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Since taking over Shrimp Keepers Forum, I’ve made a lot of changes to make this a more open forum so that information is more accessible and available to everyone in the hobby. This has had an underlying positive change to the culture of the forum and opened us up to new platforms including Facebook and Twitter but did result in a large number of subscription members migrating back to regular members as they were not able to see the continued value in subscribing. Why become a supporting member? Why pay the subscription? To put simply, it still costs money to provide a free service to the hobby. We deal with software subscriptions, hosting costs, backup costs, additional storage costs, design costs, etc…. These are all those little things that happen in the background to bring you the SKF Aquatics experience. Subscription costs start at AUD$11/year for the base level. So, what do I get for the money? Perhaps most importantly, the satisfaction of helping preserve, protect and build this knowledgebase of information for posterity. In a nutshell here's what it provides: Larger PM quota Access to view, post and reply in all the forums, both technical and social Access to all the additional resources such as the real-time Chat Ability to create Photo Albums, Blogs, and water parameter logs Ability to view more information about other members Avoid seeing the Google Adsense ads that are injected into the site for all other visitors A summary of the specific differences is included below: Different Levels of SKF Membership Compared Guest New Member Member Premium Platinum Diamond Google Ads ✅ ✅ ✅ ❌ ❌ ❌ SKF Sponsored Ads ✅ ✅ ✅ ✅ ✅ ✅ Wait between searches 30 secs 20 secs 10 secs 5 secs 3 secs 1 sec Signatures Max images ❌ ❌ 1 5 10 unlimted Max size of image ❌ ❌ 50px unlimted unlimted unlimted Max links ❌ ❌ 0 2 5 unlimted Max lines ❌ ❌ 2 5 10 unlimted Profile Information Max photo file size ❌ 50KB 50KB 100KB 100KB 200KB Photo dimension ❌ 150px 150px 200px 200px 250px Allowed Animated Avatar ❌ ❌ ❌ ✅ ✅ ✅ Messages (PMs) Daily PM limit ❌ 2 10 unlimted unlimted unlimted PM qouta ❌ 5 20 250 500 1000 Max PM recipients ❌ 1 1 2 3 3 Add attachments in PM ❌ ❌ ❌ ❌ ❌ ✅ Uploads Can add attachments to posts ❌ ✅ ✅ ✅ ✅ ✅ Total attachment qouta ❌ 1MB 10MB unlimted unlimted unlimted Polls Can create a poll ❌ ❌ ❌ ✅ ✅ ✅ Can vote in poll ❌ ✅ ✅ ✅ ✅ ✅ Moderation Post requires approval ❌ ✅ ✅ n/a n/a n/a Approval requirement removed after ❌ 1 post 1 post n/a n/a n/a Gallery Max personal albums ❌ 0 5 15 15 20 Can upload movies ❌ ❌ ❌ ✅ ✅ ✅ Can customise copyright text from username ❌ ❌ ❌ ✅ ✅ ✅ Trader Feedback Can add feedback ❌ ✅ ✅ ✅ ✅ ✅ Blogs Max personal blogs ❌ ❌ 2 10 15 20 Comment on blogs ❌ ✅ ✅ ✅ ✅ ✅ Chat Access to chatroom ❌ ✅ ✅ ✅ ✅ ✅ Private chats ❌ ❌ ❌ ✅ ✅ ✅ Themes Access to general forum themes ❌ ❌ ✅ ✅ ✅ ✅ Access to premium themes ❌ ❌ ❌ ✅ ✅ ✅ Classifieds Can post wanted adverts ❌ ❌ ✅ ✅ ✅ ✅ Can post sale adverts ❌ ❌ ❌ ✅ ✅ ✅ Access freebies/giveaways ❌ ❌ ❌ ✅ ✅ ✅ Cost (per year) Free Free Free ?? AUD$11 ?? AUD$22 ?? AUD$33 Becoming a subscription member not only provides you with additional features but helps to contribute to the ongoing running and enhancements of our community. I hope the table above helps to clear up any confusion around what each level of membership represents.

@Aiden123 I wonder if your problem was actually ever caused by no planaria as it is extremely shrimp safe even at higher doses. Perhaps your problem coincided with the use but not because of the use of the no planaria. if your soil is not depleted , all your water parameters are within normal range and most importantly you still have mixed sexes in your tank you could try to mimic nature to bring on breeding. An almost foolproof way to bring on breeding when your tank has stalled is to do some water changes with water that is slightly cooler than your tank water but not by much. The method is to do a 30% water change 3 times x 3 days apart. It seems to trigger a breeding response - I guess it mimics rain coming into the ponds and streams that shrimp are found in. It is not recommended to do this often and not if you have any berried girls as it will cause them to moult and they may lose their eggs. This method was recommended to us several years ago by the then owner of Boss Aquaria - Dean - as long as everything else in your tank is OK then this method usually gets the shrimp back into breeding. I have tried it a couple of times with good success. I did put the water in slightly faster than drip rate as you want them to feel the cool change and drip rate is a bit slow so you can speed it up just a bit as long as you make sure the WP's you are putting in are equal to what is in the tank so check all the parameters of the new water and apart from perhaps 1-2 degrees cooler it should match your tank. i have used this method on Crystals, TB and cherries

I know what you mean about the substrate. I'm happy with the buffering, but I'm still waiting for my stratum to settle down after over a week. Most reviewers said it takes 24 hours. If I wasn't in a bad position at the moment I'd replace it now and be done with it, but I can't justify it right now so I'm waiting either settlement or money tree growth. haha