(Sept 18, 2010)
2 new entries into my tank. It now has 2 clowns (Nemo’s), and 2 skunk cleaner shrimp (Jacques)
cleaner shrimp acclimation
They were drop acclimated for about 4 hours. If you look close at the upper right hand side, you can see the effects of a drop of water falling into the container (exciting stuff)
I really hope shrimp dont have built in knowledge about how we (humans) sometimes cook our food. For a while they were in a large pot used for making stew just in case the container overflowed. If they thought they were going to be boiled, they could be scared for life.
Those pellets are formula 1 and formula 2, wanted to see if they would eat either one. It seemed that they liked both.
Once they were put in the tank, it wasnt as smooth as i had hoped. One made it onto the rocks, he was fine. The other went to the bottom of the tank. He kept doing laps around the bottom of the tank. My rocks are about 4 inches off the bottom of the tank, add that to the vortech mp40 with minimalist aquascaping and he was working hard just to move around. It didnt look like he could make it to the rocks. Luckily I had forget my vortech wasnt running at the lowest speed, it was at 3/10, moved it back to 1/10 and it was better, but not good enough. Placed another rock in the tank on the bottom so it could be used to get to the other rock and that did the trick, w/in 10 minutes the shrimp made his way to the rock.
I ened up relocating the vortech higher in the tank and that rock can be removed now. The flow is low enough where they can get around at the bottom of the tank w/o having to struggle.
For the record, the vortech kicks butt. Compared to other powerheads, it is not a contest. That one pump moves massive amounts of water in throughout the tank, not just a small part of tank. It does it not by small stream that pumps alot, but a large diameter stream thats slow, but massive (motorcycle versus bulldozer). The undertow is enough where i can see flake food go from bottom on the far end from the powerhead, to the top on the same end after traveling the length of tank.
The clowns didnt know what was going on when they first saw the shrimp. It was funny to me, probalby not to the clowns. The clowns, tank bred/raised probably had never saw a shrimp. These shrimp are friendly. They both moved to the clowns area of the tank and the clowns where pretty stressed for a bit. Its a different story 24 hours later. The (soon to be male) clown seems to enjoy the shrimps touching him, the (soon to be) female isnt quite at that stage. The clowns act different now, both come out of their pvc home alot more often and swim by the shrimp. They even hang out under the rock somtimes, which they never did before.
The happy family
happy family
I’m debating on trying to raise peppermint shrimp, or at least trying, will need something to keep me occupied in the winter months. I’m not used to alot of failure, but it sounds like if I do try, I better be ready for that. Not sure peppermint shrimp would make it in my tank, those skunk cleaner shrimp had issues moving around, doubt peppermint shrimp would do well at all with the flow i have. So I have to decide if I even want to put the time in to it, and what I would use to house peppermint shrimp
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