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I personally choose to put small fish/fry in tanks that have cycled, while I let them mature. You can do snails too, I just enjoy doing it with fish and fry. As the tank is already cycled, it's just helping to keep the cycle. Otherwise fish food works too. Just need a teeny bit of nitrogen (Nitrite, Nitrate, Ammonia) is needed to hold the cycle. -Crabby

Hi, I'm in the USA and am looking for recommendations on the best places to purchase my shrimp and snails from. Where are the best places to purchase from online? I'm specifically looking for Bloody Mary shrimp and Nerite snails. Thanks.......Clippergear

Sure, I'll go for Malachite green then. Yes, I understood I should put the green in a separate containers with the plants, but I was wondering whether I have to rinse the plants very well after the bath (as any remaining of the green may harm the shrimp). Oh, interesting! Ok, so does it also stain plastic containers?

Hello everybody, has anyone heard of Blau Aquaristic and more importantly the Terra Activa Aqua Soil they sell? I have no way of telling if this would be a good or ok substrate as I have not found substantial reviews of it. If anyone has used them I would like to hear your experience with the Terra Activa. Thanks in advance to anyone who can answer

Thanks Simon and Crabby for the valuable info!!

Not me. But the marketing material says all the right things.

Paraguard uses an alternative to formalin. Not sure if the alternative is effective on "bugs". You just need a cheap Malachite green from a pet store. Pimafix is more for fungus, so not going to be effective. Sorry I should have been a bit clearer about it... DO NOT pour it in the tank. When I said bath, I meant for the plants, and treat the plants in a small tub of Malachite green outside the tank. Do not pour it into the tank. The bath is to get any that might be clinging to the plant when you transfer it to a new tank. The ones in the tank already will need to be removed manually.

Oh and I lowered the temp to 72-73 degrees f

Yes I drip acclimated all shrimp over 2 hours I don’t know what you Maenza by a zero water JUG? Do you mean a RODI system that starts at $200? i tried buying bottled spring water but the tds in it was 180 so I didn’t wanna use it. Looks like I have to buy a rodi unit I odrered gh kh salty shrimp I already have gh plus salty shrimp Update I also added one Indian Almond leaf to each tank and started to slowly lower the ph with shrimp ph decreser I have a batch of newly hatched babies shrimp that I keep in a mesh breeder box with Java moss to raise them about 2 weeks now . 2 look red the rest look clear to yellowish about 30 total

So, an interesting development: I have a second berried girl, and other ones with large healthy saddles (one has a giant pink saddle, as opposed to the regular yellow, thats still okay right?), lots of moults. So shrimp are doing great! Woo! *shrieks of childish excitement* Unfortunately I noticed the first berried female has lost maybe 80% of her eggs. Would she have just got scared by an endler (one of the thousands) and dropped them? She has maybe 5 left. Any ideas? Ad back up on gumtree and plans for a nano rack in the making, so endlers should be mostly gone soon. Let's hope, at least! Trying to get them all sold at once so I don't get them breeding - either the older group of my fry have already bred, or my jap blues have. Shame I can't tell if they are jap blues or not at this stage. Hopefully I can still try breeding those pure in the future. -Crabby

Hi, sorry to hear about your shrimp, just popping in with some general advice. With shrimp, your Nitrate (NO3) should be 0, although 10 shouldn't be a huge problem and wouldn't have been the cause of this - it could be indicative of another problem though. KH looks high to me, it shouldn't get up to 6, I wouldn't think. GH and pH are fine, maybe the pH might be a little low, though that shouldn't be a big issue. Shrimp will eat dead things, rather rapidly, so you won't always see bodies. I'm surprised that an older shrimp would die first though, rather than shrimplets. That's all I can offer at this point unfortunately, but I wish you the best with identifying the problem and a solution. -Crabby

I have the Pima Fix, will it work too?

Thanks jayc! How about this one? https://www.amazon.com/Seachem-116060608-ParaGuard-250ml/dp/B0002A5X7I/ref=sr_1_2?dchild=1&keywords=Malachite+Green&qid=1589152641&sr=8-2 If it kills the bugs (gammarus), will it also kill the shrimp?

Chlorine and Chloramine in tap water wont kill plants. Disturbing the root system by pulling them out knocks them back a bit however. A quick 1 minute bath in Malachite Green should kill any bugs. You can try that.

I love these plants though, I got the Undulata and some other interesting plants that I don't remember their name. I love how they thrived with my Aqueon light and I feel bad to kill them.

Thank you Simon! I keep rinsing the plants with tap water and let them sit in containers for a while. I can't see any bugs but there could be some eggs left, even though I'm not sure if these bugs lay eggs or not. Good point, but I guess that plants wouldn't do well in chlorine/chloramine water. At that point though I mostly want to kill these bugs and I'm okay to buy new plants.

I imagine you do need something to keep the good bacteria alive and I believe it is normal practice to add a TINY bit of fish food every few days! I tend to add assassin snails to all my new tanks fairly early on so they will produce some waste and eat any small bits of food I add. Obviously you can use any other type of snail as well, though ones that can breed in the tank may end up being another problem down the line? Simon