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Oh yes definitely get a picture somehow. Simon. I'm pretty sure adults will be safe with my Betta, he won't even eat bloodworm! He just watches it float past his nose. He's only interested in his Betta food, shrimp pellets if the same size not the bigger ones and the odd tiny protein treat that I have to drop almost on top of him. Maybe he's shortsighted?? ?

Hi Crabby, this is my first Betta for a long time. I did see someone advertising a breeding pair of coppers, I think on eBay. Simon. Thank you for the extra advice. I'm going to wait for the plants to get fully established to bring down nitrates then have a go at getting some Babaulti. My water is really soft out of the tap - GH and KH both 2 drops of API. I'm trying to avoid more softeners ? I've actually bought some replenish which seems to be easy to use to bring the GH up to 6 before any water changes. Plus a tiny drop of flourish once a week making sure my TDS isn't affected. (It's only 80 out of the tap) PH is pretty constant now considering my KH is low. And I've become the proud mum of a baby java fern ? Good luck Crabby, photos if you are successful in breeding please ?

That's a really pretty betta, Phoenix. Would like to see yours too, Simon! Good to hear multiple people have done well with bettas and shrimp! I've just gone from pretty much hating on bettas for the last 2 years, to being really interested in them, in the last few weeks, so I'd just like to ask if anyone in this thread has had success breeding bettas before? I'm thinking probably a few months into the future, but it would be nice to know, before I do decide that's what I'd like to do with some tanks. Crabby.

You should have enough calcium if you have GH of 5. Using tapwater will probably confuse things as you don't know what the makes up the TDS in the water. Obviously using RO (zero TDS) water and shrimp remineraliser means the water will be perrfectly balanced for shrimp TDS/GH/KH/PH etc. Try letting us have the TDS/GH and any other tests for water you have, straight from the tap. With cherry shrimp it is quite often possible (I've done it for many years) using just dechlorinated tap water, but we need to know where you sre starting for water. source If you have added stuff to the tank and that has vastly altered the TDS of the tank you plan to keep the srimp in, you can let it cycle as is for now and just do a mega water change a few weeks before getting the shrimps (I assume it is a small tank anyway)! Whether you will need to use extra calcium for this tank will become clear when we know your source water parameters, and take it from there, but as JayC states, TDS is well over the usual recommended range (150-250) for cherry shrimps. Simon

TDS is just one parameter. It is not the be all and end all of measuring a healthy tank. We use TDS along with pH, GH, KH and temps to get an idea of suitable parameters. I'm doing some shopping, so this will just be a quick reply for now. Do NOT add additional salts to a tank with375 TDS for shrimps. That TDS is already too high and adding salt will send it way over the top. You can however, add marine salts to RO water to bring the TDS from 0 up to 150.

So I finally got my TDS meter. The tank tds registered at 375. Also I know shrimp keepers focus on TDS but I've seen YouTube videos from well known hobbyist that have made hundreds of hundreds of Neo's such as reds, blues, and oranges with a TDS in the 40s have great success. So it seems like TDS doesn't have to be in the exact range. Anyway at 375 do I need to add calcium? I keep/breed african cichlids and I add marine salt to the tanks to help give the fish minerals and calcium is in there. I was thinking about adding the same it would be a T-spoon or a little less then that every water change.

The deaths stopped for a while. Now I came home to 6 dead cardinia. 2 raccoons, 2 cbs, 1crs and one dragonblood!!!!!??? Are these plants toxic to shrimp? Temp 70.5 tds 120 gh 5-6 kh 0-1 ammo 0 nitrate 5 nitrite 0