Snail Spirals

My goodness, two posts in two days- what is the world coming to?

I wanted to show off my new aquarium. I can't call it a fish tank, because it has no fish in it. This is a freshwater shrimp tank.



It's a 10-gallon tank, set up on September 12 with plants, driftwood, rocks, sand, etc from another tank to jumpstart the establishment of the nitrogen bacteria colony. It ran with only snails (Malaysian trumpet snails, one large apple snail, and one Juga plicifera [a native northwest snail]) for a couple weeks, then I added 29 crystal red shrimp on September 24.



Aren't they pretty?

I've very much enjoyed this tank over the past couple months. The shrimp are now reproducing, and there are at least three little baby shrimp in there now, with many more mommas carrying eggs.

Crystal reds are a recessive mutation of naturally-occurring bee shrimp, which have a similar pattern but black stripes. They are so fun and personable. I love watching them pick through the plants. They have two-sided pincher hands on their front two pairs of legs, and they spend almost all their time grabbing at things to get up tiny bits of food.

Finally, just because it's so silly (and because I figured out how to use Windows Movie Maker to add music), here's a video of the apple snail taking a ride on the powerhead outflow.