Okay, so I ordered 30 Cherry Shrimp for $35 (that included delivery charge) on Jan 10th. I have a 5 gallon, cycled tank, which was temporarily housed by my Neon Tetras. Last week I moved the Neons back into my main tank to make room for the shrimp, and I fed ammonia into the 5 gallon to keep the filter happy.
I thought that I would get notified of when the package was shipped (2-3 day US Priority Mail), but imagine my surprise tonight, as I had beef on the stove and cooking up spaghetti sauce, when the doorbell rang, and there was my package from Illinois! Oh boy. I wasn't ready. The tank had recently had ammonia added to it, so it still tested at 2 ppm. Okay...okay...um...what to do? I finished cooking dinner first for the family, and scarfed down my food.
I then opened the box, expecting to find a bag full of frozen shrimp (it is winter, after all) - the heat pack was stone cold, and the bag was very cold to the touch, but I could still see shrimp moving around in there. I floated the bag in the tank while at the same time completely draining the tank to replace the water and get rid of the ammonia. I put fresh water in (and correctly guessed a good temp with my fingers as it came out of the tap) - 76F. Alright - first hurdle crossed.
So I floated the bag and started to slowly add some tank water over the next 45 minutes. At the last minute I remembered that I had not yet covered my filter intake pipe! They would have all been sucked right up. A quick plea to my wife caused a nylon stocking to materialize, which I promptly cut and secured to the intake with a rubber band.
These shrimp are MUCH smaller than I expected. To me they look like babies - many are perhaps 1/3 of an inch from head to tail. Others are a bit larger at maybe 3/4 of an inch. But as far as I could tell, none of them were dead in the bag. I scooped them into the tank without too much trouble. I think the shipping company included a ball of java moss in the bag, which I also put in the tank.
So we'll see how they do tonight. What a lively bunch of critters. I had no idea they would be so active - very interesting to watch. Kind of like watching Zebras on steroids. I hope they will still be happy and active when I wake up in the morning. Will post a couple pics later.
I thought that I would get notified of when the package was shipped (2-3 day US Priority Mail), but imagine my surprise tonight, as I had beef on the stove and cooking up spaghetti sauce, when the doorbell rang, and there was my package from Illinois! Oh boy. I wasn't ready. The tank had recently had ammonia added to it, so it still tested at 2 ppm. Okay...okay...um...what to do? I finished cooking dinner first for the family, and scarfed down my food.
I then opened the box, expecting to find a bag full of frozen shrimp (it is winter, after all) - the heat pack was stone cold, and the bag was very cold to the touch, but I could still see shrimp moving around in there. I floated the bag in the tank while at the same time completely draining the tank to replace the water and get rid of the ammonia. I put fresh water in (and correctly guessed a good temp with my fingers as it came out of the tap) - 76F. Alright - first hurdle crossed.
So I floated the bag and started to slowly add some tank water over the next 45 minutes. At the last minute I remembered that I had not yet covered my filter intake pipe! They would have all been sucked right up. A quick plea to my wife caused a nylon stocking to materialize, which I promptly cut and secured to the intake with a rubber band.
These shrimp are MUCH smaller than I expected. To me they look like babies - many are perhaps 1/3 of an inch from head to tail. Others are a bit larger at maybe 3/4 of an inch. But as far as I could tell, none of them were dead in the bag. I scooped them into the tank without too much trouble. I think the shipping company included a ball of java moss in the bag, which I also put in the tank.
So we'll see how they do tonight. What a lively bunch of critters. I had no idea they would be so active - very interesting to watch. Kind of like watching Zebras on steroids. I hope they will still be happy and active when I wake up in the morning. Will post a couple pics later.
