[odin]

Wow thats some vibrant colour, what camera are you using? Get some practice man because Opae ula are a pain in the ass to photograph.

[AdeDunn]

Just my phone camera bud, Honor 5C. Since it updated to EMUI 5 and Android 7 it's doing a much better job of taking photos than it used to.

Those colours are genuine too, no photoshoppage at all on this one! Wish I could get as good a photo of the snow/golden bee, as that's another stunning shrimp. Sort of an opaque off white over the top of a read body, which shows through in places and gives the shrimp a peach hue. It's eyes are bright red too, really unusual.

You can expect tons more pics before I get any Opae bud, so tons of practice. ;) My phone camera app has a handy little tracker feature that keeps the camera focused on a moving point. It helps.

[AdeDunn]

Well I managed to capture a couple more pics of the snow/golden bee. They still don't show the red too well, but they do show the peachy shade better. You can almost make out the red eyes, almost. lol

[odin]

Lovely shrimp mate.

[AdeDunn]

Thanks bud, so glad I came back to the hobby.

[AdeDunn]

A quick update, of a good news/bad new variety.

First up, some good news, the shrimp in my bee tank are doing quite well. They're excellent feeders (don't put your fingers in my wife reckons they'll remove them... lol) and the tank is pretty much spotless with just a tiny patch of algae on a filter sponge. Little sods have uprooted quite a lot of the dwarf hairgrass though... I lost a single black in this one, oddly enough right after feeding them snowflake...... I want to see berried shrimp and babies in there though before I consider adding a few true Taiwan bees.

Which bring me to my blues tank... Had a LOT of deaths once again in this one, right up until the point where I STOPPED feeding the unbranded snowflake I'd been sent in a "goody box" deal. Since I stopped feeding this, and switched to ONLY feeding my branded foods (Dennerle, JBL and GlasGarten) touch wood I haven't lost a single shrimp in there. I have a single berried female in there too, so I have high hopes this will help to rebuilt my colony again. This has led me to the conclusion though that the food was tainted with some form of toxic substance, not least as I watched some of the shrimp die, they acted EXACTLY like some shrimp I had years ago that got exposed to fly killer spray (my wife had used it in the kitchen without telling me, my acclimatisation bowl happened to be in there at the time, the rest is history with only some of them been saved when I realised what must have happened and quickly moved the surviving shrimp into their new home), sinking down onto their sides and twitching repeatedly, slowing down until death. Needless to say that snowflake has gone in the bin.... Kinda good news though in that a KNOWN cause is far better than an unknown one, not least as it means that in time I can restock in there happily without worry.

[odin]

Sorry to hear about the food issue, that's really dodgy if you ask me.

[AdeDunn]

Yeah it is. I did some searching and apparently snowflake is just soya hulls in pellet form, further digging and I found that some of it is basically just repackaged cattle feed. Nothing necessarily wrong with that, I've done this myself for my own use many times (finding out what a product actually is, then finding a cheaper "non-hobby" alternative), but looks like this batch somehow got tainted with something toxic. Didn't help the shrimp LOVED it, so would dive on it with gusto.... Luckily they adore GlasGarten mulberry shrimp snacks even more, so they're not missing out, I also have some Dennerle Snow Pops which are the hobby specific version.

Upsetting though, as a fair bit of cash went on those shrimp. I could have had an other tank stocked by now if I hadn't had to restock that one once more already.... Now I have to top it up again.... I want to get my 50 litre "Bast tank", as my wife calls it, stocked with blue jelly neos yet...... I should explain, she calls it that as it has an Egyptian cat statue in it, better known as a statue of Bast, she's not just shortening a rude word... lmao

[AdeDunn]

Finally had a bit of luck in one of my shrimp tanks! After discovering that both the unbranded snowflake food AND the Dennerle snow pops appear to be toxic to shrimp (hard to deny, every time I fed either shrimp died after eating it... Stopped using snowflake type foods, shrimp stopped dropping dead on me...), I finally have my first blue baby! Possibly (hopefully) more in the tank, not least as this colony has been a NIGHTMARE, and was once again down to 2-3 adults (see comment about snowflake foods....). Gives me hope that I was right that my losses were down to feeding snowflake, which is bonkers as it's hugely popular in the hobby.

[odin]

That is really strange indeed, maybe they had gotten the food from the same seller and just repackage?