Hi All

[Kay101]

Hello everyone, as you can see I am from the UK. I have several species of shrimps in shrimp only tanks. I'm quite jammy really i have - cherries, sakura, yellow cherries, OEBT, blue pearl, white pearl, CRS, CBS, and a few taiwans bees! The TBs are new and yet no breeding but evrything is thriving. I've recently set-up a tank which will be dedicated to sulawesi shrimp and snails.

Tank is unusual in shape 12'' high, 40'' length, 18'' wide. sand base, with lots of rocks, using a fluval 205 attached with a sponge filter at the inlet (making it shrimp safe). I have added crushed coral to the filter. last water params ph 8.0 GH 6 KH 4 NO2 0 NO3 5. temp 27C. TDS 220. It has been cycling for 2 wks, but i plan to leave much longer before adding shrimp.

I really hope for some cardinal dennerli shrimp, but cannot find a supplier in the UK, are there any others in the UK with these? it'd be great to make contact for advice etc.

Do the water params look ok?

Thanks for reading.

[smdanng]

Welcome Kay101:)
Wow seems like u have a quite a collection! The water parameters look ok, anyways cardinals are the hardiest of all Sulawesi I've encountered. U may wanna intro some tylos first for cycling. For my experience I find tylo waste to be beneficial to these shrimps, they feed on it. First 3 days I don feed the Wesi anything so I have noticed them scrapping on tylo waste. Is your tank thick with algae?

[maxgl68]

Welcome to the wonderful world of sulawesiani shrimp. It 'a little more challenging but at the same time very charming. The Cardinal is sulawesiane between species, the most robust and prolific. In the market you are capturing, or from private farms. To say that the parameters are fine. I keep a condicibilità of about 350. The important thing for shrimp sulawesiani is the setting:
1. put a lot of rocks in the tank
2. put a few plants
3. insert some moss (the Vesicularia grows well at high temperatures)
4. the maturation of the tank should be long (at least a month and a half) to allow the formation of biofim on the rocks.
For TYLO if you want to stay on the subject (biotype Lake Matano) you can insert the antenna or patriarchalis or yellow Yellow Tylo (the most prolific), white etc..
I have the orange TYLO. Verify that Tylo did not attach leeches. In almost forgot, the TYLO you can put in the tank first.

[willw]

Hi Kay101,

I'm currently looking for Cardinals in the UK too (Berkshire / London area). If you're willing to travel distances, look up aquajardin and maidenhead aquatics; they can get hold of the species but it depends whether or not they feel like ordering them :/ try 'aquarist classifieds' too. If that fails, ring up all your local fish stores (be warned: chances are the person on the other end of the line will think you're a complete nutter and won't know what you're talking about!). If that fails, look up the closest PFK top rated store to you and give them a ring.

By the way, your parameters look good (I'd prefer it if the NO3 was 0 though). Also, take a look at my thread about the lake matano salt mix recipe.

Cheers and hope this helps,

Will

[Kay101]

Thanks guys, I've located some sulawesi shrimp from a LFS and added them to the tank. What's best to feed these? the algae is at a minimum, so i've taken some rocks and have put them in the window. I'm still having NO luck in finding these shrimp in the UK. can anyone help? Willw, i've tried all those places you mentioned.

[willw]

I don't understand how you're having trouble locating them in the UK if you've found them in a local fish store :P

When you say you got some sulawesi shrimp, which species are you referring to? I know that cardinals (and pretty sure this applies to other sulawesi species) really do just prefer to eat the algae in your aquarium - it's supposedly very hard to feed them commercial foods.

Also, if you put commercial foods in there and they don't get eaten, they'll start to decay and raise the ammonia, nitrite and nitrate levels in your water - that can be fatal to the shrimp.

So I'd stick to your plan and get a good amount of algae growing in there.

[Kay101]

Sorry my bad! I got Sulawesi snails, which I've added, yellow rabbit snails! I still have no contact for the shrimP! :cry:

[willw]

Hmm.. would you be willing to travel down to Maidenhead aquatics Woking to get some? I'm looking to order some there it's much more likely to be successful if both of us say we're interested. I'm looking to get one 'tester' specimen first and then a further 9 or 10 if all goes well in my setup.

[Summit MicroFarm]

Welcome Kay!
Good Luck in your search for Sulawesi's...They are awesome, just finicky...which is why I am working with willw to see if we can see success with his salt mix recipe. Very excited!

:alien:

[Kay101]

Managed to get hold of 4 today, 1 was in poor state and died but others doing ok. i'll see how these go and get some more all being well.

[willw]

brilliant - how did you get hold of them in the end? I rang Maidenhead aquatics Woking yesterday and they're ordering in ~10 or so for me.

Hopefully Summit MicroFarm and the rest of us using the salt mix will get some good results (breeding wise) :D

[Kay101]

Same, called local MA and they got me some in, they suffered big loss in transit, leaving me with just 4! They said they'll get me some more hopefully!

[Kay101]

UPDATE;

I managed to get hold of 6 more cardinals that I added to the above survivors. And today found 7 shrimplets in the tank!! I can't believe it. I'm so pleased. I'm not sure how many people in the UK keep these, never mind manage to have them breed in their tanks. Here's hoping F2 will follow.

Question; when the store got these they told me they came from indonesia, are they likely to be wild caught??