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Has any progress been made in figuring out how to keep riffle larvae alive? From what I've read here and elsewhere, it's not entirely clear whether it's an issue of chemistry/hardness or food. This is a basic but important question, and I think it's easily answered by running a few experiments using water drawn from a creek where they naturally occur. Is there anyone here that can help?

Peeps who keep riffles, do you find they prey a lot on shrimplets from other species? I'm thinking they'd eat larval-form babies that float into their fan-hands, but wondering, do they hunt around for non-larval shrimplets? I'm trying to decide whether to continue keeping them in their own dedicated tank or whether they can find a home with my yellow cherry tank, which is currently very understocked. I keep them out of my dedicated native tank because I don't want all the larval paratya to be eaten. I think they'd look quite nice together with the yellow cherries, but I'm leaning towards that being a bad idea for the sake of shrimplets.

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Does anyone know how quickly or slowly Riffle shrimp actually grow? I think it was around 2 years ago (maybe 3) that I went to Cairns and got to collect some riffle shrimp. Since then I have purchased riffle shrimp and all have been large full grown females. But my dilmeia is I still am finding small riffles in the tank. Surely they cant still be the original small riffles wild caught in Cairns, that for some reason just arent growing. The only other option I can come up with is that by some miracle the riffles are breeding in the tank. Highly unlikely I know but stranger things have happened in peoples tanks. The tank is a 4ft around 200L with lots of structure and plants, filtered by a 800L/hr HOB. I rarely actually do any plant maintence on the tank and everything is pretty much let go, hence the constant suprise of new baby corys emerging. It was only because I removed the current falling apart java fern tree and remade it with new timber that I rediscovered that I still have plenty of small approx 1-2cm riffle shrimp hiding out in the tank. Other tank inhabitants include Threadfin rainbows, Pygmy rainbows, otocinclus, Borneo Suckers and chameleon shrimp. I was also pleasantly suprised by how many chameleons where in the tank and showing lots of various patterns and colours. So do I have particularly slow growing riffle shrimp? Are they gradually breeding? Or is there some other alternative I cant think of happening.

The pump flow jets into the corner of the tank and bounces the flow back out across the semi-circle of pebbles which provide "hang-on" spots for the shrimp. Not surprisingly this was set up to also give maximum viewing potential for me :D Feeding (infrequently) a mix of Sera micron powder, brine shrimp nauplii, and milk paramecium that I culture as fry food (I strain out the big ones on 50µm mesh). I also drop bits of mulberry leaf into the tank every now and then. I've found reproduction to be very seasonal. In the 18 months I've had them this is only the second time I've had berried females - last time was last summer.

Thought I would post some pics of the wonderful riffle shrimp and native moss I received from Fishmosy. They look like giants compared to y culled rilli and cherry shrimp... The shrimp loved the native moss Rare fern and native moss on driftwood

Very excited to find a berried female. lots and lots of shrimp watching ahead.

Years ago we had some riffle shrimp in a display tank at a shop I worked at - this was long before crystal reds or cherry shrimp had hit the scene. We used locally collected Paratya as algae grazers and Takashi Amano was using Caridina the same way. The riffles were amazing shrimp back then, something different to the glass clear Paratya we could collect. So much has changed since then, there was no "shrimp hobby" yet and no beautiful coloured shrimp to keep. I just got some Riffle Shrimp down from Fishmosy and they are just as beautiful and amazing as ever. All the competition from exotics has not diluted their charm one bit. Thanks for the lovely shrimp mate... They were a bit timid at first and especially shy when the lights were on. Now I've placed some driftwood right in the high current zone and they're very happy to sit there all day, every day - doing the "jazz hands" as they eat. There's some great photos of this species here on SKF and I'm afraid mine cannot compete. However if I can clean the glass sufficiently to get some better shots I will post them.