Sulawesi Shrimp Journal (Caridina Dennerli & Woltereckae) Sulawesi Tank #1

[Yadokari]

Similar to my crayfish (CPO) journal (http://www.aquariacentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=184482&highlight=crayfish+journal), I feel that there is not enough sufficient information about the Sulawesi Shrimp in American boards. I'm pretty sure there are a handful of people in the US who are breeding them decently fine now, they just refuse to share information. As frustrating as that is, I hope to open doors for people who are interested in Sulawesi Shrimp but are too afraid to go into them because of the lack of info that is being provided on the internet (or anywhere else for that matter). With that being said, this journal will be based on my Sulawesi tank #1. I say #1 because this is my first Sulawesi tank set-up and probably won't be my last because there's simply too many Sulawesi shrimp out there. I'm probably going to place 2 species per tank to save space and such. To my knowledge, they do not interbreed anyway.

Now this journal started in my local club forum, so each post will have dates. Please read through each post carefully when trying to read for information. I'm have little tolerance of stupid questions (Yes, stupid questions exist). If you still can't find the information you are looking for after going through my posts carefully, then feel free to ask.

Again, this is just something I am doing on the side to help people out. If I somehow stop updating, it's probably because I either have no time anymore or there's just no real new information for me to share. I will try my best to avoid posting useless posts that contain no new information in them. This journal is to TEACH people, not to show off my tank. I'd post this in the gallery section if I was just doing this to show off. There's a difference. Although I will admit, it does feel like a little bit of both.

Finally, without further ado, enjoy and I hope you all learn something through my experiences!

[Yadokari]

NOTE: These posts are copied and pasted from my original post, word for word. No editing. Take note of my mistakes as days go by.

05 Sep 2009 11:36 am

Ordered some sulawsi shrimp the other day and they finally came in yesterday
I ordered 20 Caridina Spogicola and 20 Cardinal Shrimp.
Cardinals came in fine, spongicola on the other hand is another story. Lost 12 Spongicolas right off the bat, very unfortunate but at least I still have 8. One of them came in berried too, so crossing my fingers!

I set this up the day before they came in, LOL! I kept procrastinating, telling myself I'll do it tomorrow. Well, by the time I finally got off my lazy ***, it was already the day before their arrival. It doesn't matter too much though, shrimp have very little bioload that it wouldn't matter. A quick seed = instant cycle for shrimp tanks. And as for "omigod, no bacteria for them to eatzzz" people, I used shirakura micro-powder to cover that. They start getting active and start picking a lot more when I add the powder in.

Right now, there are no plants in this tank, no lights or co2. I probably won't be adding co2, I kinda like it being plantless to be honest, but we'll see.

They've been in the tank for eight hours now (8 hours from this post's time). No deaths so far, even from the spongicola. So I'm crossing my fingers that they'll be okay for now... I've been reading and reading about how people keep getting their sulawesi shrimp killed. But I dunno, I'm kind of praying for some beginner's (in sulawesi shrimp) luck.


Current PH is like, 7.8-8.0 I think? I'm not even sure, LOL.
Their original water's ph was 7.4-7.5 so I think I'm okay with my current tank stats.
Temp at 80-82F
Kh and Gh, I have no clue, don't even ask. lol
TDS? Asking the wrong guy. I use dechlored tap water.

Substrate - Crushed Corals (Many thanks from Chris for this!) on the bottom and play sand (from home depot) on top. I have some crushed corals on the surface of the substrate too, I kinda stopped caring after I had to add more crushed corals into the tank. Didn't feel like digging up the sand to put the corals underneath. Instead, I just mixed it a bit and to be honest, it turned out pretty well. I like the contrast.

Filter - Elite Sponge Filter w/ an air pump rated for 40 gallons. I don't put it on full blast though, I hate the bubbly noise it makes...

Current Stock:
20 Caridina Dennerli (Cardinal Shrimp / White Spot Shrimp)
8 Caridina Woltereckae (Celebes Beauty / Harlequin Shrimp)
Some Golden Rabbit Snails and King Snails

The FTS isn't that spectacular. Took it in the morning and there's a glare. Plus, the water isn't the clearest thing in the world right now... lol

[Yadokari]

Question from fellow member (Sept 5, 2009) :
"Wow, it's so cool to see someone around here doing Sulawesi shrimp. I've been waiting so long to see a post here. What beautiful shrimp, where'd you get them from? How was purchasing / shipping them?

Have people started breeding them yet? How big are they? Gosh I have so many questions. Best of luck, it will be a cool thing to see people really figuring out how to breed them, so maybe we can get the price down a little and ensure their survival."

My Answer (Sept 6, 2009) :
"Ordered them from overseas, the shipment did damage to my harlequins. 50% died, I ordered 20, ended up with 10 with 2 that died a little after. Cardinals did fine though, there were a few deaths in the bag but they sent us plenty of extras that covered the deaths, plus a little bit more.

People HAVE started breeding the cardinal shrimp. Harlequins... not so much, but I do believe there are some people out there who have been able to achieve that. They're tiny, real tiny! Very slender in shape, it's really different from the neocaridina and caridina sp. most of us are used to.

Still no deaths today, so yay "

[Yadokari]

Posted: 09 Sep 2009 11:40 pm

More pics! Still no deaths ;-D

[Yadokari]

Posted: 09 Sep 2009 11:43 pm

More pics.

[Yadokari]

Question from member (Sept. 10, 2009):

"Congras!! They look very nice.

Is your water cloudy or just because of the light/camera?

I don't see much algae in your tank, or many plants. What do you feed them?"

My answer (Sept 10, 2009):

"Water is cloudy in the day 1 picture because it was set-up the night before and the sponge filter in there was only installed when I put the shrimp in. LOL! It's much clearer now, hahaha.
And you are right, not really many plants, if any, in there. I haven't given much thought of what plant I want in there yet. I'm trying to aim for something to imitate their natural habitat, which is largely based on rocks. I might actually not even plant this tank and just leave it as it is and have hornwort floating at the top to absorb nitrates. We'll see I'll update as things go along. "

---- on another post after --- (Sept. 10, 2009)
Furthermore, here's an update:
I found out that what I've been calling Caridina Spongicola isn't even Spongicola but rather Caridina Woltereckae. Distributors sell them under the name Spongicola. Woltereckae is the one you folks commonly see when you google Spongicola in google images. True spongicola isn't as colorful. The image on planet inverts is woltereckae.

Moreover, the scientific name for the cardinal shrimp is Caridina Dennerli. I'm going to start using scientific names now so my brain can absorb it and I can learn new species.

I found one dead cardinal this morning! Oh nooooo!! The rest seem to be doing fine, so I'm not too worried. It might be because of all the ruckus I was doing in the tank last night. Who knows. I also have this one Woltereckae shrimp that is all retarded. I don't think it molts properly as it tried to molt earlier this morning and it ended up on its side. I had to pull the shell off for it. At first I thought it was dead so I used my tweezers to pick it up but it suddenly jumped and I realized it was doing a retarded molt. So I had to pluck the old shell off. His/her head doesn't have large antennae as they should and his/her head is deformed a little. I got him this way already and he molted the same way, so uhm... I don't know, maybe he was a runt and somehow made it alive this long? Either way, he's weird looking and I do hope he is a survivor. Oddballs need love too!

[Yadokari]

Posted: 18 Sep 2009 12:28 am

They're slowly, very slowly, getting used to me viewing them now. They still don't come out much during the day and prefer to hide in between the rocks and in the shadow. But they don't run away as much any more when I come view them. Some of them still do, others just ignore me now. Which is a plus! They're finally getting used to me

The only time I can really view them all come out is night time. This is when they venture out of the shadows and cracks and feed. So I throw in a shirakura pellet at night. Sometimes, bloodworms, such as today. They seem to go for bloodworms a lot more than the algae pellet though. I wonder if they prefer meat over algae? Or maybe they just aren't used to getting algae in pellet form. Either way, they're eating and I'm happy.

No deaths still, so I'm happy. Furthermore, I recently started spotting the baby cardinal I got in the shipment! It's alive, growing and kicking So hard to get a macro shot of it though. It was not born in my tank. It just so happened to appear in the shipment bag and was the only baby cardinal in the bag. So I guess it hitchhiked and it wasn't born in there. Either way, I'm glad it's alive still. Because if there was something wrong in my water, I'm sure that one would've been the first to go.

Current tank parameters:
Ammonia - 0
Nitrite - 2
Nitrate - 0
ph - 8
kh/gh - ??
Temp - 80-84

Yes, nitrite is 2. I cycled the tank with sulawesi shrimp and snails experienced only 1 harlequin death (from shipping) and 1 cardinal death (from tampering with the tank too much). It had ammonia last week but it's gone now and has been sitting in nitrite for a while now. They don't seem to care though, hahahaha. Nitrate is being maintained at zero by my hornwort inside a breeder box.

Whoever said sulawesi shrimp were fragile?

[Yadokari]

Posted: 21 Sep 2009 09:15 am

Ran some parameter tests this morning and the tank is now FULLY cycled.

I am proud to say that I cycled my tank with sulawesi shrimp and snails. lol!


Furthermore, I spotted TWO small cardinal shrimp. I don't think they were born in my tank but to my knowledge, I thought I only had one baby from my batch of shrimp. I guess there was another that I overlooked. Oh well, not complaining. More baby surprises the better! They're all growing up nicely though. Some people say they grow slower than our usual dwarf shrimp but I don't think so. Seems pretty decently paced to me.

[Yadokari]

Posted: 23 Sep 2009 10:01 pm

Added some very small spixi snails into the tank to eradicate my hydra problem. I think the hydra hitchhiked from the hornwort I added in the tank.

[Yadokari]

Posted: 25 Sep 2009 01:41 am

More pics.

[Yadokari]

Posted: 27 Sep 2009 08:51 pm

Good news!!!

Found my first pregnant cardinal shrimp in my tank! She was hiding in the back and I noticed that her abdomen was a little darker than it should be. She was also trying to hide the fact that she was pregnant by having herself face towards me and not show me her entire body (frontal view). But being a peeping tom that I am (not really), I was able to snap some pictures of her!

Today will be marked as DAY 1 of gestation period. Let the countdown begin!

FYI. Only one pregnant cardinal shrimp to my knowledge. The pictures below show the same shrimp. The reason for their lack of color is because when I turn off lights for a period of time, they lose their colors temporarily. Some turn this faded pink/red color, others turn a very dark blue, others a light blue. Not sure what triggers the blue and red coloration but this is just how it goes.

Water Parameters that the shrimp got berried in are:

Ph - 8.0

Ammonia - 0

Nitrite - 0

Nitrate - 0

Kh/Gh - ?? (I don't test)

Temperature (F) - 80-84



Food:

Shirakura Algae Pellets 'Special'

Shirakura Micro-powder

Frozen Bloodworms

[Yadokari]

And... that is it. We're in the present now, no new updates. So future posts will be the date of my post, unless stated otherwise.

[svaha]

Ok .I need to go get a bib on :drool: ,absolutely beautiful shrimp.I want some .

More pics please.




:iagree:

[Yadokari]

Ok .I need to go get a bib on :drool: ,absolutely beautiful shrimp.I want some .

More pics please.




:iagree:


I'll try to get some tonight, when I am back home. Perhaps I'll attempt to snap some shots of what they look like when they're dark blue and light blue. It's hard to get them in that state because first off, the lights need to have been off for a while. Second, most of the time, many of them scramble back into the shadows when I turn the lights on so I have a small time frame of trying to snap a shot. And then to top it all off, I have to wait for them to hold still a bit to take a macro shot.
So... I'll try later :) No promises though! But I definitely will have an image of them being blue, eventually, if not tonight...

Comments about this journal is always welcomed. What do you want to see/learn about? Feel free to make a request so I can make observations and/or take pics for you. Plus, I get an idea of what other people are looking for in terms of finding out more info on husbandry.

[saram521]

First off, thank you for making the effort to create a detailed account of your experiences with these wonderful shrimp! I know I'll be getting some of these exact shrimp some day in the future, so it's nice to get thorough info on their husbandry. I do have a request, though. Could you test for gh/kh? I have heard several times that sulawesi critters need water with a high ph and low gh/kh. Just wondering if you've unknowingly met that odd combination.

[Yadokari]

First off, thank you for making the effort to create a detailed account of your experiences with these wonderful shrimp! I know I'll be getting some of these exact shrimp some day in the future, so it's nice to get thorough info on their husbandry. I do have a request, though. Could you test for gh/kh? I have heard several times that sulawesi critters need water with a high ph and low gh/kh. Just wondering if you've unknowingly met that odd combination.

I don't have test kits to test those and I'm too cheap to do that right now. But if anyone wants to send me a test kit... :evil_lol:
I'll see what I can do about that though. Hopefully a friend has one to borrow or something.

[Death Pony]

Beautiful little shrimp!

[feiyang]

I don't have test kits to test those and I'm too cheap to do that right now. But if anyone wants to send me a test kit... :evil_lol:
I'll see what I can do about that though. Hopefully a friend has one to borrow or something.

I have a GH/KH test kit I can lend to you, but they have been 2-3 years, not sure if they are still accurate. If you think it is ok, just pm me. You know who I am, in Milpitas. :)

[mmm_unit]

great thread! i especially enjoyed your cpo one as well. do you have any other threads or a list of your other threads? your descriptions and pictures are fantastic btw.

thanks for doing us all a favor.

[austinpetemo]

im stealing your idea of this thread for my future assassin snails

[austinpetemo]

oh and what size tank is this? you might have wrote it but idk....

[feiyang]

oh and what size tank is this? you might have wrote it but idk....

20 gallon long.

[Yadokari]

im stealing your idea of this thread for my future assassin snails


http://www.aquariacentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=192938
pretty much covers assassins. Although I guess it wouldn't hurt to have more info on them. I would recommend making a thread/journal about something that has very little info on though. Perhaps tylos? I'd do tylos but to be honest, I don't find snails anywhere near as interesting as shrimp/crays so I don't really want to bother with getting data from them.




great thread! i especially enjoyed your cpo one as well. do you have any other threads or a list of your other threads? your descriptions and pictures are fantastic btw.

thanks for doing us all a favor.

CPO and Sulawesi (this one) journals are the only ones I have. I only made these threads because I feel that there's not enough sufficient information out there for us English speakers / American boards. Furthermore, they're gaining popularity in the hobby and with its popularity rising and information not really rising along with it, it seems a little strange to me that people aren't sharing their records/data about them. Perhaps they all died too early to record anything? :p: All jokes aside, I'm doing these types of journals only for things that have little detailed info on them. It wouldn't make sense for me to make the 100th "Red Cherry Shrimp" journal or another "Crystal Red Shrimp" journal. You catch my drift, yes?
I'm glad you enjoy them though! Happy to hear :)

[blue2fyre]

This is very informative. Thank you for sharing your experiences. I have wanted some Cardinal Shrimp ever since I first saw pictures of them but my inexperience and lack of funding has kept me from getting any. Now I have some cherry shrimp and I've been working on the basics with keeping shrimp. I'm curious to see how your shrimp do as time goes on. What I hear most often is Sulawesi shrimp need perfect water conditions (Ph, temp, Kh/Gh) in order to survive. Do you have much fluctuation in Ph and Temp? I keep hearing these guys are fragile but so far you seem to be having success. I hope all continues to go well!

[Yadokari]

This is very informative. Thank you for sharing your experiences. I have wanted some Cardinal Shrimp ever since I first saw pictures of them but my inexperience and lack of funding has kept me from getting any. Now I have some cherry shrimp and I've been working on the basics with keeping shrimp. I'm curious to see how your shrimp do as time goes on. What I hear most often is Sulawesi shrimp need perfect water conditions (Ph, temp, Kh/Gh) in order to survive. Do you have much fluctuation in Ph and Temp? I keep hearing these guys are fragile but so far you seem to be having success. I hope all continues to go well!

I too, prior to owning some myself, have read that they're very fragile and require pristine and perfect water to survive. I wasn't sure it these were facts or just overly careful hobbyists who baby their shrimp simply because they are expensive specimens. And yes much as people don't want to admit how OVERKILL they are sometimes in terms of care for their pets, it does happen very often. By overkill, I mean people who go the extra mile plus 10 more, and that extra 10 miles has negligible effects to their pet, sometimes it's even damaging because they're not allowing nature to take its course!
Right now, I do not believe that the Sulawesi shrimp are as demanding as people claim them to be. I will still classify them as an expert level shrimp but certainly not something that dies if their PH drops by .2 or when temperature goes down to 78 when it was 82 degrees 24 hours ago.

I don't do water changes in this tank, only top offs. I use dechlor tap water and our dechlor tap here in San Jose is about 7.6 ph, medium water. I've topped off with RO water before, but that was only because I was too lazy to get my prime and fill up my bucket. When I do use RO water though, it was 100% RO water only and had no ill effects to my shrimp. I have somewhat of a lid on it, so top offs don't occur very often as it minimizes evaporation. During the hotter days here in CA, my tank lingered in 80-84 day and night. With the colder days coming in recently, my temp flux from 78-84. Still no ill effects and they do just fine. I cycled the tank with Sulawesi shrimp for crying out loud! People probably think I'm crazy but eh, I did it. Do I recommend others to do it too? Certainly not! It was simply a miscalculation on my part. I originally figured that a simple seeding will let me cycle my tank for them. I only took into consideration the shrimp and not snails. When you add on the 25+ snail bioload... that's a whole new story there, thus triggering my tank to cycle up.

In any case, I do hope my success continues on and I start seeing my C. Woltereckae get berried. The pregnant one that I had when my batch came in dropped her eggs during her 4th day in my tank. She lost them slowly, one by one. They were still nice and dark colored, so I don't think they were ready to hatch. I don't see walking baby C. Woltereckae either, so I'm concluding that the water parameter change from 7.4-7.6 (their water in the baggie they came in) to my water (which was 7.8 at the time and went up to 8.0 over the course of 2 days and is now stable at 8.0) made her drop em to acclimate to new parameters.

And... that is all. Pics later tonight~~~

[Yadokari]

Here's a blurry shot of the Dark Blue Cardinal shrimp I was talking about. I was using my iPhone when taking this picture and it was moving, so it isn't exactly the clearest thing in the world... My iPhone normally takes better pictures but things that are small like these shrimp need to sit still for it to take good pics:irked:

Nonetheless, it gets you an idea!

[FasterShrimpo]

:clap: So far, so great! Do you think you will be selling them in the near future?
:bowing:
:y220e:
:thm:

[Yadokari]

Holy Cow!!! Right after saying that I hope to see a pregnant C. Woltereckae, I went downstairs to check on my tank. I noticed one of my Woltereckae was a little dark down there and was hiding very suspiciously under a rock. I raised my eyebrow going, "Hmm..."
C. Woltereckae are extremely shy already in general, even when not berried and more so than C. Dennerli. The dark spot really got me curious anyway, so I grabbed my plant tweezers and started to try and scare it out of its hiding spot. She was incredibly clever and would stick herself between rocks where I couldn't angle my tweezers into them. So I had to use other tools to scare her out, but aside from that boring detail, when she finally came out, my speculations were confirmed!

She's berried! Woohoo!
Today, Sept. 30, 2009 marks the date for DAY 1 of gestation for my C. Woltereckae.

I couldn't take close-up pics because my camera can only do so much. However, I do think it's a nice shot and it's pretty clear! (Or at least it is on my macbook...)

Berried parameters are similar to my first C. Dennerli

Ph - 8.0

Ammonia - 0

Nitrite - 0

Nitrate - 0

Kh/Gh - ?? (I don't test)

Temperature (F) - 78-84 (Changed from 80-84 to 78-84)



Food:

Shirakura Algae Pellets 'Special'

Shirakura Micro-powder

Frozen Bloodworms

[pbmax]

Congrats! :cheers:

Those are some gorgeous shrimp. :) Maybe someday I'll convince my wife that it's okay to spend a ton of money on some ;)

pbmax

[svaha]

:clap: So far, so great! Do you think you will be selling them in the near future?
:bowing:
:y220e:
:thm:

I would like to know this also.PLEASE SAY YES :bowing:

[Yadokari]

I would like to know this also.PLEASE SAY YES :bowing:

I won't have any captive bred ones any time soon. Not for a loooong time... Since they just got berried in this tank and all, so this thread should keep people somewhat updated.

However, I will probably have some wild caught specimens available in the future. The ones I am currently keeping are all wild caught specimens, so if people follow my lead, they should do fine as well and start their own colony of captive breds :) Of course, overtime, I should (or at least, I hope) to have captive bred shrimp in my tank but as of now, until the eggs are released, they're all wild caught.

For future reference though, captive bred specimens will probably be more expensive than wild caught ones. :nilly:

----
I'll be trying out other Sulawesi shrimp eventually as well. Try and broaden my list to the Orchids and Yellow Cheeks. Although I believe Msjinkz is already keeping Yellow Cheeks, she can probably chime in on her experiences with them.

[msjinkzd]

I can if you would like. Do'nt want to hijack though :)

My Yellow Cheek Sulawesi tank
Specs: 29g
temp: 82
pH: 8.0
gh: 6
kh: 8
ammo 0
nitrite 0
nitrate less than 10
substrate: black flourite Hardscape: texas holey rock (thanks mel) and some driftwood
lightly planted with crypts, rotala, anubias, trident fern, moss, etc
water changes 10% a week; feeding kens veggie sticks and catfish pellets; tank is fed 2x a week

I do have tank-raised juveniles/subadults in the tank now. I am not offering them for sale yet as they seem to have smaller broods then other shrimp I keep. Here are a couple crappy pictures.
107073

107074

107075

107076

[Yadokari]

Thank you for sharing Msjinkzd! You said you have tank raised juvies/sub adults now? How long was gestation for your Yellow Cheeks? Or were these berried from the wild, then gave birth in your tank?

I'd love to hear more of your experiences ;-) Personally, I don't mind if you post your info here on this thread but if you have the time for it, another thread about your Yellow Cheeks would be fantastic. It'll help members and future Sulawesi shrimp owners to easily navigate info. I, for one, would love to read your findings of them. I'm about to get some Yellow Cheeks myself!

Cheers,
-Jerry

[stratusfearrr]

awesome

[msjinkzd]

Thank you for sharing Msjinkzd! You said you have tank raised juvies/sub adults now? How long was gestation for your Yellow Cheeks? Or were these berried from the wild, then gave birth in your tank?

I'd love to hear more of your experiences ;-) Personally, I don't mind if you post your info here on this thread but if you have the time for it, another thread about your Yellow Cheeks would be fantastic. It'll help members and future Sulawesi shrimp owners to easily navigate info. I, for one, would love to read your findings of them. I'm about to get some Yellow Cheeks myself!

Cheers,
-Jerry


They berried in my tank, though shortly (within days) of arriving. There were also some juvies that came in with the import. It seemed like their gestation at 82 was about 25 days or so. The juvies are growing really rapidly, already about about 1/2" or so. I will make sure to write down future berries (have one now, about 2 weeks in) and make note of gestation and growth. Its easy to lose track for me and I need to keep more of a record.

I bought 50, had a couple DOA. I haven't lost a single one since htey arrived nor have any been DOA from shipping. I kept 14 and have 28 now in the tank so they are having a decent survival rate.

[Yadokari]

They berried in my tank, though shortly (within days) of arriving. There were also some juvies that came in with the import. It seemed like their gestation at 82 was about 25 days or so. The juvies are growing really rapidly, already about about 1/2" or so. I will make sure to write down future berries (have one now, about 2 weeks in) and make note of gestation and growth. Its easy to lose track for me and I need to keep more of a record.

I bought 50, had a couple DOA. I haven't lost a single one since htey arrived nor have any been DOA from shipping. I kept 14 and have 28 now in the tank so they are having a decent survival rate.


Holy Cow! That's amazing! Thank you for sharing :) The babies I had from the import are still pretty small! Though much more visible than when they first arrived, I'd have to say maybe around 1/4 of an inch or so. Cardinal babies, that is. No harlequins unfortunately :(

I only got one berried wild shrimp in my shipment, which was the C. Woltereckae. Unfortunately, as I stated in a previous post, I don't think the eggs made it as she just dropped them. It wasn't even a molt drop, I think she just dropped them off one by one because I saw them slowly disappear as hours went by. So my population isn't really up there yet, post the initial wild caught purchase. I hope to see babies soon though!

We should definitely share info whenever you have the time to record them. I'd love to have a Sulawesi Shrimp database, especially for American boards. :cool:

I'll try to test my kh and gh tonight, I'll be borrowing it from my friend. Perhaps we have similar water parameters.

[austinpetemo]

youve got yellow flec rabbit snails, thats a tylo right? why are these so expensive and do they breed readily?

[msjinkzd]

Yellow flecks are a tylo, i have them as well. They do breed readily, though slowly. I think its been determined they can carry up to 4 fertilized eggs at a time. they drop one about each month so its a slow gestation.

[austinpetemo]

would they be more profitable and easier to take care of/sell than assassin snails?

Posted on mobile.aquariacentral.com

[boxedfish]

it;s great to see interest in sulawesi snails in this thread.. i have a few of those too and hoped you will not mind me posting my sulawesi snail tank here. Currently in my tank, there are 2 yellow rabbits, 4 yellow spotted rabbits, 1 king rabbit, 3 pagodas, 2 chocolate rabbits and 2 tiara rabbits. There are 2 baby snails also but they are too small to identify which species of rabbit snails they belong to.

http://i46.photobucket.com/albums/f131/boxedfish/9426_158493669877_603569877_3626903.jpg

http://i46.photobucket.com/albums/f131/boxedfish/9426_158493694877_603569877_3626906.jpg

[msjinkzd]

looks nice!

[Yadokari]

Great tanks guys!

I just found another berried cardinal shrimp in my tank! This is NOT part of the new cardinal shipment that I got, so it wasn't a "cheated" berried :-P This new berried cardinal was from my previous shipment from 3 weeks ago. (I separated the new and old shipments)

I guess this confirms that my tank is a happy tank :-)

[dxiong5]

Congrats! I'm looking forward to getting the Cardinals and Harlequins. Any updates on the Harlequins? They are notorious for not doing well in captivity at all and I am still a bit iffy about them, but willing to give it a try. My tap is a solid 8.2 pH, so that eliminates the tinkering of water like that for CRS :)

[Yadokari]

Congrats! I'm looking forward to getting the Cardinals and Harlequins. Any updates on the Harlequins? They are notorious for not doing well in captivity at all and I am still a bit iffy about them, but willing to give it a try. My tap is a solid 8.2 pH, so that eliminates the tinkering of water like that for CRS :)

My berried harlequin is doing fine. For the new shipment of harlequins, I actually got a pretty high shipping rate to me, about 80% survival. I'm quite impressed as they did so poorly before!

I do NOT have another sulawesi tank, therefore, to house the new shipment, I bought plastic breeder boxes from petsmart. Like, a ton of them... I float them in my tank and acclimated my new shrimp. Each box contains a different shrimp ;-) This allows me to separate the new and old shipment.

The night they came in, it was too late for me to stock up on more boxes unfortunately, so I had to dump my red orchids and yellow cheeks into the tank and not into boxes. I made sure the new cardinals and new harlequins were separated first before anything else. So in any case, for the past day (till now), I am trying to scoop out the yellow cheeks into a box for themselves. I've finished scooping out the red orchids into their own box.

So for people who are getting sulawesi shrimp from me, just check this journal out for info on their current water parameters and such. It's going to be the same until further notice.

Overall though, the harlequins are giving me little problems... They're probably my favorite right now ;-)

[Yadokari]

2 new berried Cardinals now. Making that a grand total of 4 pregnant shrimp.
I wonder what triggered the sudden breeding behavior. The addition to new shrimp in the tank? Or it could be because the tank is fully cycled now, therefore, they felt it was perfect?

Oh well, this is good news to me either way. I'm excited to see them hatch and see how well they'd do.

[dxiong5]

Congrats! I hope to have as much success as you have been having.

[Yadokari]

Congrats! I hope to have as much success as you have been having.



Thank you! Update me as time goes on with your new shrimp ;-) Welcome to the Sulawesi club! Hahaha...

And as another tank update, I found a 5th berried cardinal. Looks like they're getting preggers left and right. Still only one harlequin berried, perhaps I only have one mature female or the rest are males? The remaining 6 (out of 7) look smaller than my berried female, so it could be either... Nonetheless, I'm happy with my results so far. I hope the people who bought shrimp from me or bought Sulawesi shrimp elsewhere recently are having as much success as I am. They're a real gem to have. The first thing I do when I get home is watch them for at least 10 minutes. Then eat my dinner and go back and stare at them some more. Who needs a TV :-p

Furthermore, I won't be updating anymore about berried shrimp. Pretty much confirmed that my tank stats are okay for getting them berried. Next updates will either be to answer questions or if something new happens, aside from getting preggers. I'll try to test my gh/kh sometime this week, if I have time... Sorry for the delay folks!

[Yadokari]

Helpful tip for today!

They're not as sensitive as people make them seem to be but they are definitely much more sensitive than other shrimp. More so than CRS, definitely...

As long as you try to keep the tank as stable as possible, they're not too hard.

I now have 5 berried cardinal shrimp and 2 berried harlequins. These shrimp are from the ones I got 4 weeks ago.

In my most recent shipment, I actually found one of my red orchids get berried in my tank 5 days after it was introduced in my tank. So I'm quite pleased I'm keeping that berried orchid of course, hehehhee...

Once the shrimp is established into the tank, it is smooth sailing from there. Or at least, for me anyway.

One little helpful thing that I want to recommend to everyone is to have a lid on your tank. Since temp water needs to be in the 80s, you can certainly expect a lot of evaporation to occur. And if your tank evaporates, that means you're going to have to refill the tank at least once every other day. I notice that when I left my lid off for a day, the next day, I had to add a lot of water into my 20 gallon long to refill the water back. I lost about an inch and a half of water via evaporation. The next day, after adding water to top off, I lost many sulawesi shrimp. I counted about 6 or 7. Most of the ones that died were the ones from the new shipment. I lost one cardinal that I got from 4 weeks ago. So new shrimp were hurt a lot more than my established one.

So take note folks!!! Careful with top offs!

[msjinkzd]

most helpful thing is to get them in alive, something I have not been very succesful with lately

[Yadokari]

most helpful thing is to get them in alive, something I have not been very succesful with lately

I got the text this morning about that! :( They're very poor shippers and I heard that the original number of 30 something dwindled to 26 or something. I know a few died in transition when I had to add them into the tank but I never imagined it went down that much! I started out with what I think was around 33-38 give or take.
A few died so I want to assume about 30 or so was shipped (that is, with me estimating with worst case scenario). Although I think only 4 died...

Anyway, besides all that, I'm sorry to hear how poorly they shipped. How long did it take to get to you?

[msjinkzd]

its was less than 36 hours. The issue was they were in teh bag teh day before as well I think. They were so disintegrated there were only tails and legs floating around. it was impossible to get an accurate count of how many were shipped. I have never smelled such foul water or seen shrimp in such a state of disintegration. It was staggering.

[Yadokari]

Hmm, I bagged them a little after I got home (I got home at around 9:40ish PM). Bagged at around 10 PM and went over to Chris' soon after. Bagged with some purigen, of course.
They went out the next day, from what I heard from Chris this morning.

In any case, I'm sorry to hear about your huge loss :(
Will you be trying other Sulawesi shrimp out again in the future? I'm sure you must be frustrated with the shipment of the shrimp this time, I most definitely would be incredibly disappointed. My heart sinks fast, especially when the animal comes in dead. Makes me feel guilty they died because I had them shipped over. x_x

However, I have discovered a new Sulawesi shrimp species that ship extremely well. PM me if you are interested in hearing about them and my experience with these guys! I don't have many of them left to ship out to you, but if you want to try again next time, I recommend getting them if you don't want to risk a lot.

:)

[msjinkzd]

I would have to find them from a new source. I have lost sooooo much money on my last three shipments with so little to show for it I have really lost alot of heart. I am very interested in breeding and getting new species, but cannot risk the finances any longer. i shudder to think how much I have lost at this point wtih about 80% losses out of all my orders.

[Yadokari]

Aww, I'm sorry to hear that :-(
Move to CA! Norcal (in the Bay Area) to be a little more specific! Hehehe... That ought to reduce the losses by a lot!

It really is disheartening though, to experience that huge of a loss percentage. In any case, whatever you decide to do, I wish you luck! Getting in new species and being able to keep them is truly the best!

-Jerry

[Yadokari]

Aww, I'm sorry to hear that :-(
Move to CA! Norcal (in the Bay Area) to be a little more specific! Hehehe... That ought to reduce the losses by a lot!

It really is disheartening though, to experience that huge of a loss percentage. In any case, whatever you decide to do, I wish you luck! Getting in new species and being able to keep them is truly the best!

-Jerry

[billb1]

Jerry,

Any Updates? Any C. Woltereckae babies?

[Yadokari]

To my knowledge, she's still berried. Same with the cardinal, although to be quite honest, I think all my female cardinals are berried now so I don't even know which one was the first girl that got laid. >.>...

I've been checking the tank everyday to see if there's any new babies though. Sometimes I wonder if the babies hide in the cracks and don't come out, making it difficult for me to really track down gestation time.

:-(

[dxiong5]

I have yet to see berried shrimp from the ones I got from you (hopefully there is at least 1 female!). I'm down to two Harlequins : (
I'm not really sure what to feed them. I put Shirakura pellets in, but they don't touch them at all, it sits there and gets all fuzzy, then I just take them out. I just add the baby powder food, hope that's enough...

[Yadokari]

I lost almost all my harlequins, including the berried one. They're mysteriously disappearing. My stable set of 7 harlequins from my first order went poof when I added new harlequins to the tank from my 2nd batch. Adding new specimens into the tank seem to screw up the stable colony for some reason. I am not sure why they are being affected.

In any case, I found baby cardinals last night! Their heads are bright red, real small though. Bodies are clearish red with spots already on them.

I am not 100% sure if that's even the same female that got berried but... we'll just say that it takes approx. 3 weeks for berry to birth.
I need to order more harlequins next time to replenish my loss. I'm quite disappointed. :(

[msjinkzd]

Sorry to hear of the losses but congrats on the babies

[dxiong5]

Sorry to hear, I really like the Harlequins' look better, but they are just not stayin' alive!
Congrats on the Cardinal shrimplets!

[dxiong5]

Any updates on these? I lost all of my Harlequins and one Cardinal; however, I did see 4 Cardinal shrimplets. :D

[aquascaper93]

hey very nice shrimp where did you get them from me and my cousin have been on a rampage tryin to find em for a year now

[Chromes03]

Hey Jerry,

I had the same problem with the Harlequins....they just disappeared one by one. I had 50 to start...they are too sensitive...
Cardinals are way better but after keeping them for 1 year now...I don't see the females getting berried anymore....
I have given up on the other Sulawesi species..hard to find a good shipper and they are way to sensitive...I have tried the yellow cheek, red orchid, white orchid, and harlequins...and given up...

Now if I can jsut get more Cardinals I would but they too are harder to get for me now...

Good luck to you

[seetharam]

Excellent Journal .... Was looking for something like this.

Any idea how Cardinal Shrimps would do if they are in transit for like 6-7 days in breather bags with heat packing?

[Scarletman]

Hi Yadokari,
I new here and I not very familiar with this page. I would like to buy some of your shrimps if you still have those: Sulawesi harlequin shrimp. I would like to buy 10 of them.
so please let me know where are you. what state are you. and how we can close the deal. thank you.
from Minnesota Scarletman