Filters and eggs
The filters arrived on Thursday evening, me and Emil picked mine up and installed it yesterday. It works, and it’s quiet. The fan shrimps have unfortunately gotten even shyer lately, I don’t know why, so I haven’t seen them filtering yet. However, as I’ve already said several times, those little bastards are well-known for being very shy, so I’ll just give them even more time. Re-arranging the tank a bit yesterday probably didn’t help. I saw Sanjay strolling about yesterday evening, but when I started walking towards the tank she ran away. I assume they’re getting food etc during the night and when no one’s in the room (we once turned the light on in the morning and just caught a glimpse of them disappearing behind a log), so it’s all good.
One of the snowballs is pregnant, and has been for about a week. Unfortunately we noticed yesterday that she’d dropped all eggs but one. That happens, and it saddens me a little, but at least I know the tank’s good enough and getting established as they’ve obviously started breeding. Snowballs are supposed to breed often, and I have several developed males and females, so hopefully I’ll have more pregnant girls soon. Can’t wait for the baby shrimps!
Just in case anyone’d wonder: No, the fan shrimps won’t have any babies. It’s rare for them to breed in captivity, but it happens. However, the larvae need brackish water, and it’s very hard to time it perfectly (moving the eggs to brackish, letting them hatch and get just big enough, moving them back to freshwater). One day I wish to know them well enough to be able to breed them, but at the moment I don’t.