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My shrimp journey started around Aug 2014. I had just moved into the new house and sold the old one. I had been wanting to get a aquarium for a few years but held off for the new house. In September some time after the tank was cycled I purchased my first shrimp off Gumtree. 10 CRS for $150 haha as I was new to the scene and did not know anyone it was difficult finding sellers in WA. I was at a former Sponsor store and was told to join Shrimp Keepers Forum. From there I met a lot of very cool and knowledgeable ppl. I purchased some Red Rili's off Ron and have been culling them slowly so I can get a better quality of shrimp. My CRS turned out to be mischlings and I have got my first lot of shrimplets from them. Over the last 3 months I couldnt help myself and purchased some Yellows, Chameleons, GB's and Tibees. BB's Yellows have already hatch a lot of shrimplets and are berried again. The Chameleon are going through a population boom the original 5 have turned into close to 30 and there are lots of berried female too . JP's GB's have also recently given my first set of shrimplets unfortunately my survival rates for the gb's and Mischlings are low atm. So I hope with my new set up I can follow in the footsteps of Jen & Newbreed and get a population boom this year. My plans for 2015 is to take the challenge of keeping some TB's from the day I joined SKF and start looking at all the beautiful shrimp I feel in love with Blue Bolts, CRS and Blue Tigers. I have started the process by putting a order in for a divided 4 foot tank which I plan to use for the TB's and some pure CRS. I have also kept some of my culls from the red rilis to hopefully start RCS and Blue velvet colonies. Eventually I want to reset my current tank for a colony of blue tigers. Lastly I hope to contribute more to these wonderful forums. I want to continue to learn from the amazing shrimp keepers in these forums. I also wish to start return the SKF love to members that have help me on my way and to future beginners like myself.

Happy New Year SKF ! Hope you all have a great year, and accomplish all your goals you set out to do.

Happy New Year everyone. great start here I have berried mummas everywhere.

I thought I would share my experience setting up my first shrimp tank. My hope is that it may help other newbies as well as provide a tank history for those that are willing to help me with the problems that I undoubtedly will have. I have spent a lot of time reading threads here so hopefully there won’t be too many mis-steps. My plan is to establish a healthy colony of red rilis. Assuming I can manage that, I would then like to try a more difficult shrimp. I tried to setup a tank that would give me options down the road. My Tank Setup Tank: 20 Gallon High Substrate: ADA Amazonian Heater: Eheim 100W Heater HOB Filter: 2 x AquaClear 50 Filter Sponge Filter: Jardin Dual Lights: Current USA Satellite Freshwater LED Plus 24" Digital Thermometer: General Tools AQ150 Digital Aquarium Thermometer Day 0 12/28 I sprinkled Benibachi Mineral Powder and Bee Max over the bottom of the tank. I then carefully added the Aquasoil on top. Finally, I filled the tank with RO water. I ran the water into a cup that rested in a large petri dish so as the tank filled the substrate was disturbed as little as possible. Even with this precaution the tank was pretty cloudy. Day 1 12/29 The tank cleared up quite a bit by the next day. I checked the WPs and did an 90% water change using RO water with SS GH+ in it to raise the TDS to 160ppm. Water parameter before WC TDS: 58ppm Temp: 78.4°F GH: 2 KH: 0-1 Ammonia: 4.0ppm Nitrite: 0ppm Day 2 12/30 I forgot to plug the heater back in after yesterday’s WC so the tank got colder than it was supposed to. No harm done this early in the process. The digital thermometer I have has temp alarms so once I set it up, I should catch this type of problem if it happens again. I checked the WPs and added a few plant clippings from my 65G community tank. I did a 60% WC using RO water with SS GH+ in it to raise the TDS to 160ppm. Water parameter before WC TDS: 130ppm Temp: 69.4°F GH: 6 KH: 0-1 Ammonia: 4.0ppm Nitrite: 0ppm Day 3 12/31 I added a piece of spider wood as well as several pieces of cholla wood to the tank. They are slowly becoming water logged. Hopefully they will all sink by tomorrow. I received some mini pellia moss in the mail today. I placed some of it on a rock and some on a piece of cholla wood. I then wrapped them in fishing line. This is my first attempt with anything but java moss. Hopefully I will have some luck it and the other mosses I have on the way. I checked the WPs and did a 50% WC using RO water with SS GH+ in it to raise the TDS to 160ppm. Water parameter before WC TDS: 137ppm Temp: 77.7°F GH: 7 KH: 0-1 Ammonia: 2.0ppm Nitrite: 0ppm That's where the tank stands as of today. I should be getting some more moss in the mail Friday so I will probably post an update then. I would appreciate hearing any comments or suggestions you might have. Thanks.

Good luck with your selective breeding program, I hope it ends up taking off for you.

The only colours I can get from my chocolates are blue or red lol would love to be getting greens. I'm using just tap water though.

A. Buy a shotgun B. Buy a pit bull :)

I'm pretty sure 2OFUS meant harmless, instead of harmful.

Fantastic stuff Jen, great news!

Seed shrimp a.k.a Ostracod: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ostracod Due to their hard shell, they are dislike by predator. Hence, if you have a lot of uneaten food in the substrate, their population will bloom exponentially. They are pretty harmless. In actual fact, you are able to use their population and activity to gauge the quality of your water. If your water quality is bad, they will start dying even before your shrimp.

Thanks newbreed. The sooner I can add some shrimp to the tank, the better. How long did it take to cycle the tanks you have put bacteria additive under the soil? I started a thread in the Tank Journals forum. You can check on my tank's progress there if you are interested.

Looking great JPN! Good luck with the program, keep us updated!! They're such a nice deep green colour!!

Lol i am stuck in this place for another 13 months so no new projects for me unfortunately and then i will be renting again so another delay. Maybe when i buy a house some day i will have some, we already plan for an area for my shrimp when buying lol so thats a plus.

Looks like your on track for a good population !

They're everywhere!! Congrats Jen!! Sure it's not 124?? May have to recount!! Lol

alternate days wc would be good idea too, just focus on reducing the ammonia for the first week, maybe 80% wc, after that u could switch to 50% wc be carefull with messing the soil when wc, could cause ammonia spike, after the 9 times wc, u could start adding bacterial with weekly wc, just remember the filter media could contain bugs, in my case, my breeding sponge got some seed shrimp and lot's of worms sure it's very effective, but i hate the bugs spreading to new tanks i don't see any development for the first 2 month, i rarely wc, test 4 differents bacterial products, each product tested for 2 weeks at 3rd month, while the ammonia still high i add plant, and 2 weeks after that the ammonia suddenly become 0 my friend often wc his tanks, got cycled before month 2 the advantage for waiting so long, after cycle, there is lot of biofilm(could be the sign of cycled tank too), really good for baby shrimp, and good for the worms and bugs too LOL, restrict feeding won't control the population, because they could just eat the biofilm

I counted 123 CRS shrimplets today!! Everytime I look in their tank I almost have to pinch myself to make sure I'm not dreaming. I've even spent a few nights sleeping on the couch this week as I've fallen asleep while I've been watching them, lol.

Thanks BB. My greens are kept in low pH as well, 6.2-6.4.

What else would you expect from a match made on the SKF-dating site. I hope your Christmas was special too! And that 2015 will be awesome for you.