Fresh water shrimp

[matherfish]

This tiny little guy was posing on a leaf of guppy grass. So tiny!

[matherfish]

Even younger and smaller shrimp! These are abut as long as the head of a straight pin's head is in diameter! The bigger baby green jade in the pic is only bout 3/16th of an inch long, so the new baby in comparison in the pic. Can you see them?

[matherfish]

Black Rose berried females.

[matherfish]

My latest acquires are these green rili. Not what I expected but after a few days and they settle down, maybe their color will show better. I really expected the body to be transparent but I guess it is blue. It is not easy to find this variety.

[matherfish]

It can get really busy at feeding time!

[matherfish]

We left for Christmas vacation with our family and the weekend of Christmas had temps of a low of -5, so of course I worried about the shrimp getting too cold. Fortunately the two little space heaters I had in the building kept it warm enough and the electricity did not go off while we were gone, so the shrimp survived! Two days before we left we had our transformer blew three times so we were without electricity three times over night so that had me even more concerned when we left.

[matherfish]

A group of shrimp kept together that breed is referred to as a colony. Here is a pic of some of my colony of Neocaridina green jade shrimp.

[matherfish]

Shrimp will breed better when kept in the mid 70s temp range but I can't keep mine that warm because of the axolotl tanks, which have to stay below 70*, I try to keep the tanks in the 60's during these cold winter weeks. The lower temps keep the shrimp from breeding as much but the lower temps also allow the shrimp to live longer. My shrimp have slowed down with the lower winter months, but i expect them to pick up when the days start getting warmer. In the meantime, I just enjoy their constant movement and cleaning.