In addition to bettas and small tropical fish, he is also very interested in freshwater crustaceans such as shrimp and crabs, and has been collecting, observing, and photographing them since he was young.
Since I was in elementary school, I have had a strong interest in horseshoe shrimp, water shrimp, and crab shrimp, which appear in rice paddies in Japan only during the rice planting season.
So when I started visiting Thailand and learned that the sea shrimp also live there, I was overcome with a desire to see one for myself.
About 20 years ago, in Chatuchak, Bangkok, adult parasitoids were sold to be used as fish feed, and my wish to see Thai parasitoids with my own eyes was quickly fulfilled.
It was a long time ago so my memory was a bit hazy, so I checked my records and found that in 2006, an acquaintance of mine who worked at an aquarium manufacturer contacted me and said he wanted to visit a shrimp farm.

Being an expert at gathering information related to aquariums, I soon found out that there was a shrimp farm in Suphan Buri, central Thailand, and decided to visit it.
Coincidentally, the owner of the shrimp farm was also a betta breeder, and he was breeding beautiful gold placat fish that were good enough to win contests at the time.
This time we're talking about shrimp, so if I talk about bettas it will get too long, so I'll stop here.
This shrimp farm breeds two different colors of shrimp: orange and blue, which are not color variations but different species.
The orange one has the scientific name Brachinella thailandensis, which if we were to call it in Japanese would be called Thailandensis fairy shrimp.
The honen shrimp is called fairy shrimp in English.
When water accumulates in a dry place where there was nothing before, they appear out of nowhere, and their ecology is truly worthy of being called fairies, and their appearance is somewhat reminiscent of fairies.
Another blue species has the scientific name Streptocephalus sirindhornae, which is called the Sirindhorn fairy shrimp in Japanese.
The scientific name is dedicated to Princess Sirindhorn of Thailand.

Books about parasitoid shrimp have also been published in Thailand, and naturally I have one in my own collection, but because I obtained it a long time ago, it has become buried under a pile of books and is currently impossible to find.
Incidentally, there is another species of fairy shrimp that lives in Thailand, its scientific name is Streptocephalus siamensis, and from what I can see in the photo, it is a pale blue color similar to the Sirindhorn fairy shrimp, but is apparently slightly smaller.
The crucial difference between this and the other two species is the shape of the diapause eggs; while the other two species are spherical, the diapause eggs of the Siamensis fairy shrimp are pyramidal.
All three species live in the northeastern part of Thailand, so the easiest way to identify them is to check the shape of the diapause eggs.
The Thailandensis fairy shrimp and the Siamensis fairy shrimp are species endemic to Thailand, but the Sirindhorn fairy shrimp has been recorded to live in Laos and Myanmar as well as Thailand.

Well, the explanation of the types of shrimp has become quite long, but let me write about shrimp farms.
This farm apparently produces dormant eggs of the two types of shrimp mentioned above.
An outdoor plastic container was filled with green water and shrimp were swimming in it.
To give you an idea, it is similar to the style of today's medaka breeders.
Apparently, they collect the dormant eggs that have been laid on the bottom of the water, dry them, and sell them.
I remember that the price of dormant eggs was quite high because it required quite delicate work.
I purchased two types of dormant eggs packed in small plastic bags and brought them back to Japan.
A few years later, I tried to hatch these dormant eggs, but unfortunately they had already lost their hatching ability and did not hatch at all.
It seems that storing them at room temperature was a problem, and I later learned that storing them in the refrigerator, like Artemia, does not reduce the hatching rate.
Unfortunately, we lost contact with the people at the shrimp farm in Suphan Buri after they moved.

There appear to be several companies producing parasitoid shrimp in Thailand, and recently in Chatuchak they have been selling dormant eggs in small glass containers or in containers that look like pharmaceutical capsules, so they are not difficult to obtain.
If you search online in Japan, you will find some companies that sell it online, so if you are interested, it might be fun to order it.
I purchased these glass containers of dormant shrimp eggs about five years ago and stored them in my refrigerator at home.
When I first bought them, I tried hatching them, and it turned out that the shrimp eggs were mixed with dormant water flea eggs, so I was able to unexpectedly catch some water fleas.
This summer I've been breeding killifish for fun, and I decided to try breeding water fleas to feed them.
The eggs were about five years old, but I thought they might still be capable of hatching, so I tried soaking some dormant eggs stored in the refrigerator in water, just in case.
The eggs hatched in about 24 hours, but only shrimps hatched and no water fleas at all.
It appears that the dormant eggs of the water flea have a shorter lifespan than those of the water shrimp, and have already lost the ability to hatch.
I tried three times, but no water fleas hatched.
90% of the dormant eggs that hatch are Thailandensis fairy shrimp, and 10% are Sirindhorn fairy shrimp.
Previously, I thought there were only Thailandensis fairy shrimp, but when I hatched the dormant eggs for the first time in five years, I discovered that there were two types of shrimp mixed in the dormant eggs.
This was a pleasant surprise.

Sirindhorn fairy shrimp, with their beautiful pale blue body color, grow slower than Thailandensis fairy shrimp, but have a lifespan of more than two months.
Thailandensis fairy shrimp become adults and begin laying eggs about two weeks after hatching, and have a lifespan of about one month.
The breeding method for both species is the same, and feeding them green water would be the easiest.
Chlorella powder and dry yeast can also be used as bait.
If you raise them in a bare tank using a plastic case, it will be easier to collect eggs later.
The dormant eggs that have been laid on the bottom of the water should be filtered out using a coffee filter or similar along with any debris, then dried and stored.
If you pour water on the dormant eggs, they will hatch again and you will be able to enjoy raising them again.
The bone shrimp moves slowly and can be described as a soothing creature.
Once you get the hang of it, raising them is not difficult, so they are perfect for the Japanese summer when there is no need to keep them warm.
During this scorching hot Japanese summer, they are being grown in an outdoor aquarium, and are thriving well in the lukewarm water.