shrimp jungle and WIP

[James83]

shock horror ,,

i can post the odd non complaining post HA HA .. dont all fall over now.

Here are one of my tanks , this is a fresh water tank only 35 Litres of water , lit by LED lighting ..
not given the moss a trim in a while , and i have left algae to grow on the sides and back of the tank, as a natural feed for the shrimp fry and adults .
I try as much as possible not to feed them with any man made feed , and allow them to graze as they would in the wild ..
and i guess they approve , the last time i was cutting the moss back shrimp fry were all over the place .

the roots are from the giant frogbit plant on the surface , but i will be getting rid of that , for an other floating plant that likes the higher level of lighting i have , and the leaves , roots look blood red from bellow . And if they are happy with the water conditions will flower as well .
roughly counted 33 shrimps the last time i was trimming the moss. i do plan on adding shrimp of other colours / other species of shrimp that wont cross breed.



this other tank , was the shrimps previous home , but i bought the larger tank to allow for more aquascape . and i am setting this old tank up to be a salt water aquarium for shrimps , crabs , a goby that lives with a shrimp , and possibly 2 or 3 fish called fire fish , or purple firefish , not made my mind up.
the best bit is , the salt water tank has cost nothing , as its just using the bits i kept from my last salt water tank



Here we go ,, photobucket finally decided to work.
this is one of the older shrimp kids lol , this is about 2 months old.

[Henrietta]

Could you have a Seahorse?- that would be cool. Are they compatable with Shrimps?
I always remember admiring something in a shop aquarium years ago with a big nose- I think it was a long nosed elephant fish or something like that- very curious.

[James83]

seahorse's can be very difficult to keep sadly , as they need a constant supply of live food 24/7 as they "" graze "" .
A lot of seahorse experts will tell you to keep absolutely nothing in with seahorses as they require less flow of water , can damage them selves against hard rock . and shrimp / bigger species of shrimp can annoy them to death by constantly nicking food from the seahorses , and trying to clean them.
plus


sadly the tank i am setting up as salt water is not tall enough for "" common "" species of seahorses that get over 8 inch tall as they ideally need tanks 30" deep .

the tank if i removed the rock and sand would be ideal for "" dwarf seahorses "" but they are termed for expert only , because they need 24/7 live feed small enough to eat or they would starve to death slowly . the dwarf seahorse only gets to 1.5 inches tall.

in the past when i had a 6 foot fresh water tank i did have an elephant nose fish which got to 11 " long . that sadly took a liken to all small fish it could fit in its mouth lol.

[david c]

Hi ,what about a Piglet Squid ?.
http://www.carersuk.org/phpBB31/downloa ... ew&id=3447
First time i saw this on line i wanted a tank full ,but they are supposed to be hard to keep alive .
Used this as my Avitar on here for a long time.

[James83]

Sadly David Squid of any species / size are not available all that often to the general public in the UK .
As not that many people are willing to drop the high amounts of money on something that lives a few months / 1 year poss 2 years max.
I did know someone who kept nautilus for a while , but he had to convince a store to get their supplier to sell them to the general public side of the company , as its mainly large public aquaria that purchase such live stock.
plus its been revelled that the nautilus comes from deeper waters so prefers the deeper water pressures , but can live in home aquariums if large enough and deep enough.


a slightly larger squid was proving to be popular for a while a couple of years back , but people soon lost interest when they cost £200+ each and lived for 7 months max.
same as Jellyfish are a big thing , but a specialist jellyfish tank is like £700 easily , then depending on where you get them from UK supplier wise a moon jellyfish can set you back £40+ each ,, but advances in feed means you can keep them alive longer than they would live in the wild which is normally 1 year , but more and more people are keeping them alive for 2 years at home .

[MrsAverage]

James
How did you manage to get images 'in line' in your post? You technical whiz you

MrsA

[James83]

MrsA

if you use a web site called Photobucket they provide you with a choice of links once you have uploaded from your phone or hard drive , you simply select the picture you wish to share, then you click on one of the links you wish to give to people and then when you type out your post you either right click on your mouse and click paste , or you can press and hold ctrl and press v ( that is the command for paste ) .

to make it a bit more confusing though , not all forums allow "" direct image links "" , and you would have to provide a link that would take people to your photobucket.

there are several image hosting sites , so each site may work slightly differently.
but i use photobucket as it has all my photographs on ( nearly 1000 pics and short clips ) and they are giving me the odd email about possibly paying to a premium account as i am using more than half of the available free allowance lol.

[Henrietta]

Gosh I didn't know Seahorses ould rewach those dizzy heights! I guess when I've seen them on TV they've been the smaller ones an inch or two at most and babies.
Ditto for elephant fish- that must be a soul destroying if you keep it successfully it would outgrow most domestic aquariums. I hope they are always sold with that advice.

[James83]

sadly very few "" tank busters "" are sold with the advice they will outgrow your tank.
as there is no legal rule on fish shops , it is basically left down to the buyer to research on said fish species.

Where as sadly a lot of people just look and buy it because it looks cool.

i can remember being in a local shop once , looking over the salt water fish , waiting for a member of staff to come over.
some woman shoved me out the way , grabbed the member of staff that was coming to serve me , and she gassed us out with her perfume . and told the member of staff "" give me a clown fish "" .
the guy asked her what size tank , how long has it been set up , was about to ask her more Q's when she snapped back , its living with the kids bloody gold fish thats alive so we know what were doing ...
the guy said i am sorry but clown fish are salt water fish , her reply was i'll stick table salt in then just give me it now.
he refused to get the fish and as she stormed off she yelled abuse about the shop being poop , the staff poop ( stronger words than poop ) and said she will just get a bloody clown fish from else where .

But technically fish shops are free to do as they wish within some limited rules .. and because they have a fast turn around of stock , they do not have to put fish in large tanks , so they have them in small tanks which makes it easy for them to be caught and bagged.

Henrietta
sadly seeing wild life on tv you can never get a true idea of size .
the main common species in the pet trade of seahorses is 20cm fully grown adult , from the tip of its tail .
that surprised me when i looked at a seahorse tank , you can keep them in a normal aquarium , but i was not keen on the idea as i read they love to swim up and down as well , so they need a taller deeper aquarium .
you can have an other similar species of seahorse called the pipe fish .
that is as it sounds , like a pipe , eats the same food as seahorses and gets larger .

[Maine]

Wow, those are lovely James. My dad used to keep fish he had a fresh water tank, also piranhas and clown fish. He also collected Bonsai Trees and belonged to a Bonsai Tree club for many years.(It was his anniversary yesterday 5 yrs he's been gone now would have been almost 87)
I keep goldfish for 10 years they would have lived longer but I left someone to feed them while I was away. Came home and all were dead. I reckon they'd of lived much longer.