Soothing Shrimp's Silly Shrimping

[Mamashack]

Well I guess 3 babies is 3 more shrimp for the clan! lol

[Soothing Shrimp]

Still searching for a strain of extremely clear tissued red rilis or splotched.  Haven't found them yet.

 

The three sunshine babies are still cruisin'.  Still thinking of adding the Sunshines to my yellow #2 strain though for genetic diversity.

 

I switched 6 cpo babies to a set up tenner and they died.  Not sure why.  I have others on the way, so instead of figuring our params and worrying, I'll just do a  water reset and chalk it up to a loss.  Nothing else living in that tank anyway except for some ramshorns, and they'll do just fine with just about any water change I do.

 

Just got an LG optimus l90 cell phone.  I wasn't looking for the best on the market, just a low end phone.  Been pretty happy with it.  The camera is actually pretty good.  I've been thinking about getting some kind of macro to put on it for shrimp pics as well.

 

Also been thinking of trying a DIY remin mix for a tank of my shrimp to test out.  No hurry though.  I still have the rest of 1000g jar of SS gh+ to go through. LOL

[chibikaie]

Funny, just this morning I was trying to talk a friend of mine out of getting goldfish. I suggested shrimp instead since she said that cherry shrimp were fine in her tap water. I told her that they come in more colors now and they wouldn't mean setting up a four to six foot tank with several hundred dollar giant canister filters. I think I got her interested!

[Soothing Shrimp]

Hopefully we'll have another shrimper in the hobby.

[TheGardenofEder]

The solid cpos didn't die right? I figure because u said 6 that you wouldn't have mixed stripes in there.

[Soothing Shrimp]

The solids are fine. heh  No breeding yet, but fine.  I'm going to sex them pretty soon and make sure I have both genders.

[Soothing Shrimp]

I've been requested to show some pics of my diminutus I have now.  I grabbed my camera phone and took a few snaps.  Crappy pics, but I'll try to get some better ones later.  PH plays a large factor in color for these.  When they arrived they were bluish.  Now in 7+ the adults have turned color.  The males are now tannish and the fems are blackish- this is in my 7+ ph.  I'm theorizing the blue color is due to low ph stressing them somewhat from black to blue, BUT having said that- they seem to breed well in both ph.  You'd think if they were stressed they'd stop breeding. So, who knows?  The juvies are blue right now, but I'm guessing it is because they have thin shells atm. 

 

This is mom when she arrived.  Unfortunately, she wasn't out and about so no pic right now of her color:

 

This is dad currently in ph 7+.  Note he is now tan.

 

These are a couple pics of the blue juvies:

Adults are as big as dwarf shrimp, and smaller than cpo.  The babies can be compared to newborn dwarf shrimp as well.  The blue color would be perfect in crystal params, I'm guessing.  I plan to test my theory soon.

[Dendrobatez]

Awesome!

[Soothing Shrimp]

Just got my daughter's bill for gymnastics this week.  My eyeballs about fell out.  Coaches fees, gymnastics fees, team fees, rhinestone team leo fees, registration fees for meets, etc. LOL  I made her a promise a while back though that I would do everything possible to make sure she goes as far as she likes in her sport.  So Tues, I'll be listing a very limited amount of Nessies for sale in the Market place to help pay her bill.

 

This is one of my exceptional breeders:

 

Not all look like that, of course.  Males tend to have less saturation of color, as well as some fems.  Here's some lower grades:

 

Nessie grades are really weird.  Nessie cherries can produce near painteds, and visa versa.  I've been working years on having all shrimp come out some grade of green without other colors thrown.  I've reached ~95-99% true. 

 

Some of these shrimp are also able to change color from green to blue and back depending on mood.  Light seems to trigger the green as well, similar to cardinal shrimp changing to red when the light is on.

 

My favorite grades are cherry grade Nessies and Fire grade.  When the light shines through these, the color is still thin enough that they look like stained glass or emeralds.  Seems many people prefer the dark hunter green sakura/painted look.  These can look black in low light, but in high light these are a very dark green well.  I have to admit, I do like the look of a regular colony of all grades though.  What a variety to look at!

 

 

However I am one person. heh  Not a large shrimp farm, so I can either keep this strain myself for the next 10 years or realize that other hobbyists are able to take these in directions I don't have time or space to do! :D

[Shrimpo]

Finally!

Do you think there is potential on getting new mutation out of the Nessies?

[Soothing Shrimp]

Mutations?  Possible.  No one really knows- including me- where this mutation can lead.

 

One of the occasional throws that is rare is an orange tissued body with green hood.    I call it the Golden Nessie.  Reminds me of the Maneki Neko Lucky Money Cat Statue.  When it has been thrown, good things have happened in my shrimp room.  I consider it my lucky shrimp. heh

 

Selective breeding may be the way to go while waiting for a mutation to pop out though.

 

Most Nessies have white eyes you can breed for.  Some have different colored racing stripes.  I would love to see someone come up with a strain of Fire Nessies, etc.  Hack, some even are missing the golden tone and have a clear tissue.  That is possible to breed for, too.  Dark Hunter Green as opposed to the emerald green, etc.

[Soothing Shrimp]

Several people have been writing me asking how my Nessies are different from high quality Jades.

 

First off, let me state, I think Jades are beautiful too!  There's room for more than one type of green neo, just like there's room for more than one blue neo. 

 

Jades seem to be created by an overlap of blue and yellow pigment on the shell.  This creates a nice lime green look.  They also have a higher percentage of culls, but that hopefully will be worked out over time- just as many strains will be.

 

Nessies are 95-99% true breeding.  The amount of green varies from hood to full body.  They have a true green pigment instead of a yellow/blue mix for pigment.  A majority also have a green tissue that varies in intensity. 

 

Both have pros and cons just like any other strain of shrimp.  Perhaps these pics of exceptional high grades side by side will give you a better understanding of the differences.  Click on pic for larger size.

 

The first is a Green Jade c) by Monique, the 2nd pic is my Nessie c) by Soothing Shrimp.

 

Both beautiful, right? Just different. 

[Soothing Shrimp]

This is nuts!

 

I've noticed before what I thought was ramshorns trying to hitch rides on my blue diminutus.  Failed miserably of course because the ramshorns were larger than my blue crays.  I've seen this several times in the past couple weeks, which I thought was odd. They get on, and the dims are at their mercy not being able to get them off.

 

This past month there are fewer diminutus, but no bodies.  Params fine.

 

Then today I noticed another ramshorn trying to ride a dim, and upon closer examination I saw it trying to pull it into it's shell bending the poor thing almost in half and struggling frantically.

 

That's when it hit me that these guys are so small and so defenseless, the ramshorns must be making a meal of them!  Why these crays and not shrimp?  I don't know.  Maybe because the shrimp can fly away, or spook easily, when the crays don't?

 

If someone else posted this I'd say it was ludicrous, and perhaps they were misreading the situation.  However I'm pretty sure I'm not.

 

Whatever the reason, the snails are being moved out today.  At least the larger ones...

[RyeGuy411]

Its amazing what happens in the animal world. I came home last night to see my gorgeous male Extreme KK freshly molted. I couple minutes later I saw the other shrimp swarming something, literally fighting over it like a pack of pirhana. Poor male KK he didnt stand a chance they ate every bit of hime within 45 minutes. There are only 7 adult shrimp in this tank, I didnt think that was possible.

[Soothing Shrimp]

There's some pretty wacky things in the aqua world alright!

[Soothing Shrimp]

Time to update my journal, I guess. heh

 

Some good things and some not so good things happened in my shrimping this year.

 

My Nessies have been doing great for me.  I find it very strange that painteds will be thrown along side of green cherry Nessies.  Colors have ranged from bluish, bluish green, lime greens, dark hunter greens and bright kelly greens.  Seems even the bluish ones will throw greens, so I don't bother to worry about those anymore. It's still weird to me that the colors change when the lights go out as opposed to when the lights come on.  Just a weird strain over all, but hands down my favorite.

 

The black rose I bought looks like my better chocolates.  *shrugs* Not really black, but dark browns.  Oh well.  I'll mix a couple males from my Diamond line with them to see what happens.

 

Tragedy struck my shrimp room this year, and I lost shrimp strains and more than a few projects. *sigh*  I was so bummed by this, I did very minimal maintenance on my tanks for a few months while I concentrated on my arts.  Now I'm back and trying to clean up the tanks that I let become over run with hair algae and duckweed.  Hate that stuff.  Need to do lots of water changes too.  Ironically my shrimp don't seem to mind, but I sure do!

 

So why the loss?  My shrimp room has lots of temp flux.  I bone headingly decided to see what would happen if I pulled my heaters out for the winter.  Naturally the temps dropped, while rising sharply in the warmer weather,  In short, no matter how hardy my shrimp were, most tanks couldn't handle it.  Learned my very expensive lesson.

 

So, this poor breeder is starting again on many shrimp strains, but still focusing on neos.

 

I still have:

Nessies

Chocolates

DBV

Blue Splotched Carbons

some Diamond Shrimp

 

and now only a few

snowballs

yellows

orange rilis

BBRR

 

Other:

Malawa

some Red Claw Shrimp

 

That's about what's left from ~60 tanks.  UGH!

 

Sat my daughter gashed her forehead at gymnastics.  She and I had just finsihed lunch together during break, and she hopped off her chair, and ran back into the gym.  I threw away the sandwich bag, turned around and there was the coach carrying my 6 yr old daughter out the door with half her face covered with blood. 

 

So a trip to the emergency room to put the cut on her forehead back together again, and she walked out back to her old self with mom and dad.  Every sport has its injuries, and she just took this in stride and said, "When can I get back to gymnastics?" LOL  She may not be at the top of her team, but she sure does enjoy it!

[mosspearl]

Aw on both counts! Sorry about your shrimp losses. They suck no matter how few or many you lose.

 

And sorry to hear about your daughter. Those trips to the ER are no fun. Glad she's ready to get back to gymnastics so quickly.

[Wygglz]

I think we need a thread on your daughter's gymnastics progress! And I really am sorry for your shrimp struggles, but I have to say that it makes me feel better to know that even the "pros" have struggles and are humble enough (at least on this forum) to admit that. Thank you for the update and I look forward to following the next year of successes!

[Soothing Shrimp]

Thanks guys.  She's doing fine now.  They were debating how many stitches, but my daughter said she didn't want a scar...so they rigged up some steristrips and glue. heh  Stung, but heck- she's tough.

 

Wygglz, I like that about this forum too.  Even the experienced shrimpers can let their hair down here and tell about bad experiences so we all can learn together. 

[DETAquarium]

Very sorry to hear about your daughter, but she seems to have amazing resilience and a drive you can't beat!

 

If I know you Soothing your shrimp room and tanks will bounce back in no time. Sorry for your losses to this point, but I am glad to see your Nessies and that project in particular thriving.

[Soothing Shrimp]

Thanks, Deta.

 

She's an independent kid at only 6 yrs old.  I'll have to keep a watch on her as she grows! heh

 

I'm super glad my Nessies have survived too.  I've worked so hard on that line, I would take it pretty hard if anything happened to them.  That's one reason I needed to start offering them- so others were able to work with them too.  The other reason was to help pay my daughter's gym bills. 

[chibikaie]

Your daughter, my coworker, and I can all be Summer 2015 ER buddies. Glad she is better and your shrimp are still toughing it out.

[Wygglz]

I'm on the Summer 2015 ER list too...Hope everyone is doing ok.

[Soothing Shrimp]

Oh no!  What happened to you guys to be on the ER list?

 

A huge shout out to Dr0p!  Dr0p read about my recent shrimp tragedy and is sending me some yellows out of the goodness of heart to help rebuild my strain!   Thank you!

[Wygglz]

Way to go Dr0p! Ok, Soothing, you know this means you'll have to keep us updated, right?