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I'd go with 4-5 first.

The native snails - the giant cone snail and the spiny marsh snail - are good in shrimp aquariums as they reproduce via larvae, not live-bearing. They are hard to track down though - I haven't seen any for sale for probably 12-18 months

Well, I am happy to send you as many as you like! still have a few laying around in the garden...let me know. PS I have a photo of them further back in this thread.

Even better! and lastly, what food you recommend me buy for the shrimp? getting very confused with all the different types....was thinking Shrimp crack by Boss?? Yes, I have seen that site. Will have another look and see what they would suggest. Thank you again.

We have a few native varieties Aquagreen sells some someone else on here might know of another source. There was a Facebook snail page before but I'm not sure if it's still active.

@inverted: keeps some nice tangs as does@fishmosy: you might try messaging them. Come to think of it Paul does as well. [emoji173][emoji111][emoji445] will

Oh WOW! that would be fantastic! I just love the RCS but this time around would prefer the redder forms for contrast....will message you when time comes, hopefully in the next week or so...thank you, that is excellent...now to find Tigers...LOL

@Paul Minett is another who could give you a list I just noticed him lurking ;-) [emoji173][emoji111][emoji445] will

Have a read of this I've revisited it a few times since getting into aquariums it's a beautiful piece. It is dated there may be newer products but the science is solid. http://www.oscarfish.com/article-home/water/71-autotrophic-bacteria-manifesto.html [emoji173][emoji111][emoji445] will

Agh the majority of my post got selected and eleted in the same instant I pressed send doh !! In short there will still be plenty of ammonia leaching from your substrate well in excess of the amount that any new shrimp will add (unless you go super crazy overfeeding them perhaps) so don't worry about the nitrifying colony dying off. When you're sure the cycle is adequately established it's best to dump that old water to get rid of the nitrates that have accumulated and then wait a few days or a week to ensure that things are still under control. Just my opinion others will be more gung-ho indeed I have pulled off some risky moves in the past with a certain substrate as@jayc will recall but it can pay to play it as safe as possible with shrimp. Any ammonia or nitrites can harm them a lot.

Hi. The shrimp hobby has resurfaced for me. Its never ending. I guess we all feel this.

I have been using Benibachi for 5 years with the same basic setup as you and unfortunately still haven't found a solution to the low ph. I have now started using much less than the 5-6 cm base of substrate but the tanks always seem to stay below 6 for a very long time. I just very slowly acclimatise my shrimp and they seem to adjust quite well. My shrimplet survival rates are excellent. I keep TB ( KK, Pandas BB - all do well at 5.5 ) CRS, Tangerine Tigers, Tibees and Taitibees plus I keep a few Neocaridina - blues and yellows - the only shrimp that weren't breeding well were OEBT when I had them in the low ph . The trouble with using any chemicals to change ph is the rise and fall in the parameters and shrimp like stability. No doubt there will be something you can do to raise the ph but do make sure it's not using things like ph up etc. You could siphon out some of the substrate to 2-3 cm , driftwood , IAL etc also lower ph .

Sorry to say it, but, no. You cannot maintain a heavy dosing regime of fertilisers while keeping TDS at levels required for shrimp. The only way to maintain low TDS is to swap the plants for low light plants, and reduce or stop fertilisers all together. My shrimp tanks are all mosses, subwassertangs, ferns and Anubis.