Shrimp Studio

06/11/2024

This 29g tank is dedicated to some unique buce and plants. It's running on 2 dual sponge filters, AT5 RGB lighting, and CO2. I have caradina and neocaradina living and breeding. 120 tds 7ph. Most caradina prefer a lower ph to breed, but the orange eye blue tiger shrimp or some o.e. royal blue caradina do great. On another note most caradina can survive in neo caradina parameters however they will not breed or their lifespan might be limited.
It is possible to use CO2 in caradina/plant setups. The trick is to not overdo it with the amount of co2. Too much co2 will kill your shrimp. The buce will respond great to the combination of co2 and the right lighting. This is how you get your purple buce colors to pop.

05/29/2024

Finally got my full corneal transplant... 3 weeks this Thursday. My right eye still seeing blurry so hard to take pics. Hopefully these came out ok.

Red snowflake fishbone. What I'm after is a dark red body contrasting with a white fishbone pattern or bonewhite fishbone. This line has a tendency to throw a slightly orange pinkish white though...so right now letting the colony grow before I make a culling decision. The good quality I like of this line is the consistency of a good fishbone pattern and small tiny snowflake galaxy patterns on the body. They also have great spiderlegs.

05/05/2024

Red fishbone galaxy caradina. What makes it a fishbone is the pattern that extends from top of head to end of tail. Resembles a fish skeleton. Line must be complete from head to tail. Getting the white fishbone as either clean white or bone white is not that easy. It's easier to find pinkish white fishbone color. I do my best to keep this line as clean white/bone white to contrast with the red body. This line also throws out an ocassional boa.

05/03/2024

Red Zebra galaxy caradina. A zebra has stripes on its back but no head/back line. The spots on its head and body are the galaxy spots. These also have bicolored legs called spiderlegs.

05/02/2024

Shrimp food getting crushed into smaller pieces..
They get spoiled for sure. Shrimp envy food.. only the best. Good day beautiful people

04/15/2024

Planted tank with dragon rock and live plants... this little tank houses my culls and oddballs...

04/04/2024

Had a rough day today.. but these o.e. purples helped cheer me up.. Finally I have babies... they are so tiny and blue transparent right now.. looking forward to how they develop.

03/26/2024

Acclimating versus Temp adjusting

Most shrimp hobbyists upon receiving new shrimp go through a process of acclimating them so that their water parameters match their new tank parameters. This is usually done by placing shrimp in a small container like a small bucket then dripping water from their tank into shrimp. An airline hose is usually knotted to control slow dripping. The idea is to get parameters such as temperature, tds and overall new tank conditions to slowly be introduced to shrimp, before popping shrimp into the tank. This process usually takes over an hour when done correctly. Checking temp and tds regularly so they match.

Originally I used to follow this method, but over time have found that temp adjusting works just as effective. About 5 years ago I had purchased some imported caradina from Taiwan. I was in contact with the breeder and he instructed me to just float the whole bag in the tank they were going in. Usually 40 minutes is enough to get temps to match. I removed most of the water in bag and released them. I was skeptical and worried , but to my suprise they all survived. The idea is to get the shrimp into fresh clean water as soon as possible since their bags might have some ammonia starting to build up. As long as the Temps are equal.. the shrimp will be ok, regardless of different tds. On a few ocassion I get new shrimp and continue to float and release... and have not had an issue with this method. The exception will be shrimp that have been compromised.. shrimp that have been in a bag for longer periods than normal, exposed to hot/coldTemps, rough handling, and shrimp that have been overly packed into a small bag. I would expect deaths in these cases regardless what method you use.

This is my opinion based on my experience and you as a hobbyist do what you think is best for your shrimp. I feel most caradina are tougher than what we think. I've had experiences where the bag has burst during travel, and the poor critters have survived.. even crawling in box.. before being directly dumped into tank. I continue to think that if your tank parameters are healthy, and you are receiving healthy shrimp your biggest concern is matching Temps before you release them.

Adding to this write up.. Dan Slee, did make a good observation.. which will make a difference in survival rate when floating and releasing. Extreme temp difference between freshly arrived shrimp bag and room temperature. Placing the bag immediately into the tank might drastically adjust the temp as opposed to allowing the bag to temp adjust slower by placing it outside the tank and allowing room temp to slowly adjust it. I would release shrimp into a small plastic fruit container where it is easier to check Temps. Even floating the container in tank .. the thick plastic would slow down the temp adjusting.

02/20/2024

I just received these nifty magnets from Joe Williams.. sometimes it's so frustrating to get those suction cups on the sponge filters to stick... these magnets solve that issue. I am a happy customer... great job on the magnets Joe.

02/20/2024

Greetings everyone! Few pics I took of some colonies.. couple of sixi boa pregnant.. exciting. We should start seeing more shrimp babies soon as weather improves.

02/11/2024

These are orange eye black caradina I called black dragons. A variant of o.e. bkk. They are very prolific and while they produce a high percentage of solid blacks/blue hues a small percentage are metallic (super shiny carapace), blue lines on black body's, and a few even show some white sparkling or white.

Through culling/seperating I am trying to seperate the more unique ones, especially the black body's with blue nanancy stripes. This is a slow process because they show up very rarely, but when they do I isolate those with similar ones. You too can do something similar with your shrimps. Isolate the unique ones and stay on top of the selection process. It will take time and patience, but that is part of the fun of breeding caradina shrimp.

02/05/2024

Sometimes I come up with these crazy ideas.. and I challenge myself and my employees to follow along...jajaja.. we wanted a 75g tank for the main office. This is for my main work site not shrimp studio. My main work is wholesaling new aftermarket car and truck exhaust products, from catalytic converters to mufflers. It will be a planted tank with red fire neocaradina and orange eye blue rusty tigers from Gus Camacho that can handle neocaradina parameters. I will have a few schools of tiny tetra types in the tank. The shrimp will have plenty of hiding spots and most should survive. The stand is made out of cement planting blocks that are normally used to hold soil. In the center of each corner there is a metal rod that goes through to help stabilize the height of the blocks.

01/22/2024

Red fancy tiger.. this is my ideal red fancy tiger phenotype. Clean dark vibrant red, thick white tiger stripes and face mask. Bicolor spider legs . No black striations or black markings or black marbling on red. I have found that breeders in asia to produce a more vibrant almost metallic red have crossed the black fancy tiger with the red fancy tiger and while this cross may seemingly make the red more vibrant the negative part of the crossing creates a blood red color with black striations or black marbling. The resulting shrimp does stand out more but it will take perhaps a few generations of constant culling to eliminate most of this black marbling. Not culling will create a different type of red fancy tiger.
When you buy imported, or other breeders rft shrimp especially look out for that black marbling .. know that that shrimp you are buying is perhaps a cull or shrimp in the process of improvement for breeder. Know that it will require some further refinement. I believe most breeders use this blood red shrimp approach to refine their shrimp so you will find some of these shrimp in most breeders shrimps. The last pics in this post will show examples of some blood red shrimp I am culling.

01/10/2024

01/09/2024

Late in the afternoon.. I set up a 5g tank for some cool fire red neos I'm getting from Allen Tan. I had a 5g tank that was just collecting dust so I decided to use it for these neos. I first cleaned up the tank.. it was new so it was easy to clean up. I painted the back black with spray paint. The secret to getting a good coat to stick and not to peel is first using a little rubbing alcohol.. drying it well with a paper towel. First coat should be very little like first picture. Wait 15 minutes and then apply a second thin coat. The second coat should not completely darken the glass you should still see patches of clear glass. After the 3d and 4th coat .. and waiting in between coats to dry you will get a great solid color. You know you were patient with your work because the paint should not run. Later I put an already established mini dual sponge filter in the tank. I used one of our kitchen plates to break the water and not stir up the substrate. I used old tired substrate from my caradina tanks.. the neos won't mind. The water is now looking good.. and I'll still be checking water parameters in a few days.

01/03/2024

True metallic from my orange eye black dragon line. Many variations with this line.. not all get the shiny black sheen that I call metallic in this line. The black is so shiny the colors seen here are actually from the overhead led lights that combine with the metallic sheen. In black fishbone galaxy boas the true metallic is seen as a gold, blue, bronze metallic colors.. not a solid shiny blue or green. But ill get into that later.

12/24/2023

Red fishbone galaxy snowflake

12/23/2023

These blackfishbone snowflake are van lineage.. im hoping next generation will hold the blue base more consistently... they were originally bred in lower tds.. im using 90 tds.

12/23/2023

Blackfishbone snowflake galaxy
Greetings everybody!

11/08/2023

Water changes...
I want to share my method and thinking... it's not the only way to do it.. some shrimp keepers hardly ever do water changes others do it every so often.
Prior to breeding caradina I was breeding freshwater blue angelfish, electric blue acara and plecos. I would artificially raise the angelfish eggs and feed them with cultures of live brine shrimp/artemia. Raising baby angelfish from eggs is a lot more time consuming than caradina that's for sure. After a good while of enjoying the hobby and it's challenges I decided to jump to caradina.

I soon realized that you cannot treat caradina like you treat freshwater fish. While my angelfish breeder tanks were bare bottom my caradina tanks needed active substrate to buffer the ph. The water had to be pure r.o water to start. And most of all the water changes had to be tiny compared to regular aquariums. While doing massive water changes in freshwater aquariums actually helped the baby angelfish to develop good fin growth and overall growth. Doing a massive water change to a caradina tank could kill the shrimp.

From my experience of freshwater aquarium keeping I learned that nutrients and toxins can build over time and that topping off did not replace water changes. While a lot of healthy growing plants, deep substrate, and excellent aeration are a big factor in controlling the excessive nutrients and toxins (nitrates) that can accumulate in a freshwater tank the best method of keeping a healthy freshwater fish tank is via regular water changes. Fish can absorb many minerals directly from their skin helping to compensate for minerals that are lacking in their diet.

Now if we take this knowledge and try to apply it to caradina shrimp keeping. We are now limited because for one, most caradina keepers don't use excessive healthy growing plants and many use shallow or little substrates in their tanks. The tds will not help in determining when to change the water.. your tank can develop a tds creep which is a false reading created from lack of water changes and only top offs. Decaying plants, dead shrimp, uneaten food, unsafe tank ornaments, leeching rocks...all can contribute to tds creep.

I will not get into gh/kh.. I keep it simple and maintain a water change maintenance routine. Besides topping off every week, every 3 weeks I do a small fruit plastic cup water change. I buy diced fruit from fruit vendors in this cup.. they average 2 plus pints of water. . See picture for reference. Prior to water change you can leave out a bucket of clean r.o water so temperatures equilibrate in both tankwater and bucket. Shrimp death is more often caused by drastic water change Temps when doing the water changes.

For 10g tanks I do one fruit cup for 15g tanks I do 2 fruit cup water changes. For 29g tanks I do 4 cups of water changes. I do water changes once every 3 weeks or close to that. Sometimes I have some caradina that are just too delicate and have died after doing water changes... so for those tanks I use an airline with an air spigot that drips in water at a super low rate... see pictures for reference...

I wait till the next day to recheck tds and adjust with remineralizer. If I have a tank that I believe has tds creep or an unseen issue... I will do another water change in a few days.
This is my method and thinking... it has worked for me but be open to other methods and do what works best for the health of your shrimp.

11/06/2023

Orange base black fishbone/blue boa cross...

Genetics... blue metallic black fishbone.. black fishbone orange based boa cross. Selected for black body's and orange/blue contrasts.

These shrimp are hard to get the orange to pop in a picture. Depending on what you like.. these show variety between a solid orange on a black body, blue metallic with orange, or more black blue with orange fiehbone pattern. This has been a 3 year plus project.. getting the genetics to mingle and then selecting for popping colors and contrast.
Most juvies take time to color up.. and some are just amazing as adults. Culling and patience is necessary to keep improving the colors.

11/06/2023

Taking shrimp pics is always a challenge.. teaches you patience that's for sure. I am working with 3 groups of black advanced nanancy or black galaxy tigers. What makes them galaxy are the extra spots or face/body markings as opposed to a simpler tiger pattern in the tail or part of the body. This particular group started as a Vin group which I later added purple caradina and metallic boa.. I have been concentrating on the blue which makes these stand out more. They throw out many patterns with blue on black as well as blue on purple. I have been seperating the purples with blue to stabilize that line..but like to leave some in tank . The other group of black galaxy tigers is a pure Yang line with pics to come.

10/26/2023

I wanted to share another cool sponge filter I use. In my garage I have a couple of 10g tall tanks that house neocaradina... I didn't want to put an airpump .. wanted my garage quiet...so I am running these electric driven sponge filters. I've had them for over a year now and I am very pleased with them. I had to do minor modifications to then. I replaced the taller sponge filters with small mini ones. I also don't use the bioball compartment option.
Since I've been cycling and resetting my tanks.. I decided to get ahead of the game by using one of these setups in a sturdy plastic storage box with Ada substrate to cycle it first then place in a tank. I wish I had done this earlier...would have saved me a lot of time.

10/21/2023

Please contact Grant Eder for more info! You can still enter your shrimp for the contest. Deadline is Nov. First. You can also ship your shrimp for the contest!

10/14/2023

Good morning everyone... today I had the pleasure of having Qibin zhu visit and select his own rft...

10/13/2023

Orange eye black dragon special tank. Selected for the nanancy patterns, white sparkles, and blue black body's... almost purple. The new generation of shrimplets are coming out amazing. Will start seperating soon to work on certain phenotypes.. took awhile to get to this point.

10/11/2023

There is this amazing artist in Oaxaca Mexico whom I purchased these tiny wire critters. She makes everything from lizards to butterflies, so I asked her to make some shrimp. I will be giving away 3 of these wire crafted mini shrimp or crayfish to Shrimp Studio badge holders.. To participate you must be in the continental United States.. if your a badge holder and interested in participating just comment "interested" below. You will be given a # and I will do a raffle tomorrow night or if only 3 participate then those 3 will each get 1 wire shrimp or crayfish.
Note: wife not allowed to participate even though she is a badge holder...lol

10/11/2023

We just went over 1500 members in this page.. im very happy about this. I want to thank everyone in this group for making it possible. You guys are appreciated we are all learning together and sharing, to make the caradina hobby more exciting. To make things even more exciting I am doing a small giveaway ...to the badge holders on Shrimp Studio. Something small but amazingly beautiful and unique. Guaranteed to be one of a kind and no it's not a caradina.. at least not a live one. Stay tuned... 3 will be given out to the winners!!