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Re: Algae Eaters
>Piotr Baszucki wrote
>
>I'm thinking about Your's Amano Shrimp...
>..where can I find their photos in the net coz I'm not sure
>if I'm thinking about the right one's ? I'm wondering if it's
>hard to get them in my country..hmm...what about the USA ?
>Are they easy to find in bigger shops ?
Piotr,
I have never seen them (Caridina japonica) around here in a LFS (even though
I have begged for months) but from what I understand I live in a relative
black hole for aquarium stuff. However, I have a few links you can try.
The Greater Seattle Aquarium Society http://www.gsas.org/Articles/ has a few
articles in their archives about them:
The Japanese Aquarium Network http://suiso.com/ebi.htm has something more
descriptive of their characteristics rather than focused on breeding.
And Joe's Aquatic Fish Lounge
http://www.aquaticlounge.aquariumplants.cx/shrimp.html has a pretty good
general coverage of several freshwater shrimp for the aquarium. It includes
a description of the japonica and another of my personal favorites, the Wood
or Singapore shrimp. These guys have four little "fans" they hang out at
about 2, 4, 8, and 10 (as if on the face of a clock) which "they use these
to filter algae and microorganisms from the water, effectively acting as a
biochemical filtration system!" (quoting Joe's website). They hang out in
front of my filter outlet or the auxiliary circulation pump in my tank. As
they catch something they bring that "fan" to their mouth to eat, then
return it to the flow stream to wait for the next morsel. They do change
color as Joe's article says and one of mine went bright orange after the
other one in the tank died. He almost succumbed to the power outage that
got his tank mate so I got two more. My second one (by then bright orange)
then died and the two others are now moving towards a brighter orange as
well. Neat things to watch.
I have gotten them from Boukmn's Florida Driftwood website
http://www.floridadriftwood.com/ and AquariumFish.net
http://www.aquariumfish.net/. I am not sure that the Singapore and japonica
shrimp are listed on the AquariumFish.net but I have purchased many of them
from those guys. I have called them each time just to verify current stock.
I realize that this does not do you much good but perhaps the identification
info on the links above will help you find some.
The Singapore Wood shrimp are interesting to watch but I am not sure how
effective they really are. The japonica's however are incredible. If you
do not have some of them you should get some. Except for a light dusting on
a few rocks, I have forgotten what algae is. Since I got them and the SAEs,
I never have to clean it from my tank anymore.
Charles