red crystal/black bee Not breeding

[richiep]

back in February this year i had which started off as a white algae bloom turned into a bad case of green algae and for some six week with the help of jayc matuva and a few other inputs we solved the problem, now as the green algae disappeared out of the darkness came lots of young, and that was the last lot of red crystal and black bee ive had in this 400ltr tank. in May i put fire red sakura into the same tank and there's been no trouble with them breeding, at the same time i put two dozen of my red crystal/black bee into one of my other tanks that have orange/red/green and yellow sakura that are breeding well. we are now in July and still no red or black bee young to be seen in ether tank, i'm using RO water in all my tanks TDS in the main tank with crystals is 180 my other tank is 220 all other water parameters are normal, the temperature in the crystal tank is kept minimum 22 max 23.5  or 71.6f to 74.3f temperature and cooling is controlled by computer. i know this may sound stupid beyond reason but to get rid of the algae bloom i used the fish R fun uv steriliser for six weeks or so, could this steriliser have made my shrimp infertile as i am at a loss, ive had no deaths in any tanks that i can see and they seem to be shedding ok. ive not even seen one berried shrimp.Help ? richie

[nicpapa]

What about gh kh ?

Tds its a lilte high for me.

I keep it with salty shrimp to 130 ppm and get 5 gh

Do you have active subtrate?

[richiep]

Hi nicpapa iam using Flora base pro substrate, As of this morning's readings my KH is 1 and my GH is 11, I also use bee shrimp GH+ mineral 

[nicpapa]

38 minutes ago, richiep said:

Hi nicpapa iam using Flora base pro substrate, As of this morning's readings my KH is 1 and my GH is 11, I also use bee shrimp GH+ mineral 

Gh is too high... the babies cant survive, high gh cause molting problems.

I dont know the substrate,

Try to lower the gh 4-5 .

With small water changes...

 

[richiep]

Should I use pure RO or mix a weak mineral 

[jayc]

Either way is fine as long as you start reducing the GH to something around 5 or 6. That might mean that TDS will need to be lower as well.

Water changes with Pure RO will reduce GH faster of course.

[richiep]

Hi jayc how you doing my friend, tell me would it be to harsh to change 10ltr a day of pure RO in a 220lt tank to get the GH down

[pastu]

I would change 10 l a week with pure ro

[jayc]

On 8 July 2018 at 12:40 AM, richiep said:

10ltr a day of pure RO in a 220lt tank t

That is less than 5%, so that should be safe. But maybe change it over every 3 days. Or every week, if you want to be safer.

[richiep]

It's been 3 weeks since i asked for help so hear's an update, first of all i removed the stones that were causing the problem, i'v been changing the water with pure RO 10ltr every other day, it seemed as if it was not going to work but suddenly the TDS started to drop and stabilise each time i changed water, the GH was slow to drop at first but it's now coming down, readings today TDS 158 GH 6 i'll still carry on bringing down the TDS to 130-140 or until the GH si stable at 5 ?

[jayc]

12 hours ago, richiep said:

removed the stones that were causing the problem

Glad you found/realised the problem.

A lot of stones have this problem of leaching carbonates. 

[richiep]

It was you jayc who found the problem I only acted on your advise of which I find myself indebted to you once more,  it's people like you that make this forum with your 100% commitment thanks again my friend

Richie

[jayc]

You're welcome. Sometimes I blab on about things, and some of those times it helps people. ?

[Zoidburg]

If you have Neocaridina in the tank, I'd try to see how well the shrimp do at 6 GH... it's on the lower end for Neos and higher end for Caridina.

 

Try feeding an algae/vegetable food (read the ingredients! many algae foods aren't actually algae based... you want algae to be #1 ingredient, not the 6th to 9th!) twice a week then a (animal/fish) protein once a week.

[richiep]

Update my GH is now 6 and I've seen one baby crystal and my sakura fire red in the same tank are still breeding, so things are looking up, my tds is 150 but I want to get it to 140 hopefully then my GH will be stable at 5

[nicpapa]

22 hours ago, richiep said:

Update my GH is now 6 and I've seen one baby crystal and my sakura fire red in the same tank are still breeding, so things are looking up, my tds is 150 but I want to get it to 140 hopefully then my GH will be stable at 5

As you said..lower it to a gh 5 , crs look beter wiht high gh beter whites, but as i test it more babies have molt problems.

I keep mine to 110-130tds...

Gh 4-5.

All tanks are full of shrimps.

[richiep]

Ok nicpapa I'll take it down a bit more if that's the case, today I've seen two crystal berried so it's definitely working