# Best Substrate For RCS?



## Jafooli

Hi

I need some advice as my girlfriend is struggling with keeping Cherry shrimp alive, let alone getting any to breed, so far her Fluval Ebi has been nothing but bad luck since she purchased it nearly a year ago.

She is about to purchase her 4th batch of RCS ( not quite yet ) but one member mentioned in the sale/wanted section that it could be because of the Fluval Stratum that we are having such bad luck, so I did some quick research and see some people are in the same boat, aka there breeding slowed down, less baby shrimp survived, and the overall survival rates wasn't great with the fluval stratum substrate. Then other things I read were along the lines off, you only ever hear the negatives with any substrate, and mostly these are people who are not experienced with keeping shrimp... so I have no idea and hope someone can just answer a couple of questions and put us in the right direction.

My girlfriend wants a black substrate so its a bit harder to find a inert one, especially as one topic on here, mentions he had black dye leaking from it, even though it said inert etc... so basically we have found:

Limpopo Black Sand which I read is not that nice looking.
Ebi Gold

Can someone recommend which would be best? I will also list her water parameters as obviously that will play a roll in the choice which leads me to the Ebi Gold.

I see it buffers PH which imo would be a good thing because of our current high PH, but it also buffers the GH to 4-5, well mine is 12 GH, if we went down the Ebi Gold route, will I need to start learning about adding supplements to the water, to increase GH or KH etc if it did buffer it to low? or should it keep it steady around the 4-5, anything above should still be ok for cherry shrimp, I just don't want it to drop to low.

Obviously the plan for her was to keep the easiest shrimp around, and then maybe work her way up, I can now see that's going to take ages, we cant even keep the hardest shrimp around alive, but if the Cherry shrimp somehow do survive in the Ebi gold, its just a note that she may then slowly work her way to say CRS, which would be great. So if we went down the Limpopo route this could be more of a problem due to high ph, here is our water parameters.

Ammonia: 0ppm
Nitrite: 0ppm
Nitrate: 30ppm
TDS: 252
PH: 8
GH: 12
KH: 9

Sorry for making a short question longer than needed, Its quite annoying to see my girlfriend spend loads of money on a shrimp tank etc, and I'm the one who told her I will help her as I have a fair amount of knowledge with basic water parameters, although I wouldn't know how to raise or lower them lol as there is no need for me to learn that yet as we are still struggling with RCS, from what I read RCS are like the goldfish in a pond and can suit a wide range of parameters which we do qualify for and are apparently the amateur/beginner shrimp, please help.


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## Henry

How frequent are you doing water changes? Red cherry shrimp are very tolerant of water parameters, so that's unlikely to be the issue.


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## Jafooli

When they were alive we were doing a 20% water change each week, I didn't do nothing special with the water aka leave it to stand for a day. I guess this time around I was thinking of doing a 10% water change each week instead. Should I leave the water to stand for a day? When I do a water change the TDS does increase by about 50.

Do you think the Fluval Stratum is not the cause then?


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## Crumbs

Its a strange coincidence but I have experienced something similar recently.

I had a breeding group of cherries in my fluvial spec v. After a few batches of shrimplets I added a bag of planting stratum because the original substrate wasn't deep enough for the plants. Since doing so the original fry numbers have diminished completely and the adults are yet to breed again! 20% a week w/c too here.


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## MARKCOUSINS

If your tap water is giving you such a big increase in TDS you want to be thinking about using RO water(remineralised).That way you will have more chance keeping things stable.Cheers Mark.


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## Jafooli

This is odd indeed, Not to say it is the Fluval Stratum as I have no idea hence why I am here for help, but as someone who only has owned Fluval filters and Fluval tanks, it was already surprising enough to learn the filter that came with the Fluval Ebi was inadequate as I needed to put tights around the intake as apparently the Ebi filter sucks in the shrimplets and kills them :O

I didn't understand how a tank designed for breeding shrimp would have this problem, but that's only a small niggle as we just packed it with filter sponge before we purchased any shrimp instead of tights that became clogged fast, but since we've had the tank we've had nothing but deaths, and not one shrimp has ever been berried, if it is the Fluval Stratum, I guess no body knows... then that is really frustrating.

But I honestly cant understand why me and my girlfriend are having these shrimp die on us, =\ I can only hope that people on here can help us solve the problem, what should we do? should we purchase the Ebi Gold?

Hey mark, regarding TDS, I presumed the 300 mark was suitable for cherry shrimp? I believe the bucket of water is around 270 TDS but with dechlor added it rises to around 300 and at end of the week the overall TDS is around 250.


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## MARKCOUSINS

Usually over the course of the week the TDS will increase in a tank due to feeding,ferts,waste and supplements added to the tank.But in yours it decreases.Is there anything in the tank making this happen?Shrimp do not like to much change(temp,ph,TDS etc).They do like it stable.Cheers Mark


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## Jafooli

Strange, the tank is so simple and basic in regards to the scape. Couple of plants, piece of bog wood, so I guess not.

I can understand the concept of what your saying lol, but have no idea why mine is decreasing. I try not to overfeed, we keep it clean as possible, the tank get's a lot of evaporation on the Ebi glass lid, is there not nothing in the water that can just be evaporating? or the plants using some of the nutrients in the tap water? which is then decreasing the TDS?

We didn't really want to go down the RO road, only because the idea was to start from the bottom, and then get more technical, I just presumed cherry shrimp were the hardiest they came, regarding shrimp. I believe everything else in the tank is stable, so how likely do you think our problem is TDS? if it is, I guess there's nothing we can do. I can't see my girlfriend going down that road, after the luck she has had, if we was investing in CRS then I can see why but that's not going to happen as we cant keep RCS. 

That's kind of annoying if that is the issue, =\ if people's TDS rised? you say from food etc, surely the shrimp would dislike that as much as it decreasing? if not they would hate the increase in TDS more?


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## MARKCOUSINS

No I can understand that you wanted to start with a basic shrimp set up.I would like to know what is responsible for the TDS drop.Maybe someone will come along with an answer.In my Sakura nano after W/C I have a TDS of about 180 after a week it is about 195-200.It is by know means perfect but have had numerous babiesand some losses to


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## Jafooli

Cheers Mark, I do hope its not the TDS as that would be disappointing but I don't know, I cant even keep shrimp alive lol, its annoying especially as I did all my research for her and presumed all our water parameters were ideal for cherry shrimp, well maybe the PH could be a tad lower, which the Ebi gold would achieve, but what's the point if the substrate is not the problem, but it is strange that many people have reported problems with the Fluval stratum.

I can only presume the TDS drops as we have never had more then 10 shrimp, so its hardly any feeding to what it would be with someone with say 40-50 shrimp, and also I can only guess any nutrients in the tap water the plants use, as my main tank rises when I dose EI but in the morning its lower again, which I presume is from the plants using it, but my main tank is like 400-600 TDS from my ei dosing lol, I guess the shrimp would bounce out of that tank lol, even though I've read people have kept RCS in them ranges, I've read a lot about RCS surviving stupid water readings, hard to believe them story's.


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## MARKCOUSINS

Just looking back at your previous posts there is one other thing that maybe could be a factor,that is the PH.You posted your PH at 8 which is what I have seen written as max PH for RCS.I personally would not feel comfortable keeping them in a tank with such hard water.How long have you been able to keep them for before they die?Do you still have any in the tank?Have you seen evidence of moulting?Cheers Mark.


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## Jafooli

Hey ya, yeah I've had many successful moults.

So the first 10 yellow baby shrimp, probably 6 out of 10 reached adult size, then 2 would die each month..... the same pattern with the 2nd batch of 10 Red cherry shrimp, once again all were babies and many reached adult size... the 3rd patch I would say maybe 8 out 10 reached adult size, and lasted the longest.. just no shrimp ever became berried, and then slowly a couple died each month again.. We've only ever had about 2 trapped moults.

So the strangest thing is we have one cherry shrimp in there now and he has been in there since at least September. I've seen his moults laying around and he is always around each day eating etc, hardly ever feed the tank now, maybe once a week just to give him some iodine from the food if that's correct, strange how each batch has had a tuff guy who has lasted longer then all the others.

I removed the wood a couple of days ago, to clean some BBA, so the ph was 8 yesterday, but I would hope the wood might drop this a tad, and we also did have some almond leafs once, which also I think lower the ph? if anything Its probably always 7.8-8 with the wood.


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## Lindy

With such high ph maybe ebi gold substrate not such a bad idea.

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## MARKCOUSINS

I would say that there is a good reason for not having berried shrimp.The water parameters not being correct for breeding due to the water being too hard.In my opinion around 6.8 to 7.2 would be my idea of ideal PH for RCS.Some people will probably disagree but I would be happy with around 7 PH and 6/7 GH.I think we could have an answer for the berried shrimp problem.Cheers Mark.


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## Jafooli

Hey Lindy, 

That's what I thought as-well, but as mentioned above, if I did buy this substrate would I start needing to adjust GH KH? or should it still keep me in good ranges... aka if by some miracle it lowered our GH to 3, I didn't want to start adding supplements to raise it, especially when I'm not that experienced yet.

I do not want to be the one to blame when all the shrimp die after she spends a fortune lol, and I miss dose a supplement :L best to give it a few months first. 

Otherwise I think she is more than happy to go with the Ebi gold.


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## MARKCOUSINS

ldcgroomer said:


> With such high ph maybe ebi gold substrate not such a bad idea.
> 
> Sent from my GT-I9505 using Tapatalk


Agree with Lindy just be carefull it does not drop too much.


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## MARKCOUSINS

Ebi gold should drop the PH to around 6.5 and GH 4/5.Don't worry about the KH too much.


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## Jafooli

Thanks for the help, I really do appreciate it. I know Lindy basically already told me the Ebi gold should be fine, but I needed to make this thread to be sure, and obviously there was other matters to address, for one as you say Mark I don't want it to drop to low... and obviously if it dropped to much then its a bit more pressure to get it all right, and if we lost shrimp again because of my mistakes, I don't think she will be buying any again lol, and I want her shrimp to succeed just as much as her if not more, as I do want to help her try new shrimp, but its one step at a time, and I always start from the beginning to try and avoid mistakes.


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## Jafooli

Oh one last more important question, for a 30 litre tank, will she only need one bag of Ebi Gold, please say yes lol. I presume a 5 litre bag is around 5kg so should be more than enough? I also think she wants the brown ebi gold. I presume there all roughly the same.


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## MARKCOUSINS

I would say 1 bag of 5 kg would do it mate!I just used about or just under 4Kg to do a 20L cube but with 5cm depth.So I guess you just put the whole bag in and you will probably find a nice 4ish cm covering should be pretty good for buffering the water.Cheers Mark


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## Jafooli

Thanks again, sometime in the near future I will post an update, or I'll be coming back more stressed than ever lol, fingers crossed that's not the case. Thanks.


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## MARKCOUSINS

Good luck,I think it is a good choice going for the Ebi gold substrate it gives you a bit more control on your PH.Let us know when you get it.Important to keep an eye on PH and GH to see what it does with your tap water.Important to try and not let GH get below 5 as could affect moulting.Cheers Mark


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## Jafooli

Will do, she said she is going to order it over weekend, so hopefully arrive around next Thursday, and will take some readings Friday then every other day to get an idea  

She also wants me to ask, is the brown definitely going to be ok? I presume its all the same stuff.


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## MARKCOUSINS

You would be better off with black it would be better for viewing for sure!I was looking on the site from one of our sponsers Freshwatershrimp and they only have Ebi Gold in black(I think).Maybe they do it in brown but black would make a red colouring stand out much better!Cheers Mark


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## darthpaul

Just to add I have had similar problems in my Ebi with Cherry shrimp and the more I read about the Fluval substrate the more I think it cant be coincidence. I have a walstad tank which is just compost and sand and my cherries are happy and breeding in there but not at all in my Ebi with stratum. I am going to strip it down and change it soon too.


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## MARKCOUSINS

Having not used Fluval Shrimp Stratum I did a bit of research.Fluval say not to mix Fluval Shrimp Stratum with any other substrate or gravel.It will drop the PH of the water slightly.If using tap water with a relatively high PH this effect will not last long causing the PH to go up again in the tank.After 3-4 months using this substrate with tap water the shrimps were not doing well,babies not surviving.Using RO water Fluval Shrimp Stratum the buffering effect lasted up to 8 months.The shrimps were more active,healthier and coloration was better.The RO used was PH 7 the soil dropped it to PH just over 6 and was remineralised.
Those are a few things I managed to find,Hope it helps someone
Cheers Mark


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## Nealeg

Check this link  out, if these people don't know which is the best substrate for shrimp I don't know who does. Shrimp Substrate 

If the link doesn't work check out the Sharnbrookshrimp site.

Hope it helps. Neale


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## Jafooli

Hey everyone, 

Just to update I persuaded my girlfriend to go with the black colour, and explained it would be better for viewing the shrimp, even though on its own I think the brown looked better, but shrimp on a black substrate is hard to argue against, they will definitely stand out more. She ordered it today from Freshwatershrimp so hopefully it will arrive before Wednesday. 

Cheers Paul for mentioning about your experience with the Fluval Stratum, if that's two people already on this forum and many others on the internet, then its rather strange indeed, would be interesting to know why the substrate gives people problems especially as the tank is designed for shrimp, I hope it is the problem anyway, would be annoying if our shrimp died this time around, at least I got you guys helping us this time around. 

I will also give an update when we receive the substrate and its all in the tank, and then hopefully couple days after its settled, I will get some accurate readings and hopefully they will be more shrimp ideal.

Not sure if I should post this in this thread or make another, but I don't see why not, how would you recommend we acclimate the shrimp this time around? I don't really want to do the drip method, I can understand its probably the best method, the last methods I have used with great success was the bucket and cup method found here: Acclimating Shrimp .:. Instructions on acclimating shrimp to a new aquarium environment thus preventing shock or death. and with the RCS I purchased from my LFS I just left the bag to float in the tank with lights out for about 5-10 minutes then gently released them all, when I did do my research I mostly found for with Cherry shrimp you can do pretty much any method as there Cherry shrimp lol. But would be good to hear what other people here mostly do. 

My girlfriend also purchased some Charcoal bamboo shelters  which arrived today, literally Charcoal, I don't think we will be using them, to my surprise there is not much information on them out there. 
I was thinking this time around we should probably buy some moss, and a Java fern, can anyone recommend where we can buy Java moss that comes with a safe wire mesh? the last thing I want is a mesh that leaks toxins in to the water, as I read some people have had issues with that. She would like to lay it on the substrate to give it a carpeting look, and the Java fern will be attached to our bog wood. I'm not even sure I want to put the wood in there, I've become so paranoid now, I want everything to be different. 

Any other tips or advice would be great, I think I read for the first 3 weeks its also best to just top the water up, rather than do a w/c so I was thinking we could take that approach? also with water changes I was thinking we will just go with 10% weekly instead of 20%... also what's the benefits if we left the bucket of water over night? I see some people do this as-well. 

Also what should the feeding pattern be this time around?, I probably fed around 12 Fluval shrimp granules to 10 shrimp when we first started, and that was every other day with a day with no food. I also now read some people don't even feed there shrimp, the one shrimp we got now I feed him like once a week. 

Also to add with our last batch of RCS my girlfriend did purchase 3 otto's, should we remove them? I did do a lot of research on this as-well, as obviously 2 batches of shrimp died, she was bored looking at nothing, funny enough I would see the RCS sitting on top of the otto's just cleaning them it looked like lol.... I know I'm asking a lot of questions and going into fine detail, but I just want to keep things basic and simple as I can. To reduce any risks and any stress on the shrimp , or even if someone can spot any mistakes in our previous routine. 

I see on sites such as ebay , people who sell there shrimp, seem to always have a air pump running, I've got a air pump going in there right now, I put it in last week as I thought it couldn't hurt, there wasn't much else to look at which was another reason. So anyone run air pumps 24-7? 

Any advice or tips would be great, I've pretty much researched everything from head to tail, but as I'm here and you all keep shrimp, I'm sure real advice is better than most likely outdated articles. 

Thanks in advance.


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## Lindy

Use some air line with a clip on it to do drip acclimatising, it really is the best way and you can go away and leave it for hrs. I have a wee tap thing gor controlling air flow that I use to control drip speed. Make sure you leave the tank to settle for a couple of weeks after adding your ebi to let  bacteria colonise it. Alot of us use bacterial products such as genchem biozyme and mosura bt9 etc to help get good bacterial colonies and biofilm for shrimp to graze on. 
There is a good ebay seller called winzeta (or similar) who sells excellent shrimp products, mesh for mosses and moss itself. When buying plants for a shrimp tank you must ensure they are shrimp safe ie not been treated with pesticides to kill snails etc as it will also kill shrimp. Winzetas husband keeps alot of high quality shrimp so they know whats good.

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## Lindy

10% waterchange is what most of us do. I dechlorinate the water in a 5ltr water bottle and then leave it overnight or sometimes all week. I then get the correct tds and gh in the bottle before taking 5ltr out my tank and replacing with the stuff in the bottle. Many shrimp keepers swear by air pumps. Can't to any harm.

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## Lindy

I'd feed maybe twice a week. Overfeeding may have polluted the tank and given shrimp bacterial infection. 

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## Jafooli

Thanks for being so helpful, I will look into the drip method and try to familiarise my self with it, I presume the shrimp won't be stressed sitting in a bucket for say 3 hours? That's why I never tried that method even though its highly recommended. 

We will also also give it a few weeks before we buy any shrimp, and hopefully I can keep the filter alive, I've had success before when upgrading my own tank.

I found the seller on ebay, so will defiantly look into ordering some things, there wasn't much variety with mosses, but I've always liked the look of the weeping moss, I hope its as easy as other mosses and the Java fern he sells looks nice.

Looks like 10% water change it is then, and will keep the air pump running... and keep the feeding to twice a week and see how it goes.


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## MARKCOUSINS

Good advice from LindyDrip aclimatise the shrimp is a much better and safer way of introducing them to the tank.If you just float the bag and release them after a bit you could lose shrimp quickly or after a few days due to stress and damage.I usually drip my neocaradinia(red cherry/Sakura etc) for about 4 hours using air line and the plastic airflow controller to get a pretty slow drip.


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## MARKCOUSINS

When you put your new substrate in the tank it will be very important to monitor parameters of the water to see how it adjusts your tap water PH and GH.Just to be carefull these levels don't drop too much.You don't want GH going below 5.As Lindy mentioned getting a build up of micro organisms in the tank/substrate is important,I use Genchem Biozyme and Shirakura Chi Ebi to do this,there are many other products that do the same.While you are cycling the tank put some cattapa,guava,banana or other suitable leaves in the tank it will also give the biofilm something to grow on.
Aeration in a shrimp tank is a good thing in my opinion,I have a spray bar which I have raised above the surface slightly in my shrimp tanks.I have noticed the shrimp to be more active and they look healthier too.Cheers Mark


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## Jafooli

Just a quick update as promised.

I've added the Ebi Gold, nice estimate with the 4cm covering Mark lol, more like double that, when I put the bag in I had to step back and think twice, I was going to remove half, but have now gone with a slope scape, so got about 4 inches at the back (10cm) and 2 inches at the front (5cm), actually looks quite good now I've got use to it being so deep, so am happy I did that. I've never done a slope scape before or anything unusual.

My only concern is how many litres I have lost from the tank, when we had the fluval stratum it was only like a inch deep all over, we needed 2nd bag really but we just never got around to it, + then we had shrimp so was to late.

Would it be safe to say my 10% water change is probably going to be around the 2 litre mark? instead of the 3 litres, Its probably lost 3-4 litres? so 2 litre would be the safest bet or 2.5? or is that to little?

Also I'm not sure this has been mentioned, I did double check, what would you say is the best temp for cherry shrimp, I use to keep the tank at 25c.

I won't do no tests for at least 48 hours, and then I will continue testing probably every two days just to make sure all water parameters are stable and post back here.

Oh I did quickly check the TDS, its at 198 at the moment, so its already buffering the tank, its the lowest I've ever seen it.

Also to add on the EBI gold packaging it says to do a 10-20% water change every 20-30 days, if this is made by specialists why do they recommend that and not the weekly?


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## Lindy

Better too much substrate than too little. Temp wise I'd say around 21degrees is plenty but you could probably keep them cooler than that. 

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## Jafooli

Hey Lindy,
Cheers for the quick reply!

I guess 25c was a little high then, I will aim for around 21c then.

I've been scanning the invert forum, and I guess everyone on here keeps CRS mostly lol, like I mentioned earlier my girlfriend and I want to start small, and work our way up. If we do have success with Cherry shrimp then obviously I will need to educate my self on RO water and re-mineralising it, but this could be way into late next year 

I hope you can help or someone can just give me some brief advice, I see RO units are quite expensive and I've never needed one so I've never did that much research but did have a look today, there expensive! Anyway I presume there aim is to remove all the total dissolved solids from the water? chemicals etc and then we re-mineralise the RO water so the shrimp have the minimum amount of compounds they need? not sure compounds is the right word here, but with the shrimp products out there it adds the stuff they need in the water and the RO unit removes everything we don't need.

How hard is it to grasp the concept of using RO etc? can anyone pick it up? or is it complex/hard to get to grip with? I read they have to be plumped in, I don't think my family would be happy with that, we ain't got taps coming out the walls lol, and they won't want a RO unit in there kitchen, so can they be portable?

Is it easy to know/ find out when parts need replacing, how long does one last for? are they expensive to keep maintaining. I hope someone can answer some of that for me as I would really like to know.

Another alternative was I read some people buy RO water, if I'm only replacing 2 litres a week, if I purchased 25 litres RO for say £3 I read that was the rate somewhere, it would last around 4 months, how long can I store RO water? does it go stale? but I hope someone can let me know about the RO units, as would be interested to know if its complex or quite easy, I didn't want my girlfriend to waste money in the future for something I have no idea how to run, and its costs to keep running etc, especially if its not portable.

Thanks in advance, obviously this would not come to light for a long time, as our goal is to get lots of cherry shrimp, I mean as much as the tank can handle so we can be the one's to find them homes for a change!, I hope that with everyone's help from here, we will become shrimp breeding professionals lol, lets not get our hopes up though with our luck =\


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## MARKCOUSINS

Not sure about your tank specs mate!I used 3.75 liters of substrate in a 25cmx25cm tank (20L) giving aprox 5 to 6 cm covering!Note substrate compacts very slightly.So a 5 liter bag should have been on the nail for your tank depending on dimensions obviously


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## MARKCOUSINS

With the amount of RO water you need just buy 5 liters or so a fortnight.Cheers Mark


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## Jafooli

Hey Mark, The substrate looks ace anyway, gives a nice slope and a good look to the tank. 

My girlfriend today spent about £20 just on Mosses, Anubias nana petite attached to bog wood , round Pellia, I also gave her some Java fern, its just a cutting so will have to wait a long time for that to grow, and some Staurogyne repens. She also purchased some catapa leafs, alder cones, banana leaf, I told her to avoid buying food, as we got some fluval shrimp granules and this time around we will be feeding prob 2x a week, and they can eat the biofilm on everything else. 

The only problem with storing RO for 2 weeks is we would have visit LFS quite regulator and there not that close, would RO water not store for a month? I'm hoping we won't even need to go the RO route, but as mentioned above just want to learn, and if RO could be stored for long, then it would make things simple. If not I would rather buy a unit, when we do go on to harder shrimp if it can't be stored.

I have not tested the tanks GH/KH yet, the TDS is around 174 this morning, and I reckon the PH is about 7, hard to tell with the colour chart, but when the TDS stops dropping and PH, then I will test GH/KH don't want to waste that kit right away, so will wait a bit longer then do frequent testing on that. 

The loose air stone in the tank don't look that great, so was also considering buying a nice black sponge air filter, just to give extra filtration along side the extra oxygen. 

Should we take condensation into the water changes? I reckon were going to lose about a litre a week. So that's an extra litre added on to a 10% water change of 2 litres, 3 Litres might be to much. 

Now its just a waiting game to get the tank to mature a bit, not sure how long this is going to take, the shrimp and oto's in there now are doing fine, the shrimp was on death doors for the first 24 hours, upside down, couldn't stand, I felt so bad for the guy especially as he is like our solider but I had no where else to put him, I did try my hardest to keep the filter alive, he has also lasted longer than any shrimp we've ever had! I hear people saying cherry shrimp are indestructible, I don't believe them with our luck, but this shrimp is living up to it lol, he seems alright now, and is eating happily. Hopefully with each day the PH lowers, if there is any Ammonia it will be less toxic. Surprised he has not moulted. 

cheers again.


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## Jafooli

So today was the first day in testing the tank with the GH/KH as TDS has stopped decreasing, I waited for that to happen as I thought that would let me know when its a bit more stable, so I can now begin testing its stability every 48 hours or more.

So the results are with the new Ebi Gold: TDS=173, PH=7, GH=7, KH=3

Old substrate, Fluval Stratum: TDS=252 PH=8 GH=12 KH=9

I also should add I'm having a real hard time knowing the PH, I've never measured real low PH, all the colours on the API chart are nearly the same, IMO its a dark blueish, so I say 7 instead of 7.4 and its not got a green tinge as of yet, but will keep measuring each day as it could still be buffering, along with GH/KH they may still be buffering also. The KH I also must admit to my surprise was yellow just after the first drop, but very light, some would say it was still clear, so KH could even be as low as 1-2, but 3 was a clearer yellow looking from the top, Ebi gold says PH will buffter between 6 - 6.5 so hopefully my PH will come down a bit more, but already its such a improvement so it should be fine even at 7! GH it mentions 4-5 so that may also come down lower, but once again I'm pleased with the results, I can presume these and more than ideal for Cherry shrimp, not sure the same can be said about other shrimp. But its not bad results considering we ain't using RO as of yet.

I've also checked some videos out today of the drip method, most people said 2-3 hours with it, I remember someone saying 6 hours is best! 6 hours? the water would be cold? and half the day be gone lol, so what's the best time for this, most videos I watched and articles just say until the water 2x or 3x the amount it was, and cherries should be fine even at 40 mins to an hour or 2.

I also need to lower temp to 21c but kept it 25 for now to hopefully speed the growth of beneficial bacteria.


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## Lindy

I usually drip them in for 3 to 4 hrs and put a warm hot water bottle near if it is really cold but it will be warm water coming from the tank and houses are generally warm (just not mine) but this is for crystals so cherries may need less. I usually have a drip a second.


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## Fishy Did

3 to 4 hours is what I do too. If the room is cold I put a tub of water with a small spare heater below the tank and float the bag and drip into that. Also 1 drip a second or so. Towards the end I speed that up and waterchange several times, so that by the end the water in the bag is pretty much water from the tank anyway. I let the difference in TDS between the bag water and tank water guide me as to how long it should take. When there is a wide difference you should take longer and keep measuring until the bag water TDS is near enough the same. 

Its true cherry shrimp are less demanding when it comes to acclimatising but it still might be this that is tripping you up and they can hang on for weeks before they go so its hard to know what caused their demise. Lack of slow acclimatising is very often blamed.


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## Jafooli

Cheers for the replies, I will probably aim for 3 hours as-well then, I don't have a spare heater I'm afraid, the good news is my house is like a sauna, my parents keep the heating way to high, my radiator is turned off most the year. 

So anyway my plan was to receive them from there shipping experience, empty the shrimp and water from the bag into a bucket gentle, have about 1 drip a second, and see how that goes. I was just worried as if the tank is 21c and the bucket drops to say 19c but prehaps maybe I should check the thermostat downstairs, Is 2-3c difference a big deal for shrimp? anyway hopefully I'm just looking into it to much.

I'm just waiting to receive some mosses today and some round pellia, I hope it can grow in a low tech tank  apart from that its just a waiting game now. Hopefully when I've took more readings each 2 days I get an idea on the tanks stability, and 2 weeks or so my girlfriend can make the most important purchase!  I feel more confident this time around, but I'm sure if things do go bad, people here will help me once again! , but hopefully It will be a success story, and the thread can end with a final picture of shrimplets in months to come lol!


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## Fishy Did

float the bag in the bucket to do the dripping, clothes peg it to the side, when your done then float the bag in the tank to equalize the temp


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## Jafooli

Ok that sound's better, obviously when I looked this all up, youtube etc, many people netted the shrimp out of the bag then into the tank, as they didn't want the water from the other persons tank, while I do this every-time with fish just as a precaution, do you recommend I do the same? or just empty the whole bag into the tank once its equalized. If I take the net approach, how many days should I leave it until I top up the litres I lost from the drip method, this tank is about 30 litres, so a few litres loss is quite a lot when looking visually at the tank.

I could A) do a 10% water change before we order the shrimp, and top up the tank with a extra litre or 2, still leaving enough room for gas exchange even though I have an air pump in there.
or B) a day or two later slowly top up the tank with the litres I lost, what's my best approach here? Its a bit weird looking at a tank that's going to be missing 3-5 litres.

How can a drip method be so complicated your probably thinking lol, but because the tanks capacity is so low, I'm just wondering empty whole bag in, or net shrimp, then slowly top up over a period of days, even if I do a w/c the day before I could keep the old tank water for then doing the top up.


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## Fishy Did

I think topping up as far as you can before you start is a good idea. If you waterchange out the bag water and replace with mainly tank water I don't see what's wrong with putting the bag in the water at the end and just let the shrimp escape in their own time. No need for netting that way.

These days I use drip method just for standard waterchanges into my shrimp tank. The bucket goes on the windowsill and takes all day! Any changes need to be slow as possible.


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## Lindy

I always use a large plastic bowl as shrimp generally don't come with much water.

Sent from my GT-I9505 using Tapatalk


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## Jafooli

Lindy you confused me lol, do you mean you pour the shrimp from the shipping bag into a plastic bowl then do the drip method? then net them in? or float the bowl? That reply confused me lol.

Cheers Fishy Did, I'm not sure how I can water change a bag, I would need to remove all the water from the bag just to remove the old owners water, and that would be quite hard and stressful for the shrimp, unless I have got confused again, I'm quite confused this morning lol.

Anyway at the moment I plan to put some water in a bucket and let it reach room temperature, when they arrive I can float the bag in the bucket and pin it to the side with a peg or something like mentioned above, do the drip method, once done, I can put the bag in the tank and just hold it there for a while to equalise, then I was going to slowly net one out at a time, or just empty the shrimp and water in the bucket and do the same method, maybe turn the tank heater off and then I could always switch it on later? I'm sure the tank heater heats the water over a long period of time before it reaches its target.

Maybe I'm just being to paranoid about the owners tap water? its not the same as fish tanks is it? could the water have shrimp parasites?

I'm sure It will all go good, what ever I do, as long as I drip them for 3 hours, and treat them with real care and do everything slow and gentle.

Also I see some topics on here people talking about ferts, co2, I am not going down that route with my girlfriends tank especially because of the shrimp I don't want to risk anything, but will her Java fern, Xmas moss and round pellia be ok with out CO2, ferts? I read they should be fine, but I've no experience with them. We didn't really want them to die, they wasn't exactly that cheap either. I've also got to take GH/KH readings again later today so will be interesting to see the results!


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## Lindy

I empty the shrimp from their bag into a bowl. Drip into bowl. Then its up to you whether you net them or put the lot in. I think I put the lot in but I only buy from private sellers and their shrimp tanks are excellent.
Your plants should be fine with no ferts or co2.


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## Jafooli

Just an update and a few problems/questions.

I'm not sure if I'm looking into this to much, but I want to get things right, no point the shrimp dying then talking about it after to then learn it could of been prevented.

So the readings are still pretty the same, Ph: 6.8-7, GH 8, KH, 2-3, TDS, 170
GH increased by 1, I read its impossible for it to increase when TDS has gone down, so may of just been the uniformity of the drops, but will test again soon.

So the problems I run into today, were the water change. Normally I would have used 6 litres left from one of my buckets on Sunday that I use on my own tank. I would fill the bucket (16 litres) add 5ml Nutrafin Aqua Plus to treat 20 litres. But today I tried to do her water change more specifically, mainly to try keep TDS lower as Nutrafin does bring it up a little. I filled the bucket with 5 litres, added 1.25ml to treat the water, hardly anything come out the syringe, I didn't trust it was enough to dechlor the water so in the end I added more to be sure, so that was a fail already.

Anyway I did a 10% water change, well not really, as the 2 litres I'm planning to add, is now how much condensation happens in a week. So at the end of week I have to put 2 litres in just to bring the tank back to its level, so how is this going to work in the future? do I then remove an additional 2 litres and add 2? so all in all I've added 4 litres' which would be nearly a 20% w/c but I wanted to achieve a 10% w/c

To do the water change I just slowly poured the water in with a measuring jug nothing special, as I've not got the shrimp yet, but when I do get them I'm thinking maybe I should do the drip method as-well for the water change? obviously I cant get the bucket higher than the tank, so maybe a 2 litre bottle would work? I could put it on a shelf higher than the tank, and then let that drip in if I do some DIY on it. Or is this all over the top, I want to treat these Cherry shrimp like everyone on here treats there CRS.

TDS climbed to 191 after all 4 litres from 170, not sure with GH.KH,PH? should I test? I know they will rise a bit, but that's why I have the ebi gold to buffer my water changes, so is this a concern?
If my water change is making them increase a little bit, it makes sense to aim for 2 litres so the changes aren't as much, but if I've lost 2 litres to condensation, its not really a water change is it. Does anyone else get condensation? do you add the top up into your water change?

I've also added anubias petite today on a small piece of bog wood, that may rise TDS a tad, but will see. I've also added one medium catappa leaf, x2 small elder cones. Is this enough? or can/should I add more. Can you add to much? I also have a banana leaf which is a tad large, so left it out for now.

I know there amateur questions, but any help would be great, I don't want to change much water, to less, or just pour it in etc. I want the tank and the maintenance to be the best it can be with what I have, as you know I sadly don't have a RO unit, and would only buy one in the future if I am to help my girlfriend onto harder shrimp.

Also to add how do you remove the water from your shrimp tanks? siphon, measuring jug? do you drip it out?

Thanks in advance.


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## Lindy

Well I'm lucky in this respect as I have to add stuff to water to get the tds and gh UP so i just use dechlorinated water for topping up through the week. At wc time I can then take exactly 5litres out of the tank and replace with 5litres of water at the right tds and gh. Hopefully someone with hard water will reply...


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## Dane

Your being overly cautious. Water changes do not need to be an exact science, just change enough to keep it fresh and control nitrates. Could be 10% one week, 15% the next, all depends how much you feed, how many shrimp and how fast your nitrates climb. The idea of little and often (10% weekly) is so that your not changing so much that it induces a moult. If your tank is planted with the odd catappa leaf in there then you don't need to feed the shrimp, this will keep nitrates down. Then you can just do one larger water change each months instead, 40-60%. Shrimp usually moult once a month anyway so doing it this way will not cause any harm.

You don't need to measure TDS and GH, one of the other is fine. What are you re-mineralising with? If your TDS is climbing rapidly without adding something then there could be something in your tank already that won't allow it to stay stable. What hardscape do you have?

Ebi Gold, like all shrimp soils, are designed for use with re-mineralised RO water. If your using tap water with a high ph it will have an effect but won't work to its full capacity. The soil is also going to expire after 3-6 months where it is working so hard.

Regarding acclimatising the shrimp; the idea is too match the water they arrive in to the water in your aquarium. Just drip it in until the water (test TDS) matches, could take 30 mins, could take 3 hours. All depends how different the water is from what you have in your tank.

Don't over think everything and worry. Put some Ebi gold in your tank (3-4cm) Fill with remineralised RO water (use salty shrimp GH+, TDS 150-200), add some plants and a couple catappa leaves and leave the tank for a couple weeks for a layer of biofilm to build up on the leaves, plants etc. Put your shrimp in, don't feed them and do a 50% water change once a month, continue like this. This time of year your start seeing babies within a month or two.

Don't complicate things and avoid all the 'magic' potions.


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## Jafooli

Cheers Dane & Lindy,

So it does not matter to much how I remove the water and how I add it regarding water changes? just nice and gently, aka using a measuring jug of 1 litre.

Also why don't we need to measure TDS & GH together?

Dane I went with the Ebi Gold, as our ph is around 8, which it is from the tap, we came to the conclusion that our last cherry shrimp may have been dying due to Fluval Ebi stratum, a lot of other people seem to have bad luck with the fluval stratum as-well. I decided to purchase the Ebi gold as we thought it may help bring the PH down a bit as-well as it was sitting at 8, which it has a lot, and also the added benefit is it's lowered our TDS, GH, KH.

I don't currently have a RO unit, my girlfriend and I would not purchase an RO unit currently, I did so much research for her before she purchased the Fluval Ebi, and cherry shrimp are meant to be hardy, and in a matter of speaking what I read was just add them to water and they will do the rest, there the easiest shrimp and the hardiest to kill even if you tried to kill them, not true from what I've experienced. But that's the reason I did all the research as we don't want to invest heavily until we are ready to go on to harder shrimp, regarding RO units etc.

So the Ebi gold will only last 3-6 months, dam, =\ I hope I've not made our life harder buy choosing Ebi Gold, maybe inert gravel/sand would of been the better choice after all 

Sadly I don't remineralise etc, so not sure what to do now, after trying to achieve stable parameters its now just slowly going to keep increasing a tad each week until the ebi gold is hopeless, so now we're pretty stuck if we do buy shrimp as they would probably die from the changes of an unstable environment.


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## Dane

Sorry i didn't read the thread properly. Didn't realise it was Cherry shrimp you were aiming for.

Yes the Ebi Gold with be working extra hard with the high ph and will not last long. Its the same with all shrimp substrates. You say you don't want to buy an RO unit, do you have a LFS near by? The sell RO at about £3 for 25l.

Leave the ebi gold and carry on as you are. It will stop buffering but it will happen gradually, then it will be just like an inert substrate so you can keep using it.

Removing/replacing water should be done steadily, measuring jug will be fine. I would do it weekly if your TDS etc keeps rising and your using tap water. Just scoop out a couple of jugs full and top it back up. 

Cherry shrimp are not the hardy shrimp they once were. Nowadays most neocaridina shrimp (cherry etc) are imported from Asia where they are bred in ponds, they don't adapt well to aquariums at all. If you want some bog standard cherries then find a private breeder in the UK, you could ask in the for sale/wanted section on here. Alternatively you can aim for some high grade cherry shrimp (bloody mary) They are more costly and again bred in Asia but not in ponds. Nice and hardy like the cherry shrimp from the good old days.


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## Jafooli

Cheers Dane,

Well kind of annoying about the Ebi Gold, I really thought we was on to a winner, as in all the descriptions it says will "reduce tds" "reduce ph" "reduce kh" etc, rather than doing it all the other way around aka salty shrimp gh +. 12-18 months It says it lasts, in our case I was hoping to reach a year or so at least because I understood it would have to work harder. I didn't know the 12-18 months was only in context of using RO.

All we can do is carry on like you said and hope.

My TDS don't climb never has strangely. It always decreasing, before I had Ebi Gold, my TDS would decrease to 250, then after water change it would be 300. This was around a 20% water change.

Today I did probably a 16% water change, TDS went from 170 to 191, now it will probably decrease again.

I did do a post about RO water, in this thread on second page, post #37, if you could look at that and give me some answers from there, that would be really helpful as-well.

Sad to hear about the mass breeding of Cherry shrimp, still you wouldn't think it with some of the prices my LFS's sell them for at £2.70-£4 a cherry shrimp.

I will stick with my normal tap water for now, but if you could answer the questions for me on page 2 post 37 that would be of great help as its regarding RO, but we just want to get successful with cherries before we work our way up.

Can I also presume for example if my TDS is 170 on Monday, and 170 on Wednesday, does that mean my GH has not changed?


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## MARKCOUSINS

All the active substrates have a limited life it just depends how much you make them work as Dane said.The same was true about your old fluval substrate that also reduces parameters for a period of time( according to a lot of users very short time with hard tap water).
Looking at the post 37 about RO water.As i stated before i store RO for 2 weeks with no change in the waters parameters.If you want to store it for a long time why not buy some and test it over a longer period to see what happens?When the EBI starts to stop buffering(could be 6 months could be longer)you want to start matching the water your adding to the water in the tank thats when RO will be the good option.Otherwise the parameters will rise.
Cheers Mark.


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## Jafooli

Cheers Dane, Mark...

I don't want this to become an essay for you guys, but collecting RO from the shop every 2 weeks will be kind of a pain, once a month, I could live with, all my LFS's are a fair drive.
Also to add I do not want to go down the RO route right this instant, so I hope I can breed cherry shrimp with what I am working with. I can only hope the slow increase in parameters is not going to kill them.
If I were to do RO lets just say 6 months from now, I have no idea what I'm measuring, how RO works, does it lower PH? does it need to be dechlorinated, I'm sure I've read different units give you different readings. I have no idea what or how good there RO water is, if I store it in a dark place for a month, what am I testing to see if it still safe to use? I have never come across or seen a RO unit in real life or RO water lol. I have never done research on it all as like I say we want to start with cherries, which I read can be kept in generally any water, in a wide range of different parameters as long as there stable.

If we were successful with cherries then I'm sure my girlfriend and I would purchase a top of the range RO unit when stepping up to harder shrimp, but I read they need to be plumbed in? Obviously my parents are not going to want that in there kitchen, so are they portable? how do I know when a part needs replacing? these are things I don't know, but I would do research before buying. But I hope you can understand why I fear something I do not yet understand or have never experienced. I always believed my tap water was ideal for cherries, apart from 8 PH, 7.8 is there maximum. But I did read PH 8 is still fine, obviously I've got it way lower now, so hopefully conditions are much better, and hopefully the deaths were because of the fluval stratum and not a PH of 8, either way the problem has been amended.




Dane said:


> You don't need to measure TDS and GH, one of the other is fine.



Can someone also tell me how this works? as I could save a lot of test kit solution if this is true.

I'm also not sure if going down the 40-50% water change route once a month is best. I will just stick with the 10-20% as my TDS increased by 20 after my water change, so the ebi gold has a lot less buffering to do, than if I were to add 50% tap water in one go, this may also cause my nitrates to rocket up as my tap water has 50mg/l.  So I hope the 10-20% is the more stable approach.

Sorry If I'm being a pain, I really appreciate everyone's help, I'm just a step behind in the game, and while I know RO is the way to go, we have had so much bad luck, my girlfriend is like "this is the last cherry shrimp I'm buying, I've spent over £100 on cherry shrimp and all they do is die" etc, lol. I already have persuaded her to buy new substrate, loads of new plants, mosses etc and that's not including the new shrimp. Surely RO is not a necessity to achieve what we want. If this was a year ago... which sadly its not. I'm sure we would of just purchased a RO unit and took that approach. I'm trying my hardest for her, and my self, because like I said, secretly I like the shrimp more than her lol, and if we do get breeding, I will probably go out and buy another tank, so I can have a choice of shrimp I like, and yes buy a RO unit


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## MARKCOUSINS

Who said you have to go and buy it every 2 weeks?Good idea get some and test it over a longer period(TDS,PH,GH),say after 3/4 weeks.Then you compare the results to what the readings were when you bought it.If the readings are still ok then there is your answer
When i get RO from LFS i stick in a small amount of Seachem Prime to dechlorinate(some people have told me i don't need to,i do it for peace of mind).It raises TDS slightly.
I would go with the 10/20% WC.That way the water parameters would not change as much.Even with 10/20% WC there will be a fair change with 50% WC using hard tap water the change between the water going in and water in the tank would be big.Think how your water parameters in the tank would be till the substrate was able to lower these values.Shrimp prefer stability.
If and when you go down the RO route why buy a unit when you need such a tiny amount of water,if you see RO will store 3weeks+ without changing parameters drasticaly?
Cheers Mark.


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## MARKCOUSINS

Regarding testing TDS or GH,i test both.But i test TDS far more often than GH.
If i were setting up a new tank i would constantly monitor TDS(daily) and monitor GH before water change and a few days after.
I would allways measure both when seeing livestock behaving oddly.
Cheers Mark


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## Jafooli

Cheers Mark, Next time I go up there, I will ask for some RO water, test it, then test it 3/4 weeks like you said and see what I get.

Cheers for letting me know your routine about the prime and RO.

Also that's exactly what I thought regarding water changes, as 50% with hard water is going to bring bigger changes than the 10-20%, the good news is I did some tests today, its like the water change never happened.
TDS back down to 175, was 170 before water change. PH is 7, GH 7, KH 2-3. Nothing has hardly moved. So with in 24 hours, its all back to how it was. The TDS only increased by 20 anyway after the water change. So I guess the changes were minimal with all parameters. When the Ebi Gold does stop buffering I also hope the increases there will be slow as well, so fingers crossed all around.

Yeah I just got confused as Dane said I don't need test both, I did some looking into this as It sounded familiar when he mentioned that, I looked in my bookmarks and found this from plantedtank which someone posted:

TDS is a total of all things dissolved into the water. IE, fertilizers, trace minerals and salts. That includes your GH and KH. If you were to test just GH and KH, they're 17.9 ppm per degree. So 179 GH and 0 KH would be 10 GH

So if you know your GH and KH, just multiply by 17.9.

So if you know your GH is 10, and KH is 0, and your TDS is 250, you know that only 180 TDS of that is GH, the other 70 TDS is other things in your water such as nitrates, potassium, phosphate, etc.

I did the maths.... GH 7 x 17.9 = 125TDS  KH 3 x 17.9 = 53TDS put them together I got 178, My TDS is lower than 178 so the method above has to be incorrect and also considering there's minerals and salts to take into account etc. So I presume one cant just use TDS to tell there GH etc. Unless you ignore KH and just use GH as I also read GH does include KH as-well, so 125 TDS is my GH, and the remaining 50 is trace minerals, salts, nitrate, organic waste etc.

Thanks again for helping.


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## Dane

Sorry, i suggested monthly water changes before i read you were using tap water.


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## Jafooli

lol no worries I presumed that, as you also mentioned remineralizing my RO water, which I'm not using.


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## Jafooli

Just a update:

We ordered 20 Fire Red Cherry Shrimp, they should be arriving tomorrow. I have my air line all ready for the drip method.
I plan to do it for around 2-3 hours, and will wait till TDS matches with the tank. I am going to gentle pour them into a bucket, then drip, and once ready net one at a time.
I don't want to risk fiddling around dripping into a bag etc, but will see how large the bag they come in is, and then take it from there. I'm sure I'm on the right track anyway so hopefully however I do it, it should be good enough.

I guess this is it now, and the time has come for the shrimp. The tank looks good, did about 20% water change yesterday, TDS is nearly back to where I keep it.. the 175 mark is my lowest point. Its 179 at the moment.

The one cherry shrimp we had from the start has been doing fine over the last couple of weeks as-well, so lets just hope he don't get to exited tomorrow.


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## Lindy

Good luck.


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## Jafooli

Thanks Lindy,

I am still acclimatising the shrimp, its been two and half hours. They arrived in a tiny bag, with a tiny amount of water, so the bag idea was straight out the window and the bucket was as well.
I found a small bowl, cut the bag open and gentle poured them in, I have been dripping into the bowl quite slowly, the TDS they arrived at was 292.

One hour later TDS was 218, another hour later 203, and at the moment its 197. So nearly there, I've also just started removing some of the water, so basically doing a water change, this way by the time I'm finished it should be all my tanks water, well most of it. Then I'm going to just let them swim out from the bowl.

I tested all my water today and all seems fine, my nitrate is around 30-40, I've not spoke much about Nitrates in this post, and being taught by Clive, I know there inaccurate and a pretty useless test as there is just no way of knowing, I've never had a API test kit show anything other than red, only once. That's including my pond, my main tank, my tap. and the fluval ebi.

I think I've once tested the Ebi in the past and got a reading of about 20ppm but like I say these kits are inaccurate, I'm not sure if people on the shrimp section would agree with me or Clive, I see you all talk about Nitrates still, so unless there is a accurate kit out there, then let me know. But I'm sure the accurate ones are like £3000.

I know my nitrates from my water report suggest 50mgl / 50ppm, and I read back on this post and Dane mentions how the 10% water change etc is to help with nitrates rising to bring then down, should I just do 10% water change once every two weeks, or just stick to 10% a week, either way 10% is so small, I can't see it being a problem, even if its adding or decreasing nitrates, as like I said I just have no clue what they are.


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## Jafooli

Shrimp are now all in the tank.

This is kind of crazy what's happening, so I hope this is normal. I will start from the beginning.

When TDS matched my tank, I started to recycle the water rather throwing it away, I was using a 25ml cup to take water out. I poured the cup into the tank, so my tank would not get much lower with water. My male shrimp in the tank went absolutely mental. He has been in his bamboo shelter all morning, but when that bit of water went in, he was darting around, swimming around non stop around all areas of the tank, every time I put a bit of water back in he would do this, as if there was a scent from the other shrimp, which I read when a female moults she lets of a scent telling the males she is ready to mate. Well I guess that might of been happening.

Anyway 4 hours I did the drip method for, I put the shrimp gentle in the tank, and when I sat down to have a look, every single shrimp nearly had white eyes, I was like they should be black??, not all them have white but lets say around 70%, a quick google says that means there going to moult in the next 48 hours, should I be worried? I also have noticed quite a few moults around, about 4-5. I then noticed one adult shrimp on its back trapped in a moult, I know I lost a couple to this before, but not till weeks later... I watched for a couple of minutes and nothing, he was not moving at all, his leg was just moving a tad as if he was slowly dying. I put my net in and managed to pin the moult to the glass, I then slowly nudged the shrimp, and the moult came off and the shrimp dropped down, he then grabbed on to another shrimp and wouldn't let go, so now is mating with a female I guess. Its all happening in there, I never seen all this behaviour, all though last time we only purchased 10 and they were all tiny, we have about 27 in there, and only about 3 tiny one's and the others are quite small/average size with a few adults.


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## Lindy

If the shrimp are having trouble moulting It would be because of water conditions where they were kept previously. It doesn't sound like it has affected him at all though


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## Dane

Your going to struggle with those nitrate readings!


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## Jafooli

How can I bring nitrate down, when we cant even measure nitrate? I know its 50ppm from my water report. The plants will use some so lets say it falls to 40-45ppm, filter produces a certain amount but I have no idea how much?, so can I ever bring it down to 0?

It seems like the pattern of my nitrate might be around 40-50ppm most of the time, and I can't use floating plants as the surface agitation and condensation is to much.

But then again the plants might be using it much more and I could have 10ppm, how do you test your nitrate Dane?

Should I just do 10% every two weeks to give the plants a chance to use more nitrate or will the filer be producing it faster than the uptake rate.


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## Dane

RO water is the only option if your tap is kicking out those readings. You can pick it up pretty cheap from your LFS


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## Jafooli

Ok Cheers,

I'm not that experienced with RO, never used it in my life. My LFS said its £3.75 for 25 litres, and it can be stored for up to a week.
However when doing research last night a lot of people said RO water can be stored indefinitely in a air tight container.
If I purchased a 25 litre jerry can got this filled, then took out 2 litres each week, I hope it would be air tight enough to keep it safe for at least a month.
Obviously I don't want to be driving to my LFS each week as its not just down the road. All I can do is take Marks advice and test it after a month.
Like I said I know nothing about RO, I presume the PH will be a set PH, I presume the way to tell if the RO is safe, is to test the TDS? and hope it remains 0 at the end of the month?
I guess I could also smell it if it went stale, also if the TDS went from 0 to say 10 at the end of the month? is this classed as unsafe? 10 is such a small amount surely its safer than what tap water is.

Not sure why the guy said it can be stored for just a week, they probably want to make more money which I can understand.

So if I do go down the RO route, if it can be stored for a while. Do I just get 2 litres of RO out from the jerry can, work out the grams I need of "SALTY SHRIMP GH+" to get my TDS around 150-200?
I also presume RO water PH is around 6.6-7, so how much will this increase PH? I also presume it put my KH around what 2-3? I have no clue... I guess I just keep adding salty shrimp to get the Gh-Kh I want...?

If its that easy then It cant be that hard.... I guess the hardiest part is measuring the grams needed for 2 litres lol, not sure I would want to pre-treat the Jerry can, might not be a good idea.

If I do go down this route, I already have RCS in the tank now, so how would I make the adjustment, just keep doing 10% water changes with the re mineralised RO? till the tank gets to where I want it.

I cant do anything until I know RO can be stored for a long period, at least 3 weeks, other wise I'm have to carry on my current routine which at the moment is 10-20% water change every 2 weeks.
This Sunday I topped the tank up 1 litre due to condensation, and Sunday coming will remove about 2-3 litres, and replace. This way I hope the plants can take up more Nitrates, and every week plants are growing more dense. So I hope if I can get it to say 20-30ppm this should be fine for Cherry shrimp. Not sure what I need to be looking out for in regarding shrimp behaviour with high nitrates? I think I read one or two will die each month. So will have to wait and see.... so far no shrimp deaths, I think every shrimp in the tank has moulted now, and many females with yellow saddles, but none berried as of yet. At least there surviving for now and they all seem very happy!

I did read on plantedtank, many people with high nitrates, just don't do water changes, instead they put many floating plants in, such as elodea densa or other floating plants, they let the plants use all the nitrates, and then just top up the tank now and then, and every so often do a small water change to refresh the tank and nutrients. So that's another reason I am at the moment doing 10-20% once every two weeks but I guess I could go for longer, but will keep it every two weeks for now.

In the meantime I can buy some RO and store it for a month to see how it holds up, but hope someone can just answer couple of them questions for me regarding what I need to buy for the RO water.


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## Jafooli

Hey everyone,

Its been over a couple of months now and I just want to update mine and my girlfriends progress, and hopefully get some more advice as I wouldn't of got this far without everyone's help at the beginning.

So over the period of about 3 months, I only ever found 2 dead shrimp, and that was in a space of 48 hours. I think it was because the filter had slowed down a lot, and needed a clean, but I didn't realize how clogged the spray bar its self had come, so probably my own mistake.

Anyway the main reason I created this thread was because we could never breed cherry shrimp, and they would all die off week after week, well the good news is we finally witnessed a berried cherry shrimp, and the weeks seemed to slow right down, we was watching her everyday to make sure she was ok, and then about 3-4 weeks later, the eggs had gone, just over a week later, I saw the most tiny shrimp ever, and then over the next week more and more appeared, and I think I counted about 12-15.

So at last we got a berried cherry shrimp!, but since then we have not had a berried shrimp, its been nearly a month now I would say if not longer.
I have not done much water testing since we received the shrimp, but I have been taking TDS readings every week, before and after the water change.

TDS at the start was 178, I think the female was berried around the 180 TDS mark, and now my TDS to date is 230.
Every week its been climbing about 5-10 TDS, all the shrimp seem fine, but like I say no more berried shrimp.

There are females in there, I know earlier in the thread we spoke about Nitrates, If anything I have even more plants in there now, and with a TDS increase of about 5-10 each week, I cant see that being Nitrates, so I guess that's more likely being the EBI Gold losing its buffering abilities, as the TDS does still decrease after each w/c just not as much.

I am feeding 2x a week, Wednesday, and Sunday after w/c

The tank readings on shrimp arrival were:
Ammonia 0
Nitrite 0
Nitrate 30-40
PH 7-7.2
GH 8
KH 2
TDS 178

TDS being 230, and increasing real slow each week, I guess the readings from above won't of changed to dramatically, but maybe enough to stop breeding conditions? Temp is 25c due to hot weather/room, but temp is set at 20c

Sadly I did not get around to Testing RO from my local fish shop for a month, I thought everything would be fine even if TDS reached 300, after all I reckon it was the Fluval Stratum that was killing the shrimp, but now there is no breeding I want to get the conditions right.

I decided to get some RO from my local fish shop, which I have had now for just over 2 weeks. The guy in the shop was adamant it would not last longer than a week. He said he has tried and he gets nitrates, and you need to keep the water moving etc just to get it to last a week.

Research told me you can keep it as long as you want, anyway If I remember correct he said there TDS of RO is 3 or 7 I can't remember lol, but them numbers are in my head.
I got home checked the TDS of the RO, it was 13TDS!

So either my TDS meter is a bit wrong, or they were wrong.
I tested there RO and got:
Ammonia 0, Nitrite 0, Nitrate 5, PH 6, GH 0-1, KH 0-1

I put it into bottles, and week later TDS was 18. Second week TDS was still 18, it also don't smell or anything like that.
If I buy some salty shrimp gh+ and mix it with 3 litres and get the TDS to say 180. Will this put me back on track on getting breeding conditions again?

Even if the TDS in the bottles went from 13 to 40? surely its still better to use that than my tap water? as my tap has 300 TDS of god knows what, where as a 30 TDS increase is either going to be good or bad stuff at such a minimal amount? it would not matter? but either way its not increased to much yet, so hopefully I can go down the RO route, and hopefully someone can put us back on track and who knows maybe we might be on our way to getting CRS sometime soon, but first... why are our shrimp not breeding?

Thanks in advance, I really hope someone can help. I don't think I've missed anything out.
Water changes are once a week mostly, but sometimes I do it every 2 weeks, as I'm trying to preserve the EBI gold, but 8/10 times I do 3 litres weekly, so 10%.

We use to feed Fluval Shrimp Granules but changed food to HIKARI Shrimp Cuisine, which we been feeding since the baby's appeared.


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## sciencefiction

I feel sorry for you mate.
They breed way too fast for my liking, definitely worse than snails.  Started with 5 shrimp, now they are in 4 tanks everywhere, and one is a 5f tank.
For what it's worth experience wise I have some in a tank with no water changes for a year with a Gh of 7, ph 7.4, kh of 2 and TDS of 200-ish, heavily planted, doing great, no heater(stopped working last year) I've fed them daily small amounts because the tank is only 30l.
The rest 3 tanks are heated to around 24-26C depending on tank,  get 50% water change weekly straight from the tap which has low ph due to gasses added but dissipates once in the tank. I temperature match the water using the hot tap.  I dose Prime directly in the tank to about 1x, 2x dose for the full tank and just let the python fill it back up as fast as I want, not dripping it at all as I've got no patience. They do great with that routine as you can feed them well without water quality fears.

Stats vary between my tanks but the highest of these has a Gh 14, Kh 8, ph 7.4, this tank has had times with TDS of 500-ish so they do great in almost any water.  My tap water is naturally hard.
  2 are planted one is just with leaf litter but has a couple of immersed house plants.  They do great in either setup. All my tanks are somewhat overfiltered and I feed quite often. Shrimp are like snails, if tank size/filtration and maintenance allow it, the more you feed, the faster they breed and grow.

My initial guess about your problems is something leaching from the substrate not agreeable to shrimp, or the tank was 2nd hand and someone had treated with copper previously(only clutching at straws) Now with the new substrate you should be fine.  Don't fret over water changes. As I said I've done large ones, even with colder water and no issues at all. They are highly sensitive to copper. Make sure your dechlorinator removes heavy metals(most do anyway) as you never know how much is in your tap. Obviously never dose copper to the tank but store bought fertilisers are fine as they contain very low amount which actually shrimp still need to survive.

I might have missed it, but if it's happened in just one tank, then I'd blame something in the tank. If it's happened to two different tanks then I'd blame the tap water, but not the Ph or Gh or Kh because cherry shrimp don't care about this one bit. There could be some sort of heavy metals or chlorine, chloramines, copper, etc..for which you need higher doses of dechlorinator or a different brand of dechlorinator.

Good luck anyway, 6 months down the line you'll have a 50-100 of them  and you'll be freaking out where to put them


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## Jafooli

Hey sciencefiction

The tank was purchased brand new just over a year ago, and I think most agreed it could of been the old Fluval Stratum substrate that was killing the shrimp as others have had similar experiences with it, god knows why, as its designed for shrimp. I guess there is no evidence to back that claim up so could be totally wrong.

Like you say the Ebi Gold substrate I am using now seems to be working great, just not sure why there is no breeding, maybe it is because I am only feeding 2x a week? I don't want to feed to much encase I do pollute the water giving them a bacteria disease etc, I'm sure Lindy ( ldcgroomer ) spoke about that could of been a possibility with my old set up as I did feed daily. Do you think If I fed 3x a week It could increase the speed of growth / breeding ?

I currently use Nutrafin Aqua Plus which says it removes chlorine and chloramines, and neutralises heavy metals, I guess I could double dose this from now on? however that would also increase TDS a bit more, but I could give it a try if you think that may help.




sciencefiction said:


> 6 months down the line you'll have a 50-100


We wish, its been over a year now, and I've lost count how much money and batches of shrimp we have purchased and lost, and with the help of this site have finally achieved one berried female lol. I am as confused as you are, as like you say there meant to be 1. Impossible to kill. 2. Breed like crazy! , and I've yet to witness this, so something ain't 100%.

I guess if I take the RO route, it can't do no more harm than using my tap water? I have never used RO before.
I presume I just purchase salty shrimp gh/kh+ and add the amount to get a TDS level I want.
Hopefully this will also eliminate my tap water being the problem, and also eliminate it being Nitrates.
I could then also have the possibility of adding some CRS to see how they do.

I am also from a hard water area, (South East Of England) in Kent, so maybe the water is just a bit to hard. 

Thanks for your help and reply.


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## sciencefiction

I feed mine daily, in a very well planted tanks with lots of shrimp. With a fewer shrimp you don't need to feed that much but you can still feed daily or every 2nd day and just put very small amounts. I give mine tiny pellets so even the tiniest of shrimp can "hold" them.  You can use a small plastic plate and put the food inside too. The shrimp will come to it and gather in it to feed.  Then remove whatever is left in the plate in a few hours or what they can't manage. It will give you an idea of how much is too much. They also eat all types of veggies: blanched zucchini, spinach, etc...
Do not worry about the TDS being increased from water conditioner. Do a double dose to be on the safe side. Is your tap water free of ammonia too as your conditioner doesn't seem neutralise it and if the water company doses chloramines from time to time, the conditioner will just break it down to ammonia but won't neutralise that.
 I'd use Prime with shrimp if you can get it as it covers everything, even nitrites at higher dose.  Do larger water changes at the end of the week too, 10% is not much if you are afraid of water quality. Once you see what works,, how much water changes, how much food, etc.., stick to it.   If you can have bigger filtration, a 2nd filter,  then even better although I understand in a small tank that's not very pleasing. If you don't have plants I'd recommend leaf litter, type of black water tank. They really breed fast in this as it provides infusoria from the leaves. And it looks nice.

I honestly think your tap water hardness is not the problem, not with cherry shrimp. Most important is to add water of similar TDS to the tank. With 50% water change weekly mine doesn't shift much at all between tank and tap for example.
With RO water people do re-mineralize it which is essential to the inhabitants and cherries prefer hard water in general so they definitely need that. But it's a bit more tricky, you need to be matching the TDS each time. The harder you make it for yourself, the less likely you can keep up with it.


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## Jafooli

Cheers for the reply,

God its so hard to pick which route to take, RO or Tap. 

Its obvious when it comes to shrimp everyone has there own routine and I have altered mine many times, If I take the 50% w/c a week route, I will be losing the buffering ability of my EBI Gold even faster, where as the RO route would hopefully preserve it, and the tank might act more stable, and open the possibility's up for CRS which I know my girlfriend is interested in.

All these routines I have done in the past just to lose shrimp, so I guess I'm have to make up my mind on which path to take, if I go down the 50% tap route, maybe I should increase the w/c by 10% each week until I reach the 50% as the last thing I want is a massive TDS change, along with other water parameters.

I will also have a look at ordering some prime to use specifically for the shrimp tank, I also presumed Chloramine was Ammonia and Chlorine, so I would of thought the Nutrafin Aqua Plus means it removes the Ammonia?

Another reason its a hard choice is my water report says it contains 50mg/l of Nitrate if I remember correctly, so 50ppm I think, a 50% w/c might make that rise I don't know lol. We have had so much bad luck with shrimp, so the last thing I want to do is upset the balance to quickly.

I also see why it can become tricky to match TDS each time when re-mineralizing RO, so that would be the main challenge with the RO route. I've never re-mineralized RO so not sure how hard it is to get it accurate.
Does the TDS have to be 100% exact? or could one week it be 150TDS, then the next maybe 160TDS, so for example a difference of 10, surely that can't be life or death? as tap is most likely to change also.

Is leaf litter the same as almond leafs? I always leave one in the tank for the extra bio film, and its also planted quite heavily, mostly with moss, crypt, stems, and Elodea to suck up the Nitrates.
I have added a sponge filter to my air pump, as we also leave a air pump on 24-7 as I read most breeders keep there tanks well oxygenated.

My tap has a PH of 8, which is another reason we went for the EBI Gold substrate, to lower our PH. I honesty am not sure what is best to do.
I've also read people have had problems and they go out and buy a few extra cherries and all of a sudden they start breeding again, I purchased mine from Ebay, so not sure how many times these have been interbred.

I don't want to get things even more complicated but I know my tap water has around 320 TDS, another option could be 50% RO, 50% tap? that would half the TDS and put me around the 150 TDS mark.

Thanks for your help I do appreciate it, so sorry if it sounds like I am contradicting everything you say, but this was our last attempt at keeping shrimp, and its been over a year now. We ain't the most experienced, but I was hoping we would be looking after harder shrimp by now. We only picked cherries as there meant to be good for beginners and require hardly any effort or special water conditions like other shrimp and my girlfriend has spent over £100 on them to see nothing happen. Seems like we are failing miserably, but I don't want to give up, I feel like were so close, we can at least keep them alive now lol, but just cant get them breeding =\


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## sciencefiction

Jafooli said:


> My tap has a PH of 8, which is another reason we went for the EBI Gold substrate, to lower our PH.


My tap water has a TDS of around 300ppm. What are your other readings such as Kh and Gh out of the tap? If you want to use RO, I see no reason why not if you are intending to keep soft water shrimp. Just read a lot on what are the best remineralizing techniques because it's the minerals in the water that are important to them, not just some Ph reading. I am honestly not sure if cherries and soft water shrimp should  be housed together as they have different requirements but some of mine do well in a Gh of 7 and Kh of 2, TDS 200-ish so I suppose it can be done. Though some shrimp need it even softer and the cherries might not like it that way.



Jafooli said:


> Is leaf litter the same as almond leafs?






Jafooli said:


> Does the TDS have to be 100% exact? or could one week it be 150TDS, then the next maybe 160TDS, so for example a difference of 10, surely that can't be life or death? as tap is most likely to change also.


Not really, a 10ppm difference won't matter that much because you are not doing 100% water changes so the actual difference that will happen during water change is very little.



Jafooli said:


> I also presumed Chloramine was Ammonia and Chlorine, so I would of thought the Nutrafin Aqua Plus means it removes the Ammonia?


No, some conditioners just break the bond between the two but don't neutralize ammonia afterwards so if your filters aren't fast coping or the ammonia released is too high you can have a problem. That's if your water is treated with chloramines but I hear in some places the water companies do use it from time to time and one never knows.[DOUBLEPOST=1401807766][/DOUBLEPOST]





Jafooli said:


> Is leaf litter the same as almond leafs?


 
Yes. I use oak leaves because they last longer and don't send flying bits in the water as I overfilter and tend to have quite a bit of flow.
Pic I took the other day:


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## Jafooli

Cheers for the quick reply!

I cant be sure what my Kh, Gh, out of the tap is, I'm sure I wrote it somewhere but cant find it, so would need to test again.

Thanks for letting me know about the Chloramines, might have to switch to prime for my main tank also.
Dam you have loads of shrimp, I'm jealous lol!

I think I'm give the RO I've stored in bottles another 2 weeks, and if the TDS does not rise, and it don't smell etc. I might see how I get on with the re mineralising. I can then see how that goes for a good few months, and If I still get no berried females, I will then try the 50% w/c route. At least this way I get to try both ideas, and if the RO route does work, then we should have good enough water conditions for some CRS.
So fingers crossed!

Thanks for all your help, I really hope one day I can take a picture like the one above.


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## sciencefiction

Jafooli said:


> Thanks for all your help, I really hope one day I can take a picture like the one above


 
You will, it's only a matter of time [DOUBLEPOST=1401809242][/DOUBLEPOST]





Jafooli said:


> Dam you have loads of shrimp, I'm jealous lol!


 
That's just one tank. I have 2 more tanks with shimp as I emptied one the other day but I had 4 in total. You were just very unlucky, once the problem is sorted they'll breed no problem at all.


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## Jafooli

Can I just quickly ask what re mineralising product you or anyone else thinks is best to use for RCS.

I just realized there is two products one being Salty Shrimp Mineral GH/KH+ which is maybe the best option for my RCS and see how that goes, but if KH is not that real important I could just purchase Bee Shrimp Mineral GH+?

For now I would rather get the product that's best for the RCS just to see how it goes, but if KH is not important then maybe I should get the Bee Shrimp Mineral GH+?

Also I am a bit confused what does it mean when they say "conductance of about 300 +/- 50 µS (Microsiemens)" does the 300 conductance mean TDS? 300 TDS sounds a bit high? I was hoping to achieve around 150-180 TDS.

I'm trying to go by this site: "http://shrimpkeeping.com/water-params/"

Also how hard is it going to be for me to re mineralise 3 litres of water, I don't want to do much more as then I would need visit LFS more than once a month which I didn't really want to do.
I presume for example with the Salty Shrimp Mineral GH/KH+ it says  (about 2 g) to 10 litres for a GH of 6 so I would just / 10 litre by 3 as that's pretty close to my ideal 3 litres.
So 10/3 is 3.3 litres and 2g / by 3 is 0.6grams... not sure if my scales go lower than 1g though =\ ... I guess its quite a fiddly job.

Hope someone can let me know what product would be best, I think I know which, but I seem to have read KH is of not of much importance and RCS would still do fine at 0KH, and then that makes it easier if in the future we want to get some CRS.

Thanks again.


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## Lindy

When raising the tds of water I started out just adding a drop at a time (I use mosura mineral plus) and repeatedly checking the tds until I was happy. Now I kind of know how much I can add but still do tds checks so I don't go over. I guess you could use a tea spoon and slowly get used to how much you need on the spoon. I can't really talk about cherry shrimp as I have taiwans and taiwan hybrids but I just keep testing tds/gh until I'm happy. You can experiment with tds to see what your shrimp are happiest with. I don't use ro but do collect rainwater and re mineralise that.

Sent from my GT-I9505 using Tapatalk


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## Jafooli

Cheers for the reply Lindy,

I'm a bit confused it sounds like mosura mineral plus is just a product to add more essential minerals and raise TDS? so what do you use prior to it? or do you just use mosura mineral plus on its own to achieve your GH/KH.

I'm still undecided on which re mineralising product I should buy, when my shrimp arrived the tank had a KH of 2 and a GH of 8, if I buy Bee Shrimp Mineral GH+ and aimed for a GH of 6, I can only presume the KH would stay between 0-1 as it says the ratio is KH/°dH: 0.06/1.0) where as Shrimp Mineral GH/KH+ ratio is °dGH/KH: 1.0/0.5 so 6 GH would give me 3 KH I think. So I guess its just down to the importance of KH which helps keep PH stable I think, so maybe I should go with Bee Shrimp Mineral GH+ as KH can't be to important, as long as my PH is going to stay stable.

I find it interesting you use rain water, I know I've come across people who use rain water on here for there main tanks, but never looked into it much as never needed rain water for my main tank, I thought in regards to shrimp being so sensitive it would be quite risky to use rain water encase of bacteria etc? I just tested some rain water from my water butt and it read 18TDS, the colour of the water was not that nice either. Is there any chance you have a link saying how to prepare rain water? I'm just generally interested, but am most likely going to stick with RO, don't want to complicate things more.

Thanks for helping.


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## Lindy

Mosura mineral plus raises tds and gh. I find with my tap water when the gh reaches 5 my tds is only 120 and it was recommended that I raise the tds to a minimum 130 to avoid the occasional deaths I was getting. I have put a large container under the edge of the plastic corrigated roof of my wood shed to collect water. I can give the roof a wash if it gets a bit dirty. I can also give the container, a 120litre tuffy box, a clean too. Maybe if you gave your water butt a good scrub out it would be usable. 

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## Lindy

Oh and I use a product called mosura tds 'up' to raise the tds from 120 to 160 without raising my gh farther but a higher gh shouldn't be such a problem for you.

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## Jafooli

Thanks Lindy,

Looks like which ever product I buy, should at least work for Cherries. I guess I will just have to keep changing 10-20% of water each week with the new prepared water, till the tank gradually gets to where I want it.
Where do you buy your Mosura mineral plus, I had a look and could only find it on ebay from Singapore, or the ultra version from sharnbrookshrimp. 

It sounds like the Mosura mineral plus is going to be the easiest as liquid is easier to measure, I also guess I don't need any other products, just pure RO and Mosura mineral plus. 

Do you seem to have any problems with PH swinging? I read if you have a KH lower than 4 your going to need to keep an eye on PH a lot. Do you think I should be ok? if not what can I do to prepare my self as I don't want a PH crash and all dead shrimp lol.


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## Lindy

I think I got my mineral plus from sharnbrook shrimp, its the ultra I use. My kh is 0-1 and my ph never moves.

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## Jafooli

*Thanks for letting me know, and once again thanks for yours and everyone else's help!*

Hopefully we will get there in the end. Its obvious the shrimp don't like my current tap water. 

I'm still not 100% sure what's the best way about changing the tank water, like I mentioned earlier I guess the 10-20% w/c a week with the new re mineralised RO water is the best route, as I don't want to change it to quick. I guess the shrimp substrates we use are designed to buffer the ph and help with the stability, hopefully my Ebi Gold still has some buffering left, as I've used it with my hard water for the last few months 

I'm also going to buy a digital ph reader instead of wasting time with the API colour chart, so I can be more accurate and monitor it more quickly and precise.

I cant wait till the day I can see loads of berried females, and have a tank full of shrimp! We've wasted nearly 2 years with all this, I just wish we started with RO etc from the beginning. I guess we was just unlucky with our tap water, well lets hope that's the issue anyway. I can't do much more now surely.

Thanks again.


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## Lindy

Alastair recommended the Waterlife ph test kit to me as my digital ph tester isn't reliable. You may have more luck with yours.

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## Lindy

Ha, my water spells certain death for shrimp as it is sooo soft. Found out the hard way.

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## Jafooli

Hey just a quick update,

The Mosura Mineral Plus arrived today, so think I will give it a shot tomorrow, I have no syringe that can measure lower than 1ml so will have to try and find one that can as I was planning to stick to 10% water changes. 
(3 litres)

However can I ask what percentage of water change do you think will increase my breeding chances, or overall what works best for you?

Since I'm now using RO hopefully I won't be as restricted, I was thinking maybe 20% would be better than 10%, and it may give me more moults so more chances of a female getting berried.


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## Lindy

i measure by drops into a 5 litre water bottle. i find 15 drops takes me to around a tds of 122 to get gh5. i suggest you just add 5 drops at a time and keep testing the water and soon you will know how much to add just by drops to get perfect conditions for the shrimp.
I can't comment on water changes and percentages as my shrimp are quite different to yours but most of the time I do 10% changes but have done 20% changes with no ill effect.


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## Lindy

I've just noticed that 'shrimpmyhome' is stocking salty shrimp products and are selling a remineralisation salt aimed at cherry shrimp.


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## Jafooli

Hey Lindy,

If your on about the "Salty Shrimp Mineral GH/KH+" I did mention that above, but I see it raises KH. I'm not sure of the importance of KH with cherry shrimp, I think its more to do with PH buffering. But maybe the salty shrimp has better minerals for cherries? I just don't know 

Anyhow when you mentioned Mosura Mineral Plus, It looked overall a easier product to use, since its liquid and should be easier to use. I've purchased that now and today I used it for the first time.

Not sure how you make do with 15 drops lol, I lost count in the end I used around 50 or more, and got the TDS to 155, with the RO originally being 13TDS. 
Lucky for me I measured GH and first time it was on 7 which I'm happy with, so hope that's ok. KH is around 2. Ph 6 

I think 6.4 PH is the lowest for cherries, so not sure if that's going to hurt with my ph being a bit lower. 

I hope we will still be successful with Mosura Mineral Plus, and hope we don't lose no shrimp. 

Do you think I may run into problems? I have done research and cant find much information only some people noticed there red cherry shrimp got more red while using Mosura. 

Hope I've not made the wrong choice


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## Lindy

Sorry mate, don't know anything about cherries 

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## Jafooli

That's ok, you have helped me more than enough. I cant see the Mosura Mineral Plus doing much bad, surely its got to be better than my tap water.
If I start seeing deaths or anything, I can always go back to tap real slowly, then purchase some salty shrimp. I just hope it don't come to that.

If this is successful though, maybe one day we will get some CRS and then I can ask you again if we get stuck. :L

I've just seen another berried female, she is quite small, but wow so exited  .... still we will be waiting months for the shrimplets now lol, but its another step closer to getting loadsssss of cherries 

I also would of thought people would have said Mosura Mineral Plus killed all my neo shrimp, not sure how many years these products been around, but I would of thought someone would have mentioned something, hope I'm not that person. Anyway will see how it goes, I'm just a little concerned the driftwood in the tank might take the ph lower than 6, not sure if Ebi Gold can buffer up if that makes sense.


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## Lindy

That means shrimplets in 30 days!


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## sciencefiction

If temperature is high enough as in 25C for example, then even less than 30 days, 3 weeks possible but the babies are so tiny you won't see them the first week or so until they gather some mass


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## Jafooli

Hey thanks for letting me know.

We are over the moon and I think I spotted another berried female but her eggs not as yellow and more green. So fingers crossed. Thats 3 berried females in total now, so hopefully things are starting to look up!

Sciencefiction do you know if I will run into issues with the Mosura Mineral Plus and Cherries? Im just worried with PH dropping below 6. I will keep eye on PH though and prey it don't. It will take a few more weeks to get the tank balanced with the new RO. 

The tank is 26c also, and thats in a cool room, my main tank been hitting over 30c on some nights. It gets very hot in my room.

I hope I was not to quick to go down the RO route, since these females have now become berried. But hopefully I will learn more this way and gain some experience for the day we move to harder shrimp.


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## sciencefiction

As long as your Kh doesn't drop to 0, the Ph should stay stable as that's what buffers the Ph.  You don't want your Ph to vary at all.  Kh is used up in a tank over time by chemical processes going on, so  if you see it dropping prior to regular water change time, you can just raise it a small bit with the minerals in the future water change until you are at a level that never goes down to 0.
I am not experienced at all with mosura plus so I have no idea if it's going to be ok or not with cherries. I keep mine in tap water.


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## Jafooli

Cheers for letting me know.

I have a bit of bad news as sadly I found a dead shrimp this morning, it was not any of the berried one's thankfully, and I think another one looks a bit sluggish, I actually thought it was dead but it moved slowly eventually.
I was going to do a water change tomorrow, but decided to do it tonight, so did another 6 litres of the RO at 155 TDS.

When I switched the light on as it was out by this time, I noticed hundreds of these white things swim of the glass, they move in a darting form, and it seems like there consistently lagging. They also look like a white pixel, there so tiny, and its just like white dots darting around, but they dart forward, stop, then dart forward again. I'm surprised how many there are and how I've not noticed these before.

I have noticed some shrimp have like a little white patch on the top of them, just below there head. So its like a patch of lost colour. I've noticed this before though and just thought it was the specific shrimp colouring on certain shrimp. I'm a bit concerned, so either the shrimp died due to the tank still finding its balance, hence why I decided to do another water change tonight instead of tomorrow, just to try and get it balanced closer to the 155 TDS mark quicker. Its now at 190TDS.

Should I be worried? I also get random white things stuck on the glass, that don't move or nothing, I think I've seen this on a topic before and there harmless, but the other white things I mention above I have no idea if there good or bad. Hope someone else has come across this and can let me know what to do.

Thanks, I feel like the next week is going be critical, especially as the shrimp are going to have to adjust to the new water parameters, so the last thing I need is a parasite or something killing them. I feed only 2x a week to try lower the chance of bacteria issues etc.


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## sciencefiction

Why have you aimed at such a low TDS of 155? It's quite low for any shrimp.
As for the patch, it's not normal. But I have no idea what it could be. Can you take a picture? Also of the "white dots"..
With a soil that buffers the water and water of a different TDS added the conditions maybe changing a bit too fast for the shrimp. It was probably better if you grew the plants and tank for a month or two and then add shrimp once the stats are stable and not changing. But cherries are hardy so they should survive.
If the setup is clean/new, those shrimp have nothing to eat for most of the week with only 2x a week but also newborn shrimplets need biofilm and some sort of food.


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## Jafooli

Hey sciencefiction

I aimed for 155 TDS as it gives me GH 7 and KH 2 and the RO is a PH of 6 so that's what I am putting in the tank with water changes.
I guess I could of gone with more GH but it would not of changed nothing else. When I got the shrimp my tank was 178 TDS, GH 8, KH 2, PH 7... so once again 155 seemed pretty close to that.

I will try and get a picture of the patches on some of the shrimp, its not on many, maybe 3 or 4. The shrimp I purchased of Ebay, seem to be a mix in grades, some are really red while others I think most people would cull as there pretty much wild looking, but I only have 2 wild looking. I just want to keep the most shrimp we can, and I don't have the heart to cull shrimp.

I hope your correct regarding the change being to quick, lets just hope the berried shrimps can survive, I guess that's the main priority as  they could make up the numbers if I did lose any more, I hope I don't.

I did some quick research and it seems the white things may be Copepods but I'm not sure, I will have look tomorrow to see if I can make them out a bit better.

The tanks been running for months now, and I left the tank alone for about a month before I purchased any shrimp, just to make sure it was cycled a bit, even though I think with Ebi Gold you can add live stock the next day, anyhow I left it for a month to gather the bio film, and took Lindy's advice with the feeding at 2x a week, Wednesday & Sunday, and the rest of the days they can eat on bio film and a cattapa leaf. There always grazing on something in the tank, so I hope there not starving =\ The first shrimplets we had just stayed in all the Java moss for a couple of weeks. I think we gained about 10 shrimp from the first berried female, not sure if that's a good success rate or not.


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## sciencefiction

Ok, now I understand. Thanks.
Generally with TDS, try to match a certain TDS, not a Gh or Kh, but obviously keep in mind Kh is needed to be present. The TDS meter I think is a more reliable way to evaluate the mineralized water.
As for the dead one, it can happen with new shrimp, especially if they were adults as you don't know how old they are, the important thing is the new generations that are born in the tank will have adjusted to the tank. I personally don't cull any shrimp. You don't know what genes they carry. The females I started with were very low grade cherries but now I have all colours, red rilis, blue shrimp, dark reds, etc..
Keeping a tank empty for a month can cause nitrification bacteria to die off unless the soil leached some ammonia.
I understand the tank was running for months, but changing the substrate is a major reset so I count it as a new tank, especially if you wiped it clean too in the process. A filter doesn't "mature" a tank instantly.


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## Lindy

I thought cherries liked tds higher, lots of people seem to have them with tds of 300 upwards.  Maybe that has been the problem all along. I had sakuras in with my crystals and they all slowly died off as the tds was too low for them. You are keeping your shrimp at near crystal condition.

Sent from my GT-I9505 using Tapatalk


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## Jafooli

Thanks for the replies, I think I just cycled the tank by using plants from my main tank, and left the decay to contribute to ammonia, I also kept the filter in a bucket for the couple of hours it took me to take the old substrate out and the new in, at this time I only had one shrimp, and he survived all though this, not that it was ideal for him, but I had no where to put him, as in my main tank he would most likely been food. Anyhow I then left it a month to allow the substrate to cycle a bit, and kept an eye on Ammonia all through out and when adding the new shrimp. I tried to do everything correct this time around, the drip method etc... everything I've been taught from UKAPS .

It was my first time re mineralising RO, so I took it to 155 TDS, did the tests and lucky for me hit a GH of 7 straight away, yesterday I did not do any tests but as you said just went by the TDS. What I could do is maybe go a bit higher in the future, maybe 170 TDS, and try aim for a GH of 8... this way the KH a may be a tad higher... and there for giving me more alkalinity? I hope I'm correct in saying that, as I know nothing about GH / KH / PH but get the gist.

In regards to the shrimp dying I can only hope its not a disease or something, I will try to take a picture but not sure how I will get a good one, its very hard to see and the white dots, I would have no chance with a camera, especially mine. Hopefully there just Copepods.

If shrimp start dropping like flies, I'm not sure what I can do? I guess I'm have to just hope that don't happen =\

Lindy when I first set up the Fluval Ebi with fluval stratum, the tds of my tap is around 300-320, All they did was die each month, so it could of been either a) my specific water or b) fluval stratum.. as I can't see what else was in the scape that would of caused the deaths, I guess c) the way I acclimated the shrimp in the past, but they are cherry shrimp and we lost batches and not once did any get berried, so I'm not convinced by my tap water.

The berried female we had a few months ago was at a TDS of about 180, and now 2 more, so hopefully they can adapt, it does say on internet they can accept a wide range of parameters, but I'm obviously no expert, I think I will stick at it... not sure what else I can do, and hopefully I can report back my success. Its just so hard. If we fail I think we will have to just give up with Neo shrimp, and maybe opt for CRS as a last chance at shrimp keeping before giving up completely .

I don't suppose any of you use certain products to keep bacteria away? do you also offer a variety of foods? or just stick to one brand? I am using Hikari shrimp food, but I see on Ebay, there are lots of different foods, that give different benefits? I also see such things as "mineral stones" what are your opinions on these and why are they needed since we re mineralise the RO anyway. Could they provide me any benefit? in also keeping the tank a bit more stable?

Thanks again for all the advice and helping.


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## sciencefiction

Just don't panic. One dead shrimp is not necessarily anything to worry about unless as you say they all start dropping and never get berried.
As for feeding, shrimp really can be fed a wide variety of foods and are quite the scavengers.  Mine never even got shrimp specific food and I feed them fish food like New life spectrum and New Era plus all sorts of vegetables, blanched peas, zucchini, blanched spinach, etc...



Jafooli said:


> I don't suppose any of you use certain products to keep bacteria away?



What type of bacteria do you want to keep away? If anything, cherry shrimp are way hardier than many fish and it's unlikely they'll get sick unless the tank is kept really badly and you aren't. Your shrimp have a nice home 
With too soft water the only problem with cherry shrimp is they won't be able to molt and can die while trying so. You can raise the TDS slightly and stop worrying about Gh and Kh particular values, even for softer water shrimp.


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## Jafooli

Thanks for the reinsurance, lets hope all ends well.

I have took a photo of one of the shrimp I was talking about earlier, so would be interested in what you make of it.
I have also linked a video of the white things in the tank, while you can see them all crawling and jumping about on the sponge filter, they don't swim much in the video, but now and then you get a glimpse. they seem to move in short bursts. I also hope maybe you or Lindy have seen these before lol, and can tell me if there a danger. ( I also uploaded a picture of these random white things that just stay on the glass )












 




In the second video they swim a bit more.

Thanks again.


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## Andy Thurston

White thing on the glass looks like a freshwater limpet
I dont know what the other bugs are though


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## Lindy

The shrimp in the photo, I think that is her saddle you are seeing ie eggs waiting to be fertilised. The fast white dots look like seed shrimp (ostracods). I think they are pretty harmless but may be a sign of over feeding. And Big Clown is right, the other things are freshwater limpets and they are in both my tanks.


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## sciencefiction

Agree with all said above. The white jumping bugs could be seed shrimp possibly. They are harmless scavengers. I've had them too.
The one on the glass is a freshwater limpet.

The white patch on the cherry shrimp......not completely sure it's normal. I can't recall seeing the saddles on mine from above. It could be a sign of problems with molting......or it could be the saddle but the shimp just have clear uncoloured patches on their backs not covering the saddle as Lucy says. I just haven't seen it so I don't know.


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## Jafooli

Thanks for the answers everyone.

At least I now know we have limpets, I looked on youtube at ostracods and they seem 10x bigger than the white dots, maybe this is the start of them so I will keep a close eye. Either way I hope there harmless whatever they are.

I have seen saddles on some of our shrimp, and you can make out the saddle clearly, however with a few it looks like its on there skelton as a yellow/white patch and sometimes there are lines going down there back, but Its been like this a while, so maybe its just them specific shrimps pattern, while others are fully red all over.

I also noticed a tiny shrimplet earlier, I could not see any others at all, and have had no berried females, so we must not of noticed. Very strange but hopefully more will appear soon.

I will try feed smaller portions for a week or two as I do put in a nice pinch, just to make sure each shrimp gets its own pellets.


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## sciencefiction

Jafooli said:


> I looked on youtube at ostracods and they seem 10x bigger than the white dots


 Ostracods(seed shrimp) are quite small, maybe 1-2mm ranging. They act like the shrimp and love the filter sponge.



Jafooli said:


> but Its been like this a while, so maybe its just them specific shrimps pattern, while others are fully red all over.


Not a great example but was looking at some of my pictures and on this one below on the red rili female to the right you can see the saddle clearly. And thinking of it yours just look to have clear patches with no colouring on top so it's logical some saddles would be visible too and probably nothing to worry about.



 



> also noticed a tiny shrimplet earlier, I could not see any others at all, and have had no berried females, so we must not of noticed. Very strange but hopefully more will appear soon.



They aren't very easy to see. The first time I had shrimplets I only noticed a couple until a few weeks later when they had grown up a bit and were everywhere competing with a bunch of corys for food. When just born they are super tiny so unless you stay around with a magnifying glass you may not see them up until week or so later. Be careful washing the filter as they go inside the pores of my sponges! They are as small as the seed shrimp but less noticeable as they aren't white and have mostly no colour. I end up with a ton of them in the dirty water on cleaning the filters and I've probably killed many but I have no choice.



> I will try feed smaller portions for a week or two as I do put in a nice pinch, just to make sure each shrimp gets its own pellets.



Why not feed very tiny portions, but every other day? There's no point adding larger amounts of food less often because even your filter bacteria needs consistency to adjust to a specific bioload. So when feeding rarely but more food you just overload the filter for those specific days as it suddenly has more ammonia to deal with.
It's very good if your food is in very small granules as they just grab one each and don't compete with each other.


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## Jafooli

Hey everyone,

So its been just over a month now, and things were going good, but they starting to go down hill again as I'm noticing a dead shrimp each morning, we've probably lost about 6 this past week.
I've taken everyone's advice above and we also do feed every other day now. The best news is there are shrimplets everywhere, off all sizes. There are way more shrimplets than adult shrimp.

I feel like the tank is balancing its self out when we reach a good number of shrimp, so maybe the filters are not adequate? We have the Fluval Ebi Stock filter, with a nice fine sponge so no shrimplets get sucked in, it seems good to me, and a sponge filter, which also seems good to me. There are no fish, the tank is planted, imo I think the filtration should be enough, but maybe its not. I've looked and looked for filters and I can't find any that are good for shrimp. I see some people use small canisters that are from China or somewhere, and look quite cheap. What filters do people use here? Also my girlfriend is always using her perfumes, sprays, etc.. in the same room the shrimp are? The tank does have a lid but I guess containments could still find a way in, as the lid does have gaps and a whole in it.

The filter has no carbon, so I thought adding this may improve water quality? Anyone here use carbon in there filter?

I also do 6 litres a week w/c, I've just started putting TDS to 200, as the batch of RO we got from the shop was more TDS this time around. 29 TDS. So I wanted to make sure I was re mineralising with enough mosura.

I also have noticed, the deaths to seem to be more around after the water change time. I don't match the tank temperature or nothing special, but from touch it seems room temp.
Maybe 20% is to much? If using RO can you do water changers over a longer period? as each week the TDS seems to of hardly rised, and by the time I use pure RO to top the tank up from condensation its back at where it was basically.

I just cant seem to put my finger on the issue, its either when the shrimp colony is getting large, or its the new RO batch we got, as this time it was double in TDS, 13 TDS last batch, 29 TDS this time.
It could be the hot weather? not enough variety in the diet? should we maybe get other foods? like mulberry?

I don't think oxygen is the issue as there is loads of surface movement, the deaths are not trapped moults, they just seem to be there dead.

I would be interested to know what others advice would be, as this thread has got us this far, we got the shrimplets at long last  but now how do we get the colony, as its not all falling in place as of yet.

Thanks in advance.


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## Lindy

Your girlfriend has to understand absolutely no aerosols to be used in the shrimp room! Also must wash hands carefully before doing anything with the shrimp to get any moisturiser and perfume etc off before touching food or anything in or going in the tank. 
I use an eheim ecco 130 but I don't think it is necessary. Are the temps rising in the tank with the hot weather as a lot of folk seem to be losing shrimp at the mo with high tank temps.


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## Jafooli

Hey Lindy

I've told my girlfriend no more aerosols in the same room, or to go the other side of room if she really has to. I've always told her to be careful but yeah you never can be to sure, and as the filter has no carbon at all it cant remove any containments. So I thought carbon may just make the water a bit better as its quite cheap on eBay.

I looked at the filter you mentioned its quite expensive for a 30 litre tank, I see loads of people using Eheim filters on there shrimp tanks, filters that are recommended for like 200 litre tanks. How do the shrimp not go flying everywhere? surely the water movement will be to much. I removed the spray bar of the Ebi filter to see how much the surface movement increased and the plants were swaying, baby shrimp were struggling to get a firm grip on the mosses so I put the spray bar back on. How do people work around this? do shrimp like a good amount of flow? Or do you somehow reduce the output? I cant see my girlfriend spending over £50 for a large filter, on such a small tank. Its a shame there is only a limited choice with small canister filters. USA seems to have a much bigger selection, even with HOB filters we seem to be limited over here.

I checked the temps last night, it was at 27c and its now on 26c which seems to be the norm, 25-26c... the heater is set to like 22c but I guess in the summer this is just room temperatures, even my main tank gets up to 28-29c at night.

Do you feed your shrimp a balanced diet? or you just stick to one food? we are using the Hikari shrimp cuisine, I'm not sure if offering them different foods may be something to try that might also help.
Another idea was to buy a bigger air pump, and a much bigger sponge filter, and with the Ebi stock filter, add some carbon to it, and just see how things go from there. Also maybe just doing 10-15% water changes.

Thanks again for your help.


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## Lindy

Your tank is probably on the warm side. Lots of people on Facebook freshwatershrimp have been talking about the high temps and losing shrimp. I feed lots of different things, genchem biomax, hikari, genchem white pellet, super bacteria bee max and nettle leaves.
You can buy or make hmf type filters using a jetlift pipe and foam. They are noisy though.  Adding an airstone would help them cope with higher temps.


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## Lindy

I've never had a problem with too much flow. The shrimp seem to cope. The flow is adjustable though and I use home made acrylic spraybars so probably have bigger holes in my spraybar to lessen the jet effect.


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## sciencefiction

My cherry shrimp did fine last summer in around 29-30C and this year a bit cooler at around 27-28C. They did fine also in my non heated small tank at 20-22C during the winter. Cherries have no problem with temperature as long as its gradual.  And shrimp love flow and well oxygenated tank. They are quite funny staying where filters blow looking like having shimmies lol but insisting to stay around there swayed by the current if there's something tasty to munch on   I honestly never fed the cherries any shrimp food but I feed the fish high quality pellets so that's what the shrimp get too, plus veggies occasionally and whatever I think of from the fridge.
And as I said before, 50% water changes never killed one cherry shrimp for me but tank and tap is essentially the same. The TDS varies because of build up of nitrates and other stuff but not by much.

If the deaths are occurring after a water change, maybe you are having swings in the stats. Why are you topping up with RO water? You are essentially softening up the water, regardless that your TDS stays the same. Then when you do your water change with remineralized RO water, it just isn't the same water because its made of different minerals to achieve the same TDS.
Tank water if not changed actually naturally gets acidic, then a bit of RO to make it even more acidic, then one does a water change with water which is essentially harder, so possibly that can be an issue.


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