Basic shrimp keeping knowledge

[Disciple]

I'll be on the chat from 6 pm WA time. So 9pm for people in the eastern states.

[Unagi42]

What is this 'Dino Spit' and 'Dino Pee' that I keep hearing people refer too? 

[OzShrimp]

they are liquid plant fertilizers :)

You can read about them here 

http://aquagreen.com.au/aqualog/?p=125

it states the following -

Dinosaur Pee

Dinosaur Pee

General information: It is a liquid inorganic fertiliser made up with chelated trace elements, nitrogen and potassium. It has no phosphates and therefore relies on fish excreta and fish food for phosphates.

 

Dinosaur Spit

Dinosaur Spit

General information: It is a liquid organic form of carbon made up from a 10% solution of gluteraldehyde. Plants are 43 to 47% carbon by weight, one of the main limiting factors to plant growth in submerged plants is their carbon supply. This will assist plants obtain carbon and assist plants out compete algae, particularly blue-green algae. This is a weak solution of Gluteraldehyde but should be used as directed only. There are hazard considerations with strong solutions of gluteraldehyde, read http://www.npi.gov.au/database/substance-info/profiles/46.html for health and environment considerations. Keep out of the reach of children and if ingested seek medical advice. It is safe for the aquatic creatures in your aquarium up to double the recommended dose. Higher doses may adversley affect some plant species and invertebrates.

Edited December 6, 2015 by OzShrimp

[Unagi42]

Thanks @ozshrimp, that makes sense. It always seemed strangely out of context.[emoji106]

[jayc]

@Unagi42 Maybe it's the unusual name of the product.

Dino Spit is comparable to Seachem Flourish Excel. Often you will hear people discuss Excel and Dino spit in the same context. 

They are both made of Gluteraldehyde or Glut for short. Where as Excel and Dino Spit are just product names.

So Glut = Dino Spit = Excel.

And as mentioned by Oz's post above they are CO2 supplements for plants in the tank. It's not really a replacement for the CO2 gas you get in canisters.

The use of Glut comes with a precaution. Too much is harmful for your livestock.

In fact, Gluteraldehyde is a derivative of Formaldehyde, the stuff they use to preserve live specimens you see in places like museums. It's so strong, that Glut can be used to kill off algae.

Edited December 6, 2015 by jayc

[OzShrimp]

5 hours ago, jayc said:

It's so strong, that Glut can be used to kill off algae.

Alot of people claim this is better then excel for spot dosing Black beard algae, never tried it myself but heard a few people recommend it

[fishmosy]

1 hour ago, OzShrimp said:

Alot of people claim this is better then excel for spot dosing Black beard algae, never tried it myself but heard a few people recommend it

Dino Spit is the same as Excel - only more concentrated. In that regard, its probably more effective on algae than excel because the same volume will have a higher amount of glut. Dino Spit is much better value than Excel.

Glut doesn't only kill algae, its kills planaria. I massively overdosed one of my tanks (think 2 - 2.5 mL of Dino Spit in a 12L tank, normal dosage rate is around a drop or two) and the planaria curled up and died within the next five minutes. It didn't kill 100% of them though as I had to do a quick 75% water change as my choc cherries looked very unhappy. All the cherries survived though.

[jayc]

17 minutes ago, fishmosy said:

 

Glut doesn't only kill algae, its kills planaria

Nice one. That has to be an undocumented use of Dino spit.

[Unagi42]

Just a quick question on lighting cycles. I've read that 8 hours is preferred or even two 4 hour sessions. Unfortunately my daughter likes to turn the light on in the mornings so the tank was getting 10+ hours and the algae was going nuts. So now I've dropped it to 1 hour (morning) then 5 hours (eve).

Would this stress adult shrimp enough to kill them?

[revolutionhope]

in my experience the answer is a definite no.

due to summer heat and me trying to manage electricity and thermal energy better - over past couple of weeks my crs tank and cherry tanm have had totally bizarre light cycles varying dramatically from a few hours at a random time of day or 36-48 hours with no light except sometimes the ambient room light and a few occassions with 18+ hours of light running overnight. very nuts..

anyway today i spotted my first CRS babies :-) and none of the mums have lost their berries - so it can't be all that significant when it comes to the highly domesticated neos and bees.

I'd personally not take the chance of totally randomly messing with light cycles for wild shrimp because although it may not stress or kill them; photoperiod is often one of the triggers for breeding so could well have a negative impact. i thimk recently fishmosy is increasing his daylength in his aussie c zebra tank in an effort to trigger more breeding.

ime neos and crs don't know any better though :-)

love n peace

will

[ineke]

Some time ago we discussed lighting and it was mentioned that  if you switched the lights off slightly short of 4 hours then put them back on later for another 3-4 hours the algae doesn't take hold so much. I generally have my lights on about 8 hours a day and often turn them off for a few hours in the middle of the day with no ill effect to the shrimp and very little algae problems. Conversely when I travel and I'm away for a couple of months at a time my lights come on in the late afternoon and stay on for only 4-5 hours. Again no effect on the shrimp - breeding continues and no apparent deaths. 

It was also discussed that certain strength of light and certain amount of hours of light may affect the thickness of the shell of the shrimp. I think you can still find the threads under the lighting heading .

[Unagi42]

Thank you @revolutionhope @ineke. I have read conflicting data on this elsewhere so it's great to get a straight answer.

[fishmosy]

On ‎7‎/‎12‎/‎2015‎ ‎7‎:‎52‎:‎55‎, ineke said:

Some time ago we discussed lighting and it was mentioned that  if you switched the lights off slightly short of 4 hours then put them back on later for another 3-4 hours the algae doesn't take hold so much. I generally have my lights on about 8 hours a day and often turn them off for a few hours in the middle of the day with no ill effect to the shrimp and very little algae problems. Conversely when I travel and I'm away for a couple of months at a time my lights come on in the late afternoon and stay on for only 4-5 hours. Again no effect on the shrimp - breeding continues and no apparent deaths. 

It was also discussed that certain strength of light and certain amount of hours of light may affect the thickness of the shell of the shrimp. I think you can still find the threads under the lighting heading .

I run a similar regime for my lights over my shrimp tanks. No problems ever and (bad) algae growth is definitely hampered (i.e. string algae, Black beard ect), not so much green spot algae, which I consider to be beneficial anyway.

Edited December 9, 2015 by fishmosy
spelling

[Disciple]

I just remembered this topic and wanted to give it a bump.

If anyone is interested I would be willing to run a Q & A on basic shrimp keeping knowledge. I could also try organise Guests to pop in and answer questions.

If this would interest you please let me know what the best time and day to run it.

If not I could just do create AMA (Ask Me Anything) thread where people can ask me anything about my colonies or setups etc.

[ineke]

Sounds good Disciple. I'm still getting asked very basic questions in pm's - I think some people are still not comfortable asking what they see as silly questions - rest assured everyone there is no such thing as a silly question. For every one person asking a question - no matter how simple- there are probably 2 or 3 people eagerly waiting for an answer. So a back to basics night would be good and even though some of us have been breeding for a few years there is still something new we learn when questions are asked. I still see things and go well I didn't know that!