All Activity

Welcome to the forum, I hope you find lots of useful information here that will assist you in your new hobby! We look forward to readng about your progress and feel free to ask/post on this topic as much, and when you please.

Hi all! My name is Aedan Norris, and I just joined this forum. I am very happy to be a part of the community and to share my interests in the world of aquaristics. I am a novice aquarist and my passion for fish and the underwater world is just beginning to blossom. I have a small aquarium at home and am fascinated by the variety of beautiful fish and plants that can be kept in an aquarium. My current project is to create a planted aquarium with an emphasis on low-growing plants and scenic rocks. I am also interested in learning about and breeding different species of fish, especially those that peacefully coexist in the aquarium community. I am here to share my accomplishments, ask questions, and get valuable advice from experienced aquarists. I'm sure your community has a lot of knowledge and experience to share, and I look forward to your support and help in my aquarium journey. I look forward to interacting with you and learning new things about the world of aquaristics. Thank you so much for welcoming me and for welcoming me into your community! Best wishes, Aedan Norris.

@DanDan, welcome to the forum. Where are you located?

Anyone know where I can get some of those snails?

Tap water TDS is 235 after some calculation it seems that I am getting a 97% rejection rate which is not to bad. I'm getting 6 TDS for my RO unit which is leading me to believe that it could be from the RO membrane though I am running dual RO membrane to help the RO to waste water ratio and dual sediment filters which might be overkill haha.

I would also agree that it is an African cichlid. For apistogramma, I normally let the parents raise the fry until the female starts becoming aggressive towards the male. Only then do I separate the male. From my experience apistogramma fry can eat BBS right away. I've never had fry that we too small to eat BBS. There are a few smaller apistorgrammas like the psammophila which may be an exception.

Definitely. Old RO membrane will let some TDS through. What TDS do you get out of the Tap?

Thanks for the reply. Forgot to mention that this will be for a Caridina shrimp tank. I may have to change the RO membrane and see if that help with the TDS.

Hi @JMo welcome to the forum. You should try to achieve TDS of 0, and it is possible. it depends on your RO Filter, which might have more than just the resin filter. Mine, for example, is a 3 stage RO filter, that produces 0 TDS RO water (when the filters are new). It can also depend on the tap water. If the source water was really high in TDS to start with, the filter might not be able to remove it all. I would only use this in a pinch and for short term since adding TDS to the tank will eventually cause an imbalance overtime.

Hello, I have a question regarding TDS. When making R/O water, should I try to achieve a TDS of 0 using DI resin. From what I can find online most R/O membrane only remove 96-99% TDS therefore the final output of TDS will be anywhere from 3-6 TDS. Is it acceptable to have a 96-99% rejection rate with a TDS of 3-6 without using DI resin.

Hi - those are dwarf west African cichlids, most likely a Pelvicachromis Pulcher variety. Apistogramma are South American. The only way to ensure the babies survive are to isolate the parents in the community tank OR remove all other fish inhabitants to another tank. Not to worry if you lose the babies, if they have done it once, chances are they will breed once again if they lose this brood. The pair will benefit from having a tank to themselves so they can breed and bring up the babies without losing them to predators.

Live, newly hatched baby brine shrimp !! Feed them asap, the look big enough for BBS now. And I mean NOW. It only take 2-3 days before they starve if there is no food for them.

OK Not in Australia but not much point starting a new topic at this point. A friend went on holiday last week, and when he returned his Apistogramma pair had produced babies. He had done a large 50% water change before he went away so I assume that triggered it as it hasn't happened before, first batch! A photo of the babies and the dad keeping an eye on them, they are only a couple of days old and at the bottom of the photo, very difficult to see, I think there are 6-8 maybe; They are in a community tank at the moment and the dad is doing a sturdy job of protecting them. If they do survive I will probably take a couple for my still empty old shrimp tank, but a bit too early to set that up at the moment as I don't know how likely it is that they will survive? Any advise on keeping/raising these will be much appreciated. ps. My betta is still doing well.

I don't see anything of concern with the water parameters. As long as it remains stable, there isn't much we can do there. Don't do anything to the water until you see Nitrates at 5 or TDS at 160 (whichever comes first). That means no water changes. The only other advice I can give is to maybe increase protein in the food. Try frozen blood worms every other feed along with the regular Dennerle and BacterAE. Should be fairly simple to include in the feeding regime. This form of protein is severely lacking in shrimp food. Meaty protein is not the same as soy protein which is used a lot in shrimp food. If they go nuts for frozen bloodworms, you know that is something they are lacking in the diet.

I use CO2 in all my tanks to get it to around 35ppm. Plants in that tank are all grown by me from invitro. Fert I'm using is the nilocg shrimp specific one. 1. All the tanks are the same. pH is around 6.0 could be lower due to ADA soil. TDS 130, nitrate 0, nitrite 0, ammonia is the typical not really 0 but not anywhere near dark enough to be 0.25ppm. All tanks are unheated since they're all shrimp only tanks, and I live in California. 2. They get the Dennerle shrimp food and BactarAE. 3. I don't use Seiryu for that reason. I only use dragon stone in all my tanks.

Sorry to hear you are having this problem. Generally CRS are usually 'easier' to keep than the taiwan bee types so it is a little odd! Are you using C02 in the other tanks as that can cause issues with keeping shrimp? Can you test nitrite/nitrate as well as ammonia, algae returning can indicate an imbalance causing a new cycle (maybe due to the dead shrimps) is happening? Was everything (inc shrimp) bought from a reliable source. I assume this tank was set up separately from the others and at a later date? Could the plants have come from somewhere that uses pesticides? Are you using fertilizers? Is there anything else you are using that is different in/with this problem tank over the other tanks (CO2/ferts/other)? I assume you use the same water source and prep with all the tanks so that should be ok. As JayC, can you test the PH and TDS, rock can alter these drastically. Can you attach any photos?

It's possible, but I never jump to bacteria as a cause in the first instance. It's usually water parameters as a main culprit. And maybe missing nutrients in their food as the second. 1) You have given us 2 water parameters GH and KH, but neglect to list the other parameters. Can we have pH, TDS, nitrate and Temperature of this tank? 2) What are you feeding the CRS? 3) Since this tank is an Iwagumi tank, I assume you will have some form of rock in it, like a Seiryu stone. I would highly recommend removing all rocks from the tank to see if it makes any significantly noticeable difference to the shrimps health. Yes, I know it will ruin the Iwagumi style, but we want to find the best for the shrimp's health first. 4) related to question3 above - how quickly does GH and KH rise after a water change? The Seiryu rock, if you are indeed using seiryu, reacts in low pH water.

@Kameaux it can depend on the type of shrimp. For Caridina shrimp, you can expect roughly around 20 shrimplets (rough estimate) per female, per clutch of eggs . For Neocaridina, you can expect roughly 25 (rough estimate) per female, per clutch of eggs. On average they can hold eggs twice a year. They maybe able to carry 5-6 clutches in their short lifetime. <- This is a gut feel count only. I have not sat around counting how many clutches my shrimps have carried over their lifetime. This does not account for survival rates in the first 2 weeks after they hatch. The first 2 weeks, I find, are the most critical for their survival. The availability of food the shrimplets can eat is a major factor in their survival. Of course, the environmental factors are also important like water parameters and temperature. I will let you do the math based on how many females you have. The males are not a factor. 1 males can fertilise several females. So the ratio of male to female in a tank should favour the female shrimps, if you want to maximise breeding rates.

I have four shrimp tanks, but for the life of me cannot figure out what's wrong with one particular tank. All my tanks are high-tech planted tanks with a mixture of ADA V1 and Stratum, and my water is extremely soft (comes out of tap around 2gh and 1-2kh add GH+ to get to between 5-6). All of them are caridina tanks (blue bolt, black galaxy pinto, CRS, and shadow black mosuras). I keep CRS in the tank I've been having issues with. This one was set up around a year ago with 10 CRS. They never really bred, but figured it was due to the way I laid out my scape since I knew there was very poor water circulation. I had to neglect the tank because a trip overseas got extended a couple months and when it came back there was a bunch of hair algae (co2 was out, but my monte carlo carpet was still green and not brown). I cleaned it out did a water change, slowly ramped up CO2 again after doing a soft rescape, I saw 2 pregnant shrimp, and decided I would help them out a bit by getting an additional 15. They were fine at first, but after a water change 2 weeks later, despite dripping water back in I noticeably saw a huge drop in population by the third day after. Around 10 were left at the end of that debacle, but my test kit showed all the proper water parameters. I didn't even spot a single dead one even though I have an Iwagumi setup. The rest would just slowly die 1 by 1 in a span of a couple weeks until 2 left. Figured it was just due to age because these guys were abnormally big. I started having trouble with algae again, and to help added 5 amano shrimp. Drip acclimated them across 8 hours. Every week I've lost 1 shrimp including 2 of the 5 amanos I got. Usually I can spot them out because they'll look like they'll look sluggish while barely moving, but I'll see them eating and get a bit hopeful since they start swimming around. All my other shrimps are thriving and breeding in my other tanks. Is there some slow moving bacterial infection in that one tank?

Hello Forum, Since a couple of weeks i've been considering starting a little shrimp farm on my balcony in a container that would fit around 40 gallons of water. The amount of research i have done concerning the required material is still in it's starting phase since i have not found a manner that allows me to calculate how much shrimp i could expect to farm annually. This is important to me to decide whether the initial investments will be worth it and how quick they will be compensated for. If someone could give me his/her insights as to the size of the yield i can expect from this and the general financial value it would be attributed it would be highly appreciated. Kind regards, Kameaux

You would have to judge tha reliability yourself based upon the business/person who does the tests. Al these test kits/equipment are readily available and not expensive to buy so it makes more sense to buy the testers so you always have them on hand (as per JayC comment) and the kits/equipment can be used multiple times (they are not single test usage). Also, as JayC, the one I use most (and is the easiest to use) is the TDS meter.

Always ask to see the result/test tube and colour match it to the chart. You have no obligation to buy anything just for a water test. You might, based on the result, but don't be pressured. Especially if they charge to do a water test. In that case you are already paying for a service. I always recommend a minimum test kit for any aquarist which includes: GH & KH test kit pH test kit, Ammonia test kit and a TDS meter. You should have these at your own disposal. Especially the TDS meter. I use this the most, and find it the most useful out of all my kit for a quick 'rough" indication of the tank's parameters. I wrote an extensive article on TDS you might find interesting here ...

How do you guys feel in general about bringing your water in somewhere to be tested - should I always trust the results I am getting back? Sometimes I think they are trying to sell some product....

they have their use cases. But usually only when liquid test kits are not easily accessible.

Every time I have ever gone into a store to buy the test strips, the salesmen talk me out of it. It is almost like no one believes in the product - so what's the point of them even existing? Liquid test is certainly more accurate way to go.