Well, its been over two months since I’ve updated… sorry about that. I’ve been distracted by work and by other hobbies, but I haven’t abandoned my blog!
The weather here has finally improved to the point that I was able to order some gammarus shrimp (a.k.a. "scuds") and get them in the tank I had set up for them. I ordered the shrimp from Fish Gobble. I’m pretty pleased with the service offered by the website: I ordered the shrimp on a Friday and received them the next Thursday. They arrived in a rigid plastic container with a tight fitting lid (taped securely in place), wrapped in several layers of bubble wrap and mailed in a standard corrugated cardboard shipping box. The website sells them in 8-ounce quantities, measured by the 8 ounces of water they are shipped in. The water had a fairly thick layer of mulm on the bottom and was pretty murky, which I kind of expected — these shrimp feed on microorganisms, and I’d think that a layer of mulm would be a good place for them to forage.
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- Gammarus and other little critters.
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- My thumb is shown for scale. These guys are tiny!
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- Immediately after adding the shrimp and leaf litter, the tank turned very cloudy.
When I first got the package I wasn’t sure how many shrimp were inside, but I could definitely see some other invertebrates scooting around. As I acclimated the shrimp to the tank I realized that there were actually several shrimp in there — probably at least a dozen — along with a large amount of what I think must be daphnia, copepods, and other inverts. I definitely don’t mind getting a mix of critters… it’s just value added, in my opinion.
I followed standard acclimation procedures, gradually adding tank water to the shrimp container until I felt it was safe to release them into the tank. I dumped all of the shipping water and mulm into the tank, feeling that I would rather risk some type of contamination than lose any shrimp larvae, daphnia, or other inverts.
The shrimp are barely visible now. I know that they’re rooting around in the substrate — a mixture of black sand and organic potting soil — and I’m hoping that they’ll find enough to eat and begin breeding. I want to be able to supply my other tanks with live gammarus snacks.
I’m really excited to have an inverts-only tank, and I’m definitely willing to buy from Fish Gobble again.
Photo credit (gammarus closeup): Michal Maňas (User:snek01 on Wikimedia Commons). Photo licensed under CC-by-2.5.
