# Kitchen island shrimp vase



## rikardob (Aug 13, 2011)

Looks nice. What watt is your bulb? I only seem to be able to find twenty-plus watt bulbs in 6500k. 

This article has great pictures of the "saddles" in female Cherry Shrimp. I don't see any on yours but you'll probably have to take a real close look yourself.

http://www.planetinverts.com/Red Cherry Shrimp.html

The sexing section is near the end.


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## Newman (Jul 3, 2010)

both shrimp look to be male, but its just the last pic kinda shows the shrimp as female a little bit... if the shrimp in the last pic is shown in any other pics above, then everyone is male.


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## Geniusdudekiran (Dec 6, 2010)

I disagree with Newmann (sorry ), the first's a female, the second a male. The first has a saddle, look closely, and the second is clearly a male.


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## Newman (Jul 3, 2010)

there is no way that first one is a female. there is no saddle which has to be either yellow or green. looks empty in there. also it doesn't look like it has a rounded abdomen at the bottom. just the pleopods are being extended in that photo and maybe that makes him appear like a female a bit.

Now the one in the last pic might have a bit of a rounder abdomen, but its hard to tell from the angle. My best guess is that they are both male.

Get some more pics, i want to see who predicted these correctly 
Geniusdudekiran you think that the palest one is a female and the other a male.

Of course we may both be wrong and these may wind up as both females because they look like juveniles.


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## Penny (Sep 16, 2011)

It's a 40w bulb(eek), I'll probably only leave it on for a few hours and see how it goes. I probably won't leave it on when no one is home, but there is a big window over the sink and french doors in the kitchen so it should get a lot of indirect sunlight during the day.

Hah, I probably should have specified which is which in the pictures! They look roughly the same, but I haven't really studied them too much, though I'm sure I will now that I know what to look for! I will try to get some more pictures tomorrow for you guys. They are both pretty small, I'm fairly sure they are juveniles, but one is a little bit bigger than the other so I can tell them apart that way (for now).

In this picture, you can see one of the little guys on the rock there, if that helps at all with size reference.


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## Newman (Jul 3, 2010)

try to get a 13W daylight bulb. 40 W is far too much. you can leave the 13 W on for the whole day. thats what i do on my bowl and nothing bad happens (once your plants get going).


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## Penny (Sep 16, 2011)

Any idea where to get those? I checked Lowe's and Wal-mart and that was the lowest watt full daylight I could find. argh


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## Newman (Jul 3, 2010)

you need a CFL bulb, its a spiral type. theyre about 13W and they say they are a 60W equivalent (to the human eye) daylight should be around 5000K
I use 3500K on my bowl right now, but it looks a bit pinker than the cool white glow of the 5000K. still plants grow just as well. just letting you know that whichever one you can find, it will work.


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## sampster5000 (Oct 30, 2010)

Very nice! I have a lot of trouble making vases and small containers look nice. The lamp style is really working for it.


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## Penny (Sep 16, 2011)

Thank you, sampster!

Newman, I'm a derp - my bulb is actually 10w. I glanced quickly at the box and saw a big "40" at the top so that's what I assumed it was, oops! 6500K though, will that still be OK?










I am a bit worried about them this morning - they are not moving around nearly as much as they were yesterday. Maybe they are just resting but I checked the water temp first thing this morning and it is 66 (house dropped to 68 overnight), is that too cold for them? I have the light on it now, so hopefully that will warm it up a bit, and I will leave it on longer now that I've realized it's only 10w. But I'm wondering if I should get a mini heater for them? Or is mid-60's really okay (seems to be so, from everything I have read) and I'm just being a worrywart? heh

Not able to get any new pictures yet, like I said they are not moving around, camped out behind one of the rocks right now. I *think* the bigger one might be a female though. It's definitely got a dark spot on its back and seems to have the rounded abdomen. But I will post new pics when I can so you guys can let me know for sure


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## rikardob (Aug 13, 2011)

The light is perfect.


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## Penny (Sep 16, 2011)

Great.

Here are some pictures of the bigger shrimp, think it's a female? One with and one without flash.



















The other one is still hiding.


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## rikardob (Aug 13, 2011)

I didn't want to answer your heat question because I'm no expert, but under that pretext I think that is a male and that your tank should be like 10 degrees warmer. They'll live at 65 degrees according to multiple accounts though. Good luck finding a small heater suitable for under 5 gallons of water. I've been ripping my hair out trying to find something for my bowl for a few days now.


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## sampster5000 (Oct 30, 2010)

Seems pretty cold but they are very tough. Good luck in the winter though! Lol. 

Looks like 2 females in the pictures.


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## Newman (Jul 3, 2010)

the last two pics are the same shrimp? looks female but the leaf is blocking the abdomen lol. juvenile female.


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## Penny (Sep 16, 2011)

Ugh, darn leaf! But yes, that is the same shrimp. Haven't been able to get any decent pictures of the other one yet. They still aren't moving very much :\ I think the LFS has some of those mini pad-type heaters, like for 1 gals, maybe I will give that a try. They may be able to survive without it but I hate seeing them like this after how lively they were yesterday


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

I just thought of something else that might be an issue. CO2 at night. You have tons of plants in there so there will be huge flucuations in oxygen and CO2 between day and night. Also with those huge fluctuations the pH will also change.


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## Newman (Jul 3, 2010)

that's an issue with most bowls/vases though...depending on how well the plants are established and on the water's buffering capacity, those effects should not be enough to stress shrimp too much. there is the challenge of softwater species like crystal shrimp... But I think its still possible.
Temperature is the other big factor along side pH and oxygen/CO2. i do think water in the 60s is no good. if you want them to thrive get it up to around 70F or more.


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## Penny (Sep 16, 2011)

I have been looking at various mini heaters online today. Still trying to decide. I should probably order something tonight... I have been leaving the light on 24/7 to help keep it warm o_o

Alright, looked around online and think I am going try one of the Hydor mini heaters, underneath the sand. I'm pretty sure my LFS has them (or something very similar), gonna pick one up tomorrow. In the meantime, turning up the thermostat, hope it helps!


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## Newman (Jul 3, 2010)

keeping the light on that long isn't a good idea. plus it only warms maybe 1-2 degrees more and not much.
You want a temp of at least 70F. my cherry shrimp has recently bred fine at 71F with what looks like healthy babies.


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## Penny (Sep 16, 2011)

I turned up the thermostat to 72 last night so I hope that helps for today. Getting that mini heater tonight, hopefully.

Which brings me to a dilemma... I am going to have to take the shrimp out of the vase because I'll need to pretty much take it apart to put the heater under the sand. I don't have a net. Are they easy to catch with a small cup (I have these really tiny tupperware containers I was thinking of trying to scoop them up with) or should I grab a net while I'm at the store?


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

Penny said:


> I turned up the thermostat to 72 last night so I hope that helps for today. Getting that mini heater tonight, hopefully.
> 
> Which brings me to a dilemma... I am going to have to take the shrimp out of the vase because I'll need to pretty much take it apart to put the heater under the sand. I don't have a net. Are they easy to catch with a small cup (I have these really tiny tupperware containers I was thinking of trying to scoop them up with) or should I grab a net while I'm at the store?


If you slowly pull out a piece of anacharis that they are clinging on you should be able to get them into a little cup pretty easily. If they are on the sand try to scare them onto a plant. If you do decide to get a net, do you walmart/stop and shop type of store near you? Pick up a BRINE SHRIMP NET! Make sure you don't buy a normal fish net as the shrimps might get injured by the larger gaps in the net. The net will only be like $1 there whereas at your LFS it's probably $5.


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## GoldenTetra (Jan 17, 2009)

what about using an under tank heater for reptiles? You just place the little piece underneath your vase, it MAY work and you wouldn't have to take anything apart...


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## Newman (Jul 3, 2010)

GoldenTetra said:


> what about using an under tank heater for reptiles? You just place the little piece underneath your vase, it MAY work and you wouldn't have to take anything apart...


this is what i was thinking for tanks that are too small to hide a heater well.


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## Penny (Sep 16, 2011)

I thought about that too, my husband (who used to have snakes) didn't think it would work though since the glass at the bottom of the vase is so thick, and also the thick layer of sand. Might be worth a try though, should be returnable if it doesn't work...


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## RandomMan (May 31, 2011)

Marina makes a small heater called the C10, which has a thermostat set at 78 and will auto turn off when you do a water change. 78 should be fine for cherries.


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## Penny (Sep 16, 2011)

I ended up buying a 7.5w Hydor heater, it's round and the package said it could be put under the substrate so I very carefully pulled out the rocks and moss and slid it into the sand. It was actually very easy, the shrimp were just hanging out in the anacharis so it didn't seem to bother them at all. It's not in at the angle I would like ideally, but it works, and it doesn't look *too* terrible... from the front you can hardly tell it's in there at all, it's only really from the back side that you can see the ugly cord.



















We'll see what it gets the temp up to... haven't noticed any change yet.


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## Penny (Sep 16, 2011)

Man am I having a rough morning! One of the shrimp died and I broke a thermometer by dropping it on the floor, ugh. Temperature was 75 so I'm not sure what went wrong. I didn't have time to test the params but I did a quick 50% water change, assuming there was a spike of some sort... or maybe I just stressed him too much when I put in the heater last night. It was the smaller one, if it makes any difference (made a gourmet snack for my betta)... Hoping the other guy will hang in there, he seemed to be doing alright. I won't add any more for awhile, to be on the safe side.


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

Sorry for your death. Is the other one still pretty active? Or is it just staying in place?


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## Penny (Sep 16, 2011)

He was active this morning and was alive when I got home from work but died about an hour later  The temp was a nice 76, so I'm not sure what went wrong. I think I will let this sit for a week or so, then maybe get a ghost or two and see how it goes... poor little guys  I wonder what happened? I should have at least got a water sample to test later *facepalm* but in my panic/morning rush I just did a quick water change, hoping it would keep the other guy alive. Now I'll never know...


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## Newman (Jul 3, 2010)

ok then just let it sit a while, get the plants growing in lush and then get more shrimp. also remember to treat tap water before doing the water changes... get the temp of the water similar to the vase before dumping it in.


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## rikardob (Aug 13, 2011)

You don't think ghost will get too big for that?


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

Perhaps the stress killed the shrimps. From your pictures they do look like fairly large/old shrimps. With males it is really hard to tell since they don't get that large, but your female was definitely quite old. It could be just that they weren't able to adapt well to their new settings. Did you just dump them in or did you slowly drip them into your vase?


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## Newman (Jul 3, 2010)

also dont do ghost shrimp, they are lame  stick with cherries later down the road.


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## Penny (Sep 16, 2011)

Lol alright, no ghost shrimp 

I bought some Declor to treat the tap water, since I use StressCoat for my betta tanks and the guy at the LFS said NOT to use that for shrimp. I have a jug filled with treated water that I use for water changes, so it's around room temp... should it be warmer than that?

When I first put them in, I let them float in the bag for 20 minutes then cut a hole in it (still submerged) so they could swim out on their own. They were so active that first day! But then it got cold and I could have sworn it was the water temp, hmmm.


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

Yea ghost shrimp are ugly in my opinion as well. When I had a few ghost shrimp with my RCS I found one of the ghosts eating the cherries >:[!!! If it were the water temperature I think they would have died off much sooner. You said one of them lasted 2 days afterwards? If you bought something like AmQuel or some other declorinator you can feel for the temperature difference with your fingers between your jug and the vase. I think our fingers can tell up to 3 degrees apart or something of that sort? Then I would add a bit more water into the jug until the two temperature are about equal, put in the declorinator, and dump that into the vase.


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## Penny (Sep 16, 2011)

haha aww, I put some in my betta tank once (they didn't last long) but I thought they were pretty cool. but then again I've never really had shrimp before so I find them just fascinating! So sad these little guys died on me, they were so much fun when they were happy! D:

Yeah idk, the temperature dropped that one night and ever since they were really lethargic. I didn't think that putting in the heater would have been that stressful, but maybe it was. I am usually pretty good at feeling the temp of the water with my fingers, but I was in a hurry that morning and stressed because the first shrimp had died so maybe it was too big of a difference. :\


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

Any updates with the kitchen vase?


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## Penny (Sep 16, 2011)

Nope, not really. Just been doing water changes and letting it sit, I may try adding a shrimp or two again here in a week or so.


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