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RE: Missing RCS?

stvnw — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 20:14:16 GMT

I also have snails in my cherry shrimp tank and I gather them while they are small by placing a piece of lightly steamed ( just enough to make it soft) romaine lettuce in the tank and anchor it in the substrate or set something on a corner of it to hold it down. The snails love it as do many different algae and sucker type fish and overnight you will have many snails attached to the lettuce. I then remove it and feed them to my yoyo loach in my 20 gallon community tank. He only seems to like the smaller ones so the big ones I discard!:)

RE: Missing RCS?

Nikita — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 16:24:11 GMT

Eh, that type of snail egg isn't black and they aren't laid individually. Makes me wonder what that thing actually was... :]

I'm battling snails in my tank too, but if you just mash/remove them whenever you see them it's easy to keep the population under control. If you ignore them...it'll become a fiasco.

There's a pretty big one in my tank right now, it's about a quarter of an inch long. I don't want to smash it but I need to or it'll multiply ;;

RE: Missing RCS?

FattFishy — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 16:06:30 GMT

I found snails. Who knew? Probably came on the Hornwort....

RE: Missing RCS?

JCHAMPAGNE — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 11:35:57 GMT

Those eggs might have been from something else. I believe cherry shrimp females carry the eggs until they release them as miniature cherry shrimp, but not eggs.

At least I thing I read that some where.

RE: Missing RCS?

FattFishy — Sat, 23 Aug 2008 21:10:51 GMT

EEK! Cheese I'm sorry.... it's not your fault after all...

So... I think these little RCS know when to come out. I was going to prune the Hornwort, turned the light on and... I saw at least 4 of them. One in the moss, two in the floating Hornwort (HW from now on) and one last on in the planted HW. Their color is not as vibrant during night as I have observed... not even the neons.

Here's the best part... I think I saw a RCS egg! I couldn't find a pregnant/egg-laden one so I figured the fry died or got eaten. But I saw this tiny round ball stuck to the Hornwort with a little black dot in it. It was in full sight right in the front pieces of HW! COOL!!!!

My Hornwort looks like it got a really bad haircut... it is a fast growing plant. In the picture above, the left plant isn't reaching the top. But, today it's flowing in the current touching the top. Who knew? This is my first experience with a fast growing low-light plant! YAY!!!!

BTW, the picture is REALLY outdated. The cotton stuck on the intake tube is brown. The HW is completely covering the top. I have a styrofoam cup (the outer layer) as a feeding "net" to prevent food from being caught by the Hornwort. I added a flower pot on the left and the Amazon Swords are yellow on the tips... I dunno why. Should I prune those parts? I was also wondering about their roots so I pulled the biggest one and... the roots were as long as the plant! COOL AGAIN! Next, I took out my CO2 bell, airstone, and silicone tubing (just out of the tank). I added RCS and took out ghost shrimp... Lastly, the brown tips are pruned.

RE: Missing RCS?

FattFishy — Sat, 23 Aug 2008 20:50:00 GMT

Hm... Cheese if you did it back to PetSmart for you...

I DID see two but now I only see one in the Hornwort... I was really hoping for them to breed I wanted some sort of shrimp selling or an overloaded tank with them...

RE: Missing RCS?

Nikita — Sat, 23 Aug 2008 20:13:38 GMT

Hmm..in my tank, I have no choice but to not worry about my shrimp because it's so thickly planted that I never see them all at once. But in your tank, they don't have that many places that they could get lost. Dead shrimp sink, they don't float, so I don't think you'd find them in the hornwort. If you shake the plants lightly, by tapping them with a pencil or something of that sort, they should dart out if they're in their eating algae or whatnot. Also, poke around in your substrate with that same pencil to see if you notice any shell fragments (but these could also have come from molted skins).

However, I think there may be a culprit at hand.

Cheese.

He's big enough to eat those shrimp. Now, I don't think he'd go after live ones. Unless it went right in front of his nose and he gulped it in, it's unlikely he's been preying on your shrimp..he's just not that kind of predator. But a dead one? Oh, that's fair game. He'll just scoop it up whole or tear it up bit by bit - they're really fragile critters. I don't think he'd have any problems scooping up cherry shrimp that have died of other reasons and making a meal out of them. So my thoughts on the subject? You might just have a guilty gourami.

Missing RCS?

FattFishy — Sat, 23 Aug 2008 17:11:26 GMT

Statistics:

pH 7.6

DH 12

Tankmates: 3 Panda Cories, 6 Neon Tetras, 1 shy Honey Gourami

The pandas are 1 inch each, neons... two are 1.5 inches and others about 0.75-1 inch. Honey Gourami adult size, 2 inches. It's really shy and doesn't have any aggression toward anything or anyfish.

Ammonia, Nitrite: 0 ppm

Nitrate: 10 ppm

No shrimp has ever died of copper or calcium lack.

What happened: So I have 5 Red Cherry Shrimp (RCS from now on) and I can only see one at a time. Thing is, I have a gut feeling they're dead... Either they were eaten and killed, died and eaten, hiding, or dead. But I really want to know what happened... I have seen 2 at a time very recently though.

Here's a pic of my tank to show what hiding places there are:

The Hornwort floating is much more thick due to rapid growth so keep that in mind.

Questions:

1. Are the RCS most likely alive or dead?

2. Can any of the tankmates possibly have eaten them?

3. Are they hiding?

Any input or opinion will be taken gratefully!