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Hey folks! This thread is intended as a documentation (and space to ask questions of course) of @Frosty and my venture into caridina shrimp. We’re starting off this weekend with 15-20 mischling shrimp (tibee x CBS), and maybe in a couple months if everything is going well we can add some TTS or KK or pandas or something. The tank is a 4ft, with inert gravel and rocks, lots of moss, Java fern (crested and regular) and assorted crypts, and a couple big pieces of driftwood. Current parameters are the following (please advise us if you think we should fix anything): 22°, 6.8 pH (we might try ageing our water change water with peat moss, so with a couple water changes we’ll bring this down to 6.4-6.6), 3GH, 2KH, and 0 nitrates, nitrites and ammonia. We’re thinking maybe to make it more interesting to the average onlooker, we might add a small school of chilli rasboras, but that’s hopefully going to be it for fish. The tank is in direct sunlight, so there’s a possibility we’ll need ottos at some stage. I’ll update later with photos and our plans. Please let me know if you’ve got any advice! Cheers!

Took me a second to spot the Amano, that’s a great photo to showcase natural camouflage! Yep, she’s definitely berried, those are amano eggs. She’ll give birth, but the shrimplets won’t survive in fresh water. If you want you can transfer her to a tank with brackish water, keep it closer to fresh than salt, and the shrimplets will have a chance at survival. Don’t turn that main tank into brackish, the crystals and cherries can’t cope with salt for very long.

Hi does anyone have experience with amano shrimps? Is the shrimp below pregnant? But the size of the eggs are not the same though. It's smaller, black and dirty looking. And my tank doesn't have brackish water. Should I do something? Sent from my SM-G781B using Tapatalk

I started with TB, CRS, CBS, BB and some misch in divided racks and then they got mixed when the shrimplets made it through the dividers. No plans at all at the time when that happened. Last I saw coming through were some nice BB and now this from the offspring. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

If you attempt to raise the amano shrimplets, try feeding them spirulina powder or chlorella powder. Get yourself a small bag of marine salt to turn freshwater into brackish. As Crabby said, closer to freshwater than complete marine water.

Interested to see what you get from that big mama. Are you expecting Red bolts ? Or is that tank a mix, and you might get a hybrids.

It sounds like you are on top of it. The PH could be lower, as could the KH which is a bit more concerning, but I assume you are using tapwater and hopefully it will work but don't get too many shrimp until you are sure the shrimp will do ok in the water, esecially as they won't be cheap shrimp? You may be wiser to buy whichever you want, that are the cheapest for the initial try/tester this weekend? I have the chilli rasbora in my old taiwan bee tank, now with wild red cherry shrimp, and a killie. As these shrimp are almost invisible most of the time, it is good to have something to see in the tank, and it adds another dimension.The water parameters are totally off for the neocaridina yet they survive - they were dumped in the tankwhen smallera food for the killie.............. I'm sure you are already aware though that even these small fish will eat new born shrimp so it will need to be quite densly planted, and you just have to accept this will happen, and that you will get less of the shrimp offspring survive? You may also needsometype of water cooler if it is in sunlght in Australia? Look forward to seeing photos and hearing how it goes! Simon

Nice clear photo of a berried shrimp! They are very difficult to raise as they have a larvae stage and need specific food. I haven't ever met or heard of anyone who has siuccess with this so would recommend you just leave it where it is and the eggs will drop/hatch and die! We have had a couple of people on here in the passed who have triedso there are threads and information on here, but they didn't succeed! The flip side to this is they live longer than other shrimp, up to 5 years, and if they don't breed then you will never get over stocked so they are easier to manage? You wouldn't want lots anyway with smaller shrimp as the Amano would be dominant and therefore detrimental to the crystals/neocaridina if you have too many? Like crabby, I didn't see the shrimp at first glance, it's well camouflaged, Simon

Failed moults are usually associated to Calcium content in the water. That is, your GH reading. Too much GH and the shells (and eggs) become too hard and moulting becomes difficult. The shrimp looses too much energy trying to moult. Too little and their shells don't develop properly causing deformities (maybe GH under 2). This is a long term affect, that is, if you see it, it's already too late and nothing you can do to help a shrimp that is having issues right now.

I'm not sure there woud be much you could do in that situation, hopefully someone else may have some ideas! The stress of the moving added to the waater change and the mout is likey to be too much all in one go! Even without the obvious moult I woudn't personally expect all the shrimp to survive and usually a few disappear/die in the first 2 weeks! If you got them from a shop they have already beeen through a lot going from the breeders tank, transit, into shop tank (different water probaly), transit, into your tank (again new water) at the very least, there could even be another wholesaler to add to that? I always used to buy direct from hobbyist (ebay) which meant just going from their tank, transit (post), to my tank, but even then I usually lost a few in the first 2 weeks. I did once see a youtube video where someoone helped a shrimp moult by using tweezers but that is very fiddly, you would need to fish the shrimp out and put it into a smaller container, and it likely still wouldn't work, even if the shell were removed it may die in the next few days from stress......... If you try anything please let us know how it goes! Hopefully some others will have some ideas? On the ratio issue, most people would prefer more females to males as you only need the one male to breed with the females and you will get more baby shrimp the more females you have! There is probably another issue if they aren't breeding and you have both sexes? Simon