Jump to content

Looking for handy tips and tricks


GtWalker97

Recommended Posts

Hi folks, I'm new to the breeding game and was wondering if there were and handy tips and tricks for breeding and keeping cherries?

I have a colony of mixed grade reds (working on culling y stock, just don't have a lot of time), a small colony of blue velvets (which seem to be throwing red rillys for some reason) and a pair of wild type brown cherries, all in separate tanks. Any advice or "life hacks" would be awesome as I'm a college student on minimum wage

 

 

Thanks

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Keep water parameters stable. Feed a vegetable/algae based diet with some protein. Leaves are great!

 

Can't think of anything specific really...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

As zoidberg  says. If all is stable and the right parameters the problem is more 'how do I get less breeding' as they are prolific breeders when these are right. Obviously if you only have a few shrimps of one type you need both sexes........... The neo's need to be about 3 months old before they are of breeding age.

Suddenly thought, I saw this vid yesterday which you may enjoy:

Simon

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 3/10/2019 at 3:21 AM, sdlTBfanUK said:

As zoidberg  says. If all is stable and the right parameters the problem is more 'how do I get less breeding' as they are prolific breeders when these are right. Obviously if you only have a few shrimps of one type you need both sexes........... The neo's need to be about 3 months old before they are of breeding age.

Suddenly thought, I saw this vid yesterday which you may enjoy:

Simon

The video was great thanks mate, but I may need to reword my original post. I'm not having any issues keeping or breeding them (I've been working in the aquarium industry for near on 7 years now and now have 100+ red cherry nymphs in the tank), I was just hoping there were a few cheats and hints out there to help me improve my stocks and produce better quality shrimp through the generations.

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Optimum water parameters. 

Culling, culling and more culling. Only keep the best quality.

Feed fresh fruit, veg, leaves and flowers, and the occasional frozen bloodworms.

If you have time, make your own food comprised of Chlorella algae and astaxanthin. 

Edited by jayc
  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I think JayC hit the nail on the head.

I have a fish tank, very heavy planted with red cherries in it. It has been running for years and I am now at the stage that there are probably more brown wild type shrimps in there than reds but it would now be too big a job to start sorting it out so with hindsight I wish I had culled the poor quality from early on. I am not over bothered though as it is a general tank and I am more into the Taiwan bee shrimp now, and they don't have the same problem and are in a tank by themselves. I will fish out some of the brown ones to dump in the new betta tank I am setting up, but when I had a betta before he ignored them and they flourished in his tank, still I think they do good even if they can't really be seen easily.

You could sell on the lower quality ones either as food for people to use for big fish, or beginners shrimp? At least you only need 1 cull tank and can dump them all in together!

Simon

  • Thanks 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Got it. Pretty much what the others have said.

 

@sdltbfanuk - If I were in that position and wanted to "selectively breed", then I would cull the desired shrimp into a different tank! Sounds like it would be too big of a hassle to do otherwise.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

20 minutes ago, Zoidburg said:

Got it. Pretty much what the others have said.

 

@sdltbfanuk - If I were in that position and wanted to "selectively breed", then I would cull the desired shrimp into a different tank! Sounds like it would be too big of a hassle to do otherwise.

Thanks for that advice zoidburg. I have resigned myself to the fact it is beyond doing anything with that tank as it would mean too much upheaval, removing the plants etc to get as many shrimps as possible and even the red ones may have further brown type shrimplets. I don't really want another tank either for shrimps I don't want, but am well happy with the taiwan bee tanks phenomenal success and am currently working on my latest 'project' of a betta tank. I will stick some of the browns in that tank though in the future, when it is ready, and they can be either food or cleaning crew!

Thanks for thought though!

Simon

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
  • Join Our Community!

    Register today, ask questions and share your shrimp and fish tank experiences with us!

  • Must Read SKF Articles

  • Posts

    • beanbag
      Update to say that after a few gravel vacs, front wall scrub, moss / floating plant trim, that the condition seems to have improved.  My current theory is that it is due to waste / debris management, where "stuff" like that brown mulm accumulates in the substrate and behind the HMF filters.  Maybe some tanks can somehow deal with it, but mine can't.  Also another experienced shrimper suggested that maybe those "shell bugs" don't just live on the shrimps but also in this debris.  Maybe this is the reason some tanks fail due to "old tank syndrome" where all they need is a good gravel vac? Also, I am guessing that plant trim helps too because now more of the nutrients and light go into growing algae instead of more plants? Well anyway for this tank I will try weekly water change and monthly gravel vac / plant trim.  For my next tank, I'm thinking of something like an under-gravel system where this mulm can fall down and I vac it out.
    • sdlTBfanUK
      Good to have an update and good to hear you are getting shrimplets, so hopefully your colony will continue and you may not get to the point where you have to cull some to stop over population. These type of shrimp only live 12 - 18 months so the adult deaths may be natural? If you have the time I would do weekly 25% water changes, adding the new water via a drip system and do some vacuuming clean of the substrate each week, even if only a different bit each week! See if that helps in a few months and if it does then stick with that regime? It should help reduce any build-ups that may be occuring!
    • beanbag
      Hello again, much belated update: The tank still has "cycles" of 1-2 month "good streaks" where everybody seems to be doing well, and then a bad streak where the short antenna problem shows up again, and a shrimp dies once every few days.  I am not sure what causes things to go bad, but usually over the course of a few days I will start to see more shrimp quietly standing on the HMF filter, and so I know something is wrong.  Since I am not "doing anything" besides the regular 1-2 week water changes, I just assume that something bad is building up.  Here's a list of things that I've tried that are supposed to be "can't hurt" but didn't prevent the problem either: Dose every other day with Shrimp Fit (very small dose, and the shrimp seem to like it) Sotching Oxydator Seachem Purigen to keep the nitrates lower Keeping the pH below 5.5 with peat Things that I don't do often, so could possibly "reset" the tank back to a good streak, are gravel vac and plant trim, so maybe time to try those again. One other problem I used to have was that sometimes a shrimp would suddenly stop eating with a full or partially full digestive tract that doesn't clear out, and then the shrimp will die within a few days.  I suspected it was one of the foods in my rotation - Shrimp Nature Infection, which contains a bunch of herbal plant things.  I've had this in my food rotation for a few years now and generally didn't seem to cause problems, but I removed it from the rotation anyway.  I don't have a lot of adult Golden Bees at this point so I can't really tell if it worked or not. Overall the tank is not too bad - during the good streaks occasionally a shrimp will get berried and hatch babies with a 33-50% survival rate.  So while there are fewer adults now, there are also a bunch of babies roaming around.  I guess this tank will stagger on, but I really do need to take the time to start up a new tank.  (or figure out the problem)
    • jayc
      If that is the offspring, then the parents are unlikely to be PRL. I tend to agree with you. There are very few PRLs in Australia. And any that claim to be needs to show proof. PRL genes have to start as PRL. CRS that breed true after x generations doesn't turn it into a PRL. Neither can a Taiwan bee shrimp turn into a PRL despite how ever many generations. I've never seen a PRL with that sort of red colour. I have on Red Wines and Red Shadows - Taiwan bee shrimps. So somewhere down the line one of your shrimp might have been mixed with Taiwan bees and is no longer PRL. It just tanks one shrimp to mess up the genes of a whole colony. 
    • sdlTBfanUK
      Sorry, missed this one somehow! The PRL look fantastic and the odd ones look part PRL and part Red wine/Red shadow in the colour. They are still very beautiful but ideally should be seperated to help keep the PRL clean if you can do that.  Nice clear photos!
×
×
  • Create New...