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Today while in a local pet shop I saved myself around $20 just by reading a label fully. I have a habit of checking out the various fish/ shrimp foods that different shops stock and happened to see a brand of crayfish that I had not seen before, the price was good at $13.95 for 130g and I know from past experience that many shrimp and snails enjoy crayfish pellets so I considered getting the food. I then spied the same companies shrimp pellets and considered swapping the crayfish food for the shrimp food, until I saw the price. The shrimp pellets where $31.95, I even checked the other tubs they had incase there was a mistake, but no all the shrimp tubs had the same price. I then checked the ingredients on both lots of pellets and guaranteed analysis and found them to be identical. Ingredients being fish meal, soybean meal, flour, wheat meal, yeast powder, krill meal, wheat germ, multi-vitamins, trace elements, natural colour enhancers and fish oil. Crude analysis is Crude protein min 30% Crude fat min 3% Crude fibre min 10% Moisture max 8% So as far as I can tell both products are identical just a premium price on the "specialist" shrimp variety and it does pay to read the fine print.

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.

I set up a 10gal (37liter) tank with a hamburg matten filter at 45ppi. I am planning to few Marimo moss balls once the tank is cycled. I am intending to keep cherry shrimp (Green var. if I can find them) once the filters are established. The fish will be removed after cycling and before the shrimp are added. Thank you in advance for any tips and suggestions.

Cool, looks good! I will try to spread it to other platforms. Cool, looks good! I will try to spread it to other platforms.

Examples of available premium themes:

The brand is Aquatopia, I have seen it on sale online but never locally so I thought I might as well give it a go and support my local non-chain store pet shop.

I use Salty Shrimp Sulawesi Mineral 8.5. I generally grab a small plastic cup, put in required scoops, mix a little water from tank and pour in. Tanks goes freaky white and then all clear by next morning. Almost always, I see fresh moults from my natives so something is working right I guess. My sulas, natives, snails and crabs don't seem to have an issue. I don't measure GH so the creep you are seeing could be present in my tank too.

Caribsea purple up. I know what it is. It contains calcium, strontium, magnesium, and carbonate also iodine. That's all it is, but it's a marine aquarium product, and will alter pH drastically as well as KH, if used in a fresh water tank. My diy remineralising mix in the "Water parameters" sub forum is a better alternative. I don't mean to brag, at least my diy mix is made with fresh water shrimps in mind, with no unwanted ingredients and ingredients that are useful to shrimp. It will also be cheaper if you can get the raw chemicals in bulk. Don't use purple up on your fresh water shrimp tank long term. It will alter your water parameters which will need to be adjusted after. You could use it on a new tank to raise parameters to the right levels though for a neo caridina tank.

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