Gettin' Some Cambarellus Shufeldtii!

badflash · Post by **badflash** » Tue Apr 10, 2007 5:30 pm

They are not picky about food. They see food, they eat it.

AnneRiceBowl · Post by **AnneRiceBowl** » Sun Apr 29, 2007 1:16 pm

I found something unpleasing this morning when I turned on the tank light. A dead cray.

I haven't had a chance to check the water parameters, but besides that, there are no predators besides 2 other crays in the tank. I'll try to come back with a water reading.

badflash · Post by **badflash** » Sun Apr 29, 2007 1:33 pm

These do not seem to be long-lived animals. MIne seem to go about a year and the females will reproduce about 3-4 times in that period.

I've found you need to keep males from multiple generations to keep the babies going. The males are only interested in mating every other molt.

AnneRiceBowl · Post by **AnneRiceBowl** » Mon Apr 30, 2007 8:22 pm

Well, I finally did a water test on the tank, and my nitrates were so high that I am embarrased to even post them. So, this morning, I had just made myself a nice hot cup of coffee. I walked past my one remaining tank, and I noticed one of my male Sinapore shrimp was doing back-flips into one of the corners of the tank (no, that's not funny). I said to myself, "What the ***?" and turned on the light. To my horror, I found 2 dead Sinapore shrimp, 6 dead snowball shrimp, 4 dying Sinapore shrimp, 8 Singapore attempting to leave the tank, 1 Amano shrimp attempting to hike back to Japan, a dying dwarf crayfish, and 14 fish gulping at the water surface. Luckily, I had bought a 10 gallon tank to repair a MetaFrame. I filled it with water, and while it was filling, I started scooping out the alive and dying. A friend of mine gave me some cycled filter media.

So, I spent all flippin' day long cleaning out the tank, cleaning the filter (Eheim 2213), setting up an egg tumbler (thanks mbovinet) for the 2 batches of shrimp eggs I stripped from 2 snowball shrimp females, setting up a 10 gallon, replanting my 30 gallon long, and all sorts of fun stuff. I feel like I was hit by a bus! This post probably reads weird, but I am dead tired, and I am off to my coffin now.

Oh, I am now down to a dwarf cray pair. I did find the female dwarf cray with a tail full of eggs.

ToddnBecka · Post by **ToddnBecka** » Mon Apr 30, 2007 8:35 pm

Ouch

Sounds like a bad case of neglecting water changes. Even working 6 days/week I make myself keep up with them, a necessary evil of aquarium keeping.

AnneRiceBowl · Post by **AnneRiceBowl** » Tue May 01, 2007 9:37 pm

I had performed a water change 2 days before the "occurence". I age my water for one week with Prime, and do religious weekly water changes. I do 50% water changes. I did get some new plants for the tank the day before the "occurence". I didn't clean the plants--I never do. The plants that I put in the tank were a fine leaved plant, and I assuming the dead leaves clogged the filter overnight and the filter kicked back on and poisoned the tank? I did check the water parameters, and there was 0.25 ammonia, 0 nitrites, and 40 ppm nitrates. I am thinking nitrate poisoning is what did in the shrimp.

ToddnBecka · Post by **ToddnBecka** » Tue May 01, 2007 10:27 pm

Hmm, more likely the ammonia, a sudden spike hits harder than a gradual buildup of nitrates. Usually 40 ppm is an indication of neglected water changes, not something I'd expect to see so soon after a 50% partial. Have you checked the fresh water for ammonia and/or nitrates before adding it to the tank? Any chance there's chloramine in your tap water? I'm thinking that may account for the ammonia and nitrate readings, though 0 nitrites seems odd. I would expect to see nitrites with ammonia being present.
How old are the chemicals in your test kits?

AnneRiceBowl · Post by **AnneRiceBowl** » Wed May 02, 2007 8:01 pm

I have checked the water straight from the tap, and I got a trace of ammonia. Someone on another forum suggested that that sometimes means there are chlorimines in the water. I have been using Prime with every water change for over a year and have been doing religious weekly water changes since--well okay, there have been a few times when I was late by a few days. I have never tested the aged water before I added it to the tank.

The test kits that I have are about 8 months old.

Also, I have to mention two things that may, may not, or further confuse, but the substrate that I am using in my tank is Eco-Complete. The container that I age my water in is a 32 (or 33) gallon trash can (I've only used it for water storage). To fill my tank from the trash can to the tank, I use a power head that's fitted with tubing. I think the tubing is starting to basically decay and breakdown. I noticed today that there is a funky smell coming from the trash can of water.

apistomaster · Post by **apistomaster** » Thu May 03, 2007 7:48 am

badflash wrote:These do not seem to be long-lived animals. MIne seem to go about a year and the females will reproduce about 3-4 times in that period.

I've found you need to keep males from multiple generations to keep the babies going. The males are only interested in mating every other molt.

Hi badflash,
This was a good tidbit of info. I fits with my experience with C. shulfeldti so far but I thought I was the cause of what seemed a short life.
Knowing this now places a greater since of urgency rather than waiting too long after a setback, I need to get the next generations asap and stay ahead of their aging curve.
Thanks.

AnneRiceBowl · Post by **AnneRiceBowl** » Tue May 15, 2007 3:12 pm

I have great news! I have about 42 "crawbabies"! This is the female's second hatching with survivors.

badflash · Post by **badflash** » Tue May 15, 2007 4:09 pm

Nice going!

ToddnBecka · Post by **ToddnBecka** » Tue May 15, 2007 11:27 pm

The silver lining of the dark cloud.

AnneRiceBowl · Post by **AnneRiceBowl** » Thu May 17, 2007 2:42 pm

Yes, it is! I really needed that "boost"!

ToddnBecka · Post by **ToddnBecka** » Fri May 18, 2007 12:31 am

I was getting a bit discouraged myself when I spotted a dead crayfish last night.

It was a smaller one, no apparent injuries to be seen. I got out the bucket and siphon hose to do a partial tonight, thinking perhaps the shrimp population increase is making more frequent water changes necessary. I moved some plants and rocks to siphon the gravel, and was looking closely for some time after I removed a couple gallons of water and muck. I spotted my first baby crayfish to date on a clump of hair algae.

The wee bugger looks almost identical to the hundreds of baby shrimp. Looking from above the tail is a bit broader, though what I noticed at first was the tiny little claws picking at the algae. The motion is different than a feeding shrimp. I netted the juvie, along with the ball of hair algae, and placed them into a floating breeder. After considerable patience and eyeballing uncounted shrimp, I finally spotted another baby cray the same size as the first. They're about 1/4", no real color yet, just sort of grey like the shrimp at that size. They do walk a bit differently, and only swim backwards, not as fast as the shrimp.
The juvies are patzcuarensis, nothing happening with the cajuns yet. I'm wondering how long it will take them to show their color/s?

badflash · Post by **badflash** » Fri May 18, 2007 1:30 am

Way to go! Keep up on those water changes!