New article about "brackish tolerant plants"

[Mustafa]

Hello all,

Since I keep repeating the same information over and over when people decide to put freshwater plants that they "heard" or read online are "brackish tolerant" in their Supershrimp tanks, I finally wrote a short article about it. So next time someone posts about having freshwater plants, let's just direct them to this article:

https://www.petshrimp.com/beware-of-so- ... er-plants/

You can find this and other future articles in the new "Supershrimp Articles" section under the "Supershrimp!" menu link above.

Also, any comments, or suggestions, or questions (about something I may have missed) are welcome.

[LittlePenny]

This is wonderful! Thank you Mustafa

[Nellyville41]

Lol. Nice.

[DavidZ]

VERY good to know! Thank you!

[Arquisto]

Good article Mustafa. You should make a link in your menu to the article section so it's easier to get to. So far the only way is via the supershrimp page.

[SGTSHEW]

Great article. We still have hope that someday we will be able to adapt something else besides the three but patience is important in this hobby. Put that article in the book someday.

[Mustafa]

Good article Mustafa. You should make a link in your menu to the article section so it's easier to get to. So far the only way is via the supershrimp page.

Done!

[Mustafa]

Great article. We still have hope that someday we will be able to adapt something else besides the three but patience is important in this hobby. Put that article in the book someday.

A book will come at some point.

[Euphotica]

Three? I see only two mentioned.

[JasonG3333]

Don't forget this guy...!

viewtopic.php?f=16&t=5360

Batophora oerstedii or Batophora occidentalis

About a year and a half ago, after moving all my animals to a new tank, I gave this tank to Mustafa (we both live in San Diego) so that he could attempt to propagate and then offer this plant via the Petshrimp shop. Not sure what the status of that is (Mustafa?). That subsequent tank (my most current) now has that stuff going crazy in it even though I never moved any of those plants over from the previous tank. Definitely seems to be 100% compatible with brackish water.

[Euphotica]

Wow that looks great. Perfect scale for shrimp tank.

[Arquisto]

I remember you posting that! Wonder what happened. I'd love to order some from Mustafa if he's managed to get it going. I'm sure he's just making sure it's long-term tested.

[Mustafa]

I remember you posting that! Wonder what happened. I'd love to order some from Mustafa if he's managed to get it going. I'm sure he's just making sure it's long-term tested.

Exactly! I've been experimenting with it. I didn't offer the mossballs for years either for the same reason. This species is doing fine and reproducing just fine in brackish water. It is, however, very think and fragile so the rocks with this plant growing on it that I put in my breeder tanks with thousands of shrimp got eaten up very quickly. The same doesn't happen to the Supershrimp mossballs and macroalgae. However, I do think that in normal tanks this species could get established and do just fine due to the low number of shrimp (I'm assuming people out there don't have thousands of shrimp in a tank that descend on 10 sprigs of this plant).

The difficulty in selling this plant is that it needs to sent attached to a rock as the *only* part that grows and reproduces is the very bottom of the part that is attached to a surface. You can't just pluck the plant off of a rock and send it...it will hang in there for a short while and then die without reproducing. The other option would be to send the part of the plant that produces spores and then hope for the best...but that's not sustainable as an option. Finally, since the plant is so fragile, it's difficult to ship...especially with a rock attached to it. The rock may roll all over the plant during transport by USPS and the customer may receive a bunch of fragments instead of a whole plant.

in any case the plant is doing great (even in natural light in front of a window, no additional artificial lighting, as the pictures below show) and once I'm done experimenting and have figured out a safe and efficient way to ship the plant, it will be available for purchase.

Just took these pics a few minutes ago:

[Arquisto]

Thanks for the update Mustafa!

Wonder how you'll solve that shipping issue.. does sound like it's hard to ensure safe arrival to it's final destination. As you take so much pride in your products I know you wouldn't offer it until you got that aspect resolved. Maybe with any luck itll eventually have a mutation that will make it more robust... I don't even know if it'll be possible for selective breeding.

How fast does it grow? It looks like it's over taken a lot of that tank.. I imagine it would reach an equilibrium at one point? Seems like it's faster than the moss balls and similar rate to the macroalgae?

[Mustafa]

It grows maybe a bit slower than the macro...but then "growth" is different with this species. "growth" means that new plants pop up and get to a certain length. They don't keep growing forever in length or volume like the mossballs and macros.