Dwarf Orange Crayfish (CPO)

Cambarellus patzcuarensis sp. Orange (a.k.a. CPOs)

I purchased one a month ago from my local fish store, after much debate. 

The store owner told me they could be aggressive and territorial towards small shrimp, nano fish and each other. He said I could keep ONE by itself in a FIVE gallon. Well all of that was quite off putting. I love the look and behavior of these little critters but there was no way I could justify running a five gallon just for a tiny crayfish about an inch long.

Close-up of a Dwarf Orange Crayfish

But I'm an impulsive buyer. Which is bad. (Don't buy fish impulsively!)

I did some research online and read about several people who kept them with red cherries without any issues. So I figured, why not? I already had a 2.5 gallon red cherry tank set up. I bought a CPO for $10 at my local fish store and giddily brought him home.

The next morning, a cherry was dead.

Who was the culprit? Ammonia spike? New tank syndrome? Or the newest addition to the colony - the CPO?

I couldn't risk it. If it was the CPO, I couldn't have him kill off my cherries one by one in the night. So I moved him.

I didn't have another tank available, but I did have a vase. Would it work? It was about 0.75 gallons. I had some fertilizing substrate and a ton of hygrophila that needed a haircut. CPOs don't need heaters, and the plants would act as biological filtration. Since I wasn't going to feed him much there would be no ammonia spikes or anything but to be sure, I would also add some bacteria supplementation every few days. 

Hygrophila Polysperma grows like a weed

So I did it. I trimmed off about 6 healthy tall stems of hygro, threw it into the vase along with some little twigs of driftwood and then plopped Mr. Cray in there. And he was happy. 

I changed about 15% of the water weekly. 

For a few weeks, he would climb from leaf to leaf and eventually settle near the top with his little pincers held out, waiting for his daily meal (fish flakes or bloodworms). It was beyond cute. He was a little orange adventurer in a hygro forest that he had all to himself. 

And the fish store owner said he needed at least 5 gallons. Pah! It is my honest opinion that any container can be a fish tank as long as it's robustly planted from the start with fast growing stem plants like hygro. Within a week the hygro was growing so well (the vase was placed under my plant gro lights) it quickly shot out of the water and became emmersed growth. 

All was well. 

Until one day I woke up and couldn't find Mr. Cray anywhere. I thought he was just hiding. But the next day I checked again and still couldn't find him in the vase...That was when I checked the nearby surroundings and realized he'd crawled out of the vase, dried up...and died. :'( I'd grown so attached to the little crayfish I cried. I was pissy all week. How could I have been stupid? Why did I fill up the water level so high on an open top flared vase?

This is what he looked like after he crawled out and dried up.
Not my photo but it was exactly the same.

I couldn't even bear to extract him from the corner of my terrarium where he'd dried out in an upright position among some moss. It looked like he was a toy. But after a few minutes, I mustered up some courage, scooped him up with a net and buried him in my backyard where all my dead fishies go. 

For a long time I thought about buying another CPO. But everytime I considered the idea, the image of Mr. Cray, dried up, came to mind and I shuddered.

But yesterday, while visiting my LFS, I couldn't resist. So I purchased another CPO. This one is a female (smaller pincers) and shall be named Ms. Cray. 

I put her in a 1 gallon fish bowl filled with hygro and subwassertang moss. So far, she is doing well! Fingers crossed. And of course, the water level is much lower this time. But I doubt she could crawl out of the bowl because it has a slight bottleneck at the top. 

Subwassertang Moss (commonly used for fry, breeding)

TGIF!
Chesmok

eBay & Aquarium stuff

If you didn't know this already, you can buy a ton of various aquarium knick knacks (for CHEAP!) on eBay.

But also, if you didn't know this already, most of the stuff on eBay is crap. With aquarium plants, supplies, decorations etc, it's a complete hit or miss in my experience.

It doesn't matter if the seller is rated 98-99%. It doesn't matter if they have almost 5 stars on everything. You could still end up with a piece of $hit you waited a full month to arrive only to discover it's broken, the wrong size, or sometimes, it never even shows up at all.

(Amazon is way better. 4-8 days shipping and easy returns.)

But if you want to experiment with buying stuff off eBay, follow these guidelines:

1. Ask the seller ANY and ALL questions you may have BEFORE you bid.

2. Read the item description VERY CAREFULLY. Twice. Note the color, size, dimensions, condition etc. Do NOT rely on the photos, they are often completely misleading.

3. Try to find other buyers who bought the same item and see what they had to say under the seller's reviews.

4. Limit yourself to buying only things that are priced so low you wouldn't even miss the few dollars you lost if the item is a disappointment or never shows up.

5. If you are unsatisfied with the product, most sellers with high ratings 98-99% will give you a partial or full refund if you message them. They don't want to ruin their reputation and lose out on potential customers should you leave them a horrible review. I have gotten full refunds on lots of things that never arrived or arrived broken. They always SAY in the ad that you have to return the item to get the refund but most items under $10 they will give you a refund without you mailing the defective item back. Just take some photos of it and describe the problem.

---Now let's take a look at a few examples from my personal experience---

BURNS.

1. Worst Purchase Ever: 48"-60" LED light bar from T-MOTORSPORTS STORE

Worst purchase I ever made on eBay

After all the shipping and import charges, this NO NAME light bar cost me $110. Why in the world I thought this option was cheaper than buying a light bar from my local fish store was beyond me. The store identified itself as an US store but it was run by Asians who had no clue about anything related to the product.

The light bar arrived 2 weeks or so after I ordered it. Packaged well. I was beyond excited. This was my first expensive LED light purchase. I couldn't wait to put it on top of my 50 gallon tank and watch the aquarium brighten up significantly.

I hurriedly tore apart the packaging material, plugged it in and flipped the switch...only a few blue lights turned on. Night mode. But what about the promised Daylight Mode? I toggled the switch between daylight and night mode. Nothing.

So I emailed the seller asking how to turn on daylight mode? Or was the adapter broken? They replied that they had no clue. They would refund me $10 because the package never had an instruction booklet. $10? When the light wouldn't even work?

I angrily replied that the switch was broken or the adapter was broken. Either way, I would need way more than a $10 refund. I told them I wanted to ship it back to them and get the full refund.

Their reply: $20 refund so I could buy a new adapter/powersupply. $20?

So I thought I could probably order a power supply off eBay (haha) and try that. I looked up the specifications of the power supply that came with the led light and bought another one off ebay for $10. That came in a couple weeks. And la-di-da. Did not work.

I frantically dug through my misc cables bin and found an old, old laptop adapter/power supply and plugged that in. The lights turned on. Barely. All 177 LEDs emitted about as much light as a 10watt incandescent bulb. Yes, it was THAT bad. In the photos the lights looked super bright. It promised 2300 lumens. But did not deliver.

I filed an official complaint through PayPal and after almost 2 months of back and forth struggle, got a refund of $60.

Worst experience ever. To anyone who has EVER considered buying a cheap Chinese knock off, no name brand LED light bar online- DON'T DO IT. Save yourself the headache and buy yourself a proper name brand one. I'll discuss a few options I use myself in a later post.


2.  LED Clip on light

Just goes to show you, I never learn.

So obviously I wasn't burned bad enough the first time. I thought I would take a chance and buy another LED light off eBay. This one was only $12.60, free shipping. I wanted to clip it over my 2.5 gallon fish tank. I bought the 48LED version with white and blue lights. Arrived in a few weeks. Again, I was excited. Again, it did not deliver. At least it WORKED. But it was very, very dim. I contacted the seller and explained how dissatisfied I was with the product. They had claimed it was "high bright" but it was just another cheaply made LED product.

At least this time they refunded me the full price. And let me keep the light. I only had to send about 5 complaint emails. To 5 separate customer service reps.

Lesson: DON'T BUY LED LIGHTS OFF EBAY.

3.  LED Submersible Aquarium Light

Cost me $10. And worked reasonably well. Not super bright, as described, but better than that stupid clip on light. I bought this way back when and never used it very long though (~1 week) because I sold the fish tank I was using along with this light. Didn't look very sleek though- it's only bright enough for maybe a 5 gallon tank but if you put it inside the tank it sticks out like a sore thumb because it's so big and tube-y.

4. Aquatic Magic Live Aquarium Plants from Malaysia

You type in "live aquarium plants" in the Canadian eBay store and AquaticMagic listings bombard the first hundred or so spots. In fact, their listings (which use keywords completely unrelated to plants in order to grab more views) are spam. I have purchased a great number of plants from this seller and most of them were dead or half dead upon arrival. It usually takes 1-1.5 MONTHS to arrive and even if the plant isn't dead, it fails to thrive in my aquariums.

I have ordered various crypts, swordplants, marimo balls, anubias...tons of different plants...because the prices are so goddamn cheap. But you get what you pay for. Each order they've always had to refund me on some plants because they were dead on arrival. The other plants never really grow new leaves and end up dying because they can't adjust to being in these water parameters or whatever else reason.

So I don't recommend this seller at all. Their customer service is pretty efficient though.

5. $5 Aquarium Driftwood

Honestly, what did I expect to get for a $5 (free shipping) piece of wood? This is an example of a time I didn't read the description carefully. I saw the photo, looked pretty good. Only $5. Why not? What arrived was a tiny twig. Not even a nice log. Just a skinny branch. Haha. What a joke. If I wanted a skinny little twig I could've gotten that in my backyard. They did give me a refund though.



GOOD EBAY BUYS

1. PLANT PACKAGE FROM POLAND

Seller: Wik5858 Best Aquarium Plants

I bought the 80 stems (10 species) plant package from this seller in August. It arrived within 1.5 weeks, packaged well. Plants were healthy and after I planted them in my tank, they started growing rapidly within 2 weeks. Amazing deal too. To buy 10 foreground plant species at my local fish store would cost me more than $100 + tax. I paid $20 (free shipping). Awesome!

2. Shrimp Food & Supplements

Seller: Santaieric has good shrimp keeping stuff

Really fast shipping. I bought shrimp pellets and tourmaline mineral balls from this seller for a few dollars and the quality is really good. My shrimp go nuts for these pellets that don't break down for a long, long time, thus reducing water pollution from rotting leftovers.


3. Miscellaneous equipment

If you don't mind waiting up to a month for these items (and sometimes (~5% of the time) having it never show up at all) you can get some good cheap miscellaneous aquarium supplies on eBay. I have had success buying the following:

• Breeder nets $2.82
• Magnetic algae scraper $6
• Aquascaping tweezers $3
• Catappa Almond Leaves $5
• Fish Food
• Thermometers

In conclusion, it's ultimately up to you. If you want to save money and give eBay products a try, go for it. But in my personal experience, it's a waste of time, energy and money. A few gems. But mostly duds.

Cheers,
Chesmok

Crystal Red Shrimp Awesomeness

As you may have gathered from my previous post, I've become enamoured with dwarf freshwater shrimp lately. Now, apparently some people think shrimp are ugly, gross or strange to keep as pets, but I find their behaviours and appearances absolutely fascinating. So to all you shrimp haters out there...suck it.

I had wanted to keep the (in)famous crystal red shrimp for almost 7 months but every time I reached the tipping point in favour of their purchase, I would shirk away because of their exorbitant (borderline ludicrous) price tags. At my favourite local fish store, SS grade Crystal Red Shrimp are selling at *gasp* $30/each *gasp*. And you can't exactly keep these babies alone. Not only would you probably never really see it do much, but the poor thing might even die from loneliness. It's recommended you keep them in small-large colonies. So it's almost essential you buy at least 6-10 of them to start off. Especially if you want to try and breed them (and sell their babies back to fish stores, or to fellow hobbyists, at cheaper, but still pretty ludicrous prices).

Crystal Red Shrimp crowding around some food. How can anyone not instantly fall in love? (Not my pics)

Enough jib jab. So needless to say, I was hesitant to buy from my local fish store (LFS). But then one day, whilst browsing Craigslist, I stumbled upon a shrimp breeder selling these babies at $5 a pop. Now, if I'd told you right off the bat that I'd bought 20 shrimp at $5 each, you would've called me stark raving mad. However, since I prefaced this announcement by giving you some context (they're normally $30ea), you should now be thinking, "damn, Chesmok, you got an unbeatable deal!".

Yes reader, it was a steal. Yes reader, I paid $100 for 20 little shrimp that measured about 0.5 inches each. If you're not in the know about freshwater shrimp, you'd think I'm a lunatic. But if you happen to know a thing or two about crystals, you'd know that I was one lucky duck.

Most beginners to the shrimpkeeping hobby often start with the easy (and cheap) favorites: red cherry shrimp, ghost shrimp and amano shrimp. I have cherries and amanos. I started with these species because they make an unbeatable and hardy algae/leftovers cleanup crew.

Typical red cherry shrimp grazing on some moss.

Amano shrimp (amazing algae eaters)

Many people keep red cherry shrimp and have great success with them. I will of course, in the near future, be writing more detailed posts about each type of shrimp. For now, this will just be my mad ramblings about my little shrimp friends.

After I placed my order of 10 crystal red shrimp, 10 crystal black shrimp, 5 painted fire red shrimp from the breeder, I had to patiently wait 3 weeks until she restocked. During this time, I did A LOT of reading online about keeping CRS: water parameters, tank size etc. I also meticulously preened and coddled their soon to be home: my 6.5 gallon planted cube. I'd had a history of trouble with the tank and I was really worried a bad pH fluctuation or ammonia spike would wipe out my whole colony. 

Luckily, everything's been going right dandy so far (knock on wood). When my shrimp arrived, I floated the bag in my tank and slowly dripped (drop by drop) tank water into the bag for 2 FREAKING HOURS and then finally set them free. They seemingly panicked the first day- mad dashes at the top of the tank, as if they were trying to escape from prison...But then near the end of the day things settled down and they started acting normally again. Of course I didn't put all 20 shrimp into one tank at once. That would be suicide. Too risky given the small tank size. I separated the 20 and put 8 in one tank and 12 in the other. All shrimp are thriving and molting properly.

I ordered these tourmaline balls off ebay and threw one in each tank. They're supposed to slowly supplement the water with essential minerals the shrimp need and maintain the proper gH so they can molt and grow properly. We'll see how well that works.

Anyways, that's enough chitchat for now.

Chesmok.

[If you're out there, let your voice be known!]

My freshwater aquarium photos (January 2015)

Happy new year everyone! (If I even have any regular readers left....:P)

Here are some photo updates of my beloved aquariums. As you can probably tell I'm a bit obsessed. If you've been following me since the beginning, or if you've see photos of my tanks from 2011, you would know that I've come really far. Really, really far.

1. AQUEON Bowfront Tank

36 gallon Aqueon Bowfront Tank

Inhabitants: 3 pineapple swordtails, 1 hillstream loach, 4 skunk corydoras catfish, 7 longfin leopard danios, 2 balloon German Blue Rams, Pair of Lagos Red Killifish, 2 Amano shrimp

4 gallon shrimp tank (glossostigma carpet)

4 gallon shrimp tank (side view)

Shrimp Tank inhabitants: Painted Fire Red Shrimp, Regular Cherry Shrimp, Crystal Red and Crystal Black shrimp, 1 lone pygmy cory (survivor of disease)

50 gallon prize tank left side (tetra swarm!)

50 gallon prize tank right side (hygrophila forest)

50 gallon prize tank center view (ying yang driftwood centerpiece)

50 gallon full tank shot

Inhabitants: Lost count of the exact numbers (haha). Red phantom tetras, rummynose tetras, cardinal tetras, neon tetras, bamboo fan shrimp, lots of amano shrimp, ember tetras, kuhli loaches, one female betta, one old siamese algae eater, 2 otocinclus catfish (survivors; I added 5)

6 gallon Atman cube shrimp oasis

Crystal Red Shrimp

Crystal Black Shrimp beside a tourmaline mineral ball

So here's my January photo update! I will try my very best to update more frequently. Also, I updated the layout and look of the blog. Yay! Hope you enjoyed~

Cheers,

Chesmok

P.S. I like comments :)