# Sulawesi - Cardinal Shrimp



## randy (Jan 29, 2012)

After yesterday's sharing pics of our CRS and TB, let me share some Sulawesi shrimp pictures today. We currently only have cardinal but will get to others soon.

First of all, it takes a while but it is possible to get them to eat man made food.


We do this by adding just one cherry in the tank as read on the web. Not sure that helped but our cardinals are very comfortable eating introduced food now. That cherry turned out to be a female and it actually got berried in the tank about two weeks in the tank ?! She kicked all the eggs eventually but we were really puzzled.


A berried female. Out of about 50 in a 7.9G Fluval Flora, we get 5 - 8 berried. Baby survival rate is still not very good but we've only started this 2 months ago, still learning.



In Asian, most people add a few elephant/rabbit snails in Sulawesi tank. It's said to help the shrimps in some way. We are not sure, but we thought it wouldn't hurt anyway. We put 2 in the tank in October last year, and already have over 6 babies from them. Here is a shot at feeding time. The cardinals are fighting food with the snails.


I think the name elephant snail fits better with these snails. What do you think?



I'll save some typing and just add some more pictures below.
















Hope you enjoy these pictures.


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## Shrimp Daddy (Mar 30, 2013)

Nice shrimp. Where did you get the snails? What kind are they?


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## sathy83 (Feb 22, 2013)

*Tylomelania snails*

Origin of these snails are from lake poso in Sulawesi. 
And as Randy said they are also called as Poso orange elephant snails.


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## randy (Jan 29, 2012)

They are also called rabbit snail. I got them from Frank's store in Markham. They like Sulawesi temperature (no surprise). I think 25+ is better. In another unheated tank we also have two of them. I only see 1 or 2 babies in that tank that's not heated (temp 18-19 currently). If you read on the web some people say they would die under 25 degree, it didn't happen in our tank and they still bred (although much slower).

Frank also has many other types of Sulawesi shrimps. I will get some from him to try different species.


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## sathy83 (Feb 22, 2013)

And another good thing about these snails are they are not so specific about the water parameters as the Sulawesi shrimps are... not sure whether it will shorten its lifespan though!!

Back home, I am raising my poso snails in a PH of around 6-6.5
I've been having them for more than 2 Years. They eat well and are pretty much active.

And the last I heard from my mom.. there's a Juvi seen in the tank


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## randy (Jan 29, 2012)

Just so it doesn't surprise you if you go to Frank's store to see these snails. They are MUCH BIGGER than other common snails you see in aquarium tanks. The adults Frank sells is about 3" to 4" and ready to breed. We got the first baby from them just days after we got them.

If you read more about these interesting snails, they breed "slowly" about one baby per month. The babies grow slowly until reaching like 1" then the grow a bit faster. 

They are pigs; they can eat a lot of food. So keeping too many with Sulawesi shrimps in the same tank is probably not a good idea due to the nitrate factory they are. And Sulawesi shrimps don't like too much water change.


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## greg (Apr 29, 2012)

Very enjoyable thread Randy - great pictures!


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## kevinli1021 (Sep 9, 2010)

Haha, I got the Posso Snails from Frank too and some of my sulawesi shrimp. I was unable to buy cardinal shrimps from him however due to school and wasn't able to drop by while he had the supply. Nonetheless, I hope you could shed some light on what you feed your cardinal shrimps? I personally feed a fry powder mix, regular shrimp food, and soon I'm going to try some spirulina tablets to see if they would be interested. I don't know what is best for them yet but if they don't eat the food, my other shrimp tend to finish it off for them


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## randy (Jan 29, 2012)

kevinli1021 said:


> Haha, I got the Posso Snails from Frank too and some of my sulawesi shrimp. I was unable to buy cardinal shrimps from him however due to school and wasn't able to drop by while he had the supply. Nonetheless, I hope you could shed some light on what you feed your cardinal shrimps? I personally feed a fry powder mix, regular shrimp food, and soon I'm going to try some spirulina tablets to see if they would be interested. I don't know what is best for them yet but if they don't eat the food, my other shrimp tend to finish it off for them


\

We feed just the snails in the same tank with mostly algae wafers, and cardinals would just come share the food with the snails. We do observe that cardinals pick the poop of the snails a lot, not sure if they are eating or just having "fun".

We're new to Sulawesi shrimps so we're just learning in the process of keeping them. So far, the survival rate for the first batch of babies aren't very satisfying, we'll see if it gets better.

We've heard opposing opinions on the effect of water changes to their breeding and baby survival. We'll see.

Frank has many other varieties of Sulawesi shrimps. I wanted to get some Harlequin from him but never got the chance to set up a tank for them. I heard the breeding is much harder than cardinals but the challenge is part of the fun in keeping them.


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