Louie

He could be dead on the bottom , if he recently died .

Endlers pick the weakest fish and harass him but hide areas reduce this .  They nip the tail fin.

I keep them outside but I do have a few diff types inside and the top dog is the tiniest green endler

None of that near me.

 

Apparently when purchasing express mail labels online, to get money back guarantee, you have to go to the parenting post office and not the small ones since supervisors are all at the parenting po.

 

Not interested in waiting 2 hours on line...

I did manage to find another PO for my shipping needs but in terms of money back guarantee, it's gonna be painful.

''I did manage to find another PO for my shipping needs''

Well , at least you found a better PO .

That's great, thank you for the advice. I will have a look into Guppy grass or water sprite. Is it bit like the equivalent of cat nip for Guppy's? Always in favour of natural remedies where possible over chemicals although I know not always avoidable.

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Guppy grass is just a plant which doesn't need to be planted as far as substrate nor attached to anything .  On its own it sinks and a great escape place for little fish who are being chased by other fish .

I find my endlers more aggressive with each other than male guppies but with thick hiding plants they don't bother the weakest endler .  They can be much nippier than common guppies .

Water sprite is as good .

I have never used meds for torn fins and they heal no problem.  Endlers heal very well .

This is guppy grass --

Pretty.

Are you going to do salt or thinking about it ?

Only thing stopping me now that I picked out a light , Current Orbit and hang on skimmer is the R/O . All my faucets are those new wide mouth faucets which you cant attach the unit to and I am not keen on having it plumbed in extra bathroom under the sink .

My faucets outside are great but the RO would melt come Spring/Summer .

I have to figure this out .

I  have  never seen Cherax other than online and some look amazing .

If anything I would have thought they were very aggressive as just assumed Australian crays were . Go figure .

I was looking at your shrimp. Nice selection and saw you carry Indian shrimp .

I have never seen those for sale either in the USA .

I had read that 316 stainless steel mesh 20 was the way to go in making inlet guards, so I ordered some. Now that I have it in hand, the mesh doesn't look fine enough to exclude very young shrimplets. Anyone else have problems or success with this material?

I purchased few from the site above me , Han aquatics .

In fact he made some square one's for me because my Penguin filters use square intake and they work great.

They do not impede the filter circulation and do not suck up the tiniest baby shrimp . 

Before buying his I had ''shrimp safe'' mesh I picked up on ebay and it was garbage as I saw it suck up a tiny shrimp.

I had a pair of white Procambarus Alleni which even bred and no problems . Kept with several pvc tubes, etc in a 30 inch long tub think 18 wide  today the male killed the female .

They were together about a year and half .

I will just keep the male by himself but curious if anyone has a pair of any crays other than the dwarfs and self cloning long term ?

^{They are supposedly cobra endlers. X}

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 ^{Yes they are Cobra's.}

^{His fin should be fine without any meds .}

^{Endler males will fight fins grow back.}

^{They develop a hierarchy and even the smallest male can become the boss .}

^{Guppy grass or water sprite goes a long way as far as breaking up fights and would do well in your set up .}

Lighting, tank, lid, filters, heater, cooling fan.substrate, driftwood, cholla wood, plants, minerals, mineral ball, mineral rocks, powders for cycling and on and on and on. I'm a snake-oil salesman dream and im also a sucker for buying almost every brand of food.

I place my filters on side of tank which is something most don't care for so it forces me to use dome lights with CFL bulbs .  I cant lay led fixtures on top of tank.

They are inexpensive and work amazing but I would prefer the look of nicer led fixtures and the clip on types which I like are for rimless tanks which I wont do .

^haha

I need to stop looking at Hans website...

I just got plants today from HAN .

What type fish do you keep  ?

Everything comes in the unit  ?

You only replace filter/s now and than  ?

I wonder if you have postal substations, or approved providers. I have one inside a grocery store, there never seems to be much of a line to wait in. Plus I can pick up some fresh fruit & veg (and maybe something fun for the shrimps to eat) when I'm done.

That is a great idea and if Poopians is able to locate one in her area I find they are on the ball .  The one's here are small and efficient  but they cant not do money orders which doesn't pertain to Poopians any way .

We just don't have home delivery out here. We receive a free PO Box and everyone has to go to the post office. House delivery ends a mile and a half from me. Also, the post offices are only open 4 hurs per day. Ours is 12 - 5, 6 miles down the road I think is 8 - 12. All shipments take an extra day to get here too. But after reading the struggles others have, I think ours is great and I've stopped complaining!

oh I see .  I thought maybe this was only in winter because I know your winters/snow are rough .

I imagine it can be tricky as far as shrimp shipments .

I had a mishap where I had a shipment sent to my billing address in Los Angeles when I am in Santa Cruz. I had to have it USPS overnight, or next day guaranteed, whatever they call it, it's supposed to be guaranteed. I was a little worried about the shrimp to begin with being in transit and extra day, but after the package didn't come until 8 pm the day after it was supposed to arrive at 3pm I was a little upset. Fortunately all the shrimp survived. When my brother went to the post office to get his money back for $25 shipping they insisted they didn't have to refund him because the requirements of the guarantee weren't met, meaning it wasn't scanned... He's a pretty smart Berkeley grad and in the legal department at Paramount Studios, so he argued that the terms apply to the buyer and when the package is transferred to the carrier it is assumed that the details of the agreement will be upheld. He ended up with a full refund.

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''they insisted they didn't have to refund him because the requirements of the guarantee weren't met, meaning it wasn't scanned''

That seems to be what they do . I'm glad your brother prevailed .

I'm like the Jack Lemmon character in the movie 'The Out of Towners' when it comes to dealing with Miami's postal sorting house .

Not sure if anyone here knows the movie , lol .

I had no idea that the buyer was able to get shipping cost back because I had 2 shrimp shipments arrive 4 days late but all the shrimp were fine .  Temps here are ideal during the winter .

I mentioned to the sellers that they should get their shipping back and I would fill out any forms they wanted . I didn't want a penny I wanted to stick it to Miami postal sorting department but I suspect the sellers didn't bother and laughed at me , lol.

I could be wrong but FedEx actually doesn't allow shipping live animals. Only USPS and UPS does.

 

But if I was to ship a package from NY to Miami, it would cost $30 via Fedex 2 day and $5.75 via Priority mail 2 day.

 

Fedex and UPS are only options if you are in same state or neighboring state else you paying crazy postage.

Actually I think you are correct as this was not marked live fish .  It was from a fish farm further north in the state and what a pleasure it was to deal with Fed-ex with accurate tracking and think it took one day .  It cost the shipper about 12 dollars , more or less .

Louie, I'd love to see pics of them. How big do they get?

Do starfish eat coral?

I'm going back to the early 80s but I'll look at the picture book and see if I have a camera picture of the babies .

They were the common sand stars . I used to collect them in shallow water by stirring up sand in grassy areas I called lagoons and on piers right where the water met the air they would cling .

This type star --

http://media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/0a/66/79/0a66796f28b1d97243e822b4000956c9.jpg

It looks like it judging by the pictures. They get a cloudy, almost milky look.

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Yes that's it .  I had no idea that ghost would stay that way for months and thus thought an unusual color morph or not a ghost shrimp.

I keep orange throat and brown darters which I usually feed thawed blood worms and cherry shrimp culls but sometimes when I go fishing by Glades I net ghost shrimp and throw them in.

This one simply lived a long time and got to big for the darters to bother it .

that usually means they are nearing a natural death, it can happen weeks or months before they die.

the red dots on its tail is a recessive gene I think, I see it alot in stores but never could get it in my tanks.

the red hue throughout is a thing in wild ghosts that I'm trying to breed to be darker.

Thanks a lot this was very informative .

You know I have noticed ''color''  as far as some type hue in ghost shrimps depending on what part of Florida they are caught in.

Most I catch by Tamiami trail across the water dam past the bullfrog farm but the one's I have caught in canals have some ''hues'' that the pond types lack .

I've also had ghost shrimp turn white/yellowish/greyish right before they die...

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Oh ok  that makes sense . He has been this way for awhile but perhaps just old .

I never had any last with the darters so that is possible .

Few months ago I netted some tiny ghost shrimp for my darters .

All were eaten but one who is white/yellow with a grey stripe down his head and tinges of red on his tail .

Initially I thought it was a shedding Ghost shrimp but it has remained this color and has grown larger than other ghost shrimps .

He is to big now to be eaten and ignored which works for me .  He will eat other tiny ghost shrimp which I add to tank now and than.

Asterina starfish will, but I don't know about others.

I had sand stars multiply rather well .

I collected 2 of them in a ''secret'' lagoon which is now sadly a hotel and months later had lots of tiny sand stars all over the live rocks .  As they got bigger I released them and about a year later had babies again from the original parents .

I don't know what type they were . I call them common Atlantic sand stars .

That's the problem.

 

Most shippers are scared to file a complaint because the PO will most likely screw u over for that such as ignoring your request, delaying your shipments, etc.

Than I would file an anonymous complaint or suggestion using regular paper mail but I wouldn't let it go . At least this way you tried .

Some time ago I got some white crays and the seller sent them fed-ex for about $12.00 which is more or less USPS but HUGE difference in shipping .

I'm surprised more sellers don't use fed-ex .

Wow! I'm so sorry that people are going through that. Even in the "city" here the clerks hold a conversation about your package, are careful, scan it, give you a receipt, and wish you a great day. In my little town my postmistress will call me on my cell phone if she thinks a box might be shrimp. She'll unlock the door if she sees me because she knows I can't make it during business hours, and sometimes we open packages there so she can see. I guess the small town pony express has its advantages despite no delivery to the house.

Why don't they deliver to the house due to tough weather ?

I have almost $500 in each of my 20L's not including shrimp.

Wow .

Why so much,  the lighting ?

I'm torn between getting a bigger tank or get alot more plants for my current tank.

I would like a new tank but I would need a stand and new light so it will be like $100 which I need for some other stuff.

but I should get a bigger tank so my new fish aren't cramped when they are bigger.

what's do you think I should do?

You can always gets plants later so get a bigger tank. You will like it better as will your fish.