Can you see it??? A Black King Kong Shrimp Baby!!

A baby black king kong
(well, it seems to be in blue color, with a white stripe on the back, and a spot of white on head)

Can believe that I actually own this now...
                                             and see it in person...
for most of time, I enjoy and admire photos taken by hobbies with king kong.
  but now ~~~
Hopefully,, it can grow up and keep breeding successfully.

                  §§§§cross my figer§§§§

Hope

"It is difficult to say what is impossible,
          for the dream of yesterday
                                is the hope of today
                                       and the reality of tomorrow."
                                                                          Robert H. Goddard (1882 - 1945)


I almost thought that there's no more hope for King Kong dream .....
After almost A YEAR ....

This is not a regular crystal black shrimp.
It carries King Kong's gene.
  ----  A GENE SHRIMP

Pay attention to its belly. What do you see?

A closer look??

It is obvious that two eggs are in blue color. And one is in light blue.

It is said that during the last week of hatching period, black king kong egg will be very different from others. If the mother is a gene shrimp, the egg may tend to be blue color.

Which means this gene shrimp may have black king kong baby.

Expecting ~~~~

To my Black King Kong

To my Black King Kong,which I don't own any more.
Share thus final beauty.

Crystal Red Shrimp --- Molting

This photo shows a complete good crystal red shrimp discarded shell.

Shrimps have a exoskeleton, they donot grow as fish do. In order to grow, they mush shed the old outer hard shell and grow new bigger one. This process is called molting. During this transformation, a little trap door opens on its back, and the animal pulls itself out from the shell. Once free, the shrimp is vulnerable. It takes time for the new shell to harden.

It is hard to say how often a shrimp may molt. It depends on how old the shrimp is, what kind of species it is, if it male or female. A female may tend to shed more often then a male. When a matured female molts, it is time to breed.

Change in habitat will also force shrimps to molt. So, you may see shrimps molting quite often after water change. Be carefull!!! If the shrimp's new shell has not hardened yet, and there is great change to the habitat again, ...... the shrimp is in danger. It may be forced to molt again. It may die... So a stable habitat is essential for a happy growing shrimp.

The discarded shell is a good scource of calcium, so you don't need to move it out of tank. Shrimps will eat it.

Molting is a good indicate of water quality. If you see a complete good shell after molting, it tells that the process is quite smooth. The shrimp is healthy. You won't see the discarded shell after a while. In a good environment, good water quality, shrimps will be so active that they will finish the shell quite fast. If you see broken shell, it's possible that the molting process is hard. Someting may going wrong with the water.

Wish all my shrimps could molt smoothly, and grow up healthy an happily amd the same to all shrimp lovers.

YOGA CRS

So many people join the yoga trend. I gonna follow that. Actually, I am pretty good at it. You can see how flexible and stretchable I am. Ha Ha~.~

Red Eye Red King Kong

Amazing~~~ This king kong is as red as !!RED DIAMOND!!

From top to toe

A PRETTY CHERRY

A Fresh Look At One Of My Tanks

*** Tons of CRS on Dinner ***

Taiwan KingKong and Straw Pellet

I downloaded this picture from a Taiwan shrimp forum.
It seems like those black king kongs really enjoy the pellets.

CRS && Straw Pellets

The concept of using an organic carbon source to reduce nutrients is not new to the hobby. Straw pellet has good resource of carbon. Recently, hobby in Taiwan starts to use Straw Pellet to help reduce excess nutrients, like NO3 in Crystal Red Shrimp tank. It works well, and the pellets are eatable.


"I smell something delicious~~"

"Comming..."

"Never have this before, so yummy!!" ^-^


A good thing for your tank,, and it feeds your shrimps as well. Why not give it a shot?

(PS: The tank shown in the picture is my No-Substrate-System Tank. It is working well so far.)

Nitrate NO3

Introduction to Nitrate

Ammonia produced by shrimp as a waste product is oxidized by aerobic bacteria in the biological filter: first to Nitrite(NO2) and further to Nitrate(NO3). In nature a complete nitrogen cycle exists, where plants utilize Nitrate as a food source, thus maintaining the very low Nitrate level. In the aquarium we create a one way system rather than a nutrient cycle. The plant growth is mostly insufficient to use up all the Nitrate introduced by the left food and waste. Nitrate will slowly accumulate, so that unnaturally high concentration are reached. Shrimp reacts distressfully to high Nitrate levels and will eventually die. High Nitrate levels could also cause the development of blue-green algae and hair algae. Nitrate level should be tested regularly.


This is my test result of Amonnia, Nitrite and Nitrate.

To prevent the build up of high levels of Nitrate:

1. Keep the shrimp/fish density low.
2. Stimulate plant growth.
3. Remove debritus, dead plants and other dirt.

!! No Substrate System !!

After I watched a Taiwan Entertaining Show, which showed how a lady in Taiwan took care her crystal red shrimps(and she got lots of king kongs), I found that maybe a tank with no substrate would be easier to manage. Here, I try it out.

This tank is simply equipped, with two biological filters: one regular Oxygen Plus Bio-Filter, the other one is DIY plus. The DIY one is easy to made:
1. place the regular Oxygen Plus Bio-Filter in a quart container;
2. fill the rest space in the quart with ADA soil;
It works better to lower the pH level.


We clean the bottom every two days for most of time. When necessary, we may do more. Suck out waste and the left-over food. No problem with sludge and mug. And no problem with planaria or round worm, since there's no place to hide.


a crystal red shrimp hang over the sponge

They are doing pretty well so far!

The bottom is like a mirror, pretty but not easy for crs to walk around now. But it will get better after moss grows over the bottom.

Hm, time to clean it now!

Three Mutations of Crystal Red Shrimp

Isn't it amazing that same species of shrimp could have so many mutations.

This is a great picture that captures all of them:
Red King Kong;
Black King Kong;
Gold Shrimp;






This gold shrimp tends to be white color, which is really pretty. If every spot of its body, from top to toe, could be filled with solid and bright white color, it would have be the dreaming Snow White. Well, we do not know when we could have it. It really takes time.

Snapshop of My New Tank

-- for kingkong shrimps

This is a big tank, about 30 gallon. we made it ourselves.
There are only a few pieces of shrimps in this tank, and they like hiding behind or under driftwood.

The substrate system we used for this tank is different from others, as you can see. This is ADA-Africana, plus a little bit ADA-Amozonia 1 on the bottom. ADA-Africana has stronger ability to lower pH. Therefor, this tank's pH is lower than others.

My filter system is easy: a Eheim classic canister + a Bio-wheel power filter.

Jager is always my favorite heater.

One more thing, we use a half-pint container and half teaball net to help prevent baby shrimps being sunking away.