

What a wonderful surprise this morning. Momma Shrimp has new eggs.

And here's a nice photo of one of the little ones from the first group. Definitely a Red Cherry Shrimp.

Saturday morning I found one of the Crystal Red Shrimp dead.  :(
It was the one with the most white, so by standard grading rules probably the one of "Highest grade" and therefore carrying the best genes for making higher grade babies, but I like the red crystal reds anyway. On the other hand we have seen the little guy from the Ultra Reds daily now since Friday. He has colour. Looks just like Don the Red Cherry but miniature. Anna also spotted one of Momma' s babies on Saturday. (even smaller and still clear) Little Ultra Red has been getting brave and spending a lot of time out in the open near the front of the tank.  Little Ultra Red on Saturday sitting on a fake plant. Looking just like Don's Mini-me.


Today we saw several of Momma's babies. :)
You can see one of the wee ones on top of each of the cubes. 
Size comparison. One of the Crystal Reds next to one of Momma's wee ones.
They seem to have a red-ish tint. I think Don's probably their dad.

Well I guess that we missed the birth, but momma shrimp is no longer carrying eggs.



No sign of the babies yet, but there are a LOT of hiding places in that tank for them. 

In other news, I picked up some snails today to add to each of the tanks. For decoration and variety in the shrimp tank, and to help control algae and provide a meal for the assassin snails in the Betta tank. I put one blue ramshorn and one Malaysian trumpet snail in each of the shrimp and Betta tanks. Remember, the Assassin Snails are also in the Betta tank.

 .... Well that didn't take long.

We put 4 shrimp into the betta tank, and for several days now we've barely seen them. They are too big to be eaten by Bill, but when they move he will chase them, so mostly we see one at a time, usually here:

hiding in the ridges of the sponge filter.

Living in a shrimp-only tank definitely seems to be the better life for these guys.

On Saturday I wanted to get something to feed the upcoming baby shrimp with, so we set out first to the health food store to see if we could find any pollen. Yes, apparently bee pollen is some kind of magical superfood, and every health food shop has it. I got a bag of 250g of pollen granules for $12.99. A small price to pay for such a large quantity of baby shrimp food.

Then it was off to Shrimp Fever to get some more specialized baby shrimp food. Upon the recommendation of  Mindy Haight of the Canadian Aquarium Shrimp Keepers, Breeders and Lovers
I picked up some Shirakura Baby Shrimp Food. As I predicted on the Facebook group, given that Crystal Red Shrimp of A/A+ grade were on sale for $3.25, I ended up picking up 6 of them to go into the shrimp tank with the remaining 6 Blue Velvet Shrimp, and Don the Red Cherry Shrimp. For those who are not yet familiar with shrimp grades, A is essentially the lowest grade, cheapest of the Crystal Red/Black Shrimp. It goes A, S, SS, SSS  and th…