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How Long Will Shrimp Survive in post?

That's the beauty of these creatures, lots of fun to watch. Bare minimum setup, I actually didn't spend anything I had all the bits lying around and they don't mind me being away for a few days working. When I bred fish one missed feed would wipe them out as their stomachs were so small. On a strict rule of one tank at home with the missus but I can keep my shrimp at work in my office 😉

This is my current home project...
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new setup by AWB70, on Flickr

It did look like this before I moved house and stripped it down.
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Before strip down by AWB70, on Flickr

I know, out of control eh :crazy: No-scaping what so ever

The plants and rock for my shrimp tank came from there so total spend so far £12.00 on the shrimp and £3.00 on the food today.
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shrimp tank by AWB70, on Flickr
 
When I first got my yellow shrimp, a couple of them molted on the day I got them. I think this is pretty normal behaviour. I hope your shrimp are doing well and glad they arrived safely.
 
Thanks, no doubt I'll be coming back here regular on my new hobby of shrimping 🙂 I might even journal my new house tank now that I think about it. It's only a couple of month old and still a work in progress. Never actually did a journal before! Maybe I can get some advice from the ppl in here on best way to get some shape about it and stop it turning into the duck pond my old tank was. 😀

Most of all looking forward to watching my critters develop and possibly even breed! Two of my favourite parts of the hobby is creating life in my tanks and the other is having a plant that is barely alive and watch it take over the tank. Two sure signs that you're doing something right.
 
Seen seven 7 to day with a debatable 8 :thumbup: Maybe wasn't such a good idea having this tank at work, I've spent all the time since the light came on counting shrimp 😀 It's a bit like queenie with the playing cards. Soon as you see one it moves to where you last seen another. Then they disappear behind a rock and what looks like a different one comes out the other side. 😵
 
These boys would give easy carbo a run for its money. Very effective algae control. Check out the picture of the stone compared to the previous pic. Stripped it right down in only a few days.

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IMG-20121015-00083 by AWB70, on Flickr
 
Found one of my largest berried up females dead this morning 🙁 not sure what's went on there. I managed to count 7 still about so with the dead one that would have been 8 so a possibility that the initial 2 moults I thought I'd seen were also corpses. Difference was this corpse was still slightly pink and still had the eggs on so pretty sure it wasn't moult.

I live in hope, no other shrimp seem stressed or anything so I guess it's just been one of them things.
 
Sorry to hear that 🙁 Keep going though, tank looks good, and shrimp are just amazing to keep.

Also - WOW at the rock. I thought you'd bleached it at first. That's amazing!
 
When I first got shrimp they died off at a rate of about one every 3-4 days. It turned out my TDS was extremely low at 45 out the tank, Gh was also too low at 3. You should maybe invest in a tds meter, they can be bought quite cheaply on ebay and get an API gh kh test too. If they aren't right you can add GH booster(aquariumplantfood.co.uk), or use RO water to cut your tap water if your tds too high. My shrimp died even after I'd sorted the tds because my gh was too low lacking calcium and magnesium. I'd been adding saltyshrimp to raise the tds but this doesn't contain calcium so didn't completely solve the problem hence the gh booster.
 
Thanks for the heads up. I add a pinch of equilibrium to the tank when I change the water but it's no exact science. I have KH/GH/Calcium test kits so I'll have a little check just out of curiosity.
 
Did some tests this morning, my GH/KH was very low and calcium below 20ppm according to my nutrafin test kits. That wasn't surprising as the tap water round my way is pretty much devoid of minerals. I never get a reading for hardness from the tap. In my main tank it's not a problem as the rocks in there cause my KH to rise and I add mag sulf on every water change.
I thought adding a pinch in such a small tank like my shrimp tank (5 Gall) would be enough but obviously not. I'll start adding maybe a quarter of teaspoon of equilibrium at water change from now and see where that gets me. For now I'll just keep adding a little bit everyday for rest of week to gradually bring it up.

I think I'll also invest in a tds pen as well, any recommendations?
 
You can pick up a HM TDS pen for £15 from eBay. Just search 'HM TDS Pen'.

If your willing to pay more, get A 'Hanna 98129'. Which measures conductivity, TDS and PH.

There's an auction on one on eBay now,
Just seach for it on eBay, expect to pay <£50 for a second hand one though.
 
Thanks I will look into it. I also have a Hannah PH test meter, bit of an ornament at the moment I could never get a stable reading and after a while thought how much do I need to know the PH :| It also needed calibrated which sort of defeated the purpose of having the PH meter. I got it to save on test ph test kits but still needed one for my drop checker then need calibration fluid for the pen. I think the batteries may need changed in it which could prevent readings fluctuating so wildly. I had a theory that I could use my 4dkh solution to calibrate it as this should be 7.0 or neutral ph but not sure how effective that would be. So anyway back to TDS 🙂 do these also need calibrated at some point? Also I'm a bit confused as to what they measure, considering the amount of dissolved salts in the tank how do you know what it is measuring if it is giving you a total which could be made up of different salts?
 
Just seach for it on eBay, expect to pay <£50 for a second hand one though.
Click to expand...

Been doing a bit of searching about pens and calibrating, one youtube video says that the electrode last between 18 and 24 months so buying a second hand one could have risks depending on its age.
 
Sorry to throw something else into the mix, but deaths to shrimp freshly introduced to a tank is quite likely to be bacterial related. Drop some almond or dried banana leaf in there to help with this. Loads on eBay from various sellers. Cherries are very tough and I'd be surprised if it was your parameters that were killing them. 🙂
 
AverageWhiteBloke said:
Just seach for it on eBay, expect to pay <£50 for a second hand one though.
Click to expand...

Been doing a bit of searching about pens and calibrating, one youtube video says that the electrode last between 18 and 24 months so buying a second hand one could have risks depending on its age.
Click to expand...

Believe it's got replaceable sensors?
HM do a Decent Ph pen too with replaceable sensors think its called the HM PH-80 ?
 
Sorry to throw something else into the mix, but deaths to shrimp freshly introduced to a tank is quite likely to be bacterial related. Drop some almond or dried banana leaf in there to help with this. Loads on eBay from various sellers. Cherries are very tough and I'd be surprised if it was your parameters that were killing them. 🙂
Click to expand...

Thanks for the advice, I've never heard of that before. To be fair I'm not really looking at the water parameters as being responsible for the death which could have had many reasons. More thinking about long term health and the minerals for shell development. If the rest of the shrimp were displaying any signs of stress I would be more concerned about the parameters but so far they all seem fairly happy and eating.

I was expecting out of the 10 I got with the stress of travelling and change of water conditions combined with this being a fairly new set up some mortalities. If it was to carry on I will have to look a bit deeper into it.

What does the Almond or dried banana leaf do then? New one to me that.
 
Almond leaves and the like leech antibacterial tannins into the water, they can also bring the Ph down slightly in very soft water.

Generally, it just conditions the water. And people have great success with it. I have both leaves and Teabags in my tank/filter in the CRS tank.

Often after adding, you'll find a few moults the next day, showing they are partial to the new conditions.
They'll even eat the leaves once it degrades a bit too. Just leave the leaves in there till its just the stem left!
 
Ahh, a bit like blackwater extract I get it. May be a stupid question but what if I was just to dip a tea bag in there for a while until some colour came running out then took it out?
 
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