Black shell shrimp
Black shell shrimp is a generic name for hundreds of species of shrimp from the Atyoidae family produced in China, such as neocaridina denticulate, curved rice shrimp (Caridina curvifrons), Zhejiang rice shrimp (Caridinazhejiangensis), etc., and is not the official name of a Chinese species.
Chinese scientific name: black shell shrimp
Nickname: grass shrimp, rice shrimp
Realm: Animal kingdom
Phylum: Arthropod phylum
Order: Crustaceans
Mesh: Full eye
Family: Spoon finger shrimp family
Distribution area: freshwater ponds, streams, reservoirs, etc
Morphological characteristics
Adult shrimp are between 2 and 3 cm long and have a variety of body colors. There are two pairs of small claws, the two fingers of the claw are concave, slightly spoon-shaped, and the end of the key finger has a brush-like hair (bristle), which is a sharp tool for scraping algae, so it often feeds on scraping algae, but the algae clearing power is not as good as the big and algae shrimp. Body color is extremely variable and changes color as the environment changes.
Habits of life
It mostly lives in the dense waters of aquatic plants, feeding on algae, carcasses of animals and plants.
Feeding techniques
Black shell shrimp is a very gentle shrimp, will not attack any fish in the fish tank, do not need to be specially fed, the temperature requirements are not high (but try to avoid high temperature), and it has a very large effect on inhibiting the flooding of algae in the fish tank, so the black shell shrimp can be said to be a very good fish tank cleaner. However, because of the excessive mildness of the black shell shrimp, they are also very lacking in self-defense, and the shrimp and juvenile shrimp in the molting stage are very easy to be injured or eaten by the fish. Therefore, when raising fish with fish in the tank, try to plant as many aquatic weeds or place facilities such as shrimp houses for black shell shrimp to hide. And be careful not to mix the black shell shrimp with too fierce fish such as fighting fish, loach, gobies, etc., in this case, even if you avoid more black shell shrimp, you will be eaten.
Temperature control
The most suitable living temperature of black shell shrimp is 10 ~ 30 ° C, but it can survive at the limit temperature of 5 ~ 35 ° C, and can even tolerate a lower temperature than 5 ° C, but at such a temperature, the black shell shrimp will stop eating. Low temperatures do not affect their survival, but it is not conducive to their reproduction, even if there are hatched shrimp fry, it is not easy to survive below 10 ° C. As the density of the water body increases, the maximum maximum temperature at which the black-shelled shrimp can survive will gradually decrease.
Eating characteristics
Although black-shelled shrimp mainly feed on algae in the water, the author found that they prefer meaty foods in daily feeding management, such as frostbite worms are one of their favorite foods.
Polyculture instructions
Because the black shell shrimp is small and is susceptible to their attacks when polycultured with some ornamental fish, it is suitable for polyculture with some small ornamental fish with a gentle temperament, but it must be avoided from polyculture with nocturnal ornamental fish. During the growth of black shell shrimp, it will molt every once in a while, usually at night, when the shell of the shrimp will emit a fishy smell, while nocturnal fish usually have a keen sense of smell and are good at drilling holes, which is very dangerous for black shell shrimp that are molting. For this reason, at night, they usually have to arrange some hidden objects for them to hide in the aquarium at night, and do not open the lamp at will, because the light at night may induce the black shell shrimp to molt in advance, which will also affect their feeding, because in general, before the early morning is the time when the black shell shrimp is most active.
Minerals
Aquariums fed with black-shelled shrimp, in addition to the same general ornamental fish tank set and management, it is best to add some minerals. Minerals generally use "montmorillonite", but because of its more expensive price, usually used for the feeding of crystal shrimp, the author thinks that in the tank fed with black shell shrimp a little "ammonia zeolite" can provide enough minerals. Ammonia-absorbing zeolite usually includes two kinds of rocks, one is easily dissolved in water into a powder, mainly used to increase mineral elements in water, and the other is almost insoluble in water, mainly used to adsorb harmful substances such as ammonia and nitrite in water. However, it cannot be excessive, otherwise there will be a situation of hanging shrimp in muddy waters, and when adding, the lump is more suitable than the granular one. There is also a product called "bio-stone", which is somewhat similar to ammonia zeolite, but the author believes that the effect is far less than that of ammonia zeolite. When setting up the shrimp tank, in order to save costs, it is not necessary to establish a perfect biological filtration, physical and chemical filtration is enough.
Other considerations
In addition, ammonia and nitrite in the water have fatal damage to black shell shrimp, and the drastic changes in various physical and chemical factors will also pose a great threat to the life of black shell shrimp. Therefore, the feeding water of black shell shrimp should be carefully tested in advance, and it is best to wait until the algae in the aquarium breeds before stocking small shrimp, and during the feeding process, avoid the dissolution of substances such as drugs and pigments.
The black shell shrimp that I just bought will have casualties when I enter the tank, because these shrimp are very weak and it is difficult to accept changes in water quality for a while.
Breeding techniques
The egg holding period of black shell shrimp is about 20 days, and the color of shrimp eggs is possible from black green to gray and white. The juvenile shrimp is 2 to 3 mrn long, relatively transparent, the eyes have a stalk and can move, the first and second step feet are pincer-shaped, the five pairs of step feet do not have external limbs, the abdominal limbs are complete, and the tail is round tongue-shaped, but does not have tail limbs. At this time, the structure of the brain, heart, liver and pancreas and other organs of the juvenile shrimp has been relatively perfect, has a strong ability to live, can crawl underwater, can also swim and feed, and complete the metamorphosis process after 2 to 3 molts. Generally speaking, the water temperature is 22 ~ 24 ° C, the entire metamorphosis process takes 5 ~ 6d time, when the water temperature is 26 ° C, the metamorphosis process only needs 3 ~ 4 days. The length of juvenile shrimp increased from 2 to 3 mm to 3.5 to 3.8 mm.
In certain cases (the female shrimp is frightened, the water quality is suddenly changed), the female shrimp may kick off the eggs in the abdomen, or directly molt all the eggs (the eggs stick to the swimming feet of the shrimp's abdomen), or the female shrimp holding the eggs will die accidentally. At this time, if you do not want to give up the shrimp eggs, you can use artificial hatching: just remove the shrimp eggs from the mother one by one and place them in a place where there is a slow flow of water and wait for the shrimp eggs to hatch.
hybridization
Black shell shrimp will be hybridized with some ornamental shrimp such as cherry blossom shrimp, polar fire shrimp, snowball shrimp, golden rice shrimp, etc., in fact, cherry blossom shrimp and the like are purified from black shell shrimp, wild black shell shrimp will also appear similar to cherry blossom shrimp, snowball shrimp body color of individuals, so in essence they are the same kind of shrimp different color performance only, if hybridized with black shell shrimp, offspring will lose the original purified and stable color, in order to ensure the quality of ornamental shrimp offspring, please do not mix them with black shell shrimp, Polyculture between these shrimp species is also best prohibited, as hybrid offspring are very likely to return to their ancestors as ordinary black-shelled shrimp. Another: Black shell shrimp cannot be crossed with bee shrimp, tiger shrimp and crystal shrimp, so they can be polycultured.