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pump flow rate for 55 gallon breeding tank?


gtippitt

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I have 2 questions about my 55 gallon tank for breeding Red Cherry Shrimp.  My first is for advice on maintaining a colony with strong genetic diversity for health and color.  My second is about keeping baby shrimps from getting killed by my filter's pump, while having a pump strong enough for good filtration in a 55 gallon tank, i.e. How strong at swimming are the little guys when they hatch?

Background regarding my tank and stuff:

I am new to this forum and new to keeping Cherry Shrimps.  I’ve kept freshwater fish for nearly 50 years, but I have never kept inverts before.  I kept goldfish for many years, but they passed away after 15 years, and I'm trying something new.  My tanks had been in storage for year while I was buying a home and moving.  I have two 55 gallon, 48 inch long tanks and had decided this time to have schools of small fish with plants rather than a few big fish.  I had not keep plants (since my guppy period 30 years ago) because my 9+ inch goldfish ate anything I put into their tank.  I was reading on several planted tank forums for ideas for my community tank containing tetras, zebra danio, and barbs.  I saw lots of pics of RCS that the plant folks kept for cleaning their tanks and decorating their plants.  I fell in love with the little RCS.

After I had set up my second 55 gallon tanks and was waiting for it to cycle, I was pondering what I wanted to keep in it.  I had decided to have a single species breeding tank and initially was leaning toward the idea of one of the miniature Cory Catfish (C. habrosus, C. pygmaeus, or C. hastatus), but I could not find them anywhere local or online.  Everyone said they were out of stock and/or season.  I then decided to take the plunge and try keeping shrimp.  I have read that the mini-Cory can be kept with RCS, but I’m going to let my RCS have the tank to themselves for now.

I would like some advice on how to maintain good health and color in my RCS as I try to establish my colony.  I am not planing to try to breed any new strains or anything, but rather just want to keep a self-sustaining colony that is consistent.  After reading lots of stuff, my understanding is that unless people are doing really strict culling to breed more intense red coloring, the colonies of RCS can begin to fade and decline in quality after a few years.  I am a soft hearted, vegetarian, Buddhist, and killing healthy shrimp just because they not as dark red as their tank mates is not something I am willing to do.  I euthanize a sick or unhealthy animal to prevent it from suffering, but I not going to kill it simply because its not as pretty as another.  If I am successful in keeping a colony and decide to do selective breeding later, I would get an additional tank with one for the prettiest boys and girls, and another for everyone else (including me if I were a shrimp).

I ordered 40 Fire Red Cherries and they seem happy in their new home. They were shipped from California to Tennessee, and only 3 were DOA.  All of the females dropped their eggs during shipping, so I’ll have a delay before any babies are born.  They are all really good colored from what I’ve compared to online pics.  The site I bought these from only sells Fire and Bloody Mary grade RCS.  Even my males are a good deep red, including their legs.  The body of each female varies a bit from a rich bright red to areas that are the dark red of Bloody Mary’s.  I suspect that the seller is trying to breed the Mary’s and is selling these lesser ones with splotchy complexions as Fire Reds.

I actually like the solid bright red of good Fire and Painted grade better than these darker Bloody colored ones, but the seller had a good fair price for the quantity I wanted and others I saw had very pale males.  I am fine with the colony’s color being somewhat lighter over time, but I’d rather my males not all end up pale pink in a year or two.  My first priority is for a strong colony without genetic health defects, while the color intensity is my second priority.

Once this first group of shrimp has produced a grown and breeding new generation,  I am wondering if I can improve/maintain the genetic diversity of my colony if every 6 months I were to buy a few good quality Fire or Painted ones to add.  None of the stores in my area stocks RCS, and the only local person selling them was wanting to get rid of his colony of really pink ones that were admittedly inbred for many generations.  Since online retailers often buy their livestock from the same wholesale importers or breeders, I was planning to look for a breeders in another part of the country that sold stock they bred themselves.  

I have been keeping fish long enough now that I am good at keeping my water quality consistent and near the middle of the optimum specs.  Before I had decided to keep Red Cherry Shrimp, I had already bought a new filtration system that I really love, but I fear it might be too powerful for baby RCS.  It is an above tank, wet-dry trickle filter.  I like the effectiveness of wet-dry trickle systems, but ones in a sump below the tank have always created headaches for me in the past.  I love this one, because any leak would go directly back into the tank, and there is no way for siphon problems to occur.  For my pumps I like using a power head attached to a big Hydro Sponge as a pre-filter.  I use a HydroSponge that is 6 inches high and 6 inches in diameter, not as much for its added bio capacity, but because it diffuses the pump’s intake and keeps any small fish from being injured or killed.  My power head is rated for 400 gallons per hour and the sponge has a surface area of more than 160 square inches.  

The adult shrimp are having no problem with the pump’s suction.  They are climbing around on the sponge picking off the algae that was sucked up when I cleaned it from the tank’s front glass.  I have the filter’s return set so that I get enough circulation to prevent dead water areas.  I have a stack of large rocks in the tank’s center that has lots of spaces between them so that there are lots of hiding places with only a very gentle current.   I’m trying to create the look of the live rock in a reef tank, but in freshwater.  

If the pump's intake flow is gentle enough that the adults like to hang out there, will newly hatched shrimplets have the swimming strength to avoid getting stuck to the sponge? I’ve read that the females will normally look for a hiding place when the babies are about to hatch, so hopefully they will be safe from the pump when they first hatch, and then won’t go out into the stronger current until they are stronger swimmers.  I’ve not been able to find posts from many people that are trying to keep a breeding colony in a tank as large as 55 gallons.  Most posts I’ve found are from people keeping them in smaller tanks that don’t require as large a pump.  I found one post on another forum were someone was using a pump with half the flow rate as mine in her 55 gallon tank, and she used a sponge with half of the surface area of mine.  She said that her newly hatched babies did fine, but she had difficulty keeping ammonia down because she didn’t have enough flow through her canister filter.

Besides the rock caves for them to rest and hide, the tank has lots of plants, Marimo balls, and some giant catappa leaves.  The shrimp love the catappa leaves.  The leaves had been in the tank for 3 weeks before the shrimp, so they have a good growth of bio-film for the shrimp to graze on.  Additionally, they like crawling under these leaves when they want to hide.  Between these large leaves and the tank’s black sand, are nice dark hiding places.

I would like to share an idea that I’ve found that my shrimp love.  I wanted part of my tank’s bottom to have a planted carpet, but most of the plants used for carpets required CO2, which I don’t want to mess with.  I want plants to keep my fish happy and healthy, and not a few fish to decorate my plants.  I took 6 large Marimo balls and cut them halfway into.  I then unfolded each to form a mat that is about 12 square inches from each ball.  I put these 6 mats in a 2 foot strip between the rocks and the tank’s front glass.  It forms a velvet carpet that is like sodding on a lawn.  The shrimp on these mats look like tiny red sheep grazing on a green pasture.
  
If anyone is looking for a new filter, this new one I bought for this tank is the best filter design I’ve seen during my many years in the hobby.  It is available for tank sizes from 10 to 55 gallons.  The filter is medium priced.  It’s more expensive than a small SunSun canister or generic hang on the back, but it is less than most premium filters or any wet-dry trickle system I’ve seen.  I saw a few filters of similar design, but this one looked much more sturdy than the others.  It is also available in black while the others were only available in a clear plastic that would encourage algae to clog the bio-media.  The black is also much neater looking than the clear ones, which would look very grungy once cycled.  It has a huge capacity for bio-media to keep ammonia and nitrites at zero.  Mine holds over 4 gallons of bio media for my 55 gallon tank, which I hope will be home to a colony of 500 to 1000 RCS eventually.

If you need a new filter, this one is super:       
http://stores.ebay.com/topstore1016/Other-/_i.html?_fsub=1&_dmd=1&_nkw=aquarium

I look forward to being a part of this forum as my shrimp family grows.

Thanks for your help,

Greg

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14 hours ago, gtippitt said:

My second is about keeping baby shrimps from getting killed by my filter's pump, while having a pump strong enough for good filtration in a 55 gallon tank, i.e. How strong at swimming are the little guys when they hatch?

I'll answer the easier question first. 

You need a sponge or stainless steel mesh pre filter on the inlet of the filter.

Shrimplets don't swim much at all, preferring to hide more. 

Shrimps don't like strong water flow in general. But if you do,  make sure that there are calm spots. 

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15 hours ago, gtippitt said:

I’ve read that the females will normally look for a hiding place when the babies are about to hatch, so hopefully they will be safe from the pump when they first hatch

That would be accurate. They will hide in moss or plants or caves until they are a bit older. So as long as there is a sponge over the intake, you should be fine.

 

15 hours ago, gtippitt said:

I would like to share an idea ... Marimo balls

Marimo balls are illegal in Australia, so this will be for our International members only.

But a Picture would be nice. I can just picture it swaying in the current.

 

 

15 hours ago, gtippitt said:

I would get an additional tank with one for the prettiest boys and girls, and another for everyone else

No use hording them all. Sell them. Or give them away to the next budding shrimp keeper. Make their journey into the hobby a positive one by giving them free shrimps, they are your "culls" anyway.

 

15 hours ago, gtippitt said:

 I am wondering if I can improve/maintain the genetic diversity of my colony if every 6 months I were to buy a few good quality Fire or Painted ones to add.

That's a good idea, and it's something I practice too. The generic variation of shrimps in Australia is very small, since it is illegal to import them in. The shrimps we have are mostly of the few that were imported prior to the ban. So it's a good idea to get shrimps from various breeders.

 

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JayC thanks for the feedback.  I had not known that neither the ball algae nor RCS could be imported down under.  Are the Marimo Balls illegal to have or only to import?   Some countries banned their import for Japan because of them being threatened natively, but they can still be grown and sold, or imported from growers elsewhere.  Although popular for their shape, I got the idea of using them for a carpet after reading about how they grow in nature.  Unless they have a current to keep rolling them into balls, they form a lumpy mat on stones and lake beds.  Their texture is really strange, as the algae stitches itself together into a dense material.  When in a ball, they grow really slowly, but I am hoping that with much more surface area exposed for light and nutrient absorption, they will grow a bit more quickly for me and eventually stitch the separate mats together.  I've had my shrimp for a week now, and whenever they are not hiding, they spent much of their time on the Marimo.  Even though it is a relative small portion of the exposed surfaces in the tank, at least half of the visible shrimp are normally grazing on it.  The Indian Almond Leaves are their second favorite hangout, with the remaining ones scattered on the plants, wood, rocks, sand substrate, or algae covered back of the tank.

It's a nuisance for hobbyist, but your ecosystems are so fragile and unique, you cannot be too careful.  While our ecosystems were not so isolated, we still have some major invasive pest species in the southeastern US, such as fire ants, pythons, kudzu weed, bighead carp, and Conservative Republicans.  Giant Tiger Prawns that were being raised on fish farms have gotten into the wild in the aftermath of hurricanes and are now a threat to smaller native species in our coastal waters.

A few years ago, the catfish farming industry started using Tilapia fry to prevent summer algae overgrowth.  Many cattle farmers who had large ponds for livestock water began stocking these with tilapia fry as well, because they kept the water clear in summer and provided forage for Largemouth Bass, the favorite sport fish in the southern US.  As autumn temps began to fall, the tilapia were easy prey, so they bass could put on huge amounts of weight before winter. It was thought these warm water fish would be safe to introduce since even if floods allowed them to reach lakes and rivers, they would die each winter when the water temp fell.  Unfortunately as winter temps have been warmer, deeper water in some lakes is staying warm enough for them to survive the winters.  Even though tasty, they are now becoming a problem in the southern US, just as in Australia, as they starve out our native species.  The water in the river near my home is normally too cold for them to survive, but they have learned to find the warm water outlets from coal power plants.  Even the discharge from large urban sewage treatment plants provide enough warmth to keep many of them alive in winter.  These warm water outlets and increasingly warmer winter temps are allowing more adult tilapia to survive each winter and produce huge numbers of new fry each summer.  Two months ago, which is the dead of winter here, a fishermen caught one that weighed over 6 pounds just a few miles from house.  Wildlife officials are hoping to reduce the number of tilapia in the lakes and rivers by informing fishmen how to find them in large numbers near warm water sources like this power plant.  As an invasive species, there is no limit on how many of them that anglers can catch and keep.  The next weekend after this recording breaking fish was caught, several people caught more than 100 eating sized tilapia in one day at the same location.

I'm a somewhat rabid environmentalist and liberal, but I live in an area where most people are Conservative Republicans, who consider all environmental concerns an impediment to progress .  A guy recently asked me, "Why is it so important that one species be saved that millions are spent on it?  Yeah it would be cool to see a Dodo, but we still have Emu and Ostriches at the zoo."  I explained how it was good that so much work had been done to save the Taz Devils that were endangered because of their disease and habitat loss, because researchers had just discovered that chemicals in their mom's milk might be the best new treatment for antibiotic resistant flesh eating bacteria infections in humans.  If we had lost the Devils, we would never have found these possible new drugs.  I personally think it was worth the cost, just because of their ornery dispositions, which I admire greatly.

My neighbors and the 25% of the US that managed to put Donald Trump in the White House, would probably close by saying, "Wow, your English is so good, nobody could know you ain't American!"  I'll simply say, "Thank you for your help." 

Greg

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1 hour ago, gtippitt said:

Are the Marimo Balls illegal to have or only to import?

Illegal to import. That's not to say there aren't any in the country though. 

 

1 hour ago, gtippitt said:

we still have some major invasive pest species in the southeastern US, such as fire ants, pythons, kudzu weed, bighead carp, and Conservative Republicans.

HAHA. LOL.

Yeah, we miss out on a lot of species in the hobby, but I guess it's for to good of the ecosystem.

We have a few invasive species like the Cane Toad, Fire Ants, but fortunately no Conservative Republicans. Or maybe we do, and they go by another name to camouflage their presence. :gangs:

 

Well, good luck with breeding the RCS

I was a fish keeper for many years as well. When I started the shrimp keeping hobby, I found that I had a lot more to learn, as these little pets demand a lot more knowledge in water quality than fish do. So read up, there are many great articles on SKFA. Start with the stickies, but don't dismiss the threads that are not stickied, as there are little gems of information in some of them.

When I started keeping shrimps I also found that I soon had to expand on other skills. Shrimp keeping has made me a Gardener, a Carpenter, a Chemist, a Biologist, a budding Photographer, ... I'm sure there are a few. So don't be surprised that you might become one or all of the above as well.

 

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How strong at swimming are the little guys when they hatch?
They are pretty good swimmers. I have a 20 gallon with an AC30 and a 30 gallon with an AC50. Both filters have Fluval Pre-Filter sponges on them. Shrimp of all ages enjoy grazing on the sponges.

After reading lots of stuff, my understanding is that unless people are doing really strict culling to breed more intense red coloring, the colonies of RCS can begin to fade and decline in quality after a few years.  I am a soft hearted, vegetarian, Buddhist, and killing healthy shrimp just because they not as dark red as their tank mates is not something I am willing to do. 
Cull does not mean "to kill". Cull means to remove from the general population. You could throw "culls" into a community tank (as long as it's heavily planted...), set up a tank for culls only, or sell the culls off to other people, or even trade them for more shrimp or plants.

I ordered 40 Fire Red Cherries and they seem happy in their new home. They were shipped from California to Tennessee, and only 3 were DOA.  All of the females dropped their eggs during shipping, so I’ll have a delay before any babies are born.
You can use or make an egg tumbler to save any eggs from females that have died or dropped their eggs.

I actually like the solid bright red of good Fire and Painted grade better than these darker Bloody colored ones, but the seller had a good fair price for the quantity I wanted and others I saw had very pale males.  I am fine with the colony’s color being somewhat lighter over time, but I’d rather my males not all end up pale pink in a year or two.
Not all Bloody Mary are dark. Some have a nice, rich color to them. Look at this thread. Some of them are lighter in coloration. I've also seen some that are lighter still. Bloody Mary glow more like a gem, vs Painteds are opaque.

Males are more likely to become clear rather than "turn pink"... it's the females that have better coloration overall. It's not abnormal for a "high end" male to have poor coloration. Still, it's best to keep the best looking males in the tank!

Once this first group of shrimp has produced a grown and breeding new generation,  I am wondering if I can improve/maintain the genetic diversity of my colony if every 6 months I were to buy a few good quality Fire or Painted ones to add.
This is actually a good idea! The shrimp will breed fast! If possible though, try to get more females than males. If you keep a bunch of females but only a few high end males, you can keep great coloration and have a fast growing colony!


 I’ve not been able to find posts from many people that are trying to keep a breeding colony in a tank as large as 55 gallons. 
When my SO and I first started keeping shrimp, they were put into a 90+ gallon tank that had 2 canister filters on each end of the tank rated for 100+ gallons. Besides the fact that the water was too soft, the shrimp did fine. That tank has since been sold.

 

 

You could also look into other leaves for your shrimp. Mulberry, amaranth, nettle, birch, alder, oak, etc are some good choices!

They might even enjoy spinach, broccoli, carrot, zucchini, kale, cucumber...

Primary diet is algae and biofilm.

 

If you don't have them yet, I would suggest a GH and KH test kit as well as a TDS meter.

 

 

I've personally never been a fan of keeping fish as pets, but shrimp? That's another story! ;)

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Zoidburg,

I guess the reason I mentioned not wanting to kill them when culling was that I had just been reading breeding posts on another board, where a guy was talking about how much his Cichlids enjoyed his culls.  He went into graphic descriptions about how much fun it was to drop the culls into his Cichlid tank one at a time in order watch the young fish them apart as they fought over each one.  He said it was lots more fun than watching the large Cichlids eat the goldfish and koi culls he collected from his pond, since they normally just swallowed them whole.  I realize that in nature it happens, but it sort of creeped me out that he got so much enjoyment out of feeding his pets to one another in captive tanks where the prey had no chance of escape or hide in unplanted Cichlid tanks.

It is funny that you mentioned trying to hatch the dropped eggs.  I am already trying to do so and thought I was probably silly to try.  I have a large plastic cup clipped to the side of the tank so that it has about a liter of water.  I cut holes near the cup's top, that are just below the water level in the tank, so that the tank's water can gently flow through the cup, while the eggs are at the cup's bottom.  There are about 1/4 teaspoon full of the eggs.  Every few hours during the day, I take a chop stick and gently swirl the water just enough that the eggs will move gently about at the bottom of the cup,  They are still free of any visible fungus, bacteria, or algae.  I was planning to keep attending them for a few weeks to see if they might hatch before getting covered in mung.  Call me Mr. (Shrimp) Mom.

After 8 days, I have had 5 shrimp die since they arrived..  Of the 40 in the shipment, 3 were DOA, and I find a dead one every other day.  I didn't find any dead today, and every day that I do not, I keep hoping the rest are okay.  I am hoping it was that a few were overstressed during shipping, rather than something wrong with my tank.  They are also all fully grown, so it's possible that the ones I've lost were already senior shrimp citizens.   Of the remaining 32, I only see half out feeding at any time, so I hope the others are hiding and not dead under something.  I see them coming and going all of the time from their hiding places, so it's impossible to count them all.

I found 3 molts this evening.  One of them I think is from a big female.  She was the biggest shrimp of the lot, and I think she was female from her underbelly shape.  Her shell had begun to turn pale crusty looking across the back.  She was normally visible much of the time, but she's gone into hiding.  I pretty sure one of the molts is hers, because it is way bigger than the other two.

I am not feeding them hardly anything so far.  I have 2 large leaves in a small unplanted area at one end, which is where I plan to feed them.  I drop a sinking pellet on to the center of a leaf, so that it won't dissolve and get lost in the sand.  The shrimp that are nearby when I drop the pellet will run to it and feed, but the others remain oblivious to my offering.  Two of them will quickly eat most of a small pellet and others eventually clean it all up, so they seem to like it.  It is a sinking food formulated for shrimp and crabs, without any copper sulfate preservative.  The pellets are small, with one being all that 2 shrimp will eat at a sitting. Until they have had time yet to learn that this area is where to find the food I give them, is this enough to feed them?  

My Ammonia, Nitrites, Nitrates, and Phosphates are all below detectable levels using API brand test kits, which is great since my tap water that I use for weekly changes has detectable levels of both Ammonia and Phosphates.  I live in a rural agricultural area, and our county water comes from the river, which gets fertilizer run off.  We've had a lot of rain this winter, which results in more cow poo in the river.   My plants keep Nitrates sucked up, so I only do about 10% water changes in my tanks to remove excess dissolved organics. 

My KH is 100ppm, and CA is 180ppm.  My biggest water problem is that my tap water has a higher PH than I would like, at just above 8.  Besides several giant Almond leaves in the tank, I have 2 cups full of small ones in the filter, in hope that the tannins will help keep the PH a bit lower,  I'm trying to avoid adding chemicals to lower it, because they result in levels going up and down too much in my experience.  The tetras and barbs in my fish tank have been doing well for 5 months in similar water, and I hope the shrimp will be okay.  

Since the PH is high, I was extra careful when I acclimated the shrimp (and eggs) to the tank's water.  I floated a stainless steel bowl on the water ahead of time for its temp to equalize.  When the shrimp arrived, I poured them from the bag into the bowl.  The seller had put less than 1/3 liter of water in the bag, and it was 1/3 full of shrimp, who looked like sardines in a can.  I started adding a tablespoon of tank water once per minute for the next half hour.

As much as I enjoy watching my fish, I'm finding that I spend much more time watching the shrimp tank than my fish. This is partly because they are new, and I'm concerned over their health, but mostly it is because they are so different from the fish.  While they can swim (and fast when they kick their tails), they spend most of their time walking about.  I think part of what makes them so captivating, it that it that they looking like they are walking on the moon, as sudden movements cause them to bump and float like an astronaut in low G. (I watch too much SciFi.)  Then of course there is their ability to walk up the side of even a freshly cleaned glass like SpiderMan!  They are so cool to watch, I'm thinking of setting up a third tank to raise some of the fancy freshwater fairy shrimp.  I've ordered some eggs that are supposed to grow to more than 30mm.  They are nearly as large as RCS, but rather than walking on walls, they do the backstroke to get everywhere.

Thank you all for your advice.

Greg

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Re: Cichlids
Unfortunately, when it comes to owning certain pets, they do require being fed live food. It's actually kind of worse to feed "dead" food than it is living food, since feeding live is physically and mentally stimulating to the brain and body. I've seen a lot of people feed their culls to fish, but haven't seen anyone go into graphic details.

I'm with you though in that it's not something I could do myself. I have no problem feeding meat to an animal, but feeding an animal another living animal (or even a whole dead one), I don't feel like I could do.

 


Hopefully some of the eggs hatch! I will say though, the last eggs that I hatched didn't look like they would! They were covered in some sort of growth (fungus? bacteria?) and the eggs were white instead of being clear. There was no way these eggs looked viable! That said, I still somehow managed to get 9 or 11 babies from the eggs! The day I "gave up" on the eggs is when I first discovered that there were a few hatchlings!  It took another 2 days for the rest to hatch!

 

 

Hopefully, the shrimp are molting fine! As far as feeding them, as long as the tank is mature with plenty of biofilm, then they really don't need a lot of food. With such a small population, it would be okay to feed them 1-2 times a week.

I don't necessarily feel like phosphates are bad, but ammonia could be, depending on how much is in the water and how well the tank can consume it. Sounds like it's not too bad though.

 

 

 

KH = 5.6 dKH
CA (or GH?) = 10

I don't recommend using chemicals anyway because it does more than just cause the pH to swing widely... it also increases the TDS of the tank.

Based on your information, I suggest getting the API, Sera or Nutrafin test kits that include GH and KH liquid test kits. Then order a cheap little TDS meter. You will be able to have a better understanding of what's going on in your tank with those simple little items. You can also purchase a calibration solution for the TDS meter to ensure it's giving out the right readings.

The easiest way to lower your pH is to mix your tap water with RO water to cut the KH down. If you choose to go this route, I wouldn't recommend mixing more than 50/50 tap to RO and use this as your water changes for a while.


There's a debate on whether or not shrimp should be acclimated and for how long they should be acclimated for. Without knowing the sellers parameters, it's possible that they have been shocked by a change in TDS. Maybe the seller had softer water? Or maybe it was harder water? And the shrimp are having a hard time adjusting? With shrimp, it can take a few days for the shock to affect them.

 

 

 

The "fairy shrimp" you speak of must be brine shrimp? I've seen them at Salt Lake City, Utah, but have never cared for them personally. They are interesting little creatures, for sure!

 

I've seen several fish keepers who never kept shrimp and when they start keeping shrimp, the fish tend to go on the back burner and the shrimp are the new hobby. Some even completely get out of the fish keeping hobby just so they can have multiple shrimp tanks! So you aren't alone there! LOL

 

I've never been one to keep fish. As much as I enjoy looking at various fish, I have no desire to keep them. Even once ended up with a betta (unplanned) and ended up finding a new home for it. But shrimp? Don't really know what it is about them that I enjoy so much! And yes, I'm looking at setting up more tanks for them!

 

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Wow i dont log on for a few days and there is a thread that took half an hour to read. 

Just to add my 2c worth to this. In your initial post you were going to add cory's to the tank later. As a rule all fish will have a nibble on shrimp if they can get them in their mouths. Even the fish that are predominantly algae eaters like to add some protein to their diet and will gobble up the shrimpets if they can. That dosent mean that all the shrimp will get eaten but there will be some loss to the fish. You stated that breeding them is not a priority so you may be fine with a few fish in the tank as RCS do breed well and with some good plants/moss to hide in you will still find the population increasing at a steady rate. Without a good culling in a RCS only tank, often you will find it getting overpopulated in a few months.

RCS are a pretty hardy breed but they do sometimes die for no known reason especially when introduced to a new tank. My own thoughts on the matter are that they get stressed and sometimes ammonia burned in transport and it can take weeks for that to become apparent. They tend to die off one by one for a few weeks to several months later and this can be a bit distressing to the owners. The bright side to it all is that what is left and breeding in your tank is the ones that are best acclimatized to your water chemistry. All the offspring from these will be strong in your tank.

Good luck with it all and dont forget to get some photo's up for us to drool over. A photo hosting site like Flikr or photobucket is the best way to get them on the forum.

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Madmerv, 

Thanks for what you said about all of the stresses during shipping having an ongoing impact of their health.  I've been daily checking the water with every test kit that API makes, and everything is perfect as far as I can determine.  I was about to pull my hair out because they continue to slowly die.  Of the 40 I ordered, I counted 16 today that were out grazing.  I've removed 12 dead ones, which leaves 12 others that were hiding or dead somewhere I can't see.  The ones that I see all seem to be active and healthy, without any outward signs of infections or parasites.

Zoidburg,
What you said about the seller's water quality is good as well.  Besides him putting too many in too little water for shipping them 2300 miles, when they arrived I counted more than 10 that had problems with their shells.  Across their their backs, these had a white crusty looking appearance.  I did a lot of reading on this, and from I could determine, this is often caused when the shrimp were living in water that lacked minerals needed to form a good healthy shell.  Most things I read said that it was a sign they were about to molt, but the old shell was not turning loose as it should, which could result in some dying during molt.  I've found several clean molts, and 2 of the dead shrimp I could tell had died while molting.  Their shells were detached from their heads, but the lower half towards the tail was still attached.  They looked like a car with its bonnet open.  

I bought my RCS from an online outfit called "Joe's Aquarium" in San Jose, CA.  (https://jtibee.com)  I do not recommend him.  He guarantees refunds for DOA, but you must contact him within 3 hours of FedEx delivery confirmation.  If they all die after 4 hours in your tank, tough luck.  I didn't bother contacting him about my 3 DOA, because he says you must send him a photo of the sealed bag showing the dead shrimp before you open the bag.  The trick on buyers is that he packs them in such a tiny bit of water and with no air, you cannot see if the shrimp or dead or alive.  I could tell that some on the outside of the mass were wiggling a little, but I couldn't see the vast majority well enough to know how many were dead.

The fairly shrimp eggs I got are freshwater cousins of brine shrimp.  In the wild, they live in temporary seasonal pools of rain water or snow cap melt.  They live for a couple months, lay eggs, and then die.  Their eggs must be dried out and then rehydrated before they hatch.  The woman I bought these from at www.arizonafairyshrimp.com, collected her initial breeding stock from season pools that form in the desert where she lives.  When seasonal rains fall, the desiccated eggs from a year before  hatch and live their lives before the pool dries up until the next year.

The different species vary wildly in size and appearance.  Some are small translucent, fuzzy dots, that look just like brine shrimps.  One species is a bright red/orange and larger than a Cherry Shrimp. Another is white and grows up to 3 inches long, not including it long tail.  

Most people raise a batch in a large jar or bowl, and when that generation dies, they start over with a new batch of hatchlings.  I want to try something different and see if I can maintain a tank with a colony of multiple generations at different stages of development.  My idea is that once they are grown and lay eggs, which fall to the bottom, I will collect a cup of the sand substrate each week and let it dry out. The eggs hatch withing 24 to 48 hours of being rehydrated.  Each week I will take my oldest cup of dry sand and eggs from 6 weeks prior, hatch them in a jar beside my tank, and then release the fry into my fairy shrimp tank.  Unlike Triops (aka Tadpole Shrimp), which have the same breeding habit, they do not eat their young because they are filter feeders that only eat tiny suspended particles in the water.  If my breeding idea works, I'll have a tank with 5 different species where I can see them at all stages of life at any time. 

They female begins laying eggs after 3 weeks and continues for another 6 weeks.  Each will lay hundreds during this time.  They are easy to hatch, but the difficulty is getting them from hatchling to semi-grown.  They feed on microbes in green water, but they are sensitive to changes in water quality, which is were my challenge will be in configuring a tank where this is possible on a ongoing basis.

Even if you aren't interested in ordering any eggs, the pictures and information on her site are fascinating.  In the YouTube video of hers at the link below, these look like a Maltese Puppy, which is swimming on it back.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6DWWxZzXv1s

The light I had on the shrimp tank died, and I post some RCS pics as soon as my new light bar arrives.

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Part of the issue could be that these shrimp are imports rather than home-bred. Just found a post by Joe saying that they are bred in Taiwan and imported into the USA... which means that the shrimp could have ellobiopsidae, a green fungus looking parasite, which is basically a death sentence for the shrimp...


So I'm going to guess you might as well call this a lost cause and a crappy learning experience. ?

 

 

Basically, you are buying shrimp raised in Tawain with who knows what water parameters, shipped to the USA (and the stress of doing through that), then put into temporary holding tanks until they are, once again, sold off to the customer. I've asked about the water parameters. On what little information I can see, the shrimp are raised in soft water and your water is medium hardness. The change in water hardness could be causing molting problems, too, even if cherry shrimp can be acclimated to harder water than what's in your tank.

 

Get the GH and KH test kits as soon as you can and please share pictures of any shrimp that appear to be berried.

Edited by Zoidburg
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Information I received from Joe.

Quote

 

Their original water parameters should be
pH 7.1~7.5
TDS 200~250
GH 5-8
KH 1~2
Temp. 24~28C"

We keep our neos in CRS water parameters
pH 6.5~6.8
TDS 120-140
GH 3-5
KH 0~1
Temp. 24~26C"

 

 

So in Taiwan, they have higher TDS, pH, and GH at least. Then they are moved to Caridina paramaters here in the USA, then once again to your higher tank paramaters (whatever they may be exactly).

On top of this, they are adults, which means that they take to new environments a lot harder than juvenile shrimp do.

And a possibility of having parasites...

 

Well, hopefully the remaining shrimp are healthy and if/when you choose to purchase from a USA breeder, you will have better luck.

 

I do hope there aren't any issues with your tank though... have heard that tanks that have been treated with copper medication for fish could kill shrimp months or so down the road. Or it could be your source water. Maybe there's something in it that is slowly causing harm to the shrimp? Just to throw some possible ideas out there.

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BABY SHRIMP!!!

Tonight before I turned off the lights on my tanks, I was trying to get a count of how many were out feeding.  I was able to count 20 that were swimming and feeding.  While I was watching, I saw a flicker of something white in the water.  I would have just thought it was debris, but it was moving against the current within the tank.  Once it got my attention, I was able to find it again and confirm that it's a tiny little shrimp that looks like a comma swimming about.  This got me excited, so I sat and stared for another 30 minutes without blinking in fear I'm miss another.  Eventually I was able to confirm at least 3 of the dropped eggs that I've been tending have hatched and the babies are having no problem with the tank's current.

Since water flow rates was how my long story began, I've noticed that the shrimp seem to vary their routine regarding the area near the filter's return, which is the one place in the tank where there is a moderately strong movement of the water.  They spend most of their day in the 3/4 of the tank where that is calm, including a few always crawling on the large sponge prefilter.   In the evenings when they seem to be most active, a few of them will swim to the corner where the current is really strong.  They seem to enjoy playing in the falling water.  They'll swim into the stream, and then it will whip them about 6 inches away, then they swim back into the current again.  After a 10 or so trips on the "water slide", they will return to the quiet areas to feed, and others will take their place playing. 

The babies that I could see were climbing about on two clumps of Peacock Moss that are tied to rocks.  They were easier to see in the area because the light was brightest there and not shaded by hornwort.  My eyesight isn't great, but I could not see any changes yet in the plastic bag where I have the eggs that the females all dropped during shipping.  There are still quite a few eggs, so I'm hoping for more babies!

 

Someone had asked for a picture of my shrimp, and I got my new tank light today so I could take a picture.  Of the 40 I ordered, I counted 20 tonight that were out and visible.  I've had 16 confirmed dead, which leaves me with 4 unknowns.

My thanks again to everyone that has given me advice, encouragement, and sympathy.  Seeing the 3 fry swimming and active tonight was really encouraging that there isn't something wrong with my tank that I couldn't determine.

 

 

ShrimpEating.jpg

Edited by gtippitt
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JayC, Zoidburg ,and MadMerv,

You are all now God Parents to at least a dozen little shrimps.  I bought a magnifying glass today while I was at the pharmacy, and I was able to count at least 12 shrimplets.  These were on the glass or near the front of the tank, so there are hopefully many others in the areas of the 55 gal tank of plants and leaves where I cannot see such small critters.

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  • 5 weeks later...

Only 2 of the 40 adults I ordered are still alive.  Of the 12 babies that hatched from eggs dropped during shipping, 9 of them are doing well and are getting bigger each day.  From everything I've been able to find to read, I think the problem with mine was that the shrimp were all fully grown adults of over an inch in length.  The babies have done well in the tank, but the adults did not.  From what I've read, most people say that the adults have much more problems adjusting to being moved between different water conditions.  Since these had been imported by the seller I bought them from, they had all gone through multiple changes in water conditions.

After the first ones that died within a few days, all of the others died soon after molting.  Every time I'd find a molted shell, I'd find a dead shrimp the next day.  Almost everywhere I've read, others who have had this problem have just gotten adult shrimp.  Even when moved from bad water conditions to much better conditions, the change is apparently very hard on the adults.  Even when acclimated slowly as I did by adding tiny amounts of water at a time over several hours so they have plenty of time for their bodies to adjust osmotically, changes in ph and hardness make if difficult for the adults to molt the next time.

I guess in some way it's not that different from how I could go a week with only 2 hours sleep per day at the end of a term when I was in college when I would cramming for finals and trying to finishing papers.  Now 40 years later, I'd be dead before a week was over under the same conditions.  

I found a guy on another forum who was only 50 miles from me who wanted to sell all of his RCS.  Last Saturday I drove and got them.  They are a mixture of some nice red ones, a few blue ones, and about 50+ that are native brown looking, which are presumably the result of his crossing of the blues and reds. They range from newly hatched to about 1/2 inch in size. 

I actually like the natural looking brown ones better than low quality reds I seen online.  I didn't think that the 8 babies from my initial batch of fire reds were enough to begin breeding with healthy diversity, so I've put them all together and am content with them (hopefully) growing into a healthy colony of brown native looking ones over time.  With individuals from at least 3 different lines, they should have enough diversity to breed healthy for some time.

They are eating well and are very active.  I've not lost any in the past week that I can see.  I don't know if it because they are younger, healthier, or what, but my babies and these new small ones are much more active and less shy than my first batch I bought.  It may be because the first ones were bred in ponds overseas, while these have always lived in an aquarium and don't find it stressful.   When I turn on the tank light in the mornings, the 2 large adults of the originals still skitter away and hide, as all of that group always did when I turned on the light.  These little ones instead have already learned in just a few days that when the light comes on in the morning, food will arrive shortly thereafter.  I have a large freshwater mussel shell into which I drop their pellets each morning. While I have my morning bagel and coffee, I enjoy watching them swarm to get their "pellets on the half shell."

 

 

 

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Wow 60 or more new RCS. You better be watching out for an overpopulation.

I recently culled down my shrimp tank to 5 females and 1 male. There would be over 60 in there now..Lol

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It's a shame you lost such a large quantity of shrimp from your original starter colony!

 

Sounds like the local shrimp will fare better though! Glad you were able to find some that were home bred!

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