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Hey SKF, My snowball and my rcs colonies are perishing - succumbing to bacterial infection I believe. I moved house not very long ago and for some reason my YCS and CRS have taken it in stride, not lost any berries or shrimplets at all as far as I can tell. I'm not sure what has gone wrong with those other 2 colonies - I think it may relate to some of the cleaning process of the gravel/tanks or whatnot. The RCS have a purplish/bluish section on their abdomen and the older ones are the first/quickest to give up but others are following, most have poor colour. They first became ill after being placed in a food-grade bucket I bought from bunnings (but probably didn't wash well enough.. who knows what was the reason as other shrimps did perfectly well in the exact same buckets) My snowball colony was obtained a few months ago but were compromised by being placed in a tank of doom from the getgo, I never saw any saddles and 4 of the 20 I bought had died over that period. Since moving them to a new setup (with completely new filter/media, new gravel and tank) they have been dying 1 or 2 per day and I now have 5 or 6 left. Due to time constraints I have failed to mitigate the illnesses in either of these 2 colonies and I'm going to bin the rest of them so I can focus on my other colonies and once they are thriving I will consider setting up other tanks again, ANYWAY - you win some and you lose some but I know my shrimp breeding hobby will bounce back stronger, My future tanks will be setup much better given planning and time to do it properly. I joined the forum after having accidentally bred thousands of mixed-grade RCS in a large 4 foot planted tank. I sold many of these very cheaply and thought "wow how cool I can pay for my aquarium hobby as I go!". It took some months before I realised truly how fun shrimp breeding is. The process of selection/culling is so rewarding and despite lots of hiccups I have still made progress improving the quality of my shrimps. I am especially proud of my YCS colony as I struggled and struggled when I first got them, barely managing to get them to reproduce but over the course of the year I now have "hardier" shrimps while keeping the same colour quality as I initally bought. I look forward to sharing experiences and knowledge on SKF in the year to come. I really want to thank all the members of SKF who have contributed over the course of 2015 to make this such a wonderful and helpful community I have learnt a lot. I won't single anyone out for thanks but there are people here who go well out of their way to guide noobs like me through their shrimpkeeping difficulties and they deserve a big pat on the back. I'd also like to thank the wonderful sponsors here. and a huge thankyou to Nogi for putting in so much time to manage the forums here! Cheers SKF and may the forum continue to grow and thrive into the new year to come. love n peace will

Hi All, In addition to the RO unit FSA generously donated to SKF for the Christmas comp, they are willing to offer a 5% discount on purchases for SKF members. You just need to place the order by phone and mention the discount. For online orders use the following code: SKF5. Any issues let me know. FSA are also very keen to get feedback on their products. I encourage any FSA product owners to write up a review here: http://skfaquatics.com/forum/articles/product-reviews/

It has been a while since I have posted and I promised @NoGi I would post some photos I took recently so here is a few shots for everyone to enjoy :) I have ~10 adults and ~5 juvies of these guys. The juvies look quite good, so I am hoping they will be of high quality in adulthood also. I had a female drop some shrimplets about 2 days ago now, so hopefully more quality shrimp too! I am currently working on letting them get their numbers up, at which point I will begun "culling"/removing lower quality shrimp and working on getting their white as strong as possible as well as ensuring good colour throughout the shrimp and working on more colour into the legs. But this is a long way away at this stage! Let me start with a freshly born shrimplet! This guy is a couple of hours old roughly: One of my berried females (lower quality female but is very productive) A female (She is my best female but have never seen her berried) - She is also a little smaller than others. Can shrimp be stunted/runts like fish can? Thanks for reading and I hope you enjoy the thread and shots :)

Only chucked it in the tank 5 minutes ago and the shrimp are playing near the bubbles!!

Thanks jayc. I know in some instances too much surface agitation is a bad thing so just wanted to check - couldnt remember whether it was with or without co2. Might pop down the street and get one now :)

Cheers nogi you rock. You just gotta love the skf spirit it is such a positive community here. I had two horrible days which were 42 and 43C respectively during which i experienced some airconditioner issues and i felt like i was not at all cut out for shrimp breeding. I have persisted and with all the information that is accessible here I have kept my head above water and I'm feeling upbeat about the hobby. My CRS colony is doing very well I've had several batches of shrimplets in the last 2 weeks since i move and i think 3 newly berried ladies so I'm very pleased. My ycs tank was languishing due to neglect prior to the move and there was only one saddled female in the whole colony! Now I can see 4 and their colour is great indicating they are happy little campers! Thanks again to all for the advice and help to keep me going. Big thumbs up@fishmosy for all his advice re setting up my rack (i more or less copied his rack-it setup from his thread) love n peace will

I'd be interested in knowing too as I may go down this path. I already have salty shrimp to remineralise mine. How are you guys storing the water? Store and then mineralise on use or mineralise and then store?

Hi all, Saw the discount available and went ahead and bought the $155 dollar RO unit. Cody was very helpful and explained that it also includes a DI resin. Do I need to do anything besides remineralising it with the DI to make the water safe for shrimp? Planning to use seachem equilibrium for remineralising.

I use the nutrafin brand ph tester and it's been my favourite, have shared it with other shrimp hobbiest and have only heard good results

I got my NEST 3D shrimp net yesterday !! A belated Christmas present. Thanks again @newbreed!! It is such a well constructed net. If anyone is looking for a shrimp net, this is the one to get. It's a piece of art that is also functional. No stray bits, no visible exposed ends, good quality materials. It's got a long handle, so your hands don't go into the tank. It's white net will be invisible to shrimp in the water. They will walk right into your net. Shrimps can see black nets, and will swim the other way. The net is well ... 3D, which means it stands erect instead of collapsing. Again it saves you from using your hands to untangle the shrimp from the net. This Nest 3D net is truely putting my DIY 3D net (DIY article on my 3D net) into the retirement home.

A family meeting:

Full tank shot... Taken and uploaded from my phone. Full tank shot... Taken and uploaded from my phone. And a few more close ups of each side

This took abit longer than expected and they didnt do what i wanted them to do but this will have to do :P And yes you can feel them picking away lol

I like the setup and the shrimp look nice and red too