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Beautiful shrimp. Show us more of your progress with the shrimp room.

Ok today I come with pics. Still super distracted buying plants, building out my shrimp/plant room and getting ready for this business season. Oh and fighting hydra. Nearly usable, going to run 2x dimmable 600 hps and a supplemental led. Ok I'm getting distracted and forgot to post. Midnights and Clockworks. Gotta go buy plants and build my room. It's my birthday!

Are you sure you have a male as I imagine femaesstill produce eggs whether there is a male or not (same as humanns, chickens etc) and may have dropped them because they weren't fertilised? With so few shrimp the chances are they may be same sex and they are different types so won't be able to breed with all of them? Try looking close and seeing if you can see what sex they are? https://skfaquatics.com/forum/forums/topic/14104-telling-male-from-female-shrimp/ Simon

Well... unfortunately even without moving her she dropped probably 3/4 of her eggs... but I must have 1 male and 1 female rcs bc 1 is berried, I still have a berried ghost and one that laid 2 days ago, not gonna lie I was excited for her, but at least a cherry is berried

Thanks Simon. I did try putting in 3 neon tetras for a week or so. Copepods seemed to clear up quickly...so removed neons and copepods returned shortly thereafter. Copepods seem to like to burrow in the SL Aqua substrate...so I think they hideout in there til the coast was clear. I did keep the albino cory in there....but he doesn't seem to be doing his job!! I will likely put some neons back in there and give it a longer time period. I do have some shrimp fry at the moment so have been waiting for them to get a bit bigger...and thus less likely to be neon food. Yes I have always used nothing but distilled water in this tank. I do use Salty Shrimp..but the GH/KH and sometimes GH only and regularly test tank to keep GH in the 6 range. I do a 30% water change about once a week....pH drops to about 7.6 or so...then creeps back up to the 8.0 to 8.2 range...sometimes a tad higher. The chemist in my is going nuts trying to figure out what is producing those hydrogen ions. 8 to 8.2 isn't horrible...but would like to be a bit lower...and not always creeping up like it does. Thanks for the tip on the Fluorite!! I appreciate your time and contributions here.

I read somewhere...once ..something about the sponge filter aeration and CO2 causing pH to rise.... I forget the chemistry. FWIW...I have a sponge on the filter intake and I squeeze that out every water change....in water removed from the tank. ZERO rocks, shells or anything similar in the tank. Nothing but substrate, some cholla wood with attached plants, catalpa leaves, peat, etc. Water added during changes is 100% distilled water...some of that being augmented by Salty Shrimp to keep GH around 5 or 6. pH of distilled water last I checked around 5.5..worth checking again I suppose. Tank is a Top Fin tank with side filter and nothing but a carbon filter in there. My leading suspect is the substrate. I recall reading that substate loses qualities and needs replaced every handful of years. Otherwise...no idea here. Thanks for the input. I will do the substate test you advise.

Not sure who would give you that advice. Unless the sponge filter is made out of carbonates, it will not be increasing pH. In fact, the natural process of the beneficial bacteria on your filter will decrease pH. The BB takes in H2O, uses the O (oxygen) and releases H (hydrogen). A net increase of H. And we all know that when there is more hydrogen in the tank ... pH drops. The only things that might cause the pH to increase in a tank is shell grit, rocks, or your source water is naturally high in carbonates. Do you have rocks in the tank? Do you have any shells, corals, cuttlefish bones, etc in your tank? Try taking half a cup of substrate from your tank, and test it. Test pH of that distilled water. Add distilled water to that cup of substrate you removed. And then test the pH periodically to see if it increases over a day. Do you use any other sources of water apart from the distilled water?

They are cyclops, a type of copepod and shouldn't be harmful to shrimps! I don't know whether the planaria you are getting will kill them off, but would do that treatment first and see what happens? A few carefully chosen fish may get rid of them if there aren't shrimp in the tank butcome back to that after you have treated for the planaria? Simon

I came across this interesting video on the differences in appearances between the male and female. I use the last one as I have taiwan bees so the easiest way I can tell is the 2nd band (last method shown) being round on the female and straight on the male as the shells aren't transparent to see a saddle etc! Hope this helps others, it seems to include ALL the various techniques I have been told about over the years!

Ok....so I am fairly experienced fresh water fish and shrimp keeper but I have been battling pH in my shrimp tank and could really use some guidance. This is a 5 gallon tank that I have had running for about 4 or 5 years...same SL Aqua substrate. I did neglect the tank for a period of time due to a house move. lost most of my shrimp as a result but got things settled down again and restocked last December with 15 painted fire RCS from an online shop I have used often in the past. Unfortunately they also sent me a healthy stock of copepods which I mistook for shrimp fry. At the moment most of that batch of shrimp are gone...but I do have a few survivors including a new class of baby shrimp. But my big issue for the past month or two has been a pH that I cannot get down into a range I am happy with. It keeps wanting to creep up to 8.0 to 8.2 or so. I am doing ~20% water changes once or twice a week with distilled water which helps temporarily but pH creeps back up. I have all but shut off the sponge filter as I have read that can contribute to increasing pH. Been adding catalpa leaves, peat, alder cones and a refresh of a few pieces of cholla wood....without any improvement. There isn't anything else in the tank. I feed shrimp once a day with a rotation of shrimp foods...and do not at all believe I overfeed. I do have some snails in there as a cleanup crew. The albino cory became a resident in an attempt to keep copepod population in check...to not much avail. So ...what the heck keeps pushing up the pH. Is my substrate the culprit as it is 5 years old or so? It was SL Aqua substrate. I target pH to be in the 6.5 to 7.5 range. Anything close to 6.0 or 8.0 worries me a bit. I do know not to use things like pH Up or pH down. The white bag you see hanging is full of peat. Any thoughts on the pH issue? Separately....I think the copepods are a lost cause and I know of no way to safely eradicate them....the infestation is more than annoying. Feel like I am running a copepod tank...they far outnumber my shrimp!! I think my only option is gonna be to get another tank up and running and transfer shrimp to it over a period of time...then nuke this current tank....which of course solves the pH problem too!! Thanks in advance!!