journal shrimpAquatics tanks

[shrimpAquatics]

Hi all,

This is my tank setups at home, would love to get your thoughts and some feedback, advice etc as I am new to this. 
My questions would be for each tank and are as follows and I hope you guys could please advise me on:

1. What is the ideal temperature for my tanks? I currently have all tanks at 22-24'C, should they be different since I have different species?
2. What should the pH, Ammonia, Nitrite and Nitrate numbers be for my tanks? (will do testing over the weekend and hopefully have some feedback to compare with)
3. What is the ideal TDS for my water, and would they differ as each tank has different species? (will do tests when my pen arrives) 
4. What foods do you guys find works very well? I am currently using Sera pellets, Hikari algae wafers and mini pellets
5. How often do you guys clean your tanks? Do you guys vacuum or clean your filters/sponges, and percentages of water changes  each time would be great
6. Any general tips on baby shrimp survival rate, I have many shrimp-lets on the way and wanted some advice on how to increase survival rates

If you guys could advise me these questions for each tank that would be so much help, thanks guys!

130L running black pinto mischlings I believe(please ID and let me know if i am wrong) with a few that are berried!, I've found it hard to find food they like, they only eat Sera...
120L running RCS and CRS, colony is establishing and doing very well. 
20L, currently testing out selective breeding (first time doing this) (have just put a berried red pinto mischling in) 

My apologies on the photo quality and shots, have not had much time and these were pictures taken about 2 months ago, I will get better photos posted in the next few weeks hopefully 

130 L pics

 

120 L pics

 

 

20L

 

 

Cheers guys!
 

 

[fishmosy]

Wow your 120L is nice.

In response to your questions:

1. 22-24 is perfect for the shrimp you have

2.I keep my cherries at around pH 7, CRS around 6.5. Other keepers maintain their pH lower (5.5 - 6) for CRS and mischling types, so it may be best to match water parameters with the water parameters of the person/s you got them from.

3. Once again ideal TDS varies from person to person. I keep my CRS at 130-150, and my cherries at 200.

4. A wide variety of foods work well for shrimp but I would highly recommend the Boss Aquaria range of foods. Also I believe it is a great help to have plenty of 'natural' food to offer, like mulberry or IAL leaves, kale, pollen ect... There are many threads here on SKF outlining foods for shrimp. here are two examples:

5. I change water every 1-2 weeks, 10-30% at a time depending on the tank and type of shrimp. It is important that the water parameters (think temperature, pH, ect.) in the tank don't fluctuate as shrimp can die from shock. So do any water changes slowly. I find premixing water the day before and leaving it aerating in the same room as the shrimp overnight works well. I clean filter sponges and external filters when required, which to say is not very often.

6. One tip to increase the survival rate of shrimplets is to have plenty of food for them. There is a thread where this is being discussed currently.

[NoGi]

Wow just wow on that cherry tank. Are you able to post any clearer pics of them swarming like that?

[shrimpAquatics]

fishmosy, cheers for such a detailed post your post really helped me out.

update on my tanks, I have done a layout change and a trim, ultimately redid the whole tank which was a big task. Tanks have been going very well, I started pre-mixing the water and leaving it aerating overnight worked well. I also added a heater and found it was even more ideal.

Thanks again for the advice. 

noGi, cheers for the comment, I haven't got a recent pic but here is a pic when i was removing my plants

Edited November 15, 2015 by shrimpAquatics

[NoGi]

So reeeed