# Fortunate mishap-cherry shimps in my backyard pond



## Paul Higashikawa (Mar 18, 2004)

How about that, folks! Upon looking at my small backyard pond, I came across something reddish. I then poked at it, and out came this gravid female cherry. Not long after, a more transparent male came cruising by. The two are busy grazing on whatever it is they are grazing on. I suspect there might be more, hidden from view by the plethora of plants I tossed in there. 

The only plausible explanation is that they were in the water that I dumped out while doing water changed. But that was this past Winter!!! Miraculously, I guess they rode it through when we had several cold fronts that pitted the temperature in the 30's! And the water in my pond isn't even that deep(~4-6 inches); water temp must have been VERY cold! 

I managed to snap a few pix until my camera's memory was up. So how'bout that, folks! Any fortunate mishaps similar to this one from your own experience? Let's share them~


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## milalic (Aug 26, 2005)

That is another proof of how strong cherry reds are!

Cheers,
PEdro


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## trenac (Jul 16, 2004)

What are you people feeding these Cherry shrimp! op2:


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## Paul Higashikawa (Mar 18, 2004)

trenac, like I said before, I discovered them in the pond so that should tell you how much I feed them. Nada 


When I had them before in my tanks, I would feed them various sweet potatoes, fruits, fish foods, etc...basically anything.

Now I don't know what they eat cus there are all kinds of 'stuff' in the pond. I recall tossing away two dead fish in there the other day..................


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## trenac (Jul 16, 2004)

It was like a joke... Like have you had your Wheaties today!... Get it, maybe not :spy:


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## niko (Jan 28, 2004)

Ah Houston... a mystical land for plant heads...

Plecos in the ditches, swords by the highway, and now this...

--Nikolay


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## dennis (Mar 1, 2004)

Personally, I kind of think you should do something about it before they spread to other natural habitats.


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## david lim (Mar 30, 2004)

Careful paul. Make sure to keep them in the pond (or eradicate em ...eeep).

David


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## fishfry (Apr 15, 2004)

It is cool to know they can survive outside, but to reiterate what some others have said...please make sure they DO NOT get into your local waterways. There are already enough invasive and exotic species plaguing our native species, and nobody knows what the next introduced species will do or not do.


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## Paul Higashikawa (Mar 18, 2004)

Thanks for the concern, guys But somehow I don't think that will ever become a problem(esp when you have seen what and where the pond is). The nearest waterway is like 5 miles away, and there are no rivers or creeks in my part of the neighbor.

I guess, for now, it will serve as a nice breeding 'tank' for them since I did lose all of them before. It's good to know they are tough lil suckers Maybe next I will toss in other kinds of shrimps

****Update: *Found 3 more yesterday. So I suspect there are alot more than what I saw. Probably hiding underneath all the driftwoods and plants.


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## JerseyScape (Nov 18, 2005)

I shipped some cherries stuffed in a 1/3 filled Poland Spring Bottle during our biggest snow storm this year. The temperatures were in the low 20s!!! USPS kind of screwed up and had the shrimp in transit for over three days eventhough it went from NJ to PA. Anyway, all the shrimp managed to survive but I am not sure how as the water in the bottle should have froze.

In the next few days I might do a test and leave a bucket with 5 of these guys in the cold weather to see what happens


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## fish7days (Jul 30, 2005)

I received a shipment a long time ago with no gravid females in the batch, but upon a closer look at the water in the bag, I saw a few eggs. I placed the eggs in the same aquarium, and in a few days had some little swimmers. Maybe you transferred some eggs? Either way, pretty cool !!


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## Paul Higashikawa (Mar 18, 2004)

JerseyScape said:


> In the next few days I might do a test and leave a bucket with 5 of these guys in the cold weather to see what happens


Hahaha, I don't know, man. In a bucket they might have no room to hide from the cold weather. But it would still be a nice experiment

Found even more shrimps, BTW. I suspect as the weather becomes more warm, it will be easier for them to come out and breed. Unless, birds come down and eat them. I think Amanos might have a better chancefaring outside because of their near transparent color. With cherries, they are almost like a self-advertised bull's eye, if you will, that says:

Eat at Joe's!!! Right here; right now!!!

They better learn to hide fast or evolve new color, haha. Cus right now there are several very red females grazing like they don't care.


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## JerseyScape (Nov 18, 2005)

Why don't you get a whole load of lily pads or something to that effect? You can have hundreds of shrimp by the end of summer if nothing gets in there to eat those little critters. Good Luck


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## Paul Higashikawa (Mar 18, 2004)

I had lillies for the longest time, and then didn't like them because they put out leaves so fast. I got tired of pruning them. 

I actually saw a potential of scaping the 'lil pond with all my plant cuttings. Now there is a nice little lawn of lilaeopsis and tenellus. I also planted some repens, ceylon, ranunculus, hc, among other things from my tank. Some have already taken off and provide a nice shelter for them, I guess 

I was bored and went and took out some fallen leaves. Even more shrimps popped out. Amazing how healthy they can get; many gravid and stocky females over an inch. In my tanks they never reach that size. Nature. Amazing.


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## david lim (Mar 30, 2004)

Paul Higashikawa said:


> Thanks for the concern, guys But somehow I don't think that will ever become a problem(esp when you have seen what and where the pond is). The nearest waterway is like 5 miles away, and there are no rivers or creeks in my part of the neighbor.
> 
> I guess, for now, it will serve as a nice breeding 'tank' for them since I did lose all of them before. It's good to know they are tough lil suckers Maybe next I will toss in other kinds of shrimps
> 
> ****Update: *Found 3 more yesterday. So I suspect there are alot more than what I saw. Probably hiding underneath all the driftwoods and plants.


It would be funny to see on the news: "Cherry Shrimp Outbreak taking over Houston." I would be thinking about you paul the entire time . haha.. but I'm pretty sure (but not certain) that everything from gambusia to bass could make an easy meal out of the cherries.


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## iris600 (Feb 12, 2004)

I can see why some members would be concerned. The fewer invasive species that come out of the tropical fish/plant hobby the better. When we start to get invasives, we start to get restrictions on who can keep what where, what can be imported, what species can be kept legally....


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## dennis (Mar 1, 2004)

But, one little fish, a some crypts, or a few sprigs of Hygro never hurt anything...right?


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## iris600 (Feb 12, 2004)

....Or some kudzu, or some purple loosestrife, or those snakefish, zebra mussels, or carp, or water hyacinths,...
the problem is you can never be exactly sure how or when something will spread. The fact that they have survived the Texas winter (esp in a shallow pond) should send up warning flags... a bird or some other critter could somehow pick one up and place it elsewhere. Say a duck gets some algae or plant material stuck on it's foot or elsewhere, flys to another waterway, and deposits it's cargo (containing a couple shrimplets) unknowingly?
The snakehead fish (in NJ, I believe, a couple years ago) was released by some unwitting person. It spread from pond to pond to take, having the ability to travel short distances. It ended up being a major problem, shocked ponds, major containment efforts.... It's an extreme example of what can happen when exotic species from the aquarium trade end up in ponds and lakes. 
It can be difficult to tell what will survive long term, and possibly out-compete native flora and fauna.
I love shrimp, but if I had some that ended up outside and survived the winter, I'd be a little concerned. As someone in the field of horticulture, I am very aware of the impact invasive species has had on our ecosystem, our agricultural production, and our economy.

Did you know that Kudzu, by acting as an alternate host to soybean rust, is going to hasten the spread of this foreign disease and cause millions of dollars of fungicides to be dumped on our crops? That, unchecked, the damage to the nation's crops could be unprecedented?
The point is, these species can have direct and indirect affects on our ecosystem and our way of life. Our tax dollars go towards the control and research of these invasives and their effects. I'd rather that less of my money go to cleaning up these ecological mistakes.


Man, Dennis, your sarcasm brings some humor to a topic, only so I can come in and hop on my soapbox. Next time it's your turn.


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## JerseyScape (Nov 18, 2005)

Do you guys think that my friend's one foot OSCAR and a few PIRANHAS survived in the NJ marshes? When we were 12 he decided to release them since they outgrew his tanks. Today I am fully aware of the consequences but when I was that young I had no idea. I doubt the fish are still alive though, especially since the water does get to the freezing point. :fear:


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## Paul Higashikawa (Mar 18, 2004)

Ok, guys, just to not let you all freak out about some far fetched shrimp outbreak, I will post some picture to show the relative distance from my pond to the nearest waterway, which is nothing more than a muddy ditch. Give me some time and I will do just that

But as a reassurance that nothing of this magnitude will ever happen, my pond sits in the backyard that is fenced on all sides. My home sits in the middle of an old neighborhood, and the nearest ditch is perhaps a mile away. So unless I go banana and decide to dump them manually. Or, unless a vulture or some birds of prey come down and snatch them up in their beaks, without chewing them first, and then decide to hover over to that ditch or any body of water, well....calculate your chances there 

So, don't worry, guys!!! If I decide to throw them away, trust me, I'd rather send them to you guys and then they will become your 'problem', hahahaha!!!


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## Rob Tetrazona (Jun 21, 2005)

I'd be more concerned about the bird flu on the way...


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## iris600 (Feb 12, 2004)

It's small chances, and critters that people never think could become a problem, that create major issues in the first place.
Better safe than sorry!
If you think that a bird picking up pond weeds on it's feet and flying off with them is far fetched, think about this:
Asian longhorned beetles survived long sea voyages living only on wood packing crates and pallets to come to the US. Survival rate was probably not high, but high enough to ensure that the US had a problem.
Soybean rust, prior to finding an alternate host in Kudzu, came up on aircurrents from mexico. THere is another pathogen of wheat, a fungus, and less than .001 of it's spores get high enough in the atmosphere to carry for miles. On top of that, when it comes out of the high air currents, it has to land on live tissue of a host plant (wheat) with water on it in order to survive. Most of them land on unsuitable locations and perish. Despite these unlikely odds, this disease travels up from Mexico every single year to infect US crops. How far, you may ask? In one season, this disease spreads farther north than MN.
Zebra mussels attached to ships that went from the ocean into the great lakes via the lockes, they are now a major problem in the great lake and fingerlake region.

There are more examples, but this highlights how small chances can equal ecological disaster.

There was an article awhile back highlighting the problem Florida is having with boa constrictors, released by pet owners who could no longer keep their rapidly growing friends, breeding in the swamps. The article talked about the discovery of a constrictor that had killed an alligator, an ADULT alligator, and then ruptured while trying to eat it. These non-native species could usurp the top predator, the alligator, in the swamps.

I'm not saying you're a bad person, or that you are trying to release them into the wild,.. but things can go awry.
I'm going to provie a link to a site I came across while looking for information on sticklebacks. It mentions the impact that some of our common aquarium species, such as jewel cichlids, oscars,etc are having on our native waterways.
http://www.nativefish.org/articles/NeverReturned.php

"The invaders are here. Scores of them out-hustling, out-numbering and dining on the weaker rightful owners. Pushing them out of their homes on onto the fringes of their former homelands. Sounds terrible, doesn't it? It sounds like a case for Amnesty International. It's not though. It's a case for the Exotic Removal Team. You see, the invaders are the many types of escaped aquarium species living and reproducing in the Deep South. It's easy to pass the blame on who let em lose. Some say it was the aquaculture industry, others say it was individual aquarists, sick and tired of feeding their now too large pets, others blame it on misguided fisheries managers. At this point it really does not matter any more because they are out there in the hundreds of thousands. They are choking out native species and causing chaos in the food chain. It's a mess. In the Deep South we have Jewel Cichlids, Oscars, Mayan Cichlids, Pacus, Plecos, and countless other African and South American species calling the USA home. We aquarists have this environmental mess properly laid at our feet."


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