Think Fish Keepers Daily News [year 2020]

Now I have more time to type:

I bought this betta (white with pink fins) from Maidenhead Aquatics, the branch nearest me, in October 2019. This is the shop that keeps the bettas in a rank of small tanks where water flows into the top row, overflows down to the next and so on to the bottom. They are not very big tanks, the bettas can't swim round, but at least they run on a central filter system.

Going back in time to 2010 my bettas have been:
white/pink fins, veiltail; Maidenhead Aquatics; 9 months.
Pale peach or cream, veiltail; MA; 9 months
Plain blue, veiltail; Aquatic Finatic, Northallerton; 5 months
Pale blue/red fins, superdelta; MA; 3 weeks
Orange, blue streaks in tail, delta tail; MA; 7 months
Peach, halfmoon; MA; 29¹/₂ months
Blue, delta tail; MA; 23 months
Blue, HMPK; Ebay, 7 months *
White/red/grey dragonscale, superdelta; Paddock Farm near Darlington, 24¹/₂ months

* this was the fish that either had lymphocystis or tumours, never knew which.

As you can see, several years ago my bettas lived a good time for this species but more recently they have not lived very long.




The shrimps were fine until I got the pearl gouramis in January, then their numbers started to decline. That can't be coincidence. The shrimps tended to congregate in the floating water sprite in my main tank, looking for food in the roots. But that's also where the gouramis hang out, and they are quite big fish now, certainly big enough to kill and eat cherry shrimps.
The frustrating thing is that there is currently someone on Ebay selling blue dream cherry shrimps - collection only 5 miles away. But I can't mix different colours of the same species or I'd end up with tank of nondescript brownish shrimps. I may see if I can locate some fire red or red sakura or bloody mary cherry shrimps as they are redder that the fish shop standard cherry shrimps.
Most blue shrimps are cherries - blue dream, blue velvet, blue jelly etc. I have come across Tai mosura shadow shrimp and blue bolt shrimp which seem to be colour variations of tiger shrimps, but they just don't appeal to me like the blue cherries.

I would be afraid to keep anything in a heaterless tank as our house drops below 18^oC at night in winter, and that's the minimum for even fish like white clouds. And at the moment there aren't enough plants for filterless. Though shrimps don't have the bioload of even one betta. I am working on plants though 

I actually prefer plakats, the problem is finding them. I have never seen one in a shop near me and when I resorted to Ebay the results were not good - https://forums.thinkfish.co.uk/fish-health/tumour-or-lymphocystis/



ProShrimp give the minimum temp for cherry shrimps as 19^oC. Where did you get 14 deg from?


I don't know what to do about blue shrimps     I can get some very local to me - same water etc. But they are Neocaridina davidi so I can't keep them with the red ones I currently have. If I got the blues I would have to try to catch every single one of the red ones and put them back in the main tank. There are two problems with this - what happens if I miss one, and if they go back in the main tank they'll probably get eaten.
Or I could try to source more red ones, and one of the redder variety, but that means buying on-line.

Quandaries 

My condolences about your Betta @Sue, unfortunately after much research into wether I decide to keep Bettas I get the feeling that due to their popularity, treatment before loving homes and genetics they are no different than Guppies which unfortunately is a fish off my list just because their health is in decline in the hobby thanks to the similar treatment like bettas.

I’d love to have shrimp but I too have a Gourami and he/she likes the snails 🐌 so don’t want to risk it, perhaps something for the next project.

I’m excited for your large female cardinal @fcmf I’m definitely considering a large group 

The shrimps have arrived by Royal Mail Special Delivery by 1 pm. I bought them from an Ebay seller on Monday evening, he promptly messaged me to ask if it was OK for him to post them yesterday (Tuesday) for delivery today (Wednesday) so I said yes.
They arrived in a cardboard box. Inside the box was a polystyrene box. Inside the polystyrene box was a tube of a quilted metal fabric stuff. Inside this was a scrunched up standard size fish bag and under that was another bag. This bag was secured by a knot and elastic bands and inside that another bag secured with a knot and elastic bands. And finally inside that were my shrimps and a clump of moss 

They are currently acclimatising........

There were a few sellers with the shrimps I wanted at a reasonable price but most of them were in London where I know they have hard water. I know mine is not as soft as most parts of Scotland but I went with a seller from Cowdenbeath.

I put them in the tank then checked half an hour later. A female was obviously ready to mate as there were males swimming everywhere, but I have no idea if it was a female I rescued from my main tank or one of the new ones. The new ones were small (because juveniles travel better than adults) and pale from their experience so it was quite hard to tell how many males and females there were especially as they were hiding in the moss in the bag. But it doesn't matter if they were all the same sex as I know I moved both males and females from the main tank.


It'll have to be photos as I don't have anything to take videos 

It's not exactly a new tank, it's the betta's old one 

I've been altering things around - removed the algae ridden bits of wood and thrown away the java fern and bolbitis; planted some water sprite; moved a piece of wood from the main tank and tied the java moss onto it - the moss was hanging round in a clump in the main tank and I know shrimps like it.
A few weeks ago I bough some java fern latifolius but as it was grown in vitro it had no roots or rhizomes worth speaking of. I left it in my main tank just sitting on the bottom to see if it would grow but it does not appear to have done anything. I left one of the bits of algae covered wood to sit outside in the sun for a couple of weeks and have now pushed the bits of JF latifolius into the crevices and put it in the shrimps tank. I'll see what happens.

The tank has an Eheim Pickup filter. The slits are big enough to suck up shrimplets so as there are at least 3 berried females I have covered the front of the filter with a footlet - those socks that you wear under shoes and can't be seen, only made of the same stuff as tights. I only had very pale ones in the drawer so it does look a bit odd. I'll have to try and find some black ones.




And of course my camera died. It was my husband's old Fuji camera which he bought for our son's graduation in 2004. When I googled the problem it turned out to be a fault with the light sensing chip (or some such) which was common in cameras made between 2002 and 2006 so it did well to last as long as it did. I bought a new camera a couple of weeks ago and I'm still learning how to use it. [My mobile phone doesn't take photos, it's a very basic model which makes and receives calls and text messages, that's all].


I'll get some photos eventually 

Stunning tank and beautiful inhabitants.

Always great to get the detail of what's in the tank, so that's much appreciated too.

Please excuse the nappy on the filter

 

We went to Maidenhead Aquatics this afternoon to see if they had nerite snails. They don't. They are on order but it could be next week, next year or even never when they get more in  But I also bought a new net. I have an old one with a very fine mesh which was wearing at the corners so I bought a new one. The new net is larger than the old one, which was just the right size. The black netting has now been removed from the old net and placed over the filter intake in the shrimp tank. It looks a lot better than that light beige footlet 

And I also caught three more bright red shrimps in the main tank and transferred them over.

Water change day, and I moved the filter from the side wall to the back wall so the wood with the java fern is now not shaded by the filter. I don't know why I put it on the side wall, silly place really 

Good to read the update, @Sue, and hope all goes well with the shrimps' diet, the plant, and the nerites (in spite of the likely increase in eggs).

As described elsewhere, I'm smitten with my fish, but the newbies have yet to learn that my approach of the tank doesn't always mean that food follows.
Quarantine tank = FCMF approaches > each fish darts up to the surface, one by one, excitedly and as though food has already landed.
Main tank = FCMF approaches > fish watch, wondering if it might be yet another admiration of them, yet another bit of tank tinkering, or one of several treats that appear regularly (but not particularly excited at the prospect of the latter given that they're spoilt with such a variety of food, so will only deign interest if it happens to be their particular favourite food and ignore anything else that isn't).