Ten shrimpy pics

[kenny]

Date: 4/24/2010 6:40:23 PM
Author: mscushion
What is the expected shrimp baby mortality rate?

Sorry, I don't know.
I'm sure in nature it is tiny but professional breeders get a very high rate.
But I do know that the better I do my job the higher the rate will be.

I hear the biggest killer is the human not knowing what to feed the newborns and having it ready immediately.
It has to be small enough to fit into their tiny mouths.
The preferred food is microscopic critters in infusoria.

The infusoria I'm culturing is not ready yet but I had the below Kyorin Hikari First Bites ready for them.
It must be working because I can already tell they are larger.

I can't count them because many of them hide out in the Java Moss I added to the tank.
But at least they are out of that ugly net so I can watch them now.

And watch them I do.
They spring around and/or are carried by the gentle currents that have adjusted to keep the food suspended.
They can not chase food yet.
They can only eat what happens to float by their mouths.

 

[kenny]

Here is a fresh sprinkling of First Bites with my dry finger to show how the food is powder-like.
It is designed to float and gradually sink where the currents spread it around.

Most of what you see are relatively large clumps of several particles of food.
They separate after soaking.

 

[Tuckins1]

Kenny, you are amazing! Most people I know wouldn't have thought twice about some cheap little feeder shrimp's babies... I feel sad for mama shrimp! Your posts have really given these animals little personalities- it really IS like a soap opera!

 

[packrat]

This is the most fun thread! I love seeing the pictures and I was sad when Shirley passed away.

 

[somethingshiny]

Is it just me or does this seem like a children''s book?? Where''s Whitby? She could write up the story!

 

[mrscushion]

Date: 4/24/2010 7:27:17 PM
Author: kenny
They can not chase food yet.
They can only eat what happens to float by their mouths.

Awww! They''re so helpless! Cute!

 

[oddoneout]

I always knew I loved animals but shrimp? This thread has been emotional. I feel so bad for the dead mother shrimp. I still think it''s very sweet you''re taking care of the shrimps (and documenting it all with pictures).

 

[treefrog]

Looking good Kenny! You must have a pretty good pet store close by! I''ve never even seen that food at mine but Hikari makes some pretty good stuff. That''s about the only brand I''ve been able to get my clownfish to eat.

 

[kenny]

Tomorrow the oldest kids will be one week old so I'll post 10 birthday pics.
During the first week they molt and change form a few times.
If you recall there were three mothers who's eggs hatched over three consecutive days.

You can already spot the oldest ones because, starting today, they can rest on the bottom on their feet - just like grown ups.
The younger ones still drift vertically and helplessly in the water column.

Here is the luxurious 10-gallon Shrimp castle, but I doubt you can make out any of the tiny babies in this pic.
They love to hide in the Java Moss on the left, which hosts microscopic food.

The moment I dropped the moss in 70% of the larvae vanished. (I hope the snails are not eating them.)
In a month the shrimp feel safe enough to emerge from the Moss - although as you'll soon see a few came out for their close ups.

 

[kenny]

In a high-pitched voice, this little guy said, "Take Me To Your Leader".

 

[kenny]

Here's one hiding in the moss.
He has no idea thousands of people all over the world can see him.

 

[kenny]

They are transparent and look like glass shimmering in the water as they move.

I cheated.
This guy was actually vertical and I rotated the pic.
I'm a bad bad scientist.

I wonder what those two things on his head are are that look like bubbles.

 

[kenny]

At this magnification the depth of focus is so shallow you try to wait till they are swimming flat against the glass.
If they are swimming towards you, like the "Take Me to Your Leader" pic, you only get part of their body in focus.

You can try to use a smaller aperture to get more depth of focus but that blocks too much light, so it's a trade off.

 

[kenny]

Here's nice sharp bird's eye view in which you can see internal organs.

Look at the tiny hairlike structures at the front and the end of the animal.

 

[kenny]

These look like three dive bombers attacking.

 

[kenny]

This gal's one of the oldest.
See how she no longer looks like a larvae but like a shrimp?

Just starting today she can sit up on her feet, just like mommie shrimpie.
She already has those swimmerets under her belly behind her feet.
They will propel her and will some day oxygenate her eggs.

 

[kenny]

I believe this is an offspring of the murderous psycho postpardum depressed mom, who's eggs hatched the second of the three days.

He looks larger than some other larvae, but isn't sitting down yet.

 

[kenny]

Here''s an unusual shot of three together.

 

[that_someone_special]

Date: 4/27/2010 2:36:52 AM
Author: kenny
I believe this is an offspring of the murderous psycho postpardum depressed mom, who''s eggs hatched the second of the three days.


He looks larger than some other larvae, but isn''t sitting down yet.

He has crazy eyes....

I am putting in a request that you buy more Mama animals and take more baby pictures

 

[loriken214]

Date: 4/27/2010 2:23:21 AM
Author: kenny
In a high-pitched voice, this little guy said, ''Take Me To Your Leader''.

AWESOME!!!!

Lori

 

[VRBeauty]

You are quite the photographer! Great portraits!

 

[Cehrabehra]

Hi kenny, sorry I didn''t get back to this thread - your newest pictures are amazing! I will get on board with touting your photography skills and paternal instincts!

Years ago I brought home this tiny baby molly smaller than the size of a grain of rice... I kept it in the baby tank until it got to be about the size of a quarter. My husband and I finally let the little guy (we named small fry) loose and he was like look at me look at me I''m so freeee... then another fish in our tank came over and just bit off his tail in one bite. Ugh. He died a few hours later. I was so bumming. I can''t for the life of me remember what the name of the type of fish that ate his tail was... it was a golden something - it wasn''t a cichlid or a gourami - but it looked similar to either of those... kinda like a honey gourami but a little more disk shaped and more yellow orange. It''s bugging me now.

As for my fish here... yeah I know about the water amonia/nitrite/nitrate cycle and removing chlorine from the water... we had a betta here that lived for about 2 months. I got a pleco from this other guy and he lived about a week and a few days later the betta was dead too. I got the pleco around the same time as a new tank and a new fakey plant but I kept the old rock so it shoulda been okay. I dunno. I have no idea what quality the water is like here and it''s tough to find someone who speaks english who actually knows what they''re talking about.

When we got the betta - the guy we bought it from said it was a magical fish that didn''t need to have its water changed or be fed for 2 years. There''s no sense of consumer protection here. Of course I know it was a dung pile of bs, and it irritated me that people just go around telling such total bs... just last week my driver was trying to tell me something someone said to him and I was like yeah - another magical fish??

Anyway - keep them coming and any time you want to post some new pics of your hubbahubba''s hairy chest covered in diamonds, I''m game!!

 

[Cehrabehra]

back in the day we had a 90 gallon salt tank, a 29 mixed tropical, and a 56 (give or take a gal or two) hexagon. I think kenny''s new one is a pentagon. I put gouramis in the hex and it was my least fav - fish are more fun to see if they have a long length and the hex was all about height. the 90 was huge but I would have rather had tropicals in it than salt, in retrospect - we were too broke to really do wonderful things with it. I think we had only about 6 fish in it. I really want to have SOMETHING here since we''ll be here 2 years but I don''t want to invest so, so much when we won''t take it with us. We still have the 29 gal somewhere, sold the 90 and the hex.

 

[Tuckins1]

So cool Kenny! Keep ''em coming shrimp daddy!!

 

[Imdanny]

Kenny, awesome thread. Thank you.

 

[Cehrabehra]

Date: 4/22/2010 1:36:52 PM
Author: kenny
Our heroine, sans eggs.


She looks so peaceful.

ack - she looks ready for cocktail sauce at that magnification!!

How exactly would you cremate a fish kenny??

as macabre as it sounds I vote making the most of her and feeding her to a gold fish.

 

[Cehrabehra]

I was really tired and lounging on the couch and fell asleep reading this thread... somewhere after Shirley died and sometime before her eggs hatched... I dreamt about all of this in a wild alice in wonderland like fantasy involving the amusement park I live next to. Bizarre.

 

[oddoneout]

Amazing pictures. Keep them coming.

 

[nice ice]

Life, betrayal, sacrifice, death, struggle, survival~ I swear I heard Morgan Freeman giving voice to the text...

Any thoughts on theme music, Kenny?

 

[laine]

Date: 4/27/2010 7:26:49 AM
Author: Cehrabehra
How exactly would you cremate a fish kenny??

Would that just be shrimp BBQ?

(*cringe* that was bad--I''m sorry)