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I believe these to be very rare in Australia so you may even consider making it a longer term plan and produce your own by starting with the best CRS you can get as that is where the pure lines started! Depends how patient and interested in the project you are, but would save money as well? If I recall correctly it takes from 8 generations of selective breeding? They sell them at micro aquatic shop but do not ship to Western Australia, but that means they are available in Australia. https://microaquaticshop.com.au/products/pure-red-line-grade-ss-shrimp Good luck and just maybe smeone on here may point you in the right direction or be able to supply you with some.

Hi Guys, Does anyone know where to buy PRL shrimps in WA, not the CRS please. Thanks Regards

Yes it’s super accurate to position where I want now and stay there- I am satisfied. All the fish and shrimpers are doing excellent! Coming up on 4 years running!

You must be pleased with that, it looks better and is much more robust and less likely to damage or leaks! The tank looks very natural now it has been running for a time. I see the ember tetras, how are the blue shrimp doing, I see a few? The cat and dog look very content and unimpressed, lol.

https://youtu.be/IzMSYm14CCU done!

Yeh that is the plan!

I would do it to get the Lily pipe sitting straight, instead of flopping over to one side.

Do you think you would risk using it? Otherwise I will just use the short bit of stainless I found

It would be interesting to see what you come up with using that pipe + Lily pipe ends.

Cheers!

Stainless steel is definitely safe as moss mats are made with that and I have had those in the past with no problems in shrimp tanks, but I would imagine plastic would be the easiest to work with though not atractive if viewable!

Interesting- thanks for the input- I also found a small bit of stainless steel tube- would you trust either more/less over pvc/plastic clear piping or glass? thanks heaps and have a great day sub

I'm not aware of any problems with using aluminium piping, copper is the only metal which I believe is a real problem. I would assume that the pipe in the photo is aluminium.

Can I cut a bit of this and use it to create a neat in and out pipes? With neat small join to glass lily pipe ends? I guess it’s an aluminium alloy - it’s not magnetic thanks all;) have a great day

Good luck in your new tank. My only suggestion is to NEVER use tap water and always use RO + remineralizer. Many long-running tanks can suddenly get nuked due to something in the pipes. (In particular, I'm thinking of that youtube guy Foo the Flowerhorn)

One was a hospital tank that I could not be bothered maintaining any longer. The other was a fry grow out tank, which had Longfin White Cloud Mountain Minnow - Tanichthys Albonubes, that have now grown up enough to be moved into my main fish tank. I have not settled on any specific ideas yet. Maybe an Australian native tank with one variety of Blue Eye Rainbow fish. Maybe a Killifish tank.

I'm not gettng too excited at this point! The water is way off but I plan to do a 50% water change at the weekend with pure RO water which 'should' bring the parameters nearer to those required. I do quite like the simpler tank setup, the plants came from the betta tank where they had grown too big, so that tank also looks better and the fish has more swimming space. Definitely slow and steady this time, one step at a time. The tank is opposite where I usually sit so it will be good if shrimps work as I will see them much more often than before and in a dparser tank will be able to see more, so keeping my fingers crossed. The substrate was meant to be neutral and ready to use immediately and not buffer the PH, but it must be releasing minerals etc, not a problem at this point but I'm not 100% convinced it will work with the shrimp longterm, but it is still very early on? What did you have in the now empty tanks? Any ideas for the tanks IF you do decide to keep them going, anything tempting you?

How exciting!!! I have just decommissioned 2x 2ft tanks. Been debating with myself whether to set them up again or just leave them empty. But looking at your new tank is giving me ideas.

I have finally got around to setting up my old Taiwan Bee shrimp tank (30L) which was shut down when I moved just over a year ago. I am using Tetra Active Substrate (clay based granules) this time, which doesn't buffer the PH but I will be using remineralised RO water once fully set/sorted. Eventually I hope to keep the Taiwan bee shrimps again but won't be rushing anything at this stage, I will see if I can get the water parameters right and try a batch of 10 (cheap) crystal red shrimp in a couple of months and see how they do for 3-6 months? I will keep the tank simpler this time with a lot less plants. The substrate is obviously releasing nutrients into the tank at this point. I added 50% RO water and 50% tap water (only using part tap water for the start up, will always use RO from this point) and next day parameters were, TDS 232 (200 the day before), GH 9, KH 6, PH 7.5 so is way off at this point but I will do a 50% RO water change in a week and hopefully it will be going in the right direction, not rushing? Tap water here is dreadfull, PH 8 TDS 300...........etc I do still have a new bag of the JBL substrate in the cupboard but decided it needs a bit too much prep for me for the moment. If it doesn't work out for the shrimps then I will get a killifish and dwarf Rasboras as I did before (or other fish that suit the parameters if they are off), but I will be taking it very slow with this tank this time. In reality it is unlikely I will have Taiwan bee shrimps before autumn even if everything goes well but hopefully there will be crystal red shrimp for the summer? I will keep testing for the 'cycle' but as the PH is likely to drop a fair bit and as discussed with beanbag on here before, that may not be as straight forward as with a 'constant parameter' tank, but anyway, no rush.

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.

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!

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)

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.

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!

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)