Orange supershrimp now have 12+ babies/larvae!

[CrimsonThornX]

Hey, I don't believe anyone noticed when I first posted the images of my 4 newly arrived orange supershrimp I believe back in October, since that's apparently the last time I logged in. Well anyways it's apparently been over 3/4ths of a year since I originally purchased them, and in that span of time not much has changed in the first half year or so, besides very infrequent light feedings about once a month or so, not really neccesary with all that algae though, gradual algae growth, primarily brown algae, different from the green algae in my main 2.5 gallon red supershrimp aquarium next to them and the occasional times I top off their 1 gallon aquarium with distilled/reverse osmosis water as it evaporates. I wanted to update how they're doing more often but in the end of December of last year I ran into a very unfortunate situation where I experienced a very severe negative reaction to a medication, more specifically an injection, and was left bedridden for months until April, I'm not fully recovered but certainly much healthier now.

I'll start with the only bad news I could think about the orange supershrimp. A few weeks ago I was shocked to see that one of the 4 I had purchased suddenly died and was floating on the surface. I quickly removed it and immediately tested the parameters, surprisingly everything seemed perfectly fine and nothing was out of the ordinary. PH was at 8.2 or so, ammonia was at 0, nitrite was also at 0, and nitrate was around 20ppm or so, hard to tell though, but is normal in a low concentration in a healthy cycled aquarium and is harmless at that point too. I haven't had any of my red shrimp die in a few years either, aside from that once instance I had accidentally contaminated the aquarium with something but managed to save the majority anyways. Around this time is when I saw not one, but two berried female orange shrimp, meaning 2/3rds of them were carrying eggs. It was unexpected considering the sudden mysterious death of one of them, and the fact that it’s just a 1 gallon aquarium but was excited anyways.

At this point I stopped attempting to clean the brown algae on the front glass as I didn't want to disturb them, but still noticed they were hardly ever swimming around, mostly hidden within the pile of black lava rocks within the center. About a week ago or so is when I finally noticed like two or three larvae floating around, and felt content that there was more then enough now to compensate for the death of one of the adults. Every day to other day I notice more and more of them, to the point where I'm certain there's almost 20 of them now. Aside from that I intend to upgrade my red supershrimp to a 5.5 gallon aquarium soon as they too have been producing larvae prolifically and are in need of a larger aquarium as a result. Once the larvae have grown to a certain size I'll transfer all of them to the same 2.5 gallon aquarium I currently have my red shrimp in, once I've moved all of them out of course.

Anyways to the left is the 1 gallon aquarium with just the orange supershrimp larvae currently visible, and to the right is the 2.5 gallon red supershrimp aquarium I've had for a few years now. Personally I'd rather keep at least the front glass for both aquariums clean of any algae, but they tend to become stressed, turn pale, and swim frantically whenever I do so which is why I only do it once a year or so. I originally asked for them on my 18th birthday, and just turned 23 the last day of June this year, so I've had supershrimp for about 5 years now.

[CrimsonThornX]

Ok I managed to take a picture of 2 of the 3 orange supershrimp adults. A second before I took the picture one hid within the lava rocks but I think it's tail is barely visible if you look hard enough. Sorry for the rather low quality, I'm using a Samsung Galaxy S21+ but even with several cameras can't focus enough to take higher quality images.

[Mustafa]

Thanks for the update! I'm happy to see the orange larvae floating around, especially since you had only three shrimp left and could have ended up with shrimp that are all the same gender! As for the nitrate in your tank...you must be feeding too much or something is leaching nutrients into your tank. With a normal, infrequent feeding schedule your nitrates should be 0. The brown algae would also grow not quite as prolifically. Do you have snails in your tank? They usually take care of the brown algae over time so that only green algae continues growing. Keep the updates coming!

[CrimsonThornX]

Yeah I was pretty certain they wouldn't breed since one had "mysteriously" died off, and they're also just in a 1 gallon, but to my suprise they did regardless. I believe you said it's encouraged to start with 10, or to at least combine them with some ordinary supershrimp to have a decent starting population but I wanted to keep them seperate so I'm glad it worked out regardless. I also thought it was typical to have some nitrate present in cycled aquariums, unless that mainly applies to other species. I used to have a black sea fan in the back of the 2.5 gallon aquarium but removed it after hearing you mention that it eventually decomposes, polluting the water over time.

I also typically feed them a small pinch of Repashy Super Green once a month, it's mainly intended to be boiled with water and turned into a gel but I just the powder directly.
I use this over their other fish food gel mixes as it contains no animal byproducts. I'll attach an image of the front/back of it, perhaps it contains an excessive amount of unnecessary ingredients that ends up contributing to the excessive algae growth, which I thought was normal this whole time. And no I don't currently have any of the brackish water snails you sell, I'll consider it though. But anyways yes I'll keep posting updates every once in a while to report their progress, mainly the larvae that are already starting to swim and behave like the adult shrimp.

[CrimsonThornX]

I was also going to ask if I should feed them something less complex like pure spirulina algae or if I should stop feeding them altogether to prevent the nitrates from going too high, and to deal with the excessive algae growth. I was planning on feeding them like twice a month to ensure that the newly transitioned shrimp larvae would find enough food so that they wouldn't struggle to scrape algae off of the surface of the rocks/glass but I'm probably just overthinking it.. I know you mentioned that water changes are not needed nor wanted but would it still be ok to change like 25 to 50% once a year, to remove pollutants that may gradually build up and replenish minerals used up over time from the sea salt mix? (I use Instant Ocean by the way). I also can't wait for the day that you have yellow and white supershrimp mutations available in the future, I'd imagine that there is a very noticeable contrast in color between them, especially the yellow ones. Also thanks for the username change, it wasn't a big deal but it was still something I wanted to do.

[CrimsonThornX]

By the way I decided to come back to show the results of me taking the time to clean as much algae from the front glass as much as possible. I didn't mention it before but the 2.5 gallon on the right used to have both a black sea fan and a large ball of hair algae that kind of spontaneously grew out of nowhere. But I realized that both can be harmful one way or another, apparently sea fans can decompose over time, polluting the water, where as hair algae tangles up the shrimp often, especially the larvae. The only reason why I chose to do it was because I was already intending to capture 10 today to sell to someone later today, including one of the orange "baby" shrimp offspring. By the way, the orange offspring seem to be fine, they mostly hide within the lava rocks but I see a few come out on occasions. So I figured since I already caused them to stress out that I'd take it as the opportunity to remove some of the excess algae as well.

[Vorteil]

Go you have any new pics of the grown larvae? I'm curious to see how they've done

[CrimsonThornX]

Yeah I was able to take a decent picture, I'm highly considering a seperate higher quality camera, not just what my phone has. I usually see a few on the rocks/glass most of the time, typically they hide within the lava rocks though. The adults behave similarly, going in and out of the rocks throughout the day/night. At one point I noticed what seemed like up to 20 larvae, but I don't usually see the majority all outside at once.

(I eventually managed to capture a picture of 3 of them in the same frame, with suprisingly good quality all things considered.)

[Ula Hula]

Very cool! Congrats on the orange babies!