Petshrimp.com Discussion Forum

I have never seen an Atya sp. besides in photographs. Yesterday i was both exited and sad. I was loitering near a local chain store waiting for someone who was running late, so I decide to go in and see how mistreated the aquatics section is. After seing terrestial plants melting away totally submerged inside tanks i came across an interesting find. I found a tank full of Aytopsis. Of course it was not labled, priced, or have any information to it. They were brown with the stripe. Very cure fellows. In with them appeared what was an Atya. It was twice the size of the Aytopsis and also a similar brown. Most pics of these i have seen were blackish or darker. It was a very smiliar colouring to the Aytopsis. Is this a correct id?

I felt sorry for those little buggers and wanted to take them home, but due to morals reguaring chain petstores that my father instilled upon me when i was 7 years old, I refused to do such a thing. Plus, anyways, I do not willing like to buy a specimen for my enjoyment knowing it was wild-caught and there have not been sucessful breeding attempts to date(as I am aware of). I find both of these shrimp feeding habbits and life quite interesting. I fell in love with them the first time i was them at the Chain store 4 years ago. Does anyone actualy buy these guys from the chain? Where I live there are plently of decent privately owned (might have to drive a bit, many are disappearing or burning down) so I always had a hard time belived people will regualry buy aquatics from these places. I hardly see any people purchase any fish besides a betta.

Anyone studying these filterfeeding specimens, good luck on your research. Those attempting to reproduced them, I also wish you the best of luck. I find these guys so fascinting! Maybe if i get that job at the Local Aquarium (which i know they breed many rare aquatics, snails, and iguanas, beluga whales) if anyone associated with them studies these freshwater shrimps or any other species that needs the brackish water for their young.

Annako, Thanks for sharing your experiience at the store with us. It looks like the experience impacted you quite a bit as it does me when I visit a local chain store.

Yes I have bought an Atyopsis from one of these and it was one of my favorite shrimp. He was a fixture in my shrimp tank for a few months then he had a difficult molt and did not recover from it. since then I have be reluctant to replace him especially from the same place I got him from. The sotre actually tried to blame little kids for putting two male bettas in the same bowl when another customer and I complained about it

Oh well, a store is only as good as the people who run it. I will try again some day when the right store has the right shrimp, I can and will wait.

Hope you get the job It will also give you the inside scoop on shrimp and you can share it with your friends in this forum

The 5 Atyopsis (4 females and 1 male) that I have in my 30 gallon were purchased at 2 different chain stores. I've had them for about 6 months now, and I am attempting to raise the zoes. (My thread on this is somewhere on here...) When I purchased them, I did not know that they were all wild caught, nor did I know about the destruction of their natural habitat. As for studying them, the most studying that I have done is by observing them in my tank and finding all that I can on the internet--which the latter isn't much.

EDIT: Here's the link: viewtopic.php?t=1921

Annako wrote:In with them appeared what was an Atya. It was twice the size of the Aytopsis and also a similar brown. Most pics of these i have seen were blackish or darker. It was a very smiliar colouring to the Aytopsis. Is this a correct id?

It was probably just a very large Atyopsis. Atyopsis can get very large, too, and especially the males will look very different from the majority of the smaller specimen when they grow their huge front legs. You mostly see smaller specimen in stores. If the coloration of the animal was similar to the other Atypopsis in the same tank, then it's most likely just another one. An Atya noticably sticks out.

Thanks for clearing the id up. I couldnt belive the large seize differnce. 1 guy over 3 inches and the others about 1.5. Really remarkable.


Oh, and AnneRiceBowl (nice name btw) good luck raising these zoes. Wouldn't it be nice if it worked out, there is just more information for us to raise these so they wont have to be ripped out of their homes? ^^