# Can you help me become a "better" shrimp keeper?



## Thrills24 (20 Jan 2015)

Firstly I'd like to say thank you to X3NiTH for being as helpful as he has been... I have kept a range of shrimp in my tanks with varying levels of success. But I've never done anything to aid this success before. I've simply bought 4-5 of a species put them in the designated tank and let them get on with it. 

Due to the nature of my new setup, a clean up crew will be an essential part of the balance  I have decided to add some Bee shrimp and I'm looking for tried and tested suggestions on additives and feeding. In particular additives which will not interfere with my EI ferts. I'm asking because there is a vast range of products out there. Some, I know you guys will swear by. Others, which I'm sure you will tell me to steer clear of.

Cheers.


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## Thrills24 (21 Jan 2015)

Guys

Lots of views for this thread but no advice so far. For a guy moving from an semi ok at best shrimp keeper to one aiming for success I really want to cut down and hone in on what I should add and avoid because there is more products out there and I really want to start out on the right foot so to speak. I'd really welcome and in fact am in need of some advice here as I already have 10 bee shrimp preordered and paid for.


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## X3NiTH (22 Jan 2015)

I would do the Bees in their own tank and breed them out to larger numbers first before introducing as a cleaning crew to a tank with large numbers of fish, they'll hide and never clean where you want them to because the fish will pick at them when they emerge from hiding looking for other food as they have such striking contrast to the background of plants compared to cherry shrimp which blend in a lot more.

 If you want breeding success with bee shrimp you need to keep the TDS of the water within very narrow parameters (150-180) and adding EI fertilisers is going to make the TDS rise over time and impact the shrimps capacity to breed way more than additives for the shrimp are going to mess with your EI ferts. I use bee shrimp minerals in my planted tank for my cherries and this has EI ferts, not a problem for the ferts but high TDS stops breeding.

My journey with bee shrimp has been a hard one, but the perseverance is paying off in one tank at least, in the other tank time will tell if the siblings of my breeding male decide to make love and not war with their new tank mates.

I've thought many times on what fish I could put in these tanks to keep the ostracod population down but I've yet to find one that would be fair to put in such a small tank, besides I don't mind losing cherries to fish but currently not my bees. My intention was like yours, to have bee shrimp clean my main tank, it's not worked out this way so far but if I get the numbers that I don't have to care about the cost of attrition by fish then a load are going into my main tank (they won't breed in there because EI takes the TDS from 200 - 350 in a week, I do 50% change water per week per EI using 0TDS RO/DI remineralised with bee shrimp gh+ added to a TDS of 70, my tap is 30 but that will be mainly buffers to keep the pH above 7 and chlorine/chloramines to keep it drinkable, I want minerals raising my TDS not stuff I could do without.

Sometimes feels more about keeping water than keeping shrimp.

Hopefully others can pitch in with their experiences and success/failure with bee shrimp and what it takes to get it right, can't be me because I'm just a beginner and I feel I have had more failure than succes despite what's happening in my tank at the moment which I put down to luck, once I'm able to influence things more then I feel I will have had some success.


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## Thrills24 (22 Jan 2015)

X3NiTH Many thanks again for the input...

I purchased a group of 5 bee shrimp from kesgrave about 2 years ago. Never added anything to my tank, not even food, and could count over 15 at one point but that tank was heavily planted. I had always thought captive bred shrimp were a little more forgiving when it came to params. With this new setup I've decided to take things more seriously and an additive like "Salty Shrimp Bee Shrimp Mineral GH" seems like a good way to go. But having never used it, I'm a little nervous. 

For instance, will this increase the risk of algae outbreaks if used in conjunction with Ei ferts? I live in London where we're constantly told our water has more "minerals" than it needs so given the previous "success" do I even need this additive? My Bee shrimp did ok in PH of 8 and although I've never tested my GH and KH but i'm willing to bet they are not ideal either. Due to the advice of X3NiTH I've already bought some catappa bark but will boil it to remove tannins.

Should I go with another species all together? Something other than cherry would still appeal to me. I have already paid for the Bee shrimp at my LFS but I'm sure they wouldn't mind a switch in species.


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## Lindy (23 Jan 2015)

Like X3NITH i choose to remineralise rain water or my tap which is tds45. If you remove all the tanins by boiling you are removing all the beneficial qualities. X3nith is right, it is all about water keeping and maintaining stable conditions. There is no doubt that some shrimp are hardier as i had some hardcore cbs that lived in my big tank with tds 65. Lots died though so it's up to you to decide how many shrimp to sacrifice to find the few. There is a facebook page run by very experienced shrimp keepers who are members here too but not on often so for continuous help I'd get on to 'freshwatershrimp' on fb. 
The first thing you need to do is get a tds pen and api gh test (drops) There is no point thinking about gh+ until you know you need it. I'm will ing to bet your water is probably too hard and you will need to reduce tds/gh rather than increase. I would do this before your shrimp arrive. All of the crystal shrimp available to buy will be captive bred and are, unfortunately,  just as good at dying as any wild shrimp.


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## Thrills24 (23 Jan 2015)

In my own personal and therefore very subjective experience I have always found Nutrafin liquid test kits more "accurate" and after reading this went looking in my aquarium box (meds etc) and found a PH, KH, and GH, test kit. However, these haven't been used in roughly a year. That said, on another forum I remember reading through a debate about their "used by date" which was settled by nutrafin via email where they stressed that the test kit doesn't have a used by date and should work perfectly as long as not exposed to extreme heat or cold. 

To be sure I tested both tap and aquarium water X3 each for both PH and GH

*Tap: *PH 7.5 - GH 180 

*Aquarium:* PH 8.0 - GH 160

I don't have a TDS pen at the moment. Finding one on ebay that isn't from a store based in Asia but pretending to be in the UK, is something I'll have to do later tonight.


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## Lindy (23 Jan 2015)

Is that gh16 then?  Because that is high. You want 5-6 gh.


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## Thrills24 (23 Jan 2015)

ldcgroomer said:


> Is that gh16 then?  Because that is high. You want 5-6 gh.



The result is measured in mg/L CACO3 and basically you multiply each liquid drop after the first (which turns the water from clear to pink) by 20 

0-60 - Soft
61-100 - Slightly Acidic
101 -200 Moderately hard
200+ - Very hard

For me tap water was 9 drops aquarium 8 drops measured 3 times each. I don't measure GH often but 180 tap and 160 aquarium is the only reading available. I'm guessing  that is GH 18-16... Which would mean I don't need any additives to raise my GH but instead, need to look for ways to lower the GH

Again, I've never looked into parameters from shrimp and was quite surprised to find the gh test kit. But with the help of this forum I'm pretty determined to become a better shrimp keeper. Oh and btw if GH16 is actually the reading then in terms of GH alone (seeing as I haven't got the TDS pen yet) and according to this site

http://www.shrimpkeeping.com/water-params/

Rilli shrimp would be my best bet as there recommended GH is 14. I included the link just in case in your experience these recommendations might be wrong or not as stringent.


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## Lindy (23 Jan 2015)

I'm sure other shrimp would be fine with these numbers. I only have crs/cbs shadows


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## Thrills24 (23 Jan 2015)

ldcgroomer said:


> I'm sure other shrimp would be fine with these numbers. I only have crs/cbs shadows


 
What are you params? What do you add or take care to remove from your water?


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## Lindy (23 Jan 2015)

Firstly, my set up is not without fault and I've recently set up new tanks to replace the old as shrimp had stopped breeding. My tds is 160 but had success at 145. My gh 5 -6. I started using rainwater and not sure if it is good as the big tub i collect in is not food grade and might be leeching chemicals. That is why i suggested freshwatershrimp page as the couple running it breed alsorts very successfully up to highest grade.


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## Thrills24 (23 Jan 2015)

I haven't had a chance to check out that page just yet. But I ordered a pen, and am looking to add bogwood of some type to the tank and peat in the filter. The latter isn't something I've done before and worry most about PH crashes or spikes. 

We will get there eventually.


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## alto (24 Jan 2015)

Thrills24 said:


> The result is measured in mg/L CACO3 and basically you multiply each liquid drop after the first (which turns the water from clear to pink) by 20
> 
> 0-60 - Soft
> 61-100 - Slightly Acidic
> ...



If this is the Nutrafin kit, check instructions ... I believe

" Multiply GH or KH (mg/L CaC03) by 0.056 = dH degrees or /ou/o/ gH degrees".

ie 160 x 0.056 ~ 9dGH
    180 x 0.056 ~ 10dGH


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## Lindy (24 Jan 2015)

I wouldn't add peat to your filter. This will be expensive in the long run and difficult to keep stable. Cherries and the like don't need low ph. It would be far easier to choose a shrimo that suits your water type instead of trying to manipulate your tap into soft water unless you want to go the ro route. This is still tricky as you then have to remineralise the water, which is costly in large water volumes, and then add remineralised water at wc time that takes into account your EI ferts. Most shrimp folk use an active substrate when keeping crystal and shadow shrimp to buffer gh and ph. Water changes are small and the water prepared and matched to the tank chemistry.  Some people get away without doing this but frankly they are the few and very lucky.


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## Thrills24 (24 Jan 2015)

alto said:


> If this is the Nutrafin kit, check instructions ... I believe
> 
> " Multiply GH or KH (mg/L CaC03) by 0.056 = dH degrees or /ou/o/ gH degrees".
> 
> ...



My goodness do I feel silly. I must have read the instructions wrong. Really appreciate the correction here.



ldcgroomer said:


> I wouldn't add peat to your filter. This will be expensive in the long run and difficult to keep stable. Cherries and the like don't need low ph. It would be far easier to choose a shrimo that suits your water type instead of trying to manipulate your tap into soft water unless you want to go the ro route. This is still tricky as you then have to remineralise the water, which is costly in large water volumes, and then add remineralised water at wc time that takes into account your EI ferts. Most shrimp folk use an active substrate when keeping crystal and shadow shrimp to buffer gh and ph. Water changes are small and the water prepared and matched to the tank chemistry.  Some people get away without doing this but frankly they are the few and very lucky.



I've been looking up peat and working out the cost and then realized it will most likely stain the water. So I called my LFS and cancelled the Bee shrimp order but told him to hold onto the money because I'll still be ordering shrimp just not sure which one yet. 

At the moment I'm not using CO2 but have a 3.15kg cylinder due to arrive next week. I know the PH can be lowered by CO2 I'm wondering if it changes any other parameters like GH etc. Also if there are any additives to help with keeping shrimp in terms of nutrients and to aid moulting. despite my London water.

Any recommendations on shrimp besides rili would be cool too.


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## Jason Burk (26 Jan 2015)

Hi Thrills, what I do in terms of water is simply use RO water, add bee shrimp minerals from Salty Shrimp and then add Mosura BT-9. 
Ive never actually checked the GH or anything like that which I probably should do.. But Its almost as if I don't need to, the water seems to be perfect for them - and I have a little Blue Panda and Blue King Kong breeding programme going on currently  







From my experience keeping shrimp, other than ensuring good water quality, the best success ive had is when: 

- The parameters are stable, which after moving away from tap water has become far more achievable!
- The temperature is cooler (this is for caridina cantonensis shrimp) Ever since ive been keeping the temperature at around 18/19 degrees, the breeding and survival rate has sky rocketed, before it was at about 22/23 degrees. With cherries they like it a little warmer than 18/19
- I tried using EI and doing a heavily planted tank but, using all those extra additives just make it more difficult to get it right for the shrimp, so now I just add co2 and have easy plants (microsorium and riccia) - oh, and some floating plant that im not sure of its name 
- And lastly, shrimp will always do better in a shrimp only tank, not to say they wont go with other small fish because they will but, if you really want good success then this helps alot  



Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk


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## Thrills24 (27 Jan 2015)

Hi Jason

And thanks for the input/post. To be honest I'm relieved I don't have to add anything to the water as EI ferts and the plants were more of a priority to begin with. Working out how the additives would "fit" in such a setup was a concern and it seemed more of a trial and error situation from everything I had read. I have a hydor inline heater which is pretty good at keeping temp andsince I'm nolonger going with Bee shrimp 23-24C is something I should be ok with.

Where things stand now is I'm waiting on my TDS pen to arrive and also looking into the best supplementary feed. So far the best I've found is "Shirakura Ebi Dama Special" but ideally would like a feed with slightly lower protein count so any recommendations on feed would be welcomed too.


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## Jason Burk (27 Jan 2015)

Okay cool, which shrimp were you thinking about? 

You might have mentioned this already but are you going to put any fish in there? Which food you add can depend on if you have fish too and what they like to eat


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## Thrills24 (27 Jan 2015)

*TDS Reading is 337-339 ppm *

@Jason Burk  I'm not 100% sure about which fish. Currently I'm leaning towards glowlights but that could change.

Edit* I'm slightly confused about the TDS. I have had shrimp increase there numbers in what I presume to be the same tds range and after searching found people keeping shrimp successfully in a higher tds.


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## Jason Burk (27 Jan 2015)

Okay, well you'll obviously be feeding your glowlights so the shrimp will get some food thats dropped down to the bottom, and most tropical flake has protein in it of some sort. 
On top of that, id recommend with your shrimp, using vegetables. This is a once/twice a week thing, spinach and courgette works best for me, you just blanch it (e.g a slice of courgette or a couple spinach leaves) for about 5 minutes  
Mine have always preferred spinach over any other vegetable. 

Depending on how many shrimp you have and if they take to it, you can leave the vegetable piece in there for a couple days, if they aren't interested after a few hours best thing to do is take it out. 

I dont have fish, so in addition to the vegetables I feed, (and knowing how much my shrimp eat in a space of time) I also currently have as a food option: 
Mosura Graze
Mosura Bio Plus (for babies) 
Glasgarten Shrimp Dinner 
and Tetrawafer Mix from Tetra 

But I really dont feed them much a week at all. Its nothing like how often you feed fish, which is why with fish the shrimp will likely get lots of the flakes that fall to the floor, so remember to be careful in how much you give as shrimp specific food


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## Jason Burk (27 Jan 2015)

Id personally go for a fish that wont get as big, glowlights will get around 4cm, which means a bigger mouth than things like dwarf rasboras and tetras like neons - but they are really nice.


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## Jason Burk (27 Jan 2015)

In terms of your TDS, im not too sure how to work it out, and im not sure what mine is either, so apologies for that Thrills  You might have to see what x3nith says about that one, its something I need to learn

However what I can say is, im thankfully getting fantastic success with my mix of RO, Salty Shrimp minerals and Mosura BT-9, so that would be something I would recommend trying if you wanted to 

I know its sort of difficult to say because shrimp will eat dead shrimp - but ever starting to use this mix 4 months ago, Ive only noticed one dead shrimp, so I can definitely say that this is superior to my previous water - which was just treated tap water


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## Thrills24 (27 Jan 2015)

Hey again Jason

I've looked into glowlights and from what I understand they'll be fine with adult shrimp. I've also seen a few vids with glowlights and adult cherry sized shrimp. And the shrimp don't seem fretted Shrimplets being eaten is something I will work towards limiting in due course but that's a secondary concern. Selecting the best for my params so that the females get to a berried state 
is what I'm working towards with your help and others. 

I'll try blanched spinach. I've already bought some Indian Almond bark but wont be adding peat of minerals since my water is won't need it. I'm thinking that a densely planted setup (which is the setup I had where shrimp survived) may go some way to reduce shrimplet loss.


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## X3NiTH (27 Jan 2015)

My cherries in my main tank are subject to EI ferts, I've gone 4 weeks without a water change taking the TDS from around 170 to about 490 before WC, did they breed in this TDS it's hard to say as I don't see berried females that often in this tank because they are dead meat if a fish spots it, my Emperors actively hunt the shrimp down the back of the plants, the Glowlights just lunge at passing shrimp hoping for a mouthful (usually too slow), luckily the fish can't get under the bogwood as I think that's where all the berried females hide.

Likely you will be able to breed the shrimp with this TDS, if you have trouble you may have to shift to cutting the water with RO to reduce the TDS. If you have to go that far you would be just as well to set up a small shrimp only tank just so you can decant them over to your planted tank when the numbers grow (and they don't have to hide from fish), 12L do fine for me, small enough that you can use remineralised RO. You can get the RO from a local fish shop and then remineralise it to whatever you need it to be. 30%ish remineralised Water change maybe once a month, pure RO for topping up the evaporation.



As you can see it doesn't have to be complicated. All my cherry shrimp were bred in that tank over a few months, £15 tank from Pets@Home, a JBL air driven sponge filter, air pump and some Fluval Shrimp Stratum is the minimum here, a heater maybe needed (mine was rendered unnecessary because the ambient is usually about 19c so its switched of, it's sandwiching some used sponge filter to help transfer bacteria to the new sponge). To make it look a bit nicer I've added a Marimo ball or two, a bit of bogwood with some Java fern on it and a moss covered shrimp home, the black used filter pad is there also to help the new sponge filter out, I left it in when I noticed the shrimp loved grazing on it. A light above the tank is only necessary if there's green stuff to grow otherwise shrimp are quite happy eating in the dark.

Here's a picture from a few months later on and the tank is stuffed with cherries of all sort of colours! The big roots are Frogbit floating on the surface.





Here's a massive scrum over a piece of Ebi Dama, even in a packed tank I would feed this every now and again and not have them touch it which had me questioning its effectiveness as a food, then one day all of a sudden I put it in and it's pandamonium.



And when I reclaimed this shrimp tank for the crystals this lot went into the planted tank in one go.



Obviously the fish would go mental when this many shrimp got dumped into the tank so I did it after lights out and at the same time as feeding the fish with flake so they were at the surface, I then introduced the shrimp at substrate level through an opaque tube (the opaque bit is important so the fish don't see the shrimp in the tube and follow them all the way to the bottom where carnage will ensue).

It's either going to work for you in the planted tank or it isn't. If it doesn't work and you're determined to have a cleaning army then starting with a shrimp only breeding tank may get you there quicker. You will just have to give it some time, it will seem like nothing happens for ages then in a very short space of time the tank will look stuffed.


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## Thrills24 (28 Jan 2015)

@X3NiTH I think I have become quite inspired by your tank. Those pics are stunning and immediately makes me think "I WANT!" lol

I have a spare, bare bottom, 100L tank with a basic internal filter (seeded) which could be used for the purpose of breeding. I don't mind building numbers and transferring older males. I've also been reading on adjusting EI dosage particularly for shrimp tanks. I have decided on carbon rili or red rili shrimp as they appear to be the most forgiving breed. I'll also be adding some redmoor rootwood or mopani to provide additional cover. Are you feeding them regular Ebi Dama or Ebi Dama special? Also you have a ton of shrimp there, have you ever considered selling them?

Oh and did I mention those pics were stunning?


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## X3NiTH (28 Jan 2015)

It's Ebi Dama Special in the pics, ran out a couple of weeks ago after they took a liking to it so ordered more from Aquarium Plant Food, I bought some ordinary Ebi Dama to try it out and have been using that since last week, it's getting eaten down to nothing over a few days in my Anubia walled tank, it gets utterly mauled and disappears overnight if I put it in my main tank with all the cherries in there and it's being grazed on occasionally in my rescaped shrimp tank (the one in the above pics) but only ever one or two shrimp at a time for a bit then they wander off and graze on something else. Haven't opened the Special yet, I'll drop one in at the weekend and see how they respond to it after not having it for a few weeks. 

100L shrimp tank, wish I had the space for that! 

As to selling any, possibly, not sure.


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## Jason Burk (28 Jan 2015)

Thrills24 said:


> Hey again Jason
> 
> I've looked into glowlights and from what I understand they'll be fine with adult shrimp. I've also seen a few vids with glowlights and adult cherry sized shrimp. And the shrimp don't seem fretted Shrimplets being eaten is something I will work towards limiting in due course but that's a secondary concern. Selecting the best for my params so that the females get to a berried state
> is what I'm working towards with your help and others.
> ...



Oh yeah yeah glowlights are absolutely fine with adult shrimp, but those that arent bigger than around 5mm may be eaten, and any babies seen will definately be eaten unfortunately


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## Thrills24 (28 Jan 2015)

Jason Burk said:


> Oh yeah yeah glowlights are absolutely fine with adult shrimp, but those that arent bigger than around 5mm may be eaten, and any babies seen will definately be eaten unfortunately



As bad as this may sound, particularly in this thread, "some" shrimps not making it to full maturity is less of a concern and something I'd gladly accept if we can establish an adult population. But to aid the shrimplets I'll create a more densely planted (more hiding places) tank. If I can get to a stage where my female shrimp are berried I'll take that as a success attributed to ukaps and in particular those who've taken the time to give some advice in this thread. 



X3NiTH said:


> It's Ebi Dama Special in the pics, ran out a couple of weeks ago after they took a liking to it so ordered more from Aquarium Plant Food, I bought some ordinary Ebi Dama to try it out and have been using that since last week, it's getting eaten down to nothing over a few days in my Anubia walled tank, it gets utterly mauled and disappears overnight if I put it in my main tank with all the cherries in there and it's being grazed on occasionally in my rescaped shrimp tank (the one in the above pics) but only ever one or two shrimp at a time for a bit then they wander off and graze on something else. Haven't opened the Special yet, I'll drop one in at the weekend and see how they respond to it after not having it for a few weeks.
> 
> 100L shrimp tank, wish I had the space for that!
> 
> As to selling any, possibly, not sure.



Ebi Dama = Check
Indian Almond bark = Check
TDS Pen = Check

lol We could change the thread title to "help me shop" but I ordered ebi dama special earlier this evening. Your shrimp are piratically glowing so I figured it was a good choice.


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