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Hi All :) after reading these forums for a couple of years like a stalker I have finally joined up & look forward to being able to join in the conversations. I've been keeping cherry shrimp for around 4 years and started with the red cherry (like most do) & fell in love with them. I only keep cherry shrimp & have a very successful colony of paint fire red cherry as well as a wonderful colony of yellow cherry shrimp which I am very proud of, I also keep choc/black cherry shrimp and have a slowly establishing colony of blue dreams which were a variety I totally adored from the moment I first set eyes on them and I'm so happy to finally have them. I also keep tropical fish and breed corydora sterbai, corydora hastatus, Kuhli loaches and good old common Bristlenoses as well as Endler Hybrid Guppies galore & axolotls. I currently have 18 tanks of all sizes from 60L to 800L and am always planning the next one - someone should have warned me this hobby is ridonkulously addictive - but I wouldn't swap it for anything! It's a great hobby and I never stop learning new and cool things from all the great people out there that are happy to help & share their knowledge with others, to all those that willingly share and help - thank you! ❤️ - you don't realise how many people you help with your posts & answers - especially the quiet forum stalkers like me. I look forward to finally joining in. :D

yes, i believe so. I don't know if biodegradation is the right term for it, even if I have no better terminology to replace that term. The best I could think of is ... 'nature'. Your soil isn't the only thing in the tank that is reducing pH. The bacteria is producing more hydrogens during the nitrogenous cycle of ammonia to nitrates and thus also decreasing pH. The water surface and air is exchanging O2 and CO2, and also alter pH. If you add CO2 into the tank, that will reduce pH as well, as we all know. As you can see there are many factors involved, and it's difficult to isolate one as the many cause. But, reducing amount of soil can help. New soils will produce a greater pH altering affect, but will eventually subside to produce more stable readings. So if you have new soil, keep up with your water changes. Or you can reduce the amount of soil used at the start. Or even introduce some carbonates in the form of shell grit or egg shells, or coral skeletons. Your soil might be reaching it's solubility limit as it is now. pH4.8 should be about it's limit. If you did nothing else, that should be as low as it gets. What soil are you using BTW? ADA Amazonia? <edit> - just read the first post. Amazonia has been know to drop pH into the 4's when new. It's common, when you use a generous amount. It will slow down when it matures, but you can help it along with some carbonate input as suggested above.

That T in black is super hot...

The amount of soil you use. Use too much and it buffers the pH very low until it reaches equilibrium.

Sold !

They are. Bloody mary come from Chocolate lineage, so the are the red version on the right side of the chart, next to black. Bloody mary are translucent and you can see the saddle on females. Painteds are opaque, and as some say, appear "painted". It is difficult to see their saddles, if at all.

I believe the guy from LCA when he says he breeds them in pond/s. There are several reasons for this. Firstly, Jeff (LCA) is friends with a friend on mine from Cairns who has kept and bred the zebs using the same method. Secondly LCA is located in QLD very close to Tully Gorge, not in Sydney despite the name. I have measured the water parameters in the areas around Cairns and Tully, and the water is more or less the same as where the zebs live. Therefore its easy to have the water flowing into the ponds straight from the tap (I've been told LCA has its own bore). The disadvantage for us is that keeping the shrimp under these conditions is basically like keeping them in the wild - the shrimp are used to the same water parameters and so must be kept in the same way as wild caught shrimp when they arrive in our aquariums. I'm pretty sure LCA would supply AI so that explains the bag. That said, I know AI is supplied on occasion with wild caught zebs so if you purchased them via a retail store or wholesaler, its impossible to know where they originated.

@Zebra I think you are right with regards to TDS and GH/KH measurements. Logically, 2KH and 2GH together should give a TDS around 60 or more. There could be two reasons for the discrepancy. First, most people use liquid test kits to measure KH and GH, which rely on the user seeing a change in colour. Its pretty dam hard to see a colour/colour change when you only add one drop of test liquid. Easier to see it after two drops. Second, there is some margin of error for all test kits. The TDS meter might be out by a little bit and the liquid test kits only measure to the nearest drop (i think its equivalent to 17ppm for API test kits) so theres plenty of room for overlap and a wide margin of error. For example, two drops for a GH test could mean anything from 17ppm to 34ppm (assuming 17ppm = 1 drop). Remember ppm is parts per million, so we are trying to measure tiny amounts of ions dissolved in a lot of water. I would have thought 4ppm in the RO water would not have affected the shrimp too much. Trouble is you dont know what the 4pm is. I wouldnt think it would be chlorine because its a fairly easy ion to remove. Assuming the 4ppm is chlorine and trying to neutralise it would probably do more harm than good as you are adding more ions to the water = increased TDS. Always best to get your own RO unit, I've got one and I'm still kicking myself that I didnt get it alot sooner. Our forum sponsor FSA has some units that are reasonably priced and work well. I bought the combined RO and drinking water unit and I think it is fantastic. I'd say they are loving the plants and wood because its a good source of food, specifically biofilm. There is no plants and not a lot of wood in their natural habitat, so I dont see any specific reason to add them. That said, they are unlikely to harm the shrimp and removing them out of the tank now is propably going to cause more problems than it solves. @Zebra I say, yes you are allowed to get more if these die. Zebras have a steep learning curve and my first attempt at keeping them didnt go well, even when I have the advantage of being to their wild habitat and seeing how they live. Keep at it. The pink stuff on airline is usually some form of microbe (bacteria or fungus usually) that seem to feed on stuff that leaches from the airline. I've never found it to be harmful and I've seen snails eating it.

Below is Seachem's response to the original question which I have received: Thank you for your email. Basically, humic acid is released from Peat after it removes minerals from the water, softening the water. This softening effect is unavoidable. Once the Humic Acid is in the water, it promptly starts donating hydrogens to the water, lowering the KH and pH. If Purigen gets its hands on the Humic Acid molecule, it will remove it from the water, but by then the humic acid has already successfully brought the pH down. If you somehow managed to completely surround the peat with Purigen so that any and all humic acid that is released was immediately adsorbed, then yes, the Purigen will have managed to completely prevent the Peat from having any effect on the pH at all. However, in almost any other situation, there will still be an impact on the pH of the system despite the fact that the Purigen eventually removes the humic acid from the water. Thank you, Seachem Support

Ohh.... lols[emoji23] I have kept shrimps for so many years n had never seen one moult before. Only see their empty shells... Thanks!! It gave me a scare[emoji28][emoji5] Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk