Welcome Blue Ridge

[Blue Ridge]

Shrimp Keepers Forum welcomes Blue Ridge.

Please feel free to browse around and get to know others. If you have any questions please don't hesitate to ask.

View Member

regards,
skfadmin

[Blue Ridge]

Hi folks. I've been on Planted Tank, Monster Fish, and several marine and reef forums by the name "Blue Ridge Reef," which was the name of my former LFS. I'm 50 years old and have been in the hobby since I was a kid. Most of my last 20 years were more on the reef side of things, but over time I realized that 2 planted 125 gallon tanks built into my shop's wall were less work and more enjoyment, and slowly have been switching everything over to planted tanks with shrimp. I've kept cherry variants for about 10 years now, have messed with Caridina for only a couple of years but they are proving to be addictive. I currently have 11 shrimp tanks ranging from 125 to 5.5 gallons. I look forward to meeting you folks!

[jayc]

Welcome!

Great to have more member from the USA.

We would love to see your tanks and shrimps. Care to post some photos?

[Blue Ridge]

50 gallon Hagen Osaka:

Another:

125:

Another:

These four 20's are my newest additions, two for Neos, two for bees:

Some shrimp photos:

[sdlTBfanUK]

Those are some fantastic tanks, I especially like the 125 long tanks and love the blue bolt shrimp! Like you, I started with cherry shrimps and progressed to bee shrimps. I think with me it was a lot to do with the fact that bee shrimp are a lot more difficult that appealed as I was determined (with a years 'I give up' break) to crack it, which I did. Second time round after wiping out the first lot isn't quite as successful YET, but hope springs eternal? Those blue cherry are also a wonderful blue, is that a small orange rili in front of them I see as well?

Where are those racks in your house? You must spend a lot of time on all those tanks?

Simon

[Blue Ridge]

I had terrible luck with breeding Caridina until switching over to buffering soil and RO/DI water. As soon as I did that, they began producing like cherries.

 

Yeah, I'm still working on the blue cherries. These are throwing about a 50% cull rate so far. Wild type, rili, and blacks pop up regularly. One of the reasons I set up the rack was to "reverse cull" and just move the most perfect ones to the breeding tank rather than the other way around.

 

The rack (and there are 5 more) are sitting in the back of my pet supply store. I opened to be a local fish store in 2007, but quickly saw that I only made money on dog and cat supplies and the aquariums were about to make me close. So I got out of fish in 2013 and they have sat empty since. Around March I decided to fill a few up since I had everything I needed just sitting around.

 

The tanks are pretty low maintenance. I only do passive CO2 and medium light, roughly 25% EI dose. It's quite the change from the marine side of things. Lots of waiting around with nothing to really do!

[sdlTBfanUK]

I had friends over on sunday and we were discussing fish/shrimps (as always) and we came to the conclusion that so many aqarium places probably close as it s so difficult to make a profit or even break even with the set up and running costs involved, to then only charge a few pounds per fish?

My first batch of bee trials failed as I was using dechlorinated tap water, then I gave up for a year until I came across a American water jug (zerowater) and thought I would try that as it produces RO (or as close as you can get) water and then I remineralised the water. It went tremendously well and everything was great (you can see for yourself by my photos in the gallery if you want) until the heater stuck on a few months ago and wiped them all out, so I am starting again, which isn't going as well as last time but it is plodding on.............

As you say, at least you have plenty of stuff sitting  around so you may as well use it?

Simon

Edited August 20, 2019 by sdlTBfanUK

[Blue Ridge]

Heaters failing in the "on" position is one of the biggest reasons I only use them when I absolutely have to. Lucky for me, the species of shrimp I keep like it cool.

[Blue Ridge]

And I meant to address your point about local fish stores. Yeah, my labor wages paid out and electric bill were almost always more than I sold in fish each month. Let alone ever paying for all the tanks and equipment. It really is a terribly difficult business to make work. Once upon a time, customers would buy lights, filters, heaters and so forth from you and this could offset losses in the fish room. But once everyone started buying everything with a plug online, and just coming to shops for livestock and the glass aquarium itself, the local fish stores began to close right and left. There were 6 locally owned shops in  my town of 92,000 when I opened mine, and now there are only big box stores. All the "mom and Pop" shops have closed.