2013...Year of the Shrimp
Entry posted by mosspearl
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2013 is the year I got back into fishtanks. It all started with moss balls. We saw some on Tumblr. I'd never seen anything like them before and had to have some. We found some on eBay and ordered them ... couldn't beat the price. 5 for $3 or something. Then I found out that no matter what I sent the seller, he sent them to our old address. I could only cross my fingers and hope they arrived at our new address without too much delay. (We'd been here almost a year.)
It wasn't long before they arrived. They were noted on the package as "decorative home sponges." LOL I popped them in a gallon jar with some large pebbles and my aquatic adventures had begun. Before long, I had some plants I'd won in an RAOK... some bacopa, frogbit, and water lettuce. I was filling up more gallon jars.
By Valentine's Day, I had a 2.5 gallon tank and a baby betta. Since the fish was so small, he went in one of the jars that had been set up for awhile so the tank could cycle. As the year has gone on, he moved from the jar to the 2.5 gallon, then to the Evolve4, then to an Evolve8. He's not spoiled or anything. ::wink wink:::
Sherlock thinks he's a shark. He attacks the food when I feed him. As long as he's happy, we're happy. 
It wasn't long before I got MTS (multiple tank syndrome). I freely admit I tend to obsess about things, and tanks were my new obsession. I'd discovered the shrimp board at TPT and fell in love with the little critters. I resolved to get some as soon as I was ready for them. I started reading everything I could and started making contacts in the (clears throat) shrimp world.
Having nano tanks, I went through several months of "is my tank cycled or not?" Finally, I was convinced they were, and I was ready. I ordered five blue velvet shrimp and five yellow shrimp from Soothing Shrimp. I tested my tanks again to make sure the parameters were right. The shrimp arrived in late August.
Yes, there's shrimp in there. Somewhere.
I drip acclimated them with one eye on a web page that showed how to do it with step by step photos. I was way out of my depth. All I'd ever done before was float fish in the tank.
Blue velvet shrimp!!
The yellow shrimp tank, complete with a TARDIS. Yes, we're all rabid Whovians in this house, and proud of it. The shrimp seem to like it, too.
Yellow shrimp!!
The shrimp have thrived and I now obsess about shrimp. So much so that I'm contemplating giving up a lot of my aquatic plants to focus on mosses so I can have even more shrimp. I do still have some favorite fish... my favorites so far are my cory habrosus. They are adorable. I'd like to pair them up with some exclamation point fish, because what would be more perfect for a writer/editor than a fish that wears punctuation? But that will come at some point in the future when the white clouds and remaining guppy have gone to that big fish tank in the sky.
In early November, I received some rili shrimp from Soothing Shrimp... I adore them, too. So many different patterns and colors!
It's like a red-themed rainbow!
I'm already scheming where to put more tanks. It's a good thing my family enables me. But then, I do enable them to get their computers, video games, and anime characters. What can I get rid of to make room for more tanks?
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