Godzilla, the shrimp

Bruckm

Bruckm

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#61
Mar 31, 2004
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#61
Originally posted by Purple
I know you guys like things big in Texas - but 5 inch shrimp - good grief.
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Well, when you have superior chemicals in the water any kind of mutation is possible! Or is that excessive chemicals? Hmm. Confused.

Here are the final pictures of Godzilla and Kong before the latter met his maker and the former took a trip. Photo credits go to my lovely and talented wife.





Full attack mode!


 

Fruitbat

Fruitbat

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#62
Jan 6, 2004
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TurbineSurgeon...

Most of what comes in as 'Tiger Loaches' are Botia hymenophysa. Gorgeous loaches but they get to the 10 inch size eventually and can be more than a little aggressive. The Fish Gallery has a tank full of them and I eye them with undisguised longing every time I'm at the store. I just don't have a place for a loach with that potential size at this point.
 

Bruckm

Bruckm

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#64
Mar 31, 2004
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Ok, is everyone sitting down?
...waiting for everyone to grab a seat.....

I went to the LFS called the Fish Gallery in Dallas today. It was my last day of freedom before school starts and they've got Eco-complete. I'm re doing the substrate in the 20G. Well, I start looking at his ghost shrimp and...bingo there it is again. I asked him if he knew about them, their behavior and how big they get. He took me outside and started throwing Golfish/Koi sticks into their pond. About 2 minutes later this MONSTER shrimp/prawn comes up from the bottom.
18" long by his guestimate. He said there's a bigger one in there. Exact same markings as mine. He said it is Macrobranchium (sp?). He has several in there. I yanked the remaining ones out of the fry (starting to disappear) tank when I got home and put 'em in a 2.5G tank by themselves.


Oh my.
 

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TurbineSurgeon

TurbineSurgeon

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#65
Feb 27, 2004
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When I first dropped the big dozen (at least 15) of those guys from Plano Pets in my Altum tank, about half became dinner. I don't think any of the survivors have met the same fate in the couple of weeks that have passed since. They are growing at an amazing rate (some of them have probably doubled in size). I'm going to get them out this weekend and probably put them in their own 10 gallon.

....and you can bet your bippy that I'm going down to The Fish Gallery to se the show!
 

TurbineSurgeon

TurbineSurgeon

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#66
Feb 27, 2004
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Holy cow, batman :eek:

I went to see the "Monsters of the Deep" show at The Fish Gallery today. Parents, don't let the little ones dabble their fingers in there! I got Tom to feed the koi and within a few seconds, I saw a crustacean that would make the lobsters in the tank at the seafood restaurant blush. He had to be at least 14 inches long. All I got to see of him was the long arms and the front of the carapice. Tom then said, "Oh, yeah, but there's big one in here, too."

Sure enough, within a minute or so, I saw claws. Big claws. I didn't get to see him from the side, but I would guess from the elbow (?) to the where the pincer started was 9 or 10 inches. The pincer itself was easilly 3 inches long. Now, extrapolating relative sizes from my dinky 2 inch Macrobranchium sp., that would have to make him going on two feet long! Time to fire up the barbeque for sure.
 

Bruckm

Bruckm

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#67
Mar 31, 2004
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OK, why aren't these being harvested and sold? Taste? Or is it something more sinister? Big Shrimp! If these puppies get so big (Here's your jumbo shrimp ma'am) and grow so fast we could lower prices on the world market. Big Shrimp won't allow that to happen!!!
 

Bruckm

Bruckm

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#69
Mar 31, 2004
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Originally posted by TurbineSurgeon
Somebody at work was telling me a couple of weeks ago that they are aquaculturing shrimp in west Texas.
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Well, of course. It IS Texas still, just a long way off. As a nation, Texas would have a larger economy than...Britain. Ouch, sorry guys. Of course California would be #9 in the world. We can't touch that. But hey, we can fly our flag at the same height as the US flag, so there.
 

Fruitbat

Fruitbat

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#72
Jan 6, 2004
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That's IT!!!!! Macrobranchium rosenbergii is the prawn we've been trying to identify!! Woohoo!!!!! It was driving me NUTS!!! The Giant River Prawn...now THAT is no joke!!

Mine is now at 6 inches (without its claws) and is the terror of the tank! So far it hasn't managed to get any of my fish but I'm sure it is just biding its time until one of them gets careless!! As soon as I can catch it...that monster is coming out of the aquarium!
 

TurbineSurgeon

TurbineSurgeon

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#78
Feb 27, 2004
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After some drama, I managed to get about half of my survivors in a 10 gallon of their own. Those little buggers are fast and the big tank they are coming out of is planted. Somehow, I'll get those last little (so far) buggers out of there, because they already made a meal out of one of my Corydoras sterbai. I know they will outgrow the 10 gallon, but I'm prepared to give them a bigger home.

...and then I'll have a fine dinner. Paybacks are hell ;)

Edit: I have been tossing a few small cichlid granules in their tank. It's pretty cool seeing what color they had for dinner.
 

trouthead

trouthead

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May 4, 2004
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Likewise, after losing a danio, I have put my two beasts in to a 8 gallon tank. In this environment, they appear to be very territorial and aggressive to each other. The tank however comprises of more rock than water, so encounters are few and far between.
 

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Evilhead

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#80
Aug 22, 2004
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Nice lookin' shrimps there. I'd be happy to have them in my tank. I've seen some pretty large ones like that (with claws about 8 inches) for sale at the LSF near my old place. I wanted him so bad, but he would have been mangled by the crawdads in my tank.
 

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