Simply Shrimp, The Shrimporium Way

[TheShrimporium]

This Journal will mostly contain various pics along my journey to shrimphood along with whatever topics arise over the course of this thread.  But first, a little bit of history that got me to this point.

 

 

My history in the aquatic world started when I turned 20 years old.  My "then" girlfriend, now wife, bought me my first tank for my birthday.  Boy, only if she knew what she got herself into!  It was the "too common" walmart special 55 gallon which IMO has the worst footprint/height combo for any tank.  Perfect for growing out fish but not for the prized tank in the living room.  I still own the tank, now 11 years later, though it is in storage.  I just can't bring myself to sell it.

 

I was an avid breeder of various South American Cichlids around year 3 of my ever growing need/want for more tanks, new species, new and better equipment.  Close to year 4, I dove deep into what most call Eartheaters which have a unique characteristic of sifting through sand day in and day out in search of food.  Just to name a few Geophagus, Satanoperca, and Biotodoma.  I fell in love one particular species, Geophagus Orangehead Tapajos.  To me, these were the holy grail of the Eartheaters, beautiful colors, perfect behaviour(for cichlids in the breeding stage), and a manageable size from a hobbyists point of view with lack of space. 

 

Over the course of about two years, I had sold thousands of these beautiful babies to other breeders and hobbyists.  Then one day, I got an email from an importer saying he had access to some Geophagus Winemillerii, which at the time, had never been imported to the US(to my knowledge) and was a common "trick" for the exporting country to gain sales since the ever elusive Winemillerii was always a fluke when they came to the US.  So myself and four other friends and long time breeders bit the bullet and once again, forked out a lot of cash to import this species, almost knowing that they would turn out to be something different.  Low and behold, we had hit the jackpot!  Now it was an all out race amongst me and my friends to produce the first spawn.  Unfortunately, I was not first.....  but second, to produce a spawn.  And shortly afterwards began selling these to the mass market and luckily for other hobbyists, they are readily available in the States.

 

Now fast forward a little, I sold off all of my cichlid stock, most of my tanks, and had to relocate for work moving out of state.  I told the misses that I would not get back into the hobby in the new house we had moved into......  that only lasted about two years, lol.  Always having a green thumb and wanting to try something new, I began my journey into poison dart frogs.  The same fascination of owning a tank filled with water and replicating the exact environment of the particular species was always a goal for me so building a jungle full of miniature tropical plants was a no brainer and it was the perfect environment for dart frogs.  And to my luck, once I had completed my second Terrarium and was ready to purchase my first PDFs, my work picked up a new job that was deemed "my baby" and was a couple ours away from home.  So not wanting to burden my wife with taking care of any critters, I would just watch my plants grow on the weekends when I was home.  Well, that did not last long either.  I searched planted tanks, reef tanks, etc.  Not wanting to invest the money and not having the time for upkeep on a planted tank or a reef, I opted not to try it.   Though I would always see a lot of folks with these beautiful planted tanks and some with these gorgeous colored shrimp that I had just never witnessed before coming from a cichlid background.  Wait for it, wait for it!!!!     Match....  Strike....  Light.....    This is only the beginning

 

 

 

The Shrimporium

 

 

 

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http://http://i1277.photobucket.com/albums/y497/TheShrimporium/Shrimpies/DSC_0831_zps6022efa_edit_1398803042247_zpsq9qn4vva.jpg

 

 

 

Thanks for looking at my Journal

 

Plenty more to come.......

[Soothing Shrimp]

Gorgeous shrimp!

[Doc4PC2]

Nice!

[metageologist]

Beautiful shrimp

Have a gniess day. -Scott

[TheShrimporium]

Thanks for the kind words. I will be adding more pics soon and better ones at that. I'm still learning on my new Nikon D90 and also need to purchase another lens.

I will also go into further detail about my particular setup and why it works for me, along with my likes/dislikes of various substrates, products, filtration, etc.

Thanks

-Jamie

[OblongShrimp]

Awesome!  It is always interesting to hear how people got into the hobby.