How to catch Khuli's?

[TMaier]

Today it finally dawned on me that I will have to catch the 6 young Khuli's in QT tank when I am ready for them in my main one. This is my QT

Most of the plants are not planted and will come out. But what is your best technique to catch those fast little buggers?!

 

[Autumnsky]

Make a trap like a weighted small water bottle, you can cut it and slide it inside of itself to shorten it. Use some pebbles to weight it. Fast a day and then add food to the bottle. Maybe?

Otherwise a net with food in the bottom - Kuhli in - snag him out! Tank fishing. maybe a homemade tulle net. Good fish catching. I remember trying to trap shrimp made a cool trap with a XL tea ball and had lots of snails and few shrimp, lol. Here's a pic for a laugh

 

[TMaier]

I have shrimp in this tank as well. So taking the plants out I will have to be very careful I don't take a shrimp out. They are pretty defiant and won't leave a plant or rock until you almost touch them. But if I put in a trap I suspect I will catch all the shrimp and maybe a Khuli. Lol. I'll try the net trick with some frozen/thawed brine shrimp. And see if they can't resist. I found one older thread about using 2 nets and one is left stationary and the other to herd the Khuli in.

 

[Autumnsky]

Lol. Maybe a bit of a favored wafer in the bottom of the plant bucket too in case the shrimp are still in the plants after the gentle swish. I still have one really good hider White Cloud in my shrimp tank because I can't catch him (yet) - moved his friends months ago. They were in there since they were tiny fry.

The Kuhlis are so curious I think they would want to explore a inside of a bottle. But the double nets are always the standard for easier catching. So might as welll. I think the Kuhlis eat tiny baby shrimp.

 

[TMaier]

Lol. Maybe a bit of a favored wafer in the bottom of the plant bucket too in case the shrimp are still in the plants after the gentle swish. I still have one really good hider White Cloud in my shrimp tank because I can't catch him (yet) - moved his friends months ago. They were in there since they were tiny fry.

The Kuhlis are so curious I think they would want to explore a inside of a bottle. But the double nets are always the standard for easier catching. So might as welll. I think the Kuhlis eat tiny baby shrimp.

I have read the Khuli's will eat shrimp. These little guys are very young. Maybe 2". But they are always hungry and would eat baby shrimp if possible. I have not seen any of my shrimp carrying eggs to date. I got them a few months ago and they were all about 1/2 in length. They look just about adult size now so the Khuli's will definitely need to be moved if I want more shrimp.

 

[TMaier]

Look what I spotted this afternoon. How long before the eggs are delivered and she carries for how long?

 

[Autumnsky]

Merry Christmas to you! What a great thing to see is a belly load of eggs!!! Woot!

You will start to see little eyes. That is quite a load!

As for litlte things that suck up eggs, a couple years ago I was given a scoop of baby Albino BN plecos and the guys were teensy so I put them into the 12G Edge tank to get big enough to move, problem was, they were elusive, and I could NOT catch them Edge tank was a dumb idea for putting something easily able to hide and wiggle out of the net gaps But they got bigger and to about adult size and I almost NEVER saw a baby, berried shrimp but not tiny babies.

I had to break down the entire tank, twas a thing of beauty and I had to rip it apart to get those vacuum baby sucking guys out of there. Afterwards, guess what - LOTS and lots of babies. So they might have been just casually sucking around the tank but BAM! Baby eaters. Similar with the baby Kuhlis I had but in a 16G shrimp tank I got them out more easily.

Shrimp production really is best accomplished as a species only tank. (I really didn't actually believe it - I am stubborn) But if babies is a side benefit of keeping the adult shrimp in a DT, they are fine with the bigger shrimp .

 

[TMaier]

Ok today was Khuli catching day and it went well. I positioned the net towards a corner and used my hand to herd them into it. I lost count after 4 so either 5 or 6 were moved. I poked through the substrate for sand divers and didn't find any. All of them are hidden in my main tank. This guy is peeking.

 

[nirbhao]

Hooray!