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Amano shrimp breeding project bis

Nice one - I’ve never seen them with that orange colouration. You’ve done really well to breed that many, any chance you can fully outline your system for breeding them when you get a spare moment?
I've posted about it somewhere on the forums, maybe even in this thread. But essentially follow any guide on the internet and then I found the babies essentially thrive on neglect. The more I messed about changing water etc, the more of them perished. The most successful batch I had was when I just left them alone for 5 weeks or so.. The warmer the water the faster they grow, also they will be fine just growing out in the green water, so you don't have to feed at all... Just keep the air pump running on high...

Good luck!

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The warmer the water the faster they grow, also they will be fine just growing out in the green water
100% agreed, just don't mess with the parameters, keep them relatively stable and ALWAYS have some spare of salt water algae (aka green water) culture at hand. If the original get exhausted for some reason and will die, you can quickly feed/rebuild again with a new one.
 
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This looks like an interesting discussion to read through.

Im pondering a brackish setup mainly for Ghost Shrimp (Palaemonetes paludosus) which we can get over here as feeders for just $.25 each. I've found some conflicting information about their care. Apparently they need brackish conditions to survive long-term.
 
Nice one - I’ve never seen them with that orange colouration. You’ve done really well to breed that many, any chance you can fully outline your system for breeding them when you get a spare moment?
They are pretty much amano. Mine also turned red like this and kept dying. Could be stress or the dredded rust disease. Red coloration is usually an immune system response.
 
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So not only did I have to pause the project but the tanks ended up becoming holding tanks for some of my plant I had in the 90cm but also for many plants coming from a friend's tank that decided to stop the hobby. Both the adult and juvenile tanks are full with plants until I can rescape my main 90cm tank. I had to put all my ember tetras in there as well. I also inherited 4 ottos, 2 guppies and 2 bristlenose plecos, +40 horn nerites (which I gave away). To that I was also given, 1 Oase Biomaster 600, 1 CrazyStone CS-1400 filter, 1 CO2 3Kg tank, 50kg+ of rocks, 1 Oase skimmer...

There is no way I can monitor the amanos now with all this plant mass.
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I found the problem. You need to raise KH. I did raise mine to around 3KH after water change last week and it turns out I have 3 amano alive left and they came out and are eating. There seems to be one male and two females, so I shall rebuild my amano army :D

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Out of curiosity, how can you conclusively say it's the KH? Usually KH is not really a parameter that is known to affect them.
 
I've posted about it somewhere on the forums, maybe even in this thread. But essentially follow any guide on the internet and then I found the babies essentially thrive on neglect. The more I messed about changing water etc, the more of them perished. The most successful batch I had was when I just left them alone for 5 weeks or so.. The warmer the water the faster they grow, also they will be fine just growing out in the green water, so you don't have to feed at all... Just keep the air pump running on high...

Good luck!

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How do you go about managing to keep the water that green - any tips?
 
Out of curiosity, how can you conclusively say it's the KH? Usually KH is not really a parameter that is known to affect them.
I'd say it makes sense as roughly 40-50% of shrimp's exoskeleton is made of CaCO3 so by raising kH we are supplying more of it.
 
I'd say it makes sense as roughly 40-50% of shrimp's exoskeleton is made of CaCO3 so by raising kH we are supplying more of it.
I am no shrimp specialist but my understanding is that the primary function of KH is to maintain/stabilize PH levels but not to provide CO3 to shrimps. If you have a buffering substrate or that your PH remains constant by other means KH plays no more of a role compared to simply adding Ca. I might be wrong but that's what I have read all over the place.
 
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I'd say it makes sense as roughly 40-50% of shrimp's exoskeleton is made of CaCO3 so by raising kH we are supplying more of it.

Most shrimp breeders seem to use RO water and 0dKH, and I keep my shrimp in 0dKH tanks without issue too. I know they need a decent level of Ca in the water column, but wasn't aware of the need for CO3 - perhaps they are able to source it from elsewhere?
 
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I am no shrimp specialist but my understanding is that the primary function of KH is to maintain/stabilize PH levels but not to provide CO3 to shrimps. If you have a buffering substrate or that your PH remains constant by other means KH plays no more of a role compared to simply adding Ca. I might be wrong but that's what I have read all over the place.

You are correct. Shrimps needs Calcium (and Mg for that matter to help absorb the Ca), that is what matters - their exoskeleton is largely made of Calcium. They can get that from many sources such as CaSO4, CaCl2, CaCO3 etc. and food - in nature it is indeed often from CaCO3, but its the Ca that matters for building the exoskeleton not the CO3. What makes up the KH or Alkalinity (buffering capacity) is the CO3 bit whether it comes of KHCO3, K2CO3 or CaCO3 it doesn't matter. While some dependence on stock and adaptability applies, shrimps can cope with pretty wide swings in pH as long as it wont go really low (below say mid/high pH 5) or happens really fast, so often pretty much no or very low buffering capacity is needed even in CO2 injected tanks. In my own shrimp tank (a rag tag team of Crystal/Bee, Cherry and recently Tiger shrimps) my KH is ~0.5, GH 5.0-5.5. pH ~6.3.

Cheers,
Michael
 
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Add few drops of nanochloropsis and blast the water with air and light 24/7 for a week or so. Also the higher the temperature the faster things happen. 25c is a sweet spot for me.

Where do you source the Nanochloropsis? I've seen some pre-packaged products like those from Reefphyto. Does the Nanochloropsis need salt water to grow, or will achieve the same greening in fresh water? Finally do you add any other ferts to promote the growth?
 
Where do you source the Nanochloropsis? I've seen some pre-packaged products like those from Reefphyto. Does the Nanochloropsis need salt water to grow, or will achieve the same greening in fresh water? Finally do you add any other ferts to promote the growth?
I got it from eBay last time. I just use RO water and aquarium salt (I believe Tetra) that already has additives in it.

Something like this - you only need a few drops, last time I got like 50ml tiny bottle and didn't use half of it.

Link
 
Where do you source the Nanochloropsis? I've seen some pre-packaged products like those from Reefphyto. Does the Nanochloropsis need salt water to grow, or will achieve the same greening in fresh water? Finally do you add any other ferts to promote the growth?
I can partially answer that. You need salt water, full salt preferably. Nanochloropsis is not a fresh water algae.

You guys are lucky to have access to those phytoplankton. Here it's just impossible other than going to the sea or paying an inordinate amount of money: 100USD for 10ml. No way in this life I would pay for that.
 
Could you not invest in it, produce a large culture, and then sell off some 1 litre bottles of it locally?
No one would buy it. You can easily buy non-viable phytoplankton here quite cheap and that's what most if not all reef tank keepers use as well as actual shrimp (for human consumption) farms. Thais are not very DIY/complicated and prefer to buy ready to use products. One example is I only know 1 person here who is timidly getting into DIY ferts and I can tell you I know most people in the hobby here. They all buy pre-made ferts even those who have many tanks and I can tell you I have tried to spread the word for several years.
 
No one would buy it. You can easily buy non-viable phytoplankton here quite cheap and that's what most if not all reef tank keepers use as well as actual shrimp (for human consumption) farms. Thais are not very DIY/complicated and prefer to buy ready to use products. One example is I only know 1 person here who is timidly getting into DIY ferts and I can tell you I know most people in the hobby here. They all buy pre-made ferts even those who have many tanks and I can tell you I have tried to spread the word for several years.

Sounds like a new "Hanuman Opti-Ferts" product range is just waiting to happen there then!
 
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