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Well I've had a busy long weekend. I have decided to almost completely change direction with my shrimp breeding focusing much more on TB, Taitibees, CRS and CBS. Horror of horrors I actually put up several hundred shrimp for sale - me the shrimp hoarder has finally let go of lots of my lovely shrimpies! I even finally posted off the last of my Cherry varieties and now only have culls in a pond outside. I also sold of all my cull CRS, lots of Taitibees and most of my CBS colony. I have 2 people coming to pick out the remaining CBS and Tibees plus 3 people waiting to see if there are any left. So I have finally taken a step towards quality over quantity and will focus on pure line TB, TBM, Taitibees - I want to eventually put them into colour specific tanks to get them breeding true although with the Tibee genes in some lines that will take a while and hopefully they will still give me some nice surprises. my push in this direction has come from this seasons babies. My Tibees are at least F8 and having mixed them with F8 Snow White Mischlings, TB and TBM I am now starting to see some beautiful colours - they are too small to photograph but even at this early stage I can see dark BB, RR, pinto types , pandas and KK even some extreme RR. it has brought back a bit of excitement into the shrimp room and now I will have empty tanks to get ready for colour coordination . I am looking forward to seeing how the babies progress - just have to keep them alive first!

I may buy some shrimp but I have noticed a vast improvement in my CRS already just by taking out the poorer quality males. I have also culled 90% of my CBS so hope to see improvement in the new babies. I bought some nice pure TB from Jamie plus some of his TBM so have new genes to add to what I have. I may consider buying a male Tiger for my Tibee line but not sure just yet. I'm just very excited seeing the new bubs . When I first started keeping shrimp nearly 4 years ago now I never dreamed I might have a colony of TB and now I might just get there. I remember drooling over Bluebolts ( Marcus) Blue Bolt shrimp and now I have 12. They were way out of my price range back then but now I can look forward to tanks with all my favourite shrimp types in them. What a change in such a short time!

Finally found some time to install the LED lights and plumbing for the bottom tier, and moved the sump in place. Filling it up. As with all good plumbing, a few pesky leaks are bound to be found. There are 6 leaks in total. 5 x leaks are at the joints along the horizontal plumbing for the bottom level above the sump and 1 x leak at one of the joints in the vertical pipe of the sump pump return line. The most annoying thing is that these leaks are like a drop every 5-10 minutes. It wasn't a major crisis but I simply cannot ignore them. Personally I don't really like rigid PVC and glue. Even though I find irrigation pipes to be a hit and miss when it comes to leaks but I like them as they are cheap and easy to work with using a utility knife. I have tried both forcing the pipes onto the joints directly or softening it first using hot water, but still with similar results. An alternative that has worked for me is using flex hose. Similarly, easy to work with using just a simple utility knife but they are more expensive than irrigation pipes. All leaks were fixed except for the one on the vertical pipe. I'll try a new irrigation hose again but if it still leaks, then I'll have to use flex hose for that section as well. Fixed 5 leaks by replacing irrigation pipes with flex hose. That is all for now.

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@shrimpaholich, ok, I gotta ask. wazzup with that Oreo bucket? What are you using it for?

Have a read of this similar product here.... These products are deliberately vague at how it works to inhibit algae in a tank. As to whether they work or not, I don't know. Unless someone is willing to lend me a unit for testing.

i suppose you could call them that :p

"in the ghetto.... in the ghettooooo...." What other tanks you have besides the Guppies and this one?

So, are you saying that these are 'Bruce/Caitlyn Jenner' Guppies???

10 gal semi-DIY ghost shrimp tank (theres babies in there too!!) still got a long way to go :p but it'll be done one day! i sweear!

Yeah I haven't been sleeping too flash the last few months so my pattern is all over the shop, been up since 1:00 am mate. Hopefully have some plants in the mail today, so a few stems of what I have coming will probably go into this tank and the rest will go towards the projects that the stems were ordered for in the first place, some little projects to keep me busy I guess.

glad shes liking them :) and its OK to be up early surfing fourms lmao. i stay up late doing the same thing, and get up early to do the same thing. haha. my life IS fourms at this point.

Holic, man it's 5:22 am here and I'm wide awake surfing the SKF forum, I have no life, haha. Yeah Mum loves the Guppies, the colours and patterns are nice, Guppies aren't really my thing but it's what she wanted, man looking back at that photo above is mad, tank looks so different now, so much growth and more plants in there, added AR mini, Anubias, some mosses, all Guppies going well, no breeding though but that doesn't matter, also added Bolbitis as well.

how are the little fellas doin GC? i keep guppies too. Mum like em so far?

Um it makes sense to leave it if everything is breeding and shrimp looks fine. You changing the parameters back to "how" they meant to be might not end very well. If you insist on changing i would do it slow

They are probably just adjusting mate, don't stress too much. They take a little while to take root and start growing, if they are still yellowing or not thriving in a few weeks then start to worry.

Haha, I did it. Thanks for all the tips people. Not with a pasta machine yet, but low level food making style: http://shrimpkeepersforum.com/forum/blogs/entry/157-make-some-shrimp-food/

Hello ‌@Jo Did you end up testing your WP again? How did it go?

They say a "change is as good as a holiday".

Its always a sad day when you have to sell shrimp but you have an aim to improve your quality and its worth it. You can even use some of that money to fund the purchase of higher quality shrimp to help make a jump in quality faster. I am starting to have my own population booms in my PRL & BB sections and I am dreading trying to decide what will stay and what will go. Cant wait to see some pictures.

Not too long now. Really enjoying the journal. Cant wait to see it cycled and stocked up.

"Cull" shouldn't be confused with low quality. Cull really should be removed from the breeding cycle due to defects. And as such should not be sold or even given away. Giving away a cull specimen to someone who thinks it's a treasure will mean that the defect is bred and allowed to propagate. It has the potential of ruining many generations of line breeding shrimp in this country. Low quality on the other hand, doesn't exhibit defects. It's just not as bright or colourful or whatever. It doesn't pose any danger in the gene pool by introducing defects. Breeders can sell low quality shrimp at a reduced price or even give them away without any risk. Assuming the seller labels them appropriately as low quality and prices them accordingly, and the buyer is aware of it.

So some changes to report! The ss mesh guards kept getting blocked up by the algae, this caused a flood that let some crs escape so ive been tinkering with ideas to fix it and so far this is working the best, its some sponge sut in to a strip and rolled up. So simple and easy to clean, just pull it out and replace. Clean and kep aside to repeat. I was literally cleaning the other strainers once a day. Ive got the chiller hooked up to this rack now just in time for springs first hot days. Im using a powerhead to run the water though it and returning to the sump near the main pump. The big rack is definitely more work for it. Ive moved my snowballs over now and they seem happy, lots of saddles so hopefully soon lots of berried girls! Ive found 3 berried crs now! ones due to drop soon so that's exciting. The rest are growing slowly so as they start breeding ill be adding some pandas to the top left rack with the snowballs. Then when $ permits ruby/ wine reds to the bottom right! The blue bolts i got ages ago are starting to show there colours (a couple their lack of colour) im debating culling the bad ones already but cant bring my self to do it untill im sure of there sex.

Yeah I ended up with 14 in a 45l, ordered 10, 4 males, 10 females, great fish, all got a long well, will get another lot of Threads and Chams when I decide to get a larger tank, one day.

I used a threaded T-piece and a threaded tap. Again, easy to disassemble. ? The supplier is having fun with AQIS over labelling and has been going through the processes for a couple of months now. Unfortunately still no ETA on when it will be available again. i will definitely place a post when it's on the market again. So had some more time to play today, got the background on and ran final tests. so much nicer with black background. I just used the plastic roll. no nitrites, ammonia and only minimal nitrates after waterchange the other day. so in go the guinea pigs?!? these are are from my pinto and Tibee tanks. Not super fussed on the genetics, just looking forward to blue and red colony to watch.

Thanks for the welcoming post! (sorry didn't came here sooner) I'm a shrimp keeper (keeping tigers, taiwan bees and PRL at the moment) I'll try to make some post showing my shrimps as soon as I get my Taiwan Bee issues under control! Cheers guys!

Looks great!

Work has started on the poster, any comments appreciated. The article that the poster will be attached to will include real photos of the various graded shrimp as well.

This is what I've been waiting for, first berried CRS must be 3 weeks now since I put them in so I guess they are happy! cheers mate I hope they breed true (TB) like the seller said they would:|

100x40x40cm 160 l. light: 2 x 39W T5 (grolux +10 000 DayLight) heater - 2x39Wt5 XD .. temp 23 * C animals: ottocinclus affinis and shrimp: red bee, biene, taiwan bee, blue carbon rili Ferts: DIYmacro K2SO4, KNO3, MgSO4, KH2PO4 and Osmocote (to the substrate) micro: Intermag micro ( agricultural fertilizer ) + tropica torfin + shrimp nature fulvo reactor CO2 DIY water changes: RO + Shrimp mineral GH+ substrate ADA Amazonia + benibachi DIY filter http://dramaticaquascapes.com/images/do-it-yourself/diy_waterbottle_powerfilter_with_lid_18-320.jpgfilled seachem matrix