Pinocchio Shrimp tank in a hurry

He molted again. He is so weird, though. Moves mostly backwards and upside down. He perched on my finger earlier today and just kept his funny eyes on me. Funny little dude. ?
Video, or it didn't happen...
 
Happy day...I kept a 29g brackish tank for about ten years. Raised a mono sebae and an archer, along with some columbian cats. This was in the old days before people kept fish in schools...but the archer and the mono became best buddies in what became a somewhat cramped tank. I couldn't ever get green scats to stay alive. The biggest downside was the damage to the wall behind the tank. I had a vigorous air pump running a long stone along the back wall and the little droplets caused a collection of salt to build up in a drip pattern like stalactites. Now you might be thinking...what kind of dumbass doesn't notice that the wall behind the tank is getting mis-colored, not too mention putting the tank an inch off the wall in the first place. I understand that where some see colors like eggshell, vanilla cream, and seventy-four other shades of whitey cream, I just see white. And maybe the room wasn't so brightly lit on account of it being a bedroom. Add in one of those old-fashioned black plastic hoods and you never really look around behind the tank. So the salt would cake on the hood and being a single guy, what's one more bit of caking of stuff in one place or another, right? When I eventually moved, the drywall behind the tank was sort of connected to the tank. Cost me $75 in security deposit, that did.
 
Happy day...I kept a 29g brackish tank for about ten years. Raised a mono sebae and an archer, along with some columbian cats. This was in the old days before people kept fish in schools...but the archer and the mono became best buddies in what became a somewhat cramped tank. I couldn't ever get green scats to stay alive. The biggest downside was the damage to the wall behind the tank. I had a vigorous air pump running a long stone along the back wall and the little droplets caused a collection of salt to build up in a drip pattern like stalactites. Now you might be thinking...what kind of dumbass doesn't notice that the wall behind the tank is getting mis-colored, not too mention putting the tank an inch off the wall in the first place. I understand that where some see colors like eggshell, vanilla cream, and seventy-four other shades of whitey cream, I just see white. And maybe the room wasn't so brightly lit on account of it being a bedroom. Add in one of those old-fashioned black plastic hoods and you never really look around behind the tank. So the salt would cake on the hood and being a single guy, what's one more bit of caking of stuff in one place or another, right? When I eventually moved, the drywall behind the tank was sort of connected to the tank. Cost me $75 in security deposit, that did.
Ouch! I will not look at the wall behind the tank. In fact, I will make sure my husband never expresses curiosity about what is behind the tank! Good thing I am good at patching drywall ;) (Don't ask!)
 
I kept a 29g brackish tank for about ten years. Raised a mono sebae and an archer, along with some columbian cats.
Happiest of Lords, I just read about the fishes you listed since I knew nothing about them. Are you sure the archer was not the culprit with his spitting practice? Being known for their accuracy, was he perhaps trying to tell you something?
 
Happy day EYP....I've watched this video a few times. I like the blugrass music...reminds me of The Grass is Dead, which recast some Grateful Dead into bluegrass finger-picking. Outside of three big box stores, our two LFS wouldn't ever have this "mixed in" and it would be $29.99, which is the default price for anything not written on the masking tape that they think you might want. Sometimes Pet Supermarket has stuff mixed in and, uh, it is within the real of possibility that I might have helped the store clerk price a scarlet badis like a baby platy as opposed to, you know, a scarlet badis.

While I commend the thinking, I've decided that I shall address the issue of the archer spitting on the wall, and the assuredly unintended implication behind the idea of why it would spit in the first place. I think it was the Perfecto hood that had a slot you could break off the back of the hood to fit an HoB, and I had a bubble wall below that cut out. The archer didn't like that sort of surface agitation and hung out under some java fern and clumps of damn duckweed, and I would throw those red things...no, not fruit loops...tetra bits! Yes, I would throw tetra bits at an angle and it would spit at them but rarely hit, either because of a depth perception problem or, more likely, it did not encounter flying tetra bits in the wild. However, I did not live in a home that was so infested with flying insects that the archer would attempt to shoot them down.

I do admit to having had an incident prior to meeting my bride when I put mosquito larva in a tank or two to feed some belonesox and other critters, only to have them flip the food pyramid such that when they stopped being larva, my roommates and I became their food. But I didn't go brackish until after I had married and while wives reasonably put up with many shenanigans of husbands, and vice versa. living in a home with sufficient quantities of flying insects to keep an archer spitting is not one of them.

That said, I used an old home chemistry kit's hydrometer as the fish are not too sensitive to the wobbling of salinity. I would guess that the shrimp are a bit more picky? A 5g tank is too small for anything else I can think of that would go in a backish tank and not go after it...maybe a bumble bee goby? But they occupy the same space...I dunno about that one. Some nerites can do brackish, as well as clams.
 
Thank you, Happiest of Lords. I did think the finger action and the shrimp's obsessive cycling of the gravel complemented each other. :) Not bad for the $1.99 I was charged. They did not know what it was, and did not want it. So, he came home with me. Nicely done on the scarlet badis!

I do have a refractometer, and Bugie does not seem very picky. He does not go to the spa as often, but I know where to find him if I do not see him in the tank. He seems to get along with the cherrys and now the little offspring appear to amuse him quite a bit. I think it is mutual. He is beautifully odd.

Insects are not allowed in the house. I am married to someone who does not like spiders and we are always arguing about their indoor presence. I will not push. But I do get to have all sort of breeding vessels outdoors for mosquito larvae, bloodworms, scuds, ostracods, the occasional nymph who gets put back right away. I do not want to become mosquito fodder either!

I did enjoy the mental image of your archer giving you the look and going for the wall ;)
 
Thank you, Happiest of Lords. I did think the finger action and the shrimp's obsessive cycling of the gravel complemented each other. :) Not bad for the $1.99 I was charged. They did not know what it was, and did not want it. So, he came home with me. Nicely done on the scarlet badis!

I do have a refractometer, and Bugie does not seem very picky. He does not go to the spa as often, but I know where to find him if I do not see him in the tank. He seems to get along with the cherrys and now the little offspring appear to amuse him quite a bit. I think it is mutual. He is beautifully odd.

Insects are not allowed in the house. I am married to someone who does not like spiders and we are always arguing about their indoor presence. I will not push. But I do get to have all sort of breeding vessels outdoors for mosquito larvae, bloodworms, scuds, ostracods, the occasional nymph who gets put back right away. I do not want to become mosquito fodder either!

I did enjoy the mental image of your archer giving you the look and going for the wall ;)
Happy day EYP....$1.99? That's a great deal. At my two LFS, the only fish priced under $2 are danios and sometimes they have a $1 tank filled with their leftovers, which is where I got a weird, but kinda cool looking, pair of rasbora kalochroma. Bugie is very cool. And that's the fun, right? We see something cool, we rush out and get a tank for it or drag something outta the garage because we gotta have it.

Last summer I tried the outdoor breeding vessel thing. It just became a haven for mosquitos. Where I live, you can spit on the sidewalk and mosquito larve appear. I was thinking of trying it again and getting some scuds and daphnia from Sachs Aquaculture. The difference this time is that I would put a metal grate on top of the bucket and put a bug zapper on it.
 
Happy day EYP....$1.99? That's a great deal. At my two LFS, the only fish priced under $2 are danios and sometimes they have a $1 tank filled with their leftovers, which is where I got a weird, but kinda cool looking, pair of rasbora kalochroma. Bugie is very cool. And that's the fun, right? We see something cool, we rush out and get a tank for it or drag something outta the garage because we gotta have it.

Last summer I tried the outdoor breeding vessel thing. It just became a haven for mosquitos. Where I live, you can spit on the sidewalk and mosquito larve appear. I was thinking of trying it again and getting some scuds and daphnia from Sachs Aquaculture. The difference this time is that I would put a metal grate on top of the bucket and put a bug zapper on it.
Happy Day, LH...I was swatting mosquitos during Christmas break this year...they're going to be bad this summer, with all of the winter rain we've gotten...
 
Happy day Slap...they've been spraying down here for years at night, but now we're losing our small reptiles, amphibians and birds that fed on the blood-thirsty fellas. Not to mention that nile monitor lizard and other friendly pets released into the wild :) Have you ever toured any of the fish farms out your way? I've been following the Goliad Farms story on youtube and I thought this summer I'd reach out to some of the Florida farms and see who would let me come shop in person. And because I don't want to run afoul of the ethics about co-opting the OP's thread, I hope to see these adorable shimp at a price of less than $29.99. I wonder if I could do a brackish tank under the Walstad method? I don't see why not, really...maybe do some sailfin mollies with this shrimp. I'll have four new 32s to fill...well, 3, really. I bet I could grab some bottom muck from an estuary here and the pinocchio shrimp would fit right in.
 
Happy day Slap...they've been spraying down here for years at night, but now we're losing our small reptiles, amphibians and birds that fed on the blood-thirsty fellas. Not to mention that nile monitor lizard and other friendly pets released into the wild :) Have you ever toured any of the fish farms out your way? I've been following the Goliad Farms story on youtube and I thought this summer I'd reach out to some of the Florida farms and see who would let me come shop in person. And because I don't want to run afoul of the ethics about co-opting the OP's thread, I hope to see these adorable shimp at a price of less than $29.99. I wonder if I could do a brackish tank under the Walstad method? I don't see why not, really...maybe do some sailfin mollies with this shrimp. I'll have four new 32s to fill...well, 3, really. I bet I could grab some bottom muck from an estuary here and the pinocchio shrimp would fit right in.
No, I have not been able to tour any of the aquarium trade farms, but did visit a game fishery with my Dad when I was a kid, near Athens I believe it was...it was neat to see them raise the fingerlings to be released in the wild...terrible what happened at the Goliad farm, I donated a few dollars toward helping them get back up and running again. I am looking forward to your Pinochio setup, Geppetto
 
I will look into getting a girl and if they breed, I promise to send you both some offspring!

@LordHappy I believe you can go for mangroves in a Walstad tank, but it requires matching the initial parameters to the source, then after that they are adaptable. Careful trimming will get them to nicely fill the tank as well.

And, Happiest of Lords, you do not have to worry about the "ethics of about co-opting the OP's thread", I am enjoying the possibilities of exploring interesting ideas.
 

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