My white headed Bumblebees?

[frugalfish]

The question mark in the title is because I'm not sure what the proper name is to refer to these shrimp. Mustafa if you have a name you'd prefer to use on your site please correct me.

I've purchased this type of shrimp a few times before and as is too common with imports all failed to live more than a few days or a week at best. This most recent batch has lasted about two weeks without any losses. The "no losses" being very key. They are exhibiting very normal behavior and looking better and better each day. Even though it is quite possible to lose this batch as well, I've decided to start a thread and hope my optimism isn't getting the best of me. Even so, these shrimp seem to be regularly popping up at my favorite store, so should this batch fail I will continue to try to establish this shrimp.

Currently 13 of these are housed in a ten gallon aquarium with some maple leaf litter, java moss, algae riddled glass, and other shrimp. Temperature is 74 F. hardness is 300ppm+, ph is around 8 give or take.

[Maekellen]

Nice looking shrimp!

[Newjohn]

frugalfish
That is a very nice looking Shrimp.

I just wish my LPS would Get a few different Species in , besides Amano's.

The Bumblebees, would probably do better in a soft acidic tank.

Good Luck
John

[milalic]

These are called New Bee shrimp.


-Pedro

[Mustafa]

The question mark in the title is because I'm not sure what the proper name is to refer to these shrimp. Mustafa if you have a name you'd prefer to use on your site please correct me.

I'd just lump them in the general "bumblebee" category at this point. I definitely do not consider "new bee" appropriate for various reasons. See my reply to "milalic" for more.

Even so, these shrimp seem to be regularly popping up at my favorite store, so should this batch fail I will continue to try to establish this shrimp.

Yes, you have to keep trying. It's better that someone like you, who genuinely wants to establish a breeding population, buys these shrimp than someone who justs wants something "pretty" in his/her planted tank or (god forbid) community tank.

Currently 13 of these are housed in a ten gallon aquarium with some maple leaf litter, java moss, algae riddled glass, and other shrimp. Temperature is 74 F. hardness is 300ppm+, ph is around 8 give or take.

If you're into experimenting, you can just keep your water the way it is and see if any possible young survive. My experience has been that young die right after hatching (during the first day or so) at such high Ph levels (i've never had such high hardness so I can't really speak from experience there. ) If you never get young to survive, I would just go the RO water route and get the conductivity down to about 100 or below and the ph level to about 6.5-6.8 with acid. That comes closer to the water parameters in their natural habitats.

[Mustafa]

These are called New Bee shrimp.


-Pedro

No they are not. That very misleading name was used about a gazillion years ago a japanese article for shrimp that looked like bee shrimp but weren't quite bee shrimp. The author of the article had no idea what to call them so he deicided that "new bee shrimp" would be a great idea without thinking about the fact that this name is actually misleading as the many "new bee" shrimp that have been examined turned out to be Caridina breviata or a very similar species. C. breviate are not closely related to bee shrimp, which belong to the Caridina serrata species complex. Some not so knowledgeable people in certain forum in singapore took over that name and started using it. Some other not so knowledgeable German people took that name from the not so knowleadgeable singaporean people and tried to introduce it to Germany, but that did not work too well, partly due to the fact that people like our very helpful forum member Werner Klotz and others jumped in and explained to some of these not so knowledgeable people that what they are calling "new bee" has been called "bumblebee shrimp" in Germany and elswhere for years and years and those shrimp are in fact not closely related to bee shrimp . I have "preaching" exactly that for even longer than that and explained this many, many times before in this forum. That's why I just don't understand why term just keeps sticking around. It's almost like the iodine myth that refuses to die (although it seems like it's been dying off lately...thank god! ).

Anyway, here are some of the posts that I made before regarding this issue:

viewtopic.php?p=12374&highlight=bee#12374

viewtopic.php?p=10910&highlight=bee#10910

(look at the bottom of the page in the link above for my posts)

Milalic, any reason you keep calling them "new bee" despite all these explanations of why its not a good idea and actually just a very recent, misleading introduction of a name? If there is anything I missed and the name is not misleading at all (and there is evidence that these shrimp are actually related to bee shrimp), then I would like to be enlightened.

Anyway...sorry for hijacking your thread frugalfish...but I thought this just needed to be clarified......again. Now we can continue with the discussion of your new project.

[milalic]

No they are not. That very misleading name was used about a gazillion years ago a japanese article for shrimp that looked like bee shrimp but weren't quite bee shrimp. The author of the article had no idea what to call them so he deicided that "new bee shrimp" would be a great idea without thinking about the fact that this name is actually misleading as the many "new bee" shrimp that have been examined turned out to be Caridina breviata or a very similar species. C. breviate are not closely related to bee shrimp, which belong to the Caridina serrata species complex. Some not so knowledgeable people in certain forum in singapore took over that name and started using it. Some other not so knowledgeable German people took that name from the not so knowleadgeable singaporean people and tried to introduce it to Germany, but that did not work too well, partly due to the fact that people like our very helpful forum member Werner Klotz and others jumped in and explained to some of these not so knowledgeable people that what they are calling "new bee" has been called "bumblebee shrimp" in Germany and elswhere for years and years and those shrimp are in fact not closely related to bee shrimp . I have "preaching" exactly that for even longer than that and explained this many, many times before in this forum. That's why I just don't understand why term just keeps sticking around. It's almost like the iodine myth that refuses to die (although it seems like it's been dying off lately...thank god! ).

Anyway, here are some of the posts that I made before regarding this issue:

viewtopic.php?p=12374&highlight=bee#12374

viewtopic.php?p=10910&highlight=bee#10910

(look at the bottom of the page in the link above for my posts)

Milalic, any reason you keep calling them "new bee" despite all these explanations of why its not a good idea and actually just a very recent, misleading introduction of a name? If there is anything I missed and the name is not misleading at all (and there is evidence that these shrimp are actually related to bee shrimp), then I would like to be enlightened.

Anyway...sorry for hijacking your thread frugalfish...but I thought this just needed to be clarified......again. Now we can continue with the discussion of your new project.

Mustafa,

I have seen in some german and asian websites using this name.
Bumblebee, white-headed bumble bee are just common names for a shrimp. Is the same thing with new bee shrimp. That you do not use it or some people from germany does not make it wrong. Is like here we called the Neocaridina cf. zhangjiajiensis "white" as snowballs and other places call them white pearl shrimp. Indentifying them correctly and classifying them with their correct scientific name is more important than just a common name.

I never said they were closely related to bee shrimp or someother shrimp

Regarding your explanation on why we should not use the term 'new bee', I have not done a search about "new bee" in the forum, so I was not aware of the posts mentioned above.


-Pedro

[milalic]

frugalfish,

I have kept them in the past as they came in with some bee and bumblebee shrimp I ordered. They never breed for me. I kept them in ph of around 7.6.

-Pedro

[frugalfish]

It's funny about the common names that have been given to various shrimp. Most I suppose are well suited, but some are lost on me. Perhaps I am too ethnocentric on the isue. Take the Crystal Reds for instance...makes absolutely no sense to me. Candycane would be a better name in my opinion and far more accurate in describing their charateristics. But maybe Crystal Red is better in other parts of the world, but to me it doesn't describe the shrimp at all. As for these shrimp...whatever the name I like 'em.

I have kept them in the past as they came in with some bee and bumblebee shrimp I ordered. They never breed for me. I kept them in ph of around 7.6.

Thanks for the input. I too have found that these seem to be mixed in with regular Bee shrimp as well.

Although I have these in hard/alkaline water I do plan to move them into softer/acidic conditions later. Since they are doing so well I am leaving them where they are for now.

[Cicci]

Very very nice bumble bees

[Mustafa]

Pedro,

I'm not saying that any "common" name is wrong per se. I am just saying that certain names can cause confusion in hobbyistst, that's all. I'm also not saying that *you* say that these bumblebees are related to bee shrimp but that the "new BEE" name implies it. There are already tons of people who refer to *both* bumblebee and bee shrimp as just "bees" so it's probably not a good idea to further this confusion by calling something "new BEE." That's all.

[milalic]

Although I have these in hard/alkaline water I do plan to move them into softer/acidic conditions later. Since they are doing so well I am leaving them where they are for now.

It seems like babies have a hard time surviving in alkaline water.
How long have you had them?

-Pedro

[frugalfish]

How long have you had them?

Today makes it two weeks on the dot. I bought 13 of them on Friday the 13th.

[frugalfish]

It has been one month and these shrimp are doing very well. I lost one about two weeks back, but the remaining twelve seem to be thriving. They have all grown in size and their coloring is getting better and better. Unfortunately it is nearly impossible to tell if any of the females are developing saddles. Now let's see if we can reach two months.

[Mustafa]

Thanks for the update. Yeah, it's hard to see eggs in the ovaries of these shrimp. Here is a little trick that works sometimes. Take a little flashlight and shine it into your tank a few hours after their lights are off. Sometimes you will be able to see a dark brown patch on their backs. If that doesn't work for you, then all you can do is wait. If they feel good they will produce eggs sooner or later.