cherry shrimp parameters

[smicko]

Hi all, as some may have seen I am shutting down my cull tank which doubles as a display tank for my eldest daughter.

I have been experimenting with water parameters in this tank for the last 12 months and thought that I would share some info

It's a 3x18x18 tank and the water started at pH 7.2,gh5, kh2, Tds 300 and 20 shrimp.

I have had pH as low as 6.3 and as high as 8,

Kh has been between 2 and 10,

Gh between 4 and 15,

The real surprise is watched the Tds slowly climb to over 1100 and back down to 250 using water changes with no effect on breeding:Scratch-Head:.

Has anyone else played with water chemistry to this extreme? And if so did anything go wrong.

I have well over 300 hundred shrimp, I tested this morning. Ph7.5, Kh4, gh10, Tds 891 and have around 40 berried females.

I have noticed colour improvements when I move these shrimp to lower tds water, but their has been no other differences in regards to breeding and survival rates, I have never seen a dead shrimp in this tank.

Any input appreciated.

Cheers mick

[GARY_THE_SNAIL]

Have you tested different temperatures? Since I am new to shrimp my first mistake was not monitoring the temperature and I had 2 deaths because of it.

[smicko]

I have a tank that gets direct sunlight and over summer it sits around 32 degrees.

I haven't had a loss in that tank but I have in others from waterchanging with different temp water.

Cheers mick

[quantum8]

they sure are hardy lil buggers!

[BristledOne]

I've had cherry shrimp survive in a tank undergoing a 30c heat treatment for a fortnight to help treat some bristlenose in the same tank that had an ich outbreak, my dads rcs tank until I pointed it out was constantly at a TDS of over 1000 and they were breeding suprisingly well.

I've even found cherry shrimp in a small 50L aquaponics setup that had rosey barbs in it, they survived through perth's summer and didnt even get put in there intentionally (must have snuck across on some plants)

[Squiggle]

RCS are almost bullet proof & I've had some live & breed in water up around 1000 but I haven't been game to try it with any other cherry colours. :encouragement: