New Indonesian Shrimp

lampeye · Post by **lampeye** » Mon Dec 17, 2007 11:16 am

FWIW...

Some photos from Lars's recent expedition to Indonesia. I would have sworn the one shrimp was SW.

http://www.mimbon.de/indo2007.html

BTW, I would love to know the identity of the fish in pics #8 and #9. A new Oryzias, I hope..

Neonshrimp · Post by **Neonshrimp** » Mon Dec 17, 2007 11:28 am

So they are all freshwater? They look great

lampeye · Post by **lampeye** » Mon Dec 17, 2007 11:32 am

Yeah. I wasn't sure, but Lars said they were in a post on the petfrd.com forum.

wklotz · Post by **wklotz** » Tue Dec 18, 2007 3:54 am

Hi!

Yes, this are all freshwater shrimp with abbreviated larval development. Some of this species are already known, others will be described in a few weeks.
Chris shot some photos from the new imported shrimp:
http://www.crusta10.de/templates/index. ... c2acd35f6c

Now a couple of selected breeders had to try to breed them successfully because picking them out of their natural habitat for aquarium porposes ist not a very good idea.

JK · Post by JK » Tue Dec 18, 2007 7:47 am

wklotz wrote: Now a couple of selected breeders had to try to breed them successfully because picking them out of their natural habitat for aquarium porposes ist not a very good idea.

Truely outstanding......the future looks bright.

Is there any info regarding the water conditions required for these yet?

PH, hardness etc.

lampeye · Post by **lampeye** » Tue Dec 18, 2007 9:15 am

Judging from the amount of mollusk shells everywhere, I'd say it's likely that the water is fairly hard, but that's a guess.

Neonshrimp · Post by **Neonshrimp** » Tue Dec 18, 2007 9:43 am

I would have sworn the one shrimp was SW.

I thought so too!

badflash · Post by **badflash** » Tue Dec 18, 2007 8:47 pm

Just as an aside, Chris Lukhaup (who has that site) is in a band and tours the USA now & then. He is quite interested if you have a good shrimp or crayfish hole to take him to. Might even get you some free tickets, who knows? He was here this summer, and may be back in the spring.

wklotz · Post by **wklotz** » Wed Dec 19, 2007 12:11 am

Hi JK!

JK wrote:
Is there any info regarding the water conditions required for these yet?

PH, hardness etc.

These parameters seems to be no problem in this species. In the Towuti, Mantoano and Poso lakes you can find pH values between 7,4 and 8,2; the conductivity is at about 224 µS and the total hardness at about 6°DH.
The water temperature is rather stabile at about 26,5°C. Only in shallow water regions near the shore the temperature can rise to 29°C.

Maybe the bigger problem with theese species could be that the bright colored shrimp live rather substrate-specific (C. spongicola for instance, not imported for aquarium puroposes until now, is restricted to a freshwater sponge).

Cheers
Werner

JK · Post by JK » Wed Dec 19, 2007 1:46 am

wklotz wrote:These parameters seems to be no problem in this species. In the Towuti, Mantoano and Poso lakes you can find pH values between 7,4 and 8,2; the conductivity is at about 224 µS and the total hardness at about 6°DH.

Thanks Werner,
Thats really good news for the future here, as thats pretty close to my tap water

wklotz wrote:The water temperature is rather stabile at about 26,5°C. Only in shallow water regions near the shore the temperature can rise to 29°C.

Interesting, so truely tropical animals.

wklotz wrote:Maybe the bigger problem with theese species could be that the bright colored shrimp live rather substrate-specific (C. spongicola for instance, not imported for aquarium puroposes until now, is restricted to a freshwater sponge).

Maybe not such good news

I remember reading about spongicola a while back, quite stunning, but if I remember correctly also very tiny. 10mm? How do these other new shrimps compare size wise?

Cheers
James

wklotz · Post by **wklotz** » Wed Dec 19, 2007 1:55 am

Hi James!

JK wrote: I remember reading about spongicola a while back, quite stunning, but if I remember correctly also very tiny. 10mm? How do these other new shrimps compare size wise?

Most of the shrimp from the central lakes of Sulawesi aber comparatively tiny too.

Cheers
Werner

Mordaki · Post by **Mordaki** » Wed Dec 19, 2007 4:52 am

that black and whit one looks cool... makes me jelous i cant go and see things like that in the uk

. most of the things in the uks local rivers andd stuff are plain and less colour. wish i lived somewhere tropical near the beach no need for a fish tank could go diving or snorcaling instead(seeing things in thair natural habitat would be cool)

.

Mordaki · Post by **Mordaki** » Wed Dec 19, 2007 4:56 am

wklotz wrote:Chris shot some photos from the new imported shrimp:
http://www.crusta10.de/templates/index. ... c2acd35f6c

wow they are all freshwater? i like the 4th and 5th shrimp on the first page they look so nice you are lucky

zapisto · Post by **zapisto** » Wed Dec 19, 2007 8:00 am

wklotz wrote: Maybe the bigger problem with theese species could be that the bright colored shrimp live rather substrate-specific (C. spongicola for instance, not imported for aquarium puroposes until now, is restricted to a freshwater sponge).

Cheers
Werner

hi werner.
yep that's really a important information.
do you mean they will not survive without this substarte or the color will disapear without this sponge ?
do you have a pics of this sponge?
is it true some people in germany breed them and sell them already (mimbon to not name them) ?

Post by **Mustafa** » Wed Dec 19, 2007 1:55 pm

zapisto wrote:
hi werner.
yep that's really a important information.
do you mean they will not survive without this substarte or the color will disapear without this sponge ?

That's not necessarily the case. In my opinion that's actually highly unlikely. The shrimp eat diatoms/algae on the sponge, not the sponge itself. I'm pretty sure that they can eat diatoms/algae/biofilm off of other surfaces.

is it true some people in germany breed them and sell them already (mimbon to not name them) ?

No, not true. The shrimp "just" got to Germany and all the shrimp sold right now are wild-caught. Of course people will try to breed them, but captive-bred shrimp are not on the market right now.

By the way, these shrimp are not new. We've known about these shrimp for years. It's just that this is the first time (that I know of) that these guys are commercially exported out of Sulawesi. Here's, by the way, a topic from two years ago with some of the same questions and answers that you see in this topic (e.g. "Are these freshwater?"):

viewtopic.php?t=1120&highlight=sulawesi

Here's another one from almost three years ago (scroll down to my post with the pictures):

viewtopic.php?t=281&postdays=0&postorde ... i&start=15

Werner and I are probably two of only a handful of people who actually care about the fact that these shrimp may disappear if exporters keep catching them and sending them all over the world. Most people in the "industry" care about the bottom line. How much money can I make off of these animals? It's a gold digger mentality: "If I don't catch these, someone else will so I will take them all (or at least as many as they can)!" It's really sad....

I suspect that their survival rates during import/export aren't going to be any better than with any other shrimp (i.e. 40%-80% dead on arrival, more dying later). I just hope they do a better job in packaging these shrimp. It's of utmost importance that whoever buys these shrimp should be a knowledgeable shrimp breeder with a proven track record of breeding successes with "difficult" species. Unfortunately, there are more than enough people out there who don't mind spending the money to just own some rare and unusual shrimp but have no clue about breeding shrimp whatsoever. It kills me when someone says: "I've never kept shrimp before, but I want to have some really rare and unusual species. Can anyone help me?"

So, let's all be responsible. We need to establish captive populations of these shrimp (and others). Let's all be honest to ourselves and evaluate if we really have enough experience with shrimp to tackle the job. It won't hurt to wait a little until captive-bred shrimp are offered for sale. It's good for the wild populations and good for us as we don't have to worry that these shrimp will disappear from the planet at some point.