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Seasoned fish hobbyist of 20+ years and have recently started a Red Cherry Shrimp tank 10 gal. Tank mates, Ember Tetra's and Pygmy Cory's with 3 Otos. Live planted and hoping for new shrimplets. ?

With such a great number of hobbyist joining the forum, thought I'd start a thread on some basic shrimp maintenance/breeding advise and techniques I'm guided with..... Water Parameters (WP) is critical, so depending on the shrimp type, do some research and ensure your tanks (WP) are within the recommended range. There are extreme cases (i.e. PH at 5 or 7.5 where CRS are successfully kept/bred, but on avg. these WP are theoretically a good starting point.... Caridina (CRS, CBS, SW/GB, TB*, Tiger**..) PH - 6.4 KH - 0-2 GH - 4-6 TDS - 100-200 Temp - 21-23 *TB (KK, WR & BB) - Some breeders prefer a slightly lower PH (5.6 - 6.2) for Taiwan Bee **Tigers - Some breeders prefer a slightly higher PH (7-7.4), KH - 2-8 and GH - 6-10 for Tigers Neocaridina (All colour variants of Cherry Shrimp) PH - 6.4 KH - 0-2 GH - 4-6 TDS - 100-200 Temp - 21-23 There's several thread on the forum with regards to soil type/recommendations, filters, chillers etc, so I'll just focus on the "day to day" maintenance and breeding habits I practice religiously... * Weekly water change (WC) is beneficial to even the best filtered system. I only do a 5-10% weekly WC per week, just to "freshen" the water. Add minerals like salty shrimp, mineral powder etc... On each WC. * The quality and consistency of Tap water varies. Reverse Osmosis (RO) water is recommended, to avoid any imbalances/pitfalls that can occur. Control what goes into your tank, to ensure minimal unexpected deaths. * Ensure a varied diet of commercial and fresh food to your shrimps, including. Powdered food to feed your shrimplets.. I daily feed all my shrimp, and depending on stock levels and shrimplets, two feelings per days are done. * Do water top ups caused by evaporation. I use straight RO water to top up all my tanks. * filter maintenance is done every 6-8 weeks for all my nano tanks, and 8-12 weeks for my breeding racks. This ensure the filters/bacteria is running efficiently. Ensure the filters are only rinsed off with the tanks water...do not over clean, and or use tap water, as this will kill the beneficial bacteria. * On a established system, ensure your nitrates are kept below 20ppm. Low nitrates do promote breeding ! Other notable mentions.. *Shrimp consume their exoskeleton that they shed during molting. This is a a rich source of essential minerals for the shrimp, so do leave them there for their consumption. *Iodine supplement is not necessary as freshwater crustaceans obtain iodine from their food. *Metals like zinc, lead, and elemental copper, are toxic for shrimps and will kill them. *Majority of fish feed on shrimps. Although through clever aquascaping, a co-existance can prevail, But it really depends on the seriousness you take your shrimps/hobby, i.e selective breeding program's, exotic shrimps ... *Hiding spots/shelters are important especially in periods of molting. Shelters can be bought or created via aquascaping. *Avoid chemical, and short term solutions...i.e. PH Up/Down.....I personally don't use ferts, and anything chemical.... *During our summer periods, have a Plan B even if you are running chillers. Have some RO ice blocks in the fridge for emergencies.. *Observe your shrimps, and develop an eye to notice any changes in their behaviour. This may highlight some potential issues before it becomes real issues. *Shrimps require oxygen rich waters. Ensure ample aeration, surface agitation etc... *PATIENCE IS KEY Mother Nature, whether purely natural or influenced by us do throw all of us a "curve ball"... So don't be discourage, get advise and share the grief with this forum, as your experience will help others.... No doubt, there's '000's of other advise, so please do add it onto this thread.......

yep, many of my problem was the chiller, I finally found out the problem before I went to Taipei, its all sorted out.

The died shrimps was because of the chiller, the last time it was the water pump that failed.

Fingers crossed for the new batch! I don't think I have ever had a new batch where ALL survived for the first 2 weeks, I usually expect/hope for 4 of 5 to survive which ties in with your latest batch? Great you are persevering. Simon

Hope you enjoyed your trip! Do you mean that all the other shrimps died or that they are in another tank, I hope it's the latter? Simon

Back from my holiday, my tanks is full of hair algae, took me about a hour to get rid of it all, just left the back untouched. My amano shrimps a crabs lives, weren't quite sure how many crabs I had before and after the trip. I had no other shrimps in the tank. 5 days ago purchased 5 Red pinto galaxy shrimps, quite nice, they are going well.

Welcome to the forum Elkwatcher! Great to have some more experienced fish-folk around (wait, that makes it sound like I’m experienced... Not one bit ?) Nice combo there. I’ve also got ember tetras with my shrimp, but they’re Caridinas. I love your feeding dish by the way! Much more character than the glass Petri dishes. Anyway, good to have you aboard!

It is probably too early to start this but as I have no idea really what I am doing I thought it a good idea to maybe get others thoughts/ideas from the beginning? The aim is to find out if I can reduce the life of the 'buffering' of soil substrates for anyone wanting to use soil substrate with cherry shrimps which do better at higher PH than buffering substrates run, until they are exhausted, and before they get shrimps in the tank - that can't be many people I know??? I set up a betta tank mid March and the buffering with the JBL substrate stopped about 4 months later., though you may be able to knock off a month as I was only doing part (25%) water changes? Obviously no one wants to wait that long so I am just trying this experiment as I have 2L of shrimp king soil left over anyway. that I won't use! At the moment I have put 5L dechlorinated tap water in a bucket with 1L of substrate. The tap water is PH7.5 (KH3, TDS 154) and I am planning to do 50% water changes twice a week until the PH gets back to the 7.5 at which point I can assume it is exhausted? I will then try the same experiment using PH+ to see if that will speed up the process, but I haven't ordered that just yet? Any suggestions, am I doing it correctly, does it even make any sense? So this should give me an idea of how long it will take to stop buffering just using tap water but doing twice weekly 50% water changes, and then whether using PH+ would speed it up notably? This is just to get an idea, and different soil substrates will probably be different so I am not really looking for a definite answer as to the time length etc, more an idea as to whether either of these will work well for others in the future that want to keep cherry shrimp with the soil substrates. Having said that I have always kept cherry shrimp in lower than recommended PH (to start wirh) without a problem anyway? Simon

Yep, some products might dilute it for you into a liquid form, which means you get more water than bicarb. You might already have it in the kitchen.

Cool experiment. But PH+ products are just Bicarbonate of Soda. Go get it from your local supermarket for a tenth of the price of a PH+ product.

All the shrimps died before I went on the trip except the amano shrimp that I purchased for algae, purchased on the 20th after the trip ,5 pinto galaxy, but one died the next day, so I have 4 pinto galaxy and 1 amano shrimps.