gtippitt

@Hman, It's been a month since I got my Neos from you, and I've not seen a single one die. They are growing, molting, and breeding wonderfully. They have doubled in size and have more than tripled in number. I cannot count them accurately, but there are definitely more than 200 now. I cannot describe how disappointed I was after my first 40 had died, so I was very anxious when I decided to try again with yours. After decades keeping fish, I was devastated when my first attempt to keep shrimp was such a failure. When I first saw that yours were all so much smaller than the ones I had bought before, I was scared that they might be more fragile, while the opposite is actually true it seems. These are all healthy, and I love watching them. Thank you so very much. My first group of 40 that I had ordered from an online seller were all fully mature large adults of more than an inch and a half, and they each died shortly after their first molting. I've done lots of reading, and I think that the reason the ones from you have all prospered is because they were all much smaller (and your loving care before of course). From what I've pieced together from several places, it seems that the older the shrimp are, the more difficulty they have with changes in their water conditions. I've only been reading about RCS/Neos, so I don't know if this applies to other dwarf freshwater shrimp like Crystals. Even when moved from bad water to presumably better conditions, Neos often die after their next molt. Even when gradually acclimated over an hour or more, large changes in ph or hardness can cause mature adults to have difficulty when they next molt, while the juveniles have much less difficulty. I've found some who recommend doing much smaller water changes with Neos than with fish because large changes are stressful on the adult Neos. While I love them all, after watching them for many hours during the past month, I enjoy the wild looking ones better than the fire reds. The red ones all look basically alike, while the wild ones have lots more variations. While appearing a semi-transparent tan when small, as they've grown, they've developed lots of different variations. The video of them I shot with my phone doesn't really do them justice, since they just look like grey blurs going by. They are actually much prettier than it shows. Some are greener looking, while others are more yellow or have interesting spots or stripes. My favorite is a pale green with red spots along its length. While some might think a Fire Red Cherry is far prettier than its wild looking cousin, I've found that a dozen identical looking reds are boring compared to a dozen wilds that each look slightly different. For anyone that has a colony of reds with low color quality and wants a different look, I would suggest adding a few of some other color and let them go wild as the new colored ones breed with the existing red ones. Adding a few Fire or Painted Reds won't do anything noticeable to improve the color quality of a free breeding colony of low reds after 6 months, but a couple of blue, yellow, green, or orange ones will introduce lots more genetic difference into the colony as well as more color variations and patterns. Some people may scream at my recommending a hobbyist create a bunch of useless crosses that won't ever breed true again", to which I would respond, "Who is going to want to buy a hobbyist's low quality reds for selective breeding?" Without having lots of tanks and doing lots of very vigilant culling before the babies are old enough to breed, a hobbyist is never going to improve on any existing colour variants of Neo available nor create a new one that breeds true. It makes much more sense to simply enjoy whatever color they have. To anyone that might come across this thread and is thinking of buying Neos for the first time, for more healthy shrimp, buy from a home breeder rather than from getting them from an online importer, where they will have had many changes in water and more stressful shipping time. If you are buying from a local retail seller, they will have already had a few big changes in water and been stressed, so pick shrimp that are no larger than a half inch in size, because they are more likely to survive. Even at half grown, they will quickly begin breeding and soon double in size and number. Greg

I'm afraid that would be a 4 hour trip for me each way, which is about twice as far as I am hoping to find. If I cannot find anyone near me, I'll get back with you in a few weeks about maybe having you ship some to me. Getting ones that were home raised would be much less stress on them. So many of the people setting them online are getting them from wholesale breeders overseas before they then ship them again to individual buyers, so the little critters have been through a lot of stress by the time you get them. In addition to all of the shipping time, they've gone through half a dozen different water conditions by the time you get them.

I would like to buy 25 to 100 Red Cherry Shrimp. I've had bad luck with shipping, so I would love to find someone who lives within 100 miles or so of Nashville TN that would like to sell some excess home raised ones. To avoid shipping stress, I'd like to drive to pick them up. I'm most concerned with finding really healthy ones that haven't been shipped around the world already. I'm flexible on grade & size VS price. Greg

@shamedic Thank you for the info. Ironically Joe's Aqua is where I ordered from and was disappointed. I've heard good and bad about them since. The color of the shrimp was outstanding. All of the females had dropped their eggs during shipping, but I was able to hatch about a dozen of the eggs. Even the little guys have good color. I've got a 55 gallon tank that I had set up just for Red Cherries, and it's pretty empty looking with only 4 adults and dozen tiny babies. Rather than ordering more and risk being heartbroken again, I'm going to see if maybe I can find an individual with excess ones to sell that is within driveable distance to pick them up myself. Thanks, Greg

@shamedic, I realize this thread is a few months old, but I was thinking of ordering some RCS from BioAquatix on Aquabid and wondered how your shrimp fared. I've kept fish for decades, but I'm just started trying to get a tank of RCS started. Their description says they raise the shrimp in aquariums themselves, rather than buying and reselling. I had a bad experience with another seller, who I found out later imported his shrimp from overseas and then resold them. After multiple water conditions and shipping from overseas, and then from California to Tennessee, many of the shrimp were DOA and most died within the week. Like BioAquatix, he had the same DOA, "take a picture of the dead ones before you open the bag", policy as BioAquatix, but he put 40 shrimp in about a cup of water, so they were so densely packed in the bag, I couldn't tell how many were dead or alive. After wasting $150 on that deal, I'm a bit leary trying again, but I can't find any RCS in the Nashville area except for a guy on CraigsList with pale clear ones he wants to get rid of. It would be really helpful if you or others could tell me if BioAquatix is a good source for RCS. If not, any other suggestions? If you are still looking for easy to care for life plants, I love Aponogeton ulvaceus bulbs. Since they are normally shipped as dried bulbs, you don't have the problems with pests like pond snails and others to worry about as much. They sprout leaves in just a few days and then explode with really gorgeous leaves. They are a bit large for small tanks, but they are wonderful in a medium to large tank. Some other varieties of Aponogeton, can get excessively large, but the Ulvaceus tops out at about 15 to 20 inches. Since their leaves branch out sideways, even when 20 inches long, the plant isn't that tall. Their is another variety that has really pretty leaves that look like lace, but I've always had problems with it collecting algae too easily. Also, for shrimp the solid leaves gives them more surface to graze on. The 4 shrimp of mine that survived my bad order, spend much of their time climbing about on the Ulvaceus grazing on the bio film that collects. Ulvaceus are very tolerant of different water conditions and light. They don't require CO2 or other pampering. My tanks normally run with levels of ammonia and nitrate that are too low to detect, so I stick a Flourish fertilizer tab under each bulb once it has begun to sprout lots of leaves. They have an initial burst of growth from the energy stored in the bulb, but to keep them growing big, they will need some nutrients. Once a tank has been running for few months, I find that they normally get enough nutrients from gunk in the substrate, but in a newish tank where the substrate is clean, I give them a fertilizer tab to feed on until there is enough fish poo for them. Besides not getting snails and other pests that can hitchhike on life plants, the other great thing about the bulbs is that they don't drop leaves from the stress of shipping and changes in water conditions from where they were before. Plastic plants are the only species that I've found easier to grow underwater. You can get the bulbs for about $5 each from sellers on eBay or Amazon. The only problems I have with them is that they are big enough that it is sometimes hard to get small foreground plants to do well in their shade if you try to have a lush aquascape. I normally just scatter some rocks in front of them to decorate the foreground instead. I tried to attach a picture of one of mine, but I couldn't get it to upload, perhaps because I'm new on this forum. If you Google Aponogeton Ulvaceus, you can see what striking they are. Thanks, Greg