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its time to enjoy the Original red cherry shrimp Fire.....red.....culls...... What i classify as high grade sakua. Yeah they are great but this is the thing. Fire reds require a lot of control and very selective line breeding. 1. If they were born from culls. They go to the cull tank. 2. If they are not full colours. They go to the cull tank 3. If i have no idea where they came from in terms of lineage of i wasnt in control from say....a crap mom. Even if she bred with a good male. They go to the cull tank Doesnt mean i dont use them for breeding. I have a cull line breeding tank too. As a plan c just in case! Will post more cool stories and photos over the weekend.

I use SERA kits. KH starts yellow in the bottle but goes obvious blue on the first drop, you keep dropping until it goes yellow again. if it doesn't change colour and stays yellow that means your KH <1. If you have doubts sprinkle a few grains of bicarb soda into the test vial and it should instantly go blue (bicarb raises KH). The KH colour shift is easy to see. GH is muddy green colour in the bottle and 1st drop changes to muddy red, you keep dropping until it goes greenish again. The colour change from muddy red to muddy green can be quite difficult to see, especially at low GH because only a few drops of colour in the sample vial means the sample is very pale. At higher GH with more colour in the vial its a lot easier to see. I normally hold the vial over a piece of white paper and with each drop ask myself does the sample have a red tint or a greeny tint?. There is an issue that for old (past expiry date) GH kits the red tint becomes a muddy brown - so you're looking for a very subtle shift from muddy brown to muddy green/brown and its very difficult to see... time to toss and buy another. As for KH, if you are uncertain if the kit has changed colour sprinkle some GH booster into the vial and see if the colour changes back to red. The API kits use the same reagents and have the same colour changes.

Thanks ShrimpFan, Those legs are Sexy. Holy Moly you have great shrimp.

Here's a pic of my starting couple

Interesting observation yesterday... one female with a smaller shrimp (assume male) riding around on her back as if giving a piggyback. A second "male" approaches... climbs onto the fist. So now we have a 3 high stack..all facing the same way with the female walking around... along comes a third who climbs on board (so one female walking around with 3 males clinging to her back) then #2 got displaced and eventually #3 gives up. After 10 mins the female is still walking around with male #1 clinging to her "shoulders". Courtship by attrition? ... or persistence? I ran for the camera... and of course there was nothing to see when I got back. *rage*.

OK so after chatting to a few experienced people in this area it seems like we need to have informal catchups with like minded individuals initially and go from there. Kind of like our old SKF BBQs, This is because, if we want to do it like a formal club, a number of things are needed like incorporating, public liability insurance, governance, auditing etc... Which can still happen down the track if we get the momentum. In the meantime, I am proposing a brisbane shrimp keepers BBQ catch-up at a park where we can still chat about the same sort of stuff that gets discussed in a club but in a less formal manner. No formal club also means not worrying about raising funds etc... to get started, hall costs and so on. Once we have the numbers, it shouldn't be too difficult to take it to the next step which would be to incorporate, vote in a board and whatever else is needed. I just don't think we at that maturity here in brissie yet. Facebook site for brisbane peeps: https://www.facebook.com/shrimpkeepersclubbrisbane. Things to do to get it rolling: Get brisbane people to like the pageConfirm a dateConfirm a location

Well, I was having a quick look through the zebra tank last night just to make sure everything was in order. I was just looking at a nice, heavily saddled female and thinking it can't be long to berries now, when I saw this: Needless to say, I was pretty happy. This is the first female that has become berried in my care. Unlike Fishmosy and Grubs, who have gotten their shrimp used to eating commercial foods and leaves, I have been going powder as it just forms into the biofilm that they're eating anyway. It may be coincidental but I've been working on my nutrition project again the last few weeks and have almost finished formulating my new shrimp food. My shrimp have been getting fed the recipe as it develops and are all doing good things despite the cold.

bba is the devil of the aquarium hobby! never seen it that bad before. I got some on my sponge filters so just threw them in the bin lol too many dramas in the past

Hello people. Just to share one of my tanks, enjoy. Thanks Fábio Silva

Just increase the water sample to 20ml & use the same drops, you will reduce the results to 5ppm per drop so you can get a more accurate reading. You ideally want your tank to have about 25ppm of Ca & that's a lot easier to check with the 20ml test size. :encouragement: Don't worry dude, we don't believe in dumb nood questions.