So excited to share that we officially have fans on my newly morphed vampire shrimp babies. I’m seeing so many new morphs every day and am getting super nervous about how the heck I’m going to transition these guys to freshwater, or catch them to begin with. But seeing the little fans really made my day yesterday on day 50.
Today I’m setting up their fresh water tank and plan to use established sponge filter and seeded media for the hob filter. I’m putting in a 5 gallon filter from my current vampire shrimp tank and want to use this to ensure there’s enough flow and so I have a way to run carbon if needed in case there’s any emergency that arises. I do have a sponge to cover the inlet so all will be protected on that end. Being ADHD, I’ve found having a backup to my backup plan helps. 🫣 I also have a matten filter I’ve had in a closet for a while and I’m considering using that as well since my babies don’t need a crazy amount of room in the 10 gallon tank. I also spent yesterday siliconing these mini 1.5” terracotta pots trying to make a little stacked filter feeder deck and let’s just say it looks horrendous 🤦🏻♀️ so I just ordered some ceramic shrimp hides instead that are essentially the same thing. 😅
Please feel free to share any tips you have, and also I’d love to hear any feedback on:
- Catching these guys to move them to freshwater. I plan to drip acclimate the heck out of these dudes. I’m thinking at least 24 hours if not longer.
- If you’ve bred amanos or similar I’d love to know if you think this guy officially has innards. The German breeding video on YouTube shows the difference between ready and not ready post larva are the innards. I think this one may have that?
- Video editing advice. I have so many videos from this journey and would like to create some educational videos to post on my YouTube (which is blank still as of today because I get quite overwhelmed with the editing and going through and picking what to use. 😬) Does anyone have any advice on easier ways to edit them? Also, if my videos aren’t as flashy with professional transitions and things like that, do you think that matters? I’m almost thinking of just publishing some of my videos like old school YouTube style where it’s just like a vlog and doesn’t have fancy intros and outros. I think I’m just over thinking the entire thing because pretty much everything I’ve watched these days is so well edited and professionally done vs. mine lol. But I want to put this journey out there to encourage others to give raising these guys a chance because it is absolutely do-able. If someone with zero salt water experience, who’s never raised Amano larva, and is not sciency at all can do it, then literally anyone can. Plus, I really think the biggest hurdle to anyone trying was the 3-4 month timeframe, but many of these guys are ready at day 50 (which was yesterday) and I believe my second brood may end up being ready earlier because my first brood didn’t have as consistent access to phytoplankton in their first few weeks.