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I got some nice specimen from my mix-aquarium with TB's, pinto's, taitibees etc, etc, The first 2 photos (I think) must be a mix from a pinto zebra and a kingkong, The red one is probably a red tiger and the same father? I've got 2 of the blacks and about 10 of the red ones, I have put them apart from the rest and see what the next genereation will be. Sorry for the quality of the photo's, they're just from my iPhone, the macrolens I ordered hasn't arrived yet :-( Greetings from the Netherlands

Oh sure! It's always fun to try mixing it up a bit. I've got bunches I'm playing around with in terms of color morph mixing. But... they're in a separate tank :P I do not plan to sell the mutty ones unless the customer specifically asks for them and knows what to expect.

It might not be NTD, since it's also on the tail. NTD is mainly on the body, discolouration and turning whitish. BUT if the fish is sick enough from NTD, it might manifest in other symptoms as well like finrot. But your Neons look like they might have fungus. Since you can't do anything to treat NTD, your only hope is that it is not NTD. And instead treat it for fungus / finrot and hope it gets better. Finger crossed that it is only fungus. What are your tank parameters? Temp, pH, TDS.

My Aura Blue

My Red Tüpfel :)

I put a new LED Plant Glo light on my native tank and decided to take some pictures of the native shrimp under it. The result I think is quite impressive and really seems to show up their colouration and delicate patterning. The spotted blue eyes also look AMAZING and are showing more yellow on their bodies. Sadly for now I don't have any decent pictures of them since as soon as they see movement or the camera trying to zoom in on them they hightail it back into the depths of the weed jungle. So for now heres some of the shrimp Not sure if this girl is a Blackmore river Pretty sure this is a Blackmore River Shrimp Could be a young DAS or another Blackmore Sorry for the blurr but it really was the golden colour and wouldn't sit still very long No idea Possibly Blackmore This I know is Chameleon with two DAS The other solid back striped chameleons wouldn't play ball and stayed in the dark recesses of the log

Have you been monitoring the temperature of the tank at all? A too big of swing in temp, or even too high, could result in death.

Hey Dimos Not sure of your tank size but if it is reasonably small the temp can fluctuate a lot with sunlight on it. This is not ideal. To give you an idea i had some shrimp in a 10L Betta tank sitting outside and was slowly bringing down the TDS of their water. It has been quite cold and cloudy in Perth so it rarely got any sun on it but on the few fine days it had sun for about 1 hour. I had been checking the temp about once a week and it sat about 12-15c in the morning. On the day i decided to get a photo in there the sun was on it and i started to clean the glass. It felt rather warm for 15c so i tested again and it was at 23c. 1 hour of sun and 10c increase. That tank is now inside and at a constant temp.

By "take out their skin", if you mean, the shrimp are molting, then that's normal! Actually, it's a great sign! Not being able to molt their exoskeletons would be bad. As long as water parameters are good, they get good diet, then you shouldn't need to change anything. Molting can also be a precursor to a saddled female becoming berried as long as you have males and females.

Didn't I say congrats on the fry??!! I must have been prophetic. ?

I've been tempted to buy some brine shrimp eggs to hatch to amuse my kids... yay sea monkeys! (I've already hatched them for my own amusement in the past, of course.) I can kind of see why your father-in-law might describe it like that - from my very limited observations, they are most obvious swimming around in the err... juicy/wettest parts of the culture. And I think older cultures end up wetter too. AAAAHHAHAHA! My typing of this post was interrupted by my 6 year old son's questions about why there was another fishy in the tank with HIS fishy. His fishy is a male Betta. The other fish was a female betta and I'd been trying to convince them to mate. He then claimed he could see eggs in the girl fish. I came over to check and explain that he couldn't see eggs IN the girl because they wouldn't be visible IN her (as they are for the shrimp and guppies, which he has seen). But... it turns out he was right... he could see eggs! Because they were in the midst of mating. There are a few dozen eggs visible in the bubbles around some frogbit. It looks like my infusoria culture was well timed after all! Hopefully the eggs will hatch and my various goofy, smelly jars and boxes will be able to justify themselves.

A couple of other breeders are keeping mixed tanks and have great success in not getting wild colored offspring. Even if they do, they enjoy them. Guess you could say that mixing the different Neo colors is like a box of chocolates! ;) You never know what you're gonna get! :D (Please note, I may delete this image at a later time. It is from a FB group - photos of some of the interesting colored shrimp were shared, too)

Temperature at 22 is good. No to API Melafix. Melafix is not for fungal infections, it might agitate the infection even more. Don't know about Blue Planet range, never used it. Let me read up on the ingredients ... The Blue Planet Fungus Care uses the usual Acriflavin + Malachite Green combo. But the price !! Seriously? if there is nothing else in your sad LFS, then get it. But if you can find something similar, then pick the cheaper one. Anything with Acriflavin+ malachite green will do. Or any meds with Formalin + Malachite green will also treat finrot/fungus. Methylene Blue will also treat fungus, but is not as strong as Malachite green/Formalin. I would pick up something that uses Formalin + Malachite green, as that treats external parasites as well, covering ich and gill flukes. So it's a multi purpose med. Interestingly, Waterlife Protozin will also do the job on fungus and also claims to cure Neon Tetra Disease. Even though everyone says there is no known cure for an infected fish. Again Waterlife is overpriced if you only bought it for fungus treatments only. You'd only buy this if you really had NTD and had no other alternative treatments to try. <edit> - BTW I'm moving this to our Fish Health & Care section http://shrimpkeepersforum.com/forum/forum/135-fish-health-care/

I watched them spawn and even took a video. :) Super cute. Let's see if I have success hatching and raising them. They are in a mixed tank... actually I am in the midst of closing down a few tanks so I chuck the CPDs, pygmy corys and 2 peppermints all in a two footer bare bottom tank with some plants potted in plastic take away containers. Super basic setup really. This is the first time I am trying to culture blackworms so I really don't have good proven advice for you. Sorry. However, I have put a LOT of blackworms in it as I was given a LOT of blackworms recently... like 500g worth... haha. It was insane and I still have some in the fridge. @buck would totally know what it is like having so much worms. Haha. I have a 1-2cm layer of Seachem matrix off spec in the breeder box and chucked in some dried oak leaves and been feeding them some sinking wafers. So far seems ok but it has only been a few days so still early days. I'll try your frogbit method. Thanks for sharing. This is the post on Simply Discus forum: http://forum.simplydiscus.com/showthread.php?123314-Blackworm-Culturing-Made-Easy! Sorry mods if the link above is not allowed but I reckon it is information sharing and not selling stuff competing with sponsors so should be ok??? @s1l3nt had kept live blackworms for a long time using this similar method. Maybe he can share more about how he set it up and how much worms he kept in it but he keeps them alive for feeding, not for culturing. Apparently they keep better this way than in the fridge. He used to have soil-less grindals as well so hit him up for advice. He has been super slack so I think all his grindals have crashed. I didn't close the lid of the container holding the blackworms in the fridge tightly and I ended up with a LOT of blackworms in the fridge. Luckily they were in a compartment dedicated to pet stuff so wife wasn't upset and I didn't get in trouble. Haha. I was given a recipe for MWs that work really well. Let me know if you want it. Send me a PM with your email address. You can get them from me. ? Send me a PM with your address. Depends on how urgent you want them... just pay for shipping if you want it express posted in a satchel. I also have MWs too if you would like some.

good write up Kaylena but people should be aware if you have berried girls in your tank and you put in slightly colder water as suggested- which does work - the berried girls may moult and leave their eggs in the moult. just keep that in mind so you don't lose babies.

A few things I noticed/thought I should mention, in no particular order or level of importance (keep in mind I didn't get nearly enough sleep and haven't really for the last 16 months, so I'm bound to be off kilter, but I figured I should put them up since I did ASK what was wrong!) Red Cherries are typically very flexible (as shrimps go) and have a decently wide range that they can do well with. But it's likely better to aim for the middle of a range if you're going to fiddle with things. Your 300+ TDS, while quite surviveable, seems on the high end of things (most people aim for 200ish), especially since your tap water is low and you have to use a remineralizer - I would use a tad less, save some money. As has been mentioned by many people/sources, it's probably at least as important to maintain fairly constant parameters as to aim for "ideal" numbers. Do you actually see dead shrimp? In a decently planted/decorated tank, sometimes "disappear" could just mean they're hiding better than you think. I had a few distinctive (easy to recognize) shrimp that just spent a LOT of time out of sight - sometimes it'll be 2 weeks before I spot them again. The berried females are especially prone to hiding. Hiding may account for a few of your missing shrimp. Do you ever see any odd things on or about your dead shrimp? (possible indicators for cause of death) How do you keep the water temp at 73 in Reno?? (assuming Nevada) I'd have though it'd be a lot warmer than that for at least 4 months of the year. Sorry, not quite shrimp related... just a random thought. Although... the outside weather/season could affect your shrimps' breeding. I've had long-time shrimp keepers tell me their shrimp won't breed for them during _X_ season (the low seasons varies). Things that could affect breeding: I used to be lazy about water changes, but now I think they are great!! You don't need to do huge ones - for the sake of convenience (size of my aquarium dedicated bucket), I usually do about 15-20% once a week. BUT. I purposely use cold water for my change and uhh... tend to dump it in relatively quickly - a minute or 2 for the small tanks. I AIM to drop the water temp by about 2 degrees. This tends to result in a bunch of newly berried females the next day. (Possibly the drop in temp --> new rains -->fresh food supply -->time to breed idea). The other thing that may help speed up your breeding slightly is to increase your tanks' temperature slightly 75-6 ish (higher temps = faster life cycle; this won't do much for deaths though). More plants are always good for breeding too - more surface area, more biofilm for the babies to eat - especially if you have places that only the smaller ones fit. I have a bit of moss wall on the back of all of my shrimp tanks. I usually stuff a couple of the IAL leaves or other dried leaves back there with most of it sticking out - the mesh helps hold them in place so they're not too cluttery, but it also creates baby-only zones on the leaves. And when I say a couple, I mean my 10 gallon usually has +3 leaves, added 1 per week or so - that way they have a chance to soften and grow stuff before the older ones are all gone. If you're REALLY trying to breed more and have the time/equipment, you can try setting up a maternity/nursery tank. Mine are just external breeder boxes attached to the main tank, so no extra tanks to handle (other than the occasional thorough clean they get when between batches). I find that my baby survival rate is anywhere from 50% to +300% higher in breeding boxes. Perhaps because they never have to compete with adults for food. My most recent experience with this - I'd put my berried TB females in their own box, at first because I wanted to keep track of the babies' growth. But they've been spitting out about 3x the number of month old juveniles per female than the supposedly more prolific CRS. It can't be water parameters etc... they all share the same water. So now I think I'm doomed to have breeding boxes hanging off of various tanks ?. You may have gotten a batch of inbred shrimp that carried some less than ideal genes and they're slowly showing themselves in a constant low stream of deaths. Because it's next to impossible to tell if that is or will be an issue (unless you happen to have a spare equipped Biology lab and some minions to do the work for you), I generally try to get livestock (be it fish, shrimp, insects, whatever) from multiple sources. I'd rather go to the trouble of driving to 3-4 locations than wonder if they're struggling with lethal recessives in there. Fiddling with the water parameters will often stall their breeding, so you may have to give them time to get back into the swing of things. Hopefully something in there gives you some ideas that help. And maybe someone with more experience/more awake will chime in!

I think I have seen similar little bugs before and they are plant eaters. Not 100%sure on that since I tend to only be searching in the wilds for shrimp, fish and snails any bugs I tend to catch get let back go again immediately along with any water spiders I stumble across.

We need the FB-style "reaction" button so I can click "wow" and not just thumbs up! That looks awesome !

Awesome news, I've finally spotted some new bubs. they are transparent and hard to see but I have around 20 or so. they are around 6mm at the moment. Only found them because I moved them to a different tank to make room for some new shrimp which should be arriving in a couple of weeks.

Doesn't everyone keep their shrimp colonies in 8x2x2 tanks ?

I do breed blue rams and discus. Just saying... haha... but imagine a fully planted 8x2x2 with CRS!!! :)

Caridina confusa set-up The tank was originally set-up for zebs. So it has a Quartz/granite sand base, with larger pieces on granite stacked on top. The tank was cycled for six weeks before the shrimp went in, using a large aqua one sponge filter that now resides in the left rear corner. Water parameters are maintained the same as zebs, TDS 20 - 40, KH and GH < 1, temp 20-22. I use RO water and Salty Shrimp minerals for water changes. Since the shrimp went in, I added a massive bolbitis that fills up most of the tank and a native fern. Also added an AZOO HOB filter for extra current. The black rocks down the front have mini bolbitis and a freshwater bubble algae that come from similar water parameters (see my video on Caridina longirostris to see the bubble algae in the wild). There is also a mulberry leaf decomposing amongst the bolbitis, but I haven't seen the shrimp eating it, so I won't be adding it again. The tank is lit with an Aqua Pro Z 60cm, which spans two tanks as my tanks sit end-on on the rack (from memory, the tank is 1*1*1.5 ft). There is getting to be a nice cover of algae on the walls, but there is a bit of hair algae developing on the bolbitis.