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

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Yadokari

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Similar to my crayfish (CPO) 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!
 
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Yadokari

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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

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Yadokari

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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

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Posted: 09 Sep 2009 11:40 pm

More pics! Still no deaths ;-D

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Yadokari

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Posted: 09 Sep 2009 11:43 pm

More pics.

img_2261_196.jpg img_2262_130.jpg img_2263_132.jpg img_2264_168.jpg
 

Yadokari

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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

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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?

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Yadokari

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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

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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

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Posted: 25 Sep 2009 01:41 am

More pics.

img_2286_921.jpg img_2374_214.jpg img_2376_794.jpg img_2377_199.jpg img_2383_109.jpg
 
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