Leaderboard

Count me in, if I'm available at the time slot. @DemonCat, uhh, did you want an answer for these now, or are you going to save them for this chat session? @ineke, great idea. Giving the beginners the opportunity to ask questions. The veterans don't know what the beginners want to know. It is key that people ask questions. SKF has always said, there are no stupid questions here. Even if the question has been answered 100 times before, I have never seen anything but helpful members. SKF members don't point you to the search function and leave you to find information by yourself. So if there are any beginners with questions, ASK ! We don't know what you don't know.

Yes it's mating for sure. look at the first video from 0:30 typical a male who is in pursuit of a female (of what he thinks is a female). Oh and the second video is different. This is a something that happens here too. The sudden stop of current gives them something to start moving around. Not sure why, a sudden drop of O2 is not possible I think. Must be something else, the sudden change of their environment, start looking for a safe spot? Like in the wild, when the current of a small stream stops, something must be going on and the will search for deeper water?

Great idea Ineke. If the day/time is suitable, I'd ne more then willing to assist, or even ask questions :-)

Great guys - I think we have always been there but going by the number of people contacting me who don't have the basics and are losing shrimp it will be great to let people know again that SKF is willing to help. Yes people should do research but for so many buying their first shrimp is an impulse thing and it's only when they start losing their shrimp that they look into what they need to do. I am always happy to answer any questions but people need to realise what works for one doesn't always work for others and that is when the different answers seem to come in on the different sites however I do believe there are basics that don't vary and they are what we need to help with. im glad you are all onboard and hope we can help more people enjoy our wonderful hobby.

It's also tough for a newbie to find answers. Different sources have different answers. Personally, I would never ask or rely on information from a LFS - unless it is a top notch aquarium, rather than just a pet shop. Differing web pages have differing answers. A lot of it should be down to trial and error, but with the 'information age' upon us, us newbies just want correct answers!! Of course, I understand there is a difference between 'general simple questions' such as 'will my large fish eat my small shrimp' or 'what should I feed my shrimp' or 'whats tank cycling' and more complex questions which rely upon the experience of others. Those simple questions should be done via research of the newbie - I mean, research is half the fun. But yeah, I would always ask someone directly on here in regards to more indepth-yet-still-beginner questions about shrimps being berried, compatability of differing shrimp species etc etc. For example - take drip acclimatization regarding water changes. I did all the research on how to cycle a tank, the size of my tank versus the stock = what % of water change I should be looking at and approx how often, what you need to do do water before a change etc..... but I never knew that drip acclimatization helps the process and does not create a jolt in water parameters. Of course now that I know it seems simple, but at the time I didnt and lost a few shrimp. It was only after the third or fourth time I lost a shrimp within 24 hours of a water change did I realise it could be a problem. And again, it was the members on here which alluded to the potential issue. I still have a bunch of questions about it.... as I have an internal filter, does it matter that it will be turned off for an hour as I drip acclimatise? Does it matter a bit of the filter will be above the surface therefore BB may die off? What about my berried females when I need to do a watrer change? Will the lack of oxygen affect the tank or shrimp? Of course I learn as I go, and of course I do research, but for every beginner question I can answer myself then raises another three that I need help with!! I would love for if there was a dedicated time or area to answer some questions, but of course I still believe the onus is on the poster to find out the basics. And in turn, I would hope I would be able to answer other peoples questions!

Sounds like a great idea @ineke. I havent been on chat as much lately but i wwould be happy to answer questions people if we want to make it a particular time. If anyone ever has any questions that do not need instant replies feel free to pm me. I am happy to help and have regular pm with lots of members. I am also sure other mods and members liaison would do the same thing. Dont be shy.

Nothing beats interaction with other people who can answer questions In real time. When I first came on here Fishmosy answered a multitude of questions in a very easy to understand way - he never seemed to mind my endless questions . I didn't have the first idea of how to keep shrimp and treated them like I did my fish. All the abreviations were a nightmare and trying to wade my way through the literature was just to hard. 3-4 years ago there was less information available so the SKF members were my lifeline or my shrimps lifeline. Beginners feel silly asking really basic questions but it's the way we learn and our policy here on SKF was always no question is a silly question so new members can ask for help.

It has been almost two months since I updated this journal. Much progress has been made but at the same time, I could have done more but it was easier to just sit back and enjoy watching the inhabitants than to try complete the finishing touches to the rack. Yes I have been lazy and a bit of a procrastinator... haha. This is what I have been doing... I was battling an ugly BGA outbreak in the 4x2x2 tank. The before and after effect of using Chemiclean and siphoning out the dead BGA is evident in the photo below. Weeping moss concealed under that thick sludge of BGA. My discus have finally decided to pair up simultaneously all within the span of these two months. I was lucky to have six of them paired up out of eight juvies that I grew out. I waited until I could see wrigglers to ensure it was a confirmed pair before I moved my favourite pair to the rack. The other two pairs are left to spawn in the community tank. I installed a DIY mesh baffle (using SS mesh and poster hangers) on the center divider of the 4ft sump so water from the right section (grow out/hospital/quarantine tank) could flow onto the drip plate in the left section (sump) without having the fish/shrimps take a holiday in the sump. I added sump media consisting of filter wool, ceramic noodles and marinepure spheres. Also installed a fluid reactor to run Macropore Gold and some K1 which are still floating. Video of Macropore Gold in fluid reactor. And... the most problematic and tedious bit... I connected the shrimp tank to the canister filter and chiller. The plan was for water to exit the tank from the right most section via the SS strainer to the canister filter to the chiller and the return goes to the left most section. Water was to flow from the left sections to the right sections under the glass baffles through the substrate. Unfortunately, the flow through the divided sections was not adequate and this resulted in high water level line in the left sections and low water level in the right section and the outlet SS strainer was sucking in air to the canister filter. Each section is too small to allow me to drill holes in the glass dividers and I do not want to remove the dividers to drill and re-silicone them in. After some thought, I decided to try an inverted water bridge concept under the glass dividers but I need to test the flow rate so as to find an optimum pipe diameter that can fit under the glass dividers and yet allow enough flow to accommodate the canister filter and chiller's recommended flow rate. Hope my drawings make sense. Testing in progress using different diameter hose and pipe fittings... anything I could find really. I was pretty happy with the tests and decided to construct the inverted water bridges using irrigation hose and DIY mesh guard to prevent shrimps from travelling between each section. The DIY instructions can be found here: http://shrimpkeepersforum.com/forum/topic/3041-diy-filter-guard/. I have decided to use 2 x 19mm diameter hose for each section. This is the end result. So far the tank has been running for a few weeks and I have moved more shrimps into each section. At the moment, I have moved some yellow cherries (some from @buck... thank you good sir), bloody marys (from my brown/black cherry colony), black cherries, low quality blue bolts, pandas and heaps of CRS, CBS and GB type mischlings. This is how the tank looks now. I will most likely move some better quality shrimps into this tank for selective breeding in the coming weeks. Some of the candidates are... Female shadow panda. One of my better looking male blue bolt. One of my prettier female blue bolt. Next step is to install some night lights, run electrical trunking to hide all the wiring, and finally to paint the finishing coats for the MDF panels and mount them on the rack. Stay tune. Thanks for reading. :)

i have recently had the pleasure of meeting some lovely people both in person and on line who are quite new to shrimp keeping - although some have been keeping shrimp for sometime. I am both disturbed and amazed at the general lack of knowledge of basic shrimp keeping. Things like how to drip acclimatise shrimp. Doing water changes, what temperature to keep shrimp at, what substrates to use . Just the basic minimum knowledge is so lacking and once they realise they can ask me these types of questions I end up spending a lot of time with them answering their questions. I know the information is out there but perhaps it's lost in amongst all the more specific information that is harder to understand. I wonder if there is a time we could set aside here on SKF where we can answer realtime questions. Where people are able to come online and ask these questions while a couple of members are available to answer them. I understand these questions can always be asked but sometimes it can take hours or even days before someone answers. If we set aside a specific day and time that general knowledge questions can be asked and then the answer discussed and explained perhaps this would help the newer members to get answers right when they want them. We can all learn from each other's experience and discuss what works for us and what doesn't. I guess it would be like chat but on the open forum for anyone to join in. As I mentioned once people realise they can ask me basic questions I get bombarded with them. I don't mind and like to share what works for me but there must still be lots of new comers who just can't get their questions answered in an easy way to understand. Simple things like our abbreviations still confuse them and we are all guilty of talking a mile a minute using the abbreviations which just confuses the new comers more. Anyway food for thought going back to basics for very beginners may be useful - that's the sort of information a lot of people are looking for

Over last a couple months I have been frustrated over unknown cause of death - CRS, panda even toughie - cherry. Prior that unwilling to breed (now I have few pregnant maybe it's spring?) plus also unknown death too. I cannot understand as my WP is always spot on and I even use shrimpydaddy's products - totally can't understand. WP always maintain as suggested parameters and I feed them once every 2 days. I just dissect a pregnant CRS, took her eggs out and tried to revive by pointed the air pump outlet as suggested somewhere in this forum (or in other forum - can't remember where I read before) I thought maybe bacterial infection? I was thinking to purchase a UV (eheim) and Genchem immuno (to boost immunity despite I already have Glasgarten glucan) as my very last attempt. I suppose after this very last attempt if my unknown cause of death still persists - I might want to wind up this shrimp hobbying. Only give me heartache so far when scoop out the dead ones and burn a big hole in my pocket. Guys, do you reckon I should grab Eheim UV? Or other recommended brands? I cannot afford to purchase the high end UV (more than $500 one) Any input are welcome though

If your nitrites are 10ppm then that would be the cause of death. You want 0 nitrites unless you meant nitrates then 10 is slightly high but ok.

Shouldn't Nitrites be 0 ?

Yes putting some moss in will help it will give them hiding places and also grazing areas.

Recently read about people using this from Bunnings with good results. http://www.bunnings.com.au/osmocote-250g-aquatic-plants-controlled-release-fertiliser-_p2961623 I have not tried them myself as I still have heaps of Dino dungs from Aquagreen.

So despite feeding bloodworm over the past couple of weeks, I've yet to see any more berried females. I just happened to be reading a thesis looking at riffle shrimp that mentioned how decapods (i.e. crustaceans) can be induced to become reproductive by increasing daylength (typically more than 14 hours per day for yabbies and macros). Some months ago, I reduced my lighting period to only 6 hours total over my zebra tank to reduce the amount of filamentous algae growth in the tank. I'm going to try increasing my daylength back to at least 8 hours and step it up from there to 10 or 12 hours and see what happens. @Grubs I'm wondering what daylength you have your zebs under?

i have an interesting little shrimp in my tank. It's an extreme KK Taitibee but it's very small compared to its siblings and other shrimp the same age. It has been in the same tank as the others and has never been overcrowded . The shrimp is healthy and active out grazing and swimming. I haven't ever seen a runt in the shrimp tank as I think they would probably just die so this one is just small. The funny thing is it has giant genes in it. The picture shows the KK and a few babies - one in the background is about 2 months old and nearly as big yet the KK is at least 6 months. The Panda is a sibling and the full tank shot shows the KK in the lower left corner and the Panda on the bush for comparison. Maybe I will end up with a line of Miniature Dwarf Shrimp - pity there is only 1

I took those photos with the grading charts in mind but changed my mind and didn't offer them as they look crap. I don't have an SLR and was only using a phone camera with a clip on macro lens. Happy to contribute if you think the photos are good enough to be used. Let me know if you want them and I can send you the original non-resized copy.

Saving them for the correct time! Plus my boss keeps wondering why there is also photos of shrimp on my computer..

Oh BB Ididnt mention how much you helped me because we haven't seen you for a while and I didn't know if you wanted to be contacted. BB has been my inspiration and has helped me and many others get a great start in shrimp keeping. 90 % of my shrimp come from his lines. AND BB I have lots of Bluebolts now but they are Taitibees - still your line though.

Update: I was enjoying myself looking at the shrimp in this tank, and noticed that I have a SSS Mosura flowerhead female berried ! Probably from this hanky panky happy dance session I saw on Sunday evening. Might have more, didn't have time to check as I was on my way out of the house for work. Problem was, I thought this SSS Mosura flowerhead was a MALE up till now!!!

I say go for it. For those that want to tryt his out, set a time for chatroom and let me know. I'll publicize it so people are aware and we can see how it goes.

Looks great dude!

Nice. Now you can take some shots for our grading charts

1. if nothing works after few months, just reset the tank 2. the sign of success breeding always from getting more shrimplets, not from keeping the adult shrimp alive 3. always check if the tank already cycle 4. always start from simple setup, wasting money not good solution, more product, technique, etc = more risk 5. always start with few shrimp to check the new tank

Exactly what I was thinking. Thanks Ineke, for implanting this idea in my head. <edit> - just placed an order for Meta cubes!! Talk about impulse purchases.

@Unagi42 that's it!! You have inspired me to go get more breeder boxes.

1 have 10 mixed grade pure BB in this tank, the only time I see the females come to the front of the tank is when I feed them JayC Kandy Feast. Within 10 minutes of placing Kandy in the tank, every little shrimp comes out. Great time to check numbers & look for berried girls