Jump to content

Kid with a chemistry set


Matmatmat

Recommended Posts

Considering up until this point i only really kept hardy flowerhorns, american cichlids, fancy goldfish yada yada yada.. I never really felt the need to delve too deep into what was actually happening in my water, well nothing that couldnt be fixed with huge water change..

I got all excited after reading about everyone's water chemistry and thought I'd head down and grab some test kits don the white lab coat, got my pocket protector sorted and away I went. Ph is 6.8 gh is 4 kh is 6 . Plan was to come back on here and see if that was within an accptable range.. When I start reading about a million other factors and am left again feeling like the stupid kid eating sand and worms down the back of the playground;)

How did everybody else do it? Did you start out testing for everything? Or like me waiting for it to all turn sour before learning?

My shrimp are all happy, alive and berrying up, guess I've just been lucky?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Good on you for having a go mate, I think most people start by just jumping in and when something goes wrong

Then trying to learn ;) basically it's pretty simple if you

Have the basic understanding of ideal parameters. You can illuminate a bit of the work also by having certain things in place. Example. If you use a shrimp substrate they are generally made to create ideal water conditions for shrimp. So for instance benibachi soil will buffer ph and gh to the correct range.

Then there is the basics like ammonia, nitrite and nitrate, but again

With a good setup most of these things are self managing.

Ammonia and nitrite are only really an issue when setting up a tank and nitrates can be managed with some basic plants and moss. Kh can be illuminated by using RO water and then there is EC & TDS but again easily controlled by using mineral supplements with RO water.

The more you get into this hobby the more you learn and as your success and failures come ang go you find easier ways to do things.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Haha, that's pretty much what happened to me Mat. Finally bought some test kits a year after buying my fish - partially because I wanted to make sure the conditions were right for the fish, and partially because I wanted to pretend to be a scientist XD

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Cheers! I do have shrimp specific substrate which I guess is helping a lot .I have been keeping fish for years just never bothered going too deep into testing , at first I did ammonia, nitrite, nitrate ect.. But yeah the shrimp needing more I think got me interested before something disastrous happened;)

With measuring tds the test is just a number? Not actually what the solids are? How do you know even if the numbers match that it's the right things in the water? Haha other than the shrimp are alive..

I got a couple types of shrimp mineral balls in the tank , no idea what they are though;)

Is the this http://www.bossaquaria.com.au/saltyshrimp-minerals/ mineral stuff the minerals as the mineral balls?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

yes the TDS is just total dissolved solids which can be mineral & or organic, this is why i dont bother measuring tds personally.

and yes you dont actually know what the solids are.

no the saltyshrimp minerals are used with RO water only and are measured via EC. this product contains all the essential minerals needed for the shrimp.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I personally started out with one of those 'freshwater master test kit' things that come with Nitrate, nitrite, ammonia and high and low pH testers with the 4 tubes.

I'm still learning myself, And I too feel like the kid eating sand and worms down the back. I'm still learning and have a feeling I will do so for awhile yet. I like to know exactly what I am doing before I start doing things.

At the moment I am just keeping Cherries and playing around with things like KH, GH, and maintaining the usual tests pH ammonia nitrates nitrites.

Soon I am going to upgrade and start checking TDS and start keeping some more sensitive shrimps (I want CBS).

I guess the choice is really up too you, And what you feel more comfortable with. You can jump in the deep end and learn to swim, Or you can paddle out of the shallows until you feel comfortable. The important thing isn't how you start it's that you persist and learn from each mistake.

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

    • 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!
    • GtWalker97
      Hi SKF!   So I bought some PRL (or at least they were sold as such. These claims are dubious in Australia as people don't know much about the genetics, nor do they care as long as they can make a quick buck). After 8 generations of breeding true, I'm having around 1 in 200 throw a much darker red. They almost look like Red Shadows, but I don't know too much about those types of hybrid. Can anyone help with ID'ing the gene?   TIA (First 2 pics are the weird throws, second photo is their siblings and the last photo is the parents)
×
×
  • Create New...