Category: Critters

Shoaling ember tetras

Posted on by Andy Pierce

Ember tetras are a great little fish with lots of colour and activity.  They are a ‘shoaling’ fish which means they like to stay together in a loose group – this is different from ‘schooling’ fish which exhibit a tight formation with highly synchronised movements.  Filed under “there’s always one”, we have this one ember, named ‘Jerry’, who does not shoal with the other embers and instead hangs out by him(her?)self on the opposite side of the tank.  The shoaling embers are generally in the upper left of the Fireplace Aquarium, whilst Jerry is inevitably on the middle/upper right side.  Why Jerry doesn’t go along with the group is a mystery but it’s very consistent behaviour and always from the same fish, and if I’m honest, it’s not without its charm.

The embers replaced chili rasboras in the Fireplace Aquarium.  The embers are big enough not to get eaten by the rummys or the barbs – this was less true for the slightly smaller chilis. 

Rummy-nosed tetras eat chili rasboras!

Posted on by Andy Pierce
rummy eating chili
caught in the act

Well crap!  I had high hopes for the chili rasboras.  When I purchased the initial 8 of them I specifically asked the person at the local fish store whether rummy nosed tetras would eat the chili rasboras and was assured that they would not.  Then I put the chilis in and only counted 7.  I picked up 6 more from Riverpark Aquatics (mail order from Scotland!) to boost up the numbers a bit, so 13 altogether, but then after a few more days, back down to 6.  No sign of any bodies anywhere.  Then after what seemed like a particularly frenzied fish flake feeding session a few days later, down to just 2 chilis and I see… hanging out of the face of one of the rummys… the back half of a chili!

After some struggles the rummy couldn’t seem to finish the job and barfed up the now-deceased chili.  That body also subsequently went missing.  As a desperation measure, I fished out the last two chilis and transferred them to the Shrimphaus.  One of the last two seemed poorly and now I only see the one left.

I also later discovered a deceased rummy… perhaps an over-sized chili meal did it in?  That body also subsequently disappeared – pretty sure torn apart and eaten.

To be fair, I think the juvenile chilis are just slightly larger than proper eating size and maybe if they had grown up together with juvenile rummys things could have worked out better.  Seems fully adult rummys and juvenile chilis together is not a good idea.  Peaceful community tank, my ass!  It’s a savage world in there.

Hopefully slightly larger alternative fish…

I’m trying ember tetras now as a replacement for the chilis.  The embers are quite a lot stouter than the chilis were and so far neither the rummys nor the barbs have gone after them in a food-like manner.  Fingers crossed…

Chili rasboras – great little fish!

Posted on by Andy Pierce

There’s a new addition to the Fireplace Aquarium – chili rasboras!  I’ve been thinking there’s room for some more fish residents and the chili rasboras at LFS seemed to tick all the right boxes.

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Baby shrimp newly hatched

Posted on by Andy Pierce

It’s been 10 weeks since the tear-down and rebuild of the Shrimphaus.  One of the things that surprised me in that process is there turned out to not be very many shrimp in the Shrimphaus, and mostly not any small ones.  This suggested that things in the previous build were not as they should be environmentally such that the shrimp had stopped breeding.  The big question was whether the new build would turn that around or not.  It takes four or five weeks from mating until eggs hatch so there has been a bit of a calendar-watching excercise going on and…

We have baby shrimp!

I was pretty excited the first time we got baby shrimp in the Shrimphaus as well.

adult shrimp are much larger than hatchlings
proud parent?

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ChatGPT on bloody mary shrimp

Posted on by Andy Pierce

Filed under “how are we doing with this AI thing” and just for funzies, I asked ChatGPT to help us out with bloody mary shrimp, the main feature of the Shrimphaus.

First attempt:  write me a 500 word blog post about bloody mary shrimp

Bloody Mary Shrimp is a delicious and unique twist on the classic Bloody Mary cocktail. This dish combines the bold flavors of a Bloody Mary with succulent shrimp, making it a perfect appetizer or main course for any occasion.

To make this dish, start by marinating the shrimp in a mixture of tomato juice, Worcestershire sauce, hot sauce, horseradish, and lemon juice. Let the shrimp marinate for at least an hour, or overnight for maximum flavor. Once the shrimp are marinated, skewer them and grill or broil them for about 3-4 minutes per side, or until they are cooked through…

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Alternanthera eaten by shrimp

Posted on by Andy Pierce

It’s been more than four months since the Alternanthera reineckii ‘Rosanervig’ got planted in the Fireplace Aquarium, and whilst it seemed to be doing well initially, after 11 weeks things weren’t looking so great.  I thought lack of light from overgrowing Bucephalandra caterina might have been contributory, so I did a massive epiphyte trim to restore light to most of the tank.  That had very positive effects on the Cryptocoryne wendtii ‘Flamingo’ but didn’t really improve the alternanthera.  There were floating fragments of what looked like otherwise healthy Rosanervig leaves and I have from time to time noticed some suspicious interest in the alternanthera from the amano shrimp.  Some surveys of the interwebs suggests that amano shrimp eating alternanthera species is a known thing which could explain the observed damage.

As an experiment, I have shielded the top of one of the Alternanthera stems inside a mesh bag.  The aquarium denisens haven’t particularly noticed, although I did see a cheeky amano shrimp sitting on the bag – it scampered when I tried to take its picture.  We’ll do an updated report after a while to see how the bagged plant compares to its non-bagged counterparts.

Two week update:  shrimp-proof bag fail

Well… it seemed like a good idea anyway.  Whilst the shrimp-proof bag did keep the shrimp away from the alternanthera, the bag became a major breeding substrate for black beard algae and the plant inside the bag with no meaningful flow and no access to a cleaning crew did not thrive.  Not only that, but I couldn’t get the bag off and wound up tearing the head off the plant in the process!  Looking at it after the fact showed a few new leaves had sprouted so the plant was giving it a try.

That being said, in the ensuing carnage I did notice there was an alternanthera plant not in the bag that seems to be doing reasonably well, so I moved that over to the front of the aquarium and we’ll see how that does.

eaten Alternanthera reineckii ‘Rosanervig’
eaten Alternanthera reineckii ‘Rosanervig’

Amano shrimp eat Rosanervig

They really do!  I tried it again with the Alternanthera reineckii ‘Rosanervig’ and the amano shrimp thanks me for the expensive, highly decorative tasty snack.  Honestly!  I wonder if it’s just the Rosanervig they find particularly yummy since the Alternanthera reineckii ‘Mini’ seems to be doing ok (but not super great).

Mutant bloody mary shrimp

Posted on by Andy Pierce

There’s an interesting new inhabitant in the Shrimphaus, what looks like a spontaneous mutation in the bloody mary shrimp lineage.  Bloody mary shrimp are generally a solid translucent red throughout but this little fella (I think it’s a boy) is mostly clear and colourless, except for a red head, red stripe just above the tail, and one red horizontal back segment.  This is the “rili” pattern, and is reasonbly easy to find in red cherry neocaridina shrimp, but there isn’t much information on ‘bloody mary rili’ shrimp.  The eyes seem to stand out a lot more as well.  I think this is because in the usual bloody mary shrimp the eye region surrounding the black pupils is reddish pink, whereas this googly eyed individual has completely white surrounding tissue.

bloody mary shrimp
“regular” bloody mary shrimp

Bloody mary neocaridina shrimp have a reputation as being reasonably genetically stable, so this seems a little unusual.  I’ll keep a look out to see how this one develops – I’m not actually certain it is a bloody mary shrimp – and whether any more different and interesting mutants come up.

Shrimp on a shelf

Posted on by Andy Pierce

Particularly after a water change, the shrimp like to collect on the river run shelf.  I’m not sure what they’re after here, but this is a consistent behaviour of theirs.  This is the kind of thing you’re not going to be able to observe without a shallow flowing water component to your shrimp habitat – something which I suspect is pretty unusual.  They also like to sit in the flow generally, but the water change seems to really get them going.  Others have seem similar behaviour from their shrimp during water changes.

Do cherry shrimp leave the tank?

In my experience, the shrimp do not leave the tank and I’ve never found a dessicated shrimp on the floor.  That being said, they do seem to enjoy shallow running water and from time-to-time one seems to get a little creative about exploration.  Here’s an interesting video example of a bloody mary shrimp (Neocaridina davidi) lifting itself out of the water.  Fortunately, they don’t do this very often and are sensible enough to get back in the water directly.

Moar baby shrimp!

Posted on by Andy Pierce

Three weeks after the first sighting of a new baby shrimp we seem to have arrival of the next crop.  These guys are really tiny which does suggest the earlier one had been hiding out for a week or so before debuting.  There was a 50% water change today – the usual story with EI dosing – and I was a little concerned the new baby shrimp might get inadvertently changed out along with the water, but they seem to have hung on well and are none the worse for wear.  The successful shrimp breeding suggests we may shortly be inundated with shrimp in the Shrimphaus, but we’ll worry about that later.

Even newly hatched bloody mary shrimp are red

Even the tiniest of these new bloody mary shrimp have an easily distinguished red colouration.  So far the colour has bred really true, which is pretty typical for reports of bloody mary shrimp.  I saw an interesting video where a guy with a pretty normal looking bloody mary shrimp tank went and did an actual count during some rescaping that came in at 600 shrimp in a 5 gallon tank.  That’s about the same size as the shrimphaus!  Everything was looking happy and healthy there so maybe overpopulation isn’t such a concern after all.

Copacetic copepods

Posted on by Andy Pierce

All those white things zooming around in the water column whilst the baby bloody mary cherry shrimp hangs out on one of the roots of the Java fern (Microsorum pteropus ‘Windelov’ ) are copepods!

Unintentional yet still welcome residents of the Shrimphaus, copepods are a form of zooplankton.  Like their much, much larger relatives the shrimp, copepods are also crustaceans, and also have ten (?) legs, an exoskeleton, the whole works.  Copepods tend to be sub-millimetre in length, whitish looking, and capable of very rapid jerky movement covering several centimetres at a time, making them the fastest animals on the planet (in terms of body lengths travelled per second).  Happily, copepods eat algae from the water column so can be considered members of an aquarium clean-up crew.  They are a highly nutritious food source for fish, but I don’t think the shrimp eat them.

In the pictures above, both copepods are photographed at 10x optical zoom.  Both are “heading” to the upper right.  The female has two egg sacs to both the right and left of the bottom bit.  The male? copepod doesn’t have these, but that might simply be a female that doesn’t have eggs.  These two were resting on the surface of the glass; the ones swimming around in the water column don’t photograph very well…

Copepods are abundant in the Shrimphaus but I haven’t ever noticed them in the Fireplace Aquarium, either because they were never introduced in the first place, or because the fish do a super-efficient job of keeping the population down.  I might try a water transplant from the Shrimphaus to the Fireplace Aquarium at some point to cross-introduce these little guys.