Sulawesi Shrimp

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In this article, I won't go into detail trying to describe the different all the different types of sulawesi shrimp there is out there. There is much doccumentation already out there that already descibes them by people who are more qualified than myself I will just skim through some of the ones that I have kept, but bulk of this article will be focused on my personal experience in sulawesi shrimp keeping, together with some do's and don'ts which i have learned along the way. Perhaps my mistakes will help someone out there in their sulawesi shrimp journey.

If you want some good information and support about sulawesi shrimps, let me suggest you check out a good forum such as www.shrimpnow.com.

Intro

So my friend in singapore sends me a facebook message which had a link to an article about a newly discovered shrimp which were found living in freshwater sponges. These were eventually called C. Spongicola (commonly known as the freshwater harlequin shrimp). The moment I set my eyes on Spongicola, I was in love... surely the couldn't be anything prettier that THAT!.... until i saw the rest of what the newly discovered sulawesi lakes had to offer!

So begins my quest to slowly collect the different types of sulawesi shrimp.

Unfortunately my quest started out with Ryan Wood at www.planetinverts.com. OOOOOooooooooooo just mentioning it makes my blood boil. Having been scammed / duped / bilked / victimized out of $800 worth of shrimp. If you feel like it, you can read about it here (in case you are wondering... my screenname is "nacra99").

http://houstonfishbox.com/vforums/showthread.php?t=23120

Anyway... gettin away from planetinvertz (grrrrrrr........), thankfully I recently made some good friends in Germany which had the same interest in sulawesi shrimps as I do. One of them very kindly shipped my first ever sulawesi shrimp (dark maroons).

They came in the mail from Germany disguised as "fishing line". Complete with fake return address:

5 days in the mail and still alive! This is the best ever packing job and technique for using Kordon Breather Bags i have ever seen! Single bagged, full and taut, tight double knotted and totally dry! Not the squishy (squishy bags can easily trap shrimp in the corners and crush / suffocate them to death!), doubly bagged, single loose knot and rubber banned crap that we get here. We in the US should take a lesson from the germans. They definitley have this thing down to an artform. I'll have to add an article here on proper kordon breather bag technique.

(As a comparison, the shipment from planetinverts came via 2 day priority mail, squishy bagged, leaky and very very DEAD!)

In tank drip acclimating. Colors are all very washed out but still quite nice:

24 Hrs later, nicely colored up and settling into their new home.

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Care

AQUISITION

In late 2007 when I first go into these, the only way to get some is through certain dealers that have a monopoly over the entire thing. In retrospect, they could have ruled the world with that advantage, except that they (he) blew it big time and now has to work real hard to rebuild reputation. Otherwise you needed to know people in asia or europe as I did. I'm glad to see that these shrimp are beginning to show up more in good LFSs. They are still pretty expensive and accessible mostly to risk takers with deep pockets. All the more that people do their research and have a proper set up available for them before purchasing some.

I've had a very good relationship with my LFS owner for quite a while now, to a point where he calls me the moment the fish arrive at the store and invites me down to get "first dibs". My experience with buying sulawesi shrimp LFS is simply "BE PATIENT". This was a painful $200 lesson which i learned real quick not to repeat. There's a huge temptation to immediately jump on these the moment they arrive at the LFS from the dealer, but I believe that this is absolutely folly, especially if the LFS do not offer a live guarantee for them (most do not). The main reason is that these shrimp are extremely EXTREMELY fragile, especially when they first arrive. They may arrive fine at the LFS, but it is not uncommon to have 90% dieoff within the next few days. You can imagine as fragile as shrimp are, these critters were forcefully taken from their native habitat on the other side of the world, very crudely and roughly sorted / handled. Place in a bag for days, hauled off in a truck down rural roads as they begin their journey through different countries on route to our stores here in the U.S. All the time being bumped, shaken and sometimes dropped (we know that courier services NEVER do such things right). By the time they reach the LFS, most are barely alive.

My advice, RESIST THE TEMPTATION to buy them off the dealers' truck. Wait for a week (or better still two weeks) to see if they make it. Firstly, this puts most of the risk on the LFS. If in case there is a sudden dieoff, you won't have to take the hit. If the LFS owner is nice and professional about his business, ask if he will reserve some for you and you will pick it up next week. Sometimes they will ask for a deposit, but at least if they die, you can use the deposit to buy other stuff.

A second advantage of waiting a week or two before bringing your LFS sulawesi shrimp home is that the LFS has already partially acclimated the shrimp to the local water. This will greatly reduce the risk of shock compared to if you try to acclimate shrimp straight from the dealers.

Of course... the risk of waiting (especially if you don't ask the LFS to hold them for you), also means that other impulsive buyers will snap them up. I meet people at local aquarium events all the time that tell me how they scored an awesome find at the LFS when they brought home 20 spongicola from the LFS when they first arrived. Usually when i check back with them after a couple of weeks, most are dead. Even if someone else has impulsively bought up all the store's shrimp, take comfort in knowing that you might get to laugh at them in a week or two.

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ACCLIMATION

As alluded to earlier, sensitive shrimp means careful acclimation. Never ever "hard" acclimate sulawesi shrimp (i.e. just opening the bag and dumping them into their new home). This means a lot coming from me because i love to "hard" acclimate my critters. I find that although hard acclimation has a higher mortality rate, but the ones that survive are hardier, healthier and more productive than those that were "soft / gradually" acclimated. I always hard acclimate more common shrimp such as Red Cherries and Amanos, but this should never be done with wild critters or critters that are as sensitive, rare and expensive as sulawesi shrimp.

My prefered method of "soft" acclimation is the "drip" method, but if done correctly, the "float" method will work also. These methods have been beaten to death and a quick google search will bring up hundreds of articles so I won't repeat them here. Some "float" articles tell you do add 50% water, then pour 50%, then add another 50%. I find this is still too harsh for sulawesi shrimp. I reccomend that that when "float" is used, to add small amounts of tank water tank to the bag gradually at 10 -15 min intervals over a couple of hours instead.

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WATER PARAMETERS

It is widely accepted that across the board the water parameters for all sulawesi shrimp are pretty similar. In general, warm, medium hardness and slightly alkaline.

pH 7.5 to low 8-ish
Temp 82 plus minus 4 degrees F
GH around 6

I keep these with my my N. Hetropoda (Red Cherries) and C. Babaulti and they seem to get along pretty well. Here are my "Orange Delights" cohabitating with Red Cherries.

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FEEDING

Well.. anything really.... Flake, pellets, algae disks. There are vendors out there that sell "special" food for CRS or Sulawesi shrimp. I have tried all these wonder foods but ultimately I find myself going back to big box petstore brand fish food. The only thing i notice is that sulawesis are generally not big eaters, so feed sparingly, otherwise the uneaten food will just decompose and foul your water. Also it is important to introduce new foods gradually because it usually takes time for them to identify new foods as actually edible. If you just dump in a bunch of new foods, chances are they will remain uneaten and just rot in your water.

I try to feed them a variety of store bought brand fish foods to make sure they get an all rounded diet. Also, feeding a variety of foods lessens the chance that they don't get dependant on only a single kind of food. This makes acclimation to new homes a little easier in the future when you sell some.

My Cardinal shrimp (named because of their color resemblence to the robes worn by Roman Catholic cardinals) love their flake:

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BREEDING

Here it is... the long awaited secret... and that is...... LEAVE THEM ALONE!!!!

In an attempt to get their critters in the mood, i've seen people try to change their water temperature, hardness, pH etc, in an attempt to get their shrimp to breed. Constantly varying parameters is a sure way to stress them out an cause them to NOT want to breed. Simply keep water parameters constant and at the acceptable range. Keep up with small water changes and make sure that they get an all round diet, in time, they should be breeding.

Berried sulawesi showing us her belly (yet unamed at the time of this article Nov 08)

As far as i can tell, they give birth to little shrimplets without going through a larval stage which makes things very much easier for everyone. You may want to crush up some food so that it may be more manageable for the tiny tiny shrimp. Otherwise, there is nothing special to do for them.

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PLUG

On the urging of my friends, I started this website by putting together the original (and quite successful) B. Macrostoma pages. Since then it has grown by quite a bit. All this time I've provided all this info and lots of free e-mail support to anyone who needed help. The advertising on this page helps out a little to offset the cost of webhosting. So if you see something that you may be interested in listed within the Google Ads banners, then please don't hesitate to check it out.

I thank you all for your great interest in my articles and I hope to keep hearing from you guys, even if it is just dropping me a note to say hi. God Bless!

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