Photos of New Additions to 2.5 Nano
 

Our 2.5 gal is now supporting life! An astrea snail, two types of green star polyp frags, a clear peppermint shrimp and a "sexy" shrimp have accumlated in this tiny tank over the past several days. Photos of the two shrimp can be seen at:

http://www.lostmymarblz.com/peppermintphotos.htm

http://www.lostmymarblz.com/sexyshrimpphotos.htm

that peppermint was the only translucent one in a tank of regular red ones right? i saw him at AI. are you sure it's healthy? i didn't know peppermint shrimp came in clear :razz: i kinda wondered if it was mislabelled there.

Yeah, could have been mislabled. Didn't think of that. They had two clear ones awhile ago, and thought I'd take them both when the 2.5 was cycled. But when I was there today, only one was left. Then Des pointed out the "sexy" shrimp which I thought was interesting, so ....

The two shrimp don't hang out together, and the "sexy" shrimp is very very small - less than 3/4" long. You've gotta really look around the tank to find it.

Maybe she bought one of the moults! :lol: :razz:

Hey, I'm a little slow on the uptake sometimes, but not that slow :rolleyes:

No, our clear peppermint if that's what it is, is MUCH too active to be a moult :lol: :lol: :lol:

If it's not a peppermint, anybody know what it could be?

TIA.

at least it's not a sick peppermint. i saw him around two weeks ago at least so he's obviously healthy. i also remember the sexy shrimp. do they still have the spanish dancer? another neat animal that dances, too bad they don't live long in captivity.

No, never saw it, though it could still be there. They have several sea hares. Monster-looking things :eek:

And they got a whole bunch of clams yesterday in their main coral tank. They looked in pretty good condition, but I don't know enough about clams to want to keep one.

love those sea hares.

When's you're tank going to be ready for sea hares, do you think?

well assuming i get one (and yes, i've considered it), about 1.5 months. i'm hoping i can finish the plumbing this weekend, finish reinforcing the floor the week after... then get my canopy done. money for live rock is a serious issue though, considering i also need to get a plane ticket to ottawa soon.

In my book "Armoured Knights of the Sea" by Debelius, the Peppermints look quite transparent too, so it is probably not unusual. :microwav:

Thanks. Good to know what I've got in the nano :smile:

oh no! a rare glass and powerhead eating shrimp! :razz:

teevee, you've got a lotta time on hour hands and an imagination to match it :lol:

it's the break between my sociology and english classes, not me, i swear it!

Why are they called sexy shrimp... polka dot maybe, pinto even.... but sexy?

Sooner or later, I knew someone would ask that question :redface:

It's probably named that way for its habit of always having its tail lifted and moving up and down and around and round in what some would consider a sexually provocative way. And it does this ALL the time :eek:

When feeding the tank, I turn off the AC Mini for a few minutes to let the food drift down and around the tank slowly so both shrimp have a chance at getting some. The clear peppermint is by far the more aggressive feeder with great swimming abilities. So far I have not seen the sexy shrimp eat anything, cuz it's waving its heiny all the time :confused: Maybe it just needs time to adjust to the tank and my feeding regime. I hope to have it for a long time because it's a very beautiful shrimp.

If this little shrimp lasts in the nano, and if AI, where I bought it, gets more, I'll probably get at least one more of them. But they're very small and hard to find even in the small confines of the 2.5 nano. Sheesh!

I've almost ruled out putting a fish in such a small tank. Had originally thought I put a yellow clown goby, but I have one in the 42 hex and for such a tiny fish it sure likes to take advantage of all the swimming space in the large tank. Putting one in the 2.5 would be cruel, IMO. The only other fish I have seen that might work in the 2.5 is a prawn goby, that stays under 2", as far as I know. There is quite a bit of sandbed for the prawn goby to call its own, but I'm still considering the cruelty aspect of putting a fish in such a puny tank.

I have a 1.25" diameter orange starfish in the 7 gal bowfront and think a critter like that would fare okay in the 2.5. I might have to get rid of the lone astrea snail to enable a small starfish to survive, but that would be okay.

Stocking the 2.5 is going to be a challenge. Don't want to be cruel to any animals just to have life in the tank.

The shrimp sure is attractive (not in a sexy way), I understand your dilema about stocking a 2.5 I would be tempted just to go with inverts and forget the fish but, there are some cool fish that don't venture far from their hole.... it's a hard call.

I've been reading the thread about seahorses and went to the link provided. Seems I could keep 4-8 mini horses in the 2.5, at least according to the information provided. Now, that's a thought I'd not considered. But, I'd have to think it over very carefully first.

I went back to my book to see what that shrimp was. It looks like what he calls "Harlequin Shrimp" Hymenocera picta. The book states that when not eating, the shrimp continually cleans irself. It is a starfish predator, which originally was to be used for Crown of Thorns starfish control.

Is the description supplied the one you have? :question:

I've seen a bunch of really nice Harlequin pictures in the Photography forum at RC, especially by gregr. Yours seems to lack the large claws that really make them the efficient predators of starfish they are, unless it's still a baby and they grow out later. Even with that, the resemblance is passing, do you think?

Here's a slideshow of MtnDewMan's harlequins:

http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2002-07/reefslides/

My shrimp is orange with white spots, the harlquin is white with orange spots. I did a search of harlequins on the net, too. All photos I could find showed them as white with orange spots and not nearly as fierce-looking.

Here's what mine looks like again. Compare it with the url you provided:

http://www.lostmymarblz.com/sexyshrimpphotos.htm

They look very different, don't you think?