The route less traveled May 26, 2009

I volunteered myself as a guide for tourist and visitor at  Sungei Buloh Wetland Reserve

Midway through Mandai road towards Kranji it started pouring and before long I go caught in a thunderstorm. Boy was it scary trying to evade those trucks in the down pour.

Thoughs of skipping the session went through my helmet and my mind”I could be home sleeping or at work earning money ” BUT  “I’m not in this for money, in fact i’ll only be paid transport fees if I’m lucky. I’m doing this for the fact I am passionate in the bio-diversity around me”

Manage to make my way to the centre and the guy at the counter looked at me and said “wouldnt be out in this weather if I were you”

I swear I would have stuffed my helmet in his mouth if he wasnt wearing the staff T-shirt.

Anyway we took a 3 hour lecture on the local fauna diversity in Sungei Buloh.  Saw a few sleepy heads yawning away. We then proceeded to the outdoor lesson with K.S. Wong, a Old timer and nature activist. He happens to be the only guy in the room to ride other then me. O yea he claims to be a herbivore(vegetarian) but I’m a totally different species, I’m a carnivore! by choice that is

K.S Wong giving us short info on the local mangrove fishes. Aiya I know already. I got fish blood! lai lai skip!

Muddy water at the dam due to torriential rain

Proceeding to cross the first bridge with the rest of the guides.

Sceneries from main hide

Stray dogs which I learn are pests  affecting the wildlife here at Sungei Buloh.

Low tide at platform 1. Conservation actions are already being implemented around here. Fences erected to keep debris  such as paper,plastic cups, clothes, shoes,MasSelamat, lightbulbs,bubble wraps and such from entering the mangroves.

These little bumps are actually common Nerita(mollusc) grazing on algae.

A cotton stainer bug which feeds only on seeds of sea hibiscus trying to act chio to attract me.

Happen to snap a groups of  Homo Sapiens as well.

Green grasshopper, I cant identify which species it belongs to. Can you?

Another ape with a matching body markings  to blend into it’s surroundings. Here you can see him stalking out his prey.

Can you spot the Atlas moth’s catapillar? It’s green and so it camouflages darn well, one of my female guide spotted it and it took me quite some time to spot it.

Fun fact: When adult, it’s wing span measures 12 inches tip to tip(roughly the length of 3  i phones )

This Green crested lizard is native to Singapore.Decided to made a rare appearance when everyone was leaving the area. Only  I manage to spot it in time and snapped this before alerting everyone who came and scare the poor fella off.

White breasted water hen running across the walkway. Funny name huh. Translated in Hokkien: Peh Nei Nei  Zhui kway

O yea when I was in the cubicle peeing I saw something slithering along the sides(the toilets are open concept). Turned out to be a Malayan monitor lizard. Fuuuckanaathannn scare the pee out of me.

After the debrief, where else but back home!

OKAY! May 20, 2009

I have a small tank, so small it can fit barely fit a size S open face helmet. In the aquarium trade these tanks are known as Nano tank or cube tank, normally used to house small fishes and shrimps.

I’ve been rearing  Red cherries, Malayan and recently Crystal Red shrimps in the same tank with a  certain degree of success. Red cherries and Malayan are considered entry level shrimps and are not very fussy about the water conditions, Crystal red shrimps on the other hand are notorious for being sensitive to water  changes, PH level and temperature.

Breeders adopt the practice of culling bad genes and put these shrimps through generations of selective breeding resulting in many grades and mutations (aesthetically pleasing but weak) which can fetch high prices all over the world.Just a quick check on the local forum shows that people are willing to pay a neat sum for just a piece of shrimp. I’ve since given up my batch of Crystal red shrimps to Nic who has a dedicated tank to better house those critters as I feel they are simply not my kinda shrimp(weird but call it a hobbyist thing)

While browsing the local aquarium recently i happen to chance across another batch of shrimps,  Unlike their usual dull freshwater cousins, the ones I saw resembles those of the marines species. Colorful with eccentric designs and markings.

Shrimps lover and non shrimps lover alike will  fall in love with  their unique quality.

Did a search online on their whereabouts  and manage to find out that these shrimps are relatively new to the trade and not many hobbyist has manage to garner any success in keeping them alive pass a month much less breeding them in captivity. Price wise they are in the mid range costing around 7 odd dollars per shrimps.

Because these shrimps originated from several lakes of Sulawesi Indonesia. The  water which they lived in  are generally different from those in other parts of asia:

Slightly alkaline (PH): 7.5 to 8.2

General hardness(GH):6

Carbonate hardness(KH): 11

Temp: ranging from 26 to 29 degree Celsius

It got my attention and over the next few nights after the discovery of these shrimps I started to delve deeper and dig out whatever knowledge there is out there about these batch of shrimps. Most of the forummer speak of high death rates with regards to rearing these shrimps, I decided to jump in and take a shot anyway

-Bought fine river sand which is PH neutral

-Coral chips to buffer the GH,KH and PH level up

-Lava rocks to mimic it’s  natural habitat

-Bought API’s GH & KH test kit and borrowed Nic’s PH pen to cover the monitoring cycles

DAY 1-2

Tank’s parameters:

PH:7.3

GH:6

KH:4

Temp:29 degree Celsius

Remarks: cloudy water due to insufficient flow rate from hang on filter

DAY 3

-Hang on filter decided to break down(wear & tear)

-Replaced with BOYU external canister filter

-Original filter medium which was active carbon had been replaced with coral chips bit by bit(to prevent PH swing)

Tank’s parameters:

PH:8

GH:10

KH:6

Temp:29 degree Celsius

Remarks:Water visibility improved and parameters have gone up to desired values.

Added one Cardinal.sp to test the water since parameters shows that theoretically the GH,KH,PH,Temp is already quite close to its original habitat.

Able to spot the little critter?

Will continue to monitor the water and shrimp condition for a few weeks before I make my full commitment to rearing these shrimps

**Npark finally responded to my email and I’ll be going down this saturday to begin my orientation sesssion.woooo!