# Some of my Shrimp...



## Piece-of-fish (1 Nov 2011)

Hello all, just wanted to share of some of my shrimp...
Hope you like them and apologies for blurry and contrast photos.

*Mr. Yellow*





*Mr. Blue Pearl*




*Mr. Golden Bee*




*Mr. Crystal A Red*




*Mr. Crystal SS Red*




*Mr. Crystal A Black*




*Mr. Crystal SS Black*




*Mr. Black Tiger Orange Eye Pirate*




I am glad shrimp keeping hobby is finally picking up in UK...
Cheers


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## ghostsword (1 Nov 2011)

wow, black tiger orange eye is just amazing!


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## Radik (1 Nov 2011)

Seen in person this weekend cool stuff.   Especially black tigers and CBS. Now make them do lot of love.


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## Gary Nelson (1 Nov 2011)

Stunning shrimp! I really like the blue pearl.


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## Piece-of-fish (1 Nov 2011)

Thannks guys.
Blue pearl is amongst my favourite although i love them all


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## spyder (1 Nov 2011)

Having come back to aquatics after a long break I thought I missed the shrimp boom a few years back. They are fascinating creatures to observe, almost more fun to watch than fish at times.

I only have cherries atm but plan on having CRS, Snowballs, Tigers, Blue pearls and OEBT's when I get my fish house project off the ground. There will be some tanks dedicated to shrimp.

Some nice looking shrimp there PoF. Give them a glass of wine, play some Barry White then send some shrimplets my way haha.


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## Alastair (1 Nov 2011)

Ha ha loved the glass of wine and barry white bit lol. 
Awesome mate and great pics. I love how the yellow contrasts with the greenery


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## Nelson (1 Nov 2011)

Drool.............


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## Piece-of-fish (1 Nov 2011)

nelson said:
			
		

> Drool.............


Hehe, you are the one who started all this back in the day by bringing me first cherries


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## Derek Tweedie (1 Nov 2011)

Very nice shrimps. I have a soft spot for the various tiger varieties on offer. I like the blue pearls too how are they to keep and breed?


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## Piece-of-fish (2 Nov 2011)

Blue pearl is Neocaridina species and is easy to keep and breed as normal cherries.


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## basil (2 Nov 2011)

All very pretty! I've never seen Blue Pearl shrimp other than photo's - they are so nice. Almost doesn't look real....are they really that blue??!!


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## Piece-of-fish (2 Nov 2011)

They are very nice and yes some females are that blue.


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## basil (4 Nov 2011)

pm sir...


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## LondonDragon (6 Nov 2011)

Now I have to get myself some of those black tigers  stunning shrimp.


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## Piece-of-fish (7 Nov 2011)

They are my favourite and got best accommodation as well.   
Although I do love them all. Was  big affair to spend so much money for shrimp in one go but so far the losses been less than I expected. I have lost all blue bees. Also almost all tigers and red tigers. Both red and tigers were in to tanks that had severe BBa outbreak and once I have moved the ones that survived all was good. Do not know for sure if that is related to bba.
Cheers.
I now got quite a lot berried blue pearls, seen one berried yellow, 2 berried ss crystal reds, one red tiger and one remaining blue bee. Have not seen blue bee for a while now though.
Fingers crossed.


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## hotweldfire (7 Nov 2011)

Mate, I think I mentioned this the other night, but the blue bees are weirdly shy shrimp. I had 4 originally and had assumed I lost all of them (hadn't seen one in 2 months). The other night saw one at the back of the tank looking healthy and happy. Then disappeared. Probably won't see another for a couple more months.


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## Radik (7 Nov 2011)

Ed's blue are not shy at all they have been all around substrate. I think you need more than 4 to make them feel secure.


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## Piece-of-fish (8 Nov 2011)

Are they so shy that fall dead and, smell turn red do not move and lie on the side. Just pretending   
Sorry, a bit of black humour. 
The tank was quite bare so i could see well what was happening. From 20 only 2 survived, one male supposedly and one berried female. Hope female is still around somewhere. They have a lot of cherry company though.


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## Lemsip (10 Nov 2011)

Very nice shrimp! New to the blue pearl too


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## Piece-of-fish (10 Nov 2011)

Thanks Lemsip...

I have finally forced myself to perform a water change after 3+ weeks   
Spotted a berried BTO   
Need to spend more time on them racks... Lazy me.


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## LondonDragon (10 Nov 2011)

I can always house those Black Tigers for you if you want


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## Piece-of-fish (11 Nov 2011)

If I manage to raise any babies you are more than welcome 
I have also installed some heaters in some of the tanks because the room is heated just with oil electrical heater. 
Set the heaters at 22 celsius to back the oil heater up.
Also tried to darken the room as tanks are by the window and some of them got quite a lot of diatoms due to excess light. Surprisingly no GDA or green water. I shall be ordering more various shrimp at the end of the month to increase stock levels.


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## ghostsword (11 Nov 2011)

Saw these shrimp yesterday and I can tell you that Edis has the most amazing shrimp I've ever seen! 

Very jealous of him! 


.


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## hotweldfire (12 Nov 2011)

Saw these shrimp (and nabbed a few) this week. Very nice. The black tigers are particularly stunning. Shame I don't have a tank to keep them.


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## Piece-of-fish (12 Nov 2011)

Thanks guys...
Good news I have spotted that remaining berried blue bee today. Hopefully the babies survive.
Interesting why all died but just 2 survived afterall.


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## ghostsword (12 Nov 2011)

Trully inspirational, one to follow for sure.

Edis also has two amazing scapes going on, so not really sure how he finds the Time for all of this.


.


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## Piece-of-fish (15 Nov 2011)

So I have received a TDS and PH pens today.  You dont want to hear the numbers   
Tap TDS 500
All tanks have akadama substrate
Shrimp tanks TDS around 340
PH at 7.3-7.5
So adults are ok but I dont think babies will be. I have managed to raise just 7 CBS before out of about 5 berried females.
Buying RO unit today and will have to adapt my motorcycle to carry 2x25l canisters to the office. Good that it is not far.
I do want to make it right so ready to struggle   
2 cycling tanks with florabase give TDS around 240 and PH at 6.9 I think high KH probably does not allow to drop PH further.

TDS in my big office tank is 600    due to mini landscape rock and exhausted akadama.
Ph is about 6.8 due to co2


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## Radik (15 Nov 2011)

Hah finally you do something about it  When I mixed RO/TAP 50/50 water and placed to tank with amazonia KH went to 0, GH3.3, PH 6.4 and TDS 110 (down from 200) so about right for CRS/CBS, so maybe same with colombo.

Without active soil I have to do around 1/4 TAP and rest RO to get KH2 GH5 and ph 6.4-6.5 with a bit of CO2.

Also do not measure hot or too cold tap water as your TDS will be measured incorrectly. Just normal room temperature.


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## Piece-of-fish (15 Nov 2011)

The interesting question is what ph will i get with RO and akadama mix. RO ph is on acidic side, right?
Also will try to get amazonia for wholesale price.
Anyways its a lot of money.
WIll it neutralize in the tank overtime?
I am also thinking about encreasing the number of tanks to about 30 maybe


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## a1Matt (15 Nov 2011)

Piece-of-fish said:
			
		

> RO ph is on acidic side, right?



RO is ph neutral.


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## Piece-of-fish (15 Nov 2011)

Hmm. Tried to google it couple days ago and some say it is acidic. 
I guess active soil might be the only way then or a bit of co2.
I shall try all possible ways to find out which works better and get experience. 
I am happy my crazy massive import went well otherwise i would be put off from shrimp keeping for a while   
At the moment I am loosing blue pearls to some reason. They seem to turn white and die in couple days one by one.
Might it be bacterial infection?


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## Radik (15 Nov 2011)

Just measured RO water and it is PH 6.45. So basically if you get CaSo4 + MgSo4 you get KH0 and some GH and TDS and good PH. Akadama should not affect water in any way.

Now copying from James' planted tanks web page I hope ho does not mind 
http://www.theplantedtank.co.uk/RO.htm

0.4g Calcium Chloride Dihydrate - skip
2.0g Calcium Sulphate Dihydrate - CaSo4
2.0g Magnesium Sulphate Heptahydrate MgSo4
0.7g Potassium Carbonate - skip
25 litres Water

The above solution gives:
24ppm Calcium
8ppm Magnesium
16ppm Potassium
7ppm Chloride - skip
GH=5
KH=1

So just skip the other salts except those two. Also some small traces are fine to add. But there is chelated (inactive) CU but anyway I believe it is totally harmless to any shrimp.

I am personally addicted to Co2 but to add co2 to 0KH would be difficult to control. But now I see even Rotala Walichii is doing great in no Co2 with amazonia tank but low light so I might reconsider putting Co2 everywhere


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## Piece-of-fish (15 Nov 2011)

So where is the truth now


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## Radik (15 Nov 2011)

Oh no turning white is bacterial issue I guess. But look you still do better than my I lost 400 E you a bit less 
You should remove any which already turned milky white it is guaranteed dead. I've seen you had quite a lot of them in there and you had no water change for long that could cause issue.

There is possible rescue plant JBL Furanol 2 from Germany ebay. Poeple from Germany using it often for bacterial cures with shrimps or some Sera Bacter. I tablet is for 20L or you can do drip method 1 tablet to 1 L and 30 minutes bath. It will turn tank nasty yellow though and will kill all good and bad bacteria, might help might not.


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## Radik (15 Nov 2011)

Piece-of-fish said:
			
		

> So where is the truth now



That RO was fresh which I made today afternoonm, if there was some CO2 as there is always CO2 in TAP it might turn neutral when CO2 evaporates  Also I do not use DI resin so my RO is not 100% but maybe 98% only.


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## Piece-of-fish (15 Nov 2011)

Thanks Radik. 
I do not want to start with medication yet so will see how it goes and let the shrimp fight it naturally.
Regarding RO units.
Are they pretty much the same or can anyone recommend something in particular. I mean 3 stage.
Would getting 4 stage give me any benefits rather than less waste?


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## Radik (15 Nov 2011)

Edis, I am using 3 stages only and my TDS after RO is just 12. I can live with that. For 100% RO you need DI resin it is some sand or what which is last stage of filtration but requires to be changed often, I can't be bothered with that.

I got my RO unit from ebay for around 40 and it is portable unit 100Gallon/day. But I had to purchase water pump for 55 or something as I have low pressure from TAP. If you have low pressure, your filtration result may be really poor (let's say you will filter only 70% of possible 98%) and it will be also dripping instead of running.

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/3-STAGE-AQUAR ... 3a6cb3ca11

and pump I use
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/RO-100gpd-boo ... 1e683c7829

100GPD will fill my 25L bucket in 2 hours so 50GPD in 4 hours.


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## basil (15 Nov 2011)

Piece-of-fish said:
			
		

> Hmm. Tried to google it couple days ago and some say it is acidic.
> I guess active soil might be the only way then or a bit of co2.
> I shall try all possible ways to find out which works better and get experience.
> I am happy my crazy massive import went well otherwise i would be put off from shrimp keeping for a while
> ...



Had same problem with my colony of around 80 snowballs. All did the same, one by one turned white then popped it. Really strange as they were doing just great until i added around a dozen new blood shrimps from another source. Pretty sure it was bacterial, but i couldn;t stop it from wiping out the whole lot.........  

Tried, isolating, 50% water changes, almond leaves etc etc but couldn't stop the rot.


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## Radik (15 Nov 2011)

Yep, one shrimp colony killed another due carrying different bacterias. Next time you have to quarantine new shrimps and get them used to your water and bacteria by swapping 2% of tank volume between tanks for 15 days every day. This is described on shrimpnow under acclimatization knowledge base. Simply as you would do whole new setup with some plants and no animals inside.

Same happened to me when I bought tigers and stripes and mixed them together after 2 weeks just 1 stripes survivor  Or when I added new sakuras and CRS to existing sakuras.. all new sakuras died and CRS died.


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## a1Matt (15 Nov 2011)

Piece-of-fish said:
			
		

> So where is the truth now



 

The low TDS throws off any ph readings.  So while the meter may read that it is acidic, it isn't.  I can not recall the science behind it at the moment (well, not comprehensively enough to explain it succinctly ).


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## Piece-of-fish (15 Nov 2011)

Thanks guys. You scare me to death with these new old shrimp stories. I am planning to spend another fortune in couple weeks time and mix with existing shrimp.


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## Radik (15 Nov 2011)

If you are getting from same breeder and going to mix his previous shrimps with new shrimps I assume they will be from same colony as previous then they should be fine. Sometimes you just don't know...


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## hotweldfire (15 Nov 2011)

Seachem paraguard Ed. That's how I beat the bacterial infection I had. Extremely effective. Now using it as a quarantine measure. Dumping on those blue pearls now I've read this thread. Shrimpnow people use it at full dose for seven days then water change. Please note that it is NOT recommended for use with inverts by Seachem but I and others have used it without losses. In fact, I was losing a shrimp every other day and as soon as I started using it no more losses.

Have also heard good things about Furanol.

Got my RO unit off a German ebay seller. Also cost about £40. Unfortunately it takes me about 12 hours to get 25L out of the thing. Mainly I think because half leaks out of the tap connector. Anyone knows how to connect an RO unit to a hozelock connector let me know?


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## Radik (15 Nov 2011)

There is adapter TAP>adapter on tap with Hozelock>Adapter to RO>RO unit

something like this 
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Tap-Adaptor-d ... 35b6b1bcf6

Mine looks different and was cheaper but could not find it quickly but this one should work. Try to search over it.
12hour is very long even for the slowest RO unit available.


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## a1Matt (16 Nov 2011)

Radik said:
			
		

> 12hour is very long even for the slowest RO unit available.



My RO unit took that long to produce 24l of water before I changed the membrane and filters.
Now it takes 4 or 5 hours.  Other factors are also involved; water pressure, TDS, temp, etc.


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## Piece-of-fish (16 Nov 2011)

Brrr, that is long. Will consider buying the pump then. Thanks all for the input.
Hopefully more shirmp will be available cheaper sooner or later as i am not giving up   
I have seen several blue pearl babies 0.5cm and few just born ones today.
Will put new stock of blues into other tank.
Maybe the different blues caused the deaths who knows. I got them from 2 people at the same time 
First expensive shrimp postage went well today to a happy new owner and some SS Crystal going tomorrow. 
Fingers crossed.


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## basil (16 Nov 2011)

Hi, have you got a price list and are you selling on here?


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## hotweldfire (17 Nov 2011)

Didn't want to hijack this thread asking for RO advice so started another one. Matt/Radik if you've got a minute advice would be much appreciated:

http://www.ukaps.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=51&t=18581

And anyone else who can help out of course.


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## madlan (19 Nov 2011)

I used RO with akadama for a few months, no effect on pH.
The Co2 plus remineralisation powder kept it faily stable (6.8) with hardly any swing at night with Co2 off.
I kept the KH at 2 though as I was worried about a pH crash!


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## Piece-of-fish (29 Nov 2011)

Few things to update. Blue pearls are definitely infected cause continue to die slowly. Got just few left but got quite a few babies in there.  Was adviced to kill all suspicious ones as the most danger is when they die and get eaten by healthy fish. 
Got some SS red babies from last thursday which are still alive. Not too many though. Ph is neutral.
Got red tiger babies also and few yellow babies.

Got RO unit last week and water canisters to transport water from home to office.
Bought 10 bags of ADA aquasoil to replace some akadama and to go into new setups. Ordered about 14 more tanks 
Was adviced Malaya being the best for shrimp as it lower ph more and leaches a bit less amonia. Got 6 bags of it and 4 of new aquasoil.

Received new stock of shrimp yesterday. Most fancy once high grade snow whites and SSS CBS.
Some more blue bees.
Got quite a lot of yellow and blue pearls. Put half of blues pearls in Antlers Shmantlers scape at home.
Going to spend half of the night to acclimatize them now.
Getting more crazy each day


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## madlan (29 Nov 2011)

Black tigers are doing great 

I've just started with some paraguard too as I was losing a shrimp a day (after mixing shrimps I think - bacterial?)


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## Piece-of-fish (29 Nov 2011)

Nice to hear.
Hmm, I will have to mix quite few now. Will see how it goes.


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## Radik (29 Nov 2011)

Ed if you can mix slowly.. 2% water between tanks for 2 weeks.. if you can not then just prey. But if they are from same colony as from same breeder they should be fine. Will talk tomorrow...

Madlan let us know how is it going with paraguard. There is also other med called sera bactopur which should work.


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## Piece-of-fish (30 Nov 2011)

I will take my chances. They are from the same breeder but could be from different local breeders actually.
Fingers crossed.


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## a1Matt (30 Nov 2011)

Nice to see you continuing to expand 



			
				Piece-of-fish said:
			
		

> Few things to update. Blue pearls are definitely infected cause continue to die slowly. Got just few left but got quite a few babies in there.  Was adviced to kill all suspicious ones as the most danger is when they die and get eaten by healthy fish.



Do you know of a specific method to spot if they are diseased (if so I will scrutinise my blue pearl colony to see if that was the source), or do you just remove them when they look peaky?


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## Piece-of-fish (30 Nov 2011)

I remove the ones that look suspiciously white. Anyways there only 5-8 adults left in that tank.


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## Radik (30 Nov 2011)

Matt, die off one two shrimps every day or every other day.. then discoloration or milky white color or weird color of the shrimp, sometimes hiding do not feed in day or sometimes just behave like nothing and die off day by day.


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## a1Matt (30 Nov 2011)

Cheers guys, always nice to know how other people are managing their colonies.
I use the same method to see if something is amiss.  Although I tend to not cull milky shrimp (as a general rule of thumb, not strict rule).


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## Piece-of-fish (1 Dec 2011)

All new shrimps been acclimatized succesfully.
Seen at least five SS red babies in Akadama tank today. 1 week old already.
Water parameters in the tank temp 21c, TDS 360, PH 7.3

Have 2 cycled tanks with colombo florabase. Have put 4 SSS CBS in one and 20 SS CRS in the other.
All doing well so far.
Parameters here:
Temp 21c, TDS 280, PH 6.4
Still using only tap water.
Emtying 3 tanks now and will put ADA Malaya in there.


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## hotweldfire (6 Dec 2011)

Re: the bacterial infection thing. I had this a few months ago. Reckon it was introduction of some new shrimp that did it and paraguard that cured it. Haven't had a loss for more than 2 months now. However, that's only part of the story.

In terms of the cause, as I said, I think the trigger was some new shrimp. Either some relatively high grade CRS/CBS from a shop that doesn't necessarily have the best quarantine practices (Matt probably knows where I'm talking about) or some wild shrimp from an online retailer. However, that might have been coincidental.

I think these (potentially lethal) bacterial populations are always present in the shrimp tank. I reckon they become a problem when

- their population builds up too much
- shrimp are stressed and therefore immunity is down

Part of the cause for my outbreak was poor hygiene. Because the tank was so heavily planted I'd stopped vacuuming the substrate. That's probably fine on the whole but some of the moss was harbouring huge amounts of crud. Using a pipette to "fluff" my fissidens, for example, resulted in huge clouds of dirt. More importantly I never bothered to clean the mechanical filtration in my eheim. When I did look in there the water was literally black.

My shrimp were likely somewhat stressed too (down to dodgy CO2 reg). I had also, no doubt, added too many shrimp, of too many species, from too many different sources.

I now use paraguard as a quarantine measure - I add 3 days dose whenever I put new shrimp in. No substitute for proper quarantine I know but I don't have a spare tank for that. 

My main concern is that the bacteria will build up a resistance to the stuff. Radik - you know if the other treatments have a different active ingredient?


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## Radik (6 Dec 2011)

Yes there is always some bacteria making issues. I used JBL furanol 2 but I think too late in process so all shrimps died in that tank. You must strictly follow dozing regime if you under-doze they may develop resistance. There is also some Sera bactopur available from Germany. Funny you can not buy any of this here but they will send it to you from Germany. Also JBL furanol should not be sold anymore because of EU laws well you can still get it so grab while you can 

So you should stop using bactopur this way and rather get some 14L Clearseal nano as quarantine.


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## FishBeast (8 Dec 2011)

I am glad that you solved your problem. I personally have lossed alot of shrimp over the years. I always acclimate them over hours now and not minutes.

Once had a bacterial problem like you did. The shrimp would literally glow in the dark once they died.

I would love to see some more pictures when you geta  chance.


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## Piece-of-fish (24 Dec 2011)

An update. So I suppose almost all SS red babies made it in almost neutral ph and TDS around 400. Female is berried again   
We are counting 20 babies which are 1 month old already and 1cm big. Grades range from A, S, SS and if we are lucky we have one which cold be flowerhead   
Lots of blue pearl babies, some red tiger babies, berried yellow, tiger and snow white. 
Starting to utilize RO now, cycling 4 ADA soil tanks, 3 malaya and 1 new aquasoil.
Building more racks   
Getting lots more shrimp in mid/late January...


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## basil (24 Dec 2011)

Piece-of-fish said:
			
		

> An update. So I suppose almost all SS red babies made it in almost neutral ph and TDS around 400. Female is berried again
> We are counting 20 babies which are 1 month old already and 1cm big. Grades range from A, S, SS and if we are lucky we have one which cold be flowerhead
> Lots of blue pearl babies, some red tiger babies, berried yellow, tiger and snow white.
> Starting to utilize RO now, cycling 4 ADA soil tanks, 3 malaya and 1 new aquasoil.
> ...



You got it real bad!! Glad to hear shrimplets surviving.....must be something dead right! Well done


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## Westyggx (24 Dec 2011)

Nice ed! Got any pics?


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## Mark Evans (25 Dec 2011)

Well done Ed   I'm still on the lookout for my baby shrimp. They're there somewhere, but in 360L i'm sure they're still hiding and growing until they feel safe.


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