Hey guys. I've done some reading and brought some info about shrimp survival.

I've translated a report of a research about fulvic acid into English.

What is FULVIC in shrimp breeding?

All organic matters are broken down by bacteria after some time. Dried leaves, tree branches or dead bodies of animals. These organic matters are broken down by bateria and lose their shape, however there's something that still remain after that, that is humic aci, ulmic acid and fulvic acid. Amongst three, fulvic acid is part of humic acid which consist only 10% of humic acid.

Bee shrimps naturally tend to reside in a brook where there's a lot of trees around it. Where the trees are, so are the fallen leaves. These leaves decay in the water by bacteria and thus that habitat is full of humic acid.

Fulvic acid, a substance contained in humic acid has chelate in its structure and this chelate aids absorption of minerals into living body. This indicate that these bee shrimps has far less ability to absorb minerals of their own because they tend to absorb mineral with the help of fulvic acid in the nature. That is the reason why it is recommended to use aqua soil which is made of natural organic substance that contains humic acid when breeding bee shrimps in aquarium environment. It was rather known that main function of aquasoil is stabilising pH and GH however recent research by shrimp hobbyst shows that it is not only pH and GH that aids shrimps in breeding but nutritive substances in aquasoil is almost essential in shrimp breeding.

So now we recognised that fulvic acid helps living bodies to absorb minerals and bee shrimps especially require this help. Established shrimp breeding methods only concentrated on minerals, however it is now known that absorption of mineral is more important in keeping shrimps alive. Adult shrimps does not rely much on the existance of fulvic acid but shrimp juvies, newly born shrimps do not show high rates of survival in an environment with less fulvic acid because they cannot absorb minerals as adult shrimps do by their own.

Reference:

http://blog.naver.com/dragoon86/140182305227

Summary.

With help of my friend I have started a shrimp breeding project using fulvic acid early this year, and so far it seems like it's working fully well.

I'm still getting 100% survival rates of shrimplets after 10 months since the set up

I just wanted to make sure I get the result before introducing new information to you

So I've started with 8 CBS(F0) in the beginning, in Feb 2013.

A female started breeding in May- June and gave birth to 20-30 shrimplets(F1) in June-July, 2nd batch of F1 in August.

I sold about 15 of them when they were 1.5cm when I attended Fishy Park Sale held in September and another 10 more in October.

In October my F1 females started to breed and almost 7 females got eggs.

However my mum wanted to get rid of those ugly hair algae, grabbed a net, swung it in the aquarium, and females just dropped their eggs

Fortunately I got suspicious of females dropping their eggs and caught my mom in early stage.

So now, December I've got first batch of F2 shrimplets grown about 1.0-1.3cm size, with second batch of F2 shrimplets are crawling in the tank.

I still have 7 females barried with 3rd batch

So I ended up having almost 100 shrimps + 7 barried females coming up when I started with 8 shrimps 10 months ago.

However I have not yet tested how it will work with r/o water.

I'll be resetting my tank very soon and this time, I'll be using r/o water.

If I can set my water parameter to ideal level while getting 100% shrimplet survival rate, what else can be better?

So fingers crossed for me guys :encouragement:

Yeah, I had heard about the fulvic and humic acid benefits and have been adding some to my tanks with water changes. I've only had my crystals for a little while and only had any males for about a week but they seem pretty active so we'll see how it goes. :)

Awesome write up bunnybom, I'll be very interested to see how your results go over the next few months. I have had similar results, I started with six shrimp & now have well over 200 & I have been using Beni Fulvic soil. :victorious:

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Very good read mate. Cheers for sharing. So where do you get fluvic acid? Whats your pH of your test tank and your tap water?

Unfortunately, "pure" fulvic acid is not yet available in Australian market.

What you can get is "benibachi fulvic grain" which contains humate as I explained above or few benibachi stuffs like active water(which I believe 'contain' humic acid)

Or you can try putting in some dry leaves in the tank for a few days til they decade and emit humate like they do in wild.

In this case you'll carefully need to watch out your WP and consider what leaves to use.

However I managed to get few products overseas.

[ATTACH]6031[/ATTACH]

From the image, left "LIAN Fulvic extract" middle "Canada HNC fulvic acid" right "Tetra black water"

Great read.

I thought I was the only one using black water extract in shrimp tanks.

IAL and Dried oak leaves are also regularly in my tanks.

I used black water extract as Fulvic acid can be expensive for a small bottle.

I've seen them on website for $44 for a 50ml bottle, not inc shipping.

Great read.

I thought I was the only one using black water extract in shrimp tanks.

IAL and Dried oak leaves are also regularly in my tanks.

I used black water extract as Fulvic acid can be expensive for a small bottle.

I've seen them on website for $44 for a 50ml bottle' date=' not inc shipping.[/quote']

Which product are you using jayc?

Mine never exceed $30 excluding shipping :redface-new:

Thanks for the thread, great read…..Salty Shrimp has just released their Blackwater Powder…

http://www.saltyshrimp.de/english/black_water_powder.html

Thanks for the thread' date=' great read…..Salty Shrimp has just released their Blackwater Powder…

[url']http://www.saltyshrimp.de/english/black_water_powder.html

Oooh I'm so desperate to try it :bee:

Does anyone here managed to get one and tried?

Bunnydom,

I'm currently half way thru my bottle of Brightwell Aquatics Black water extract. But I mainly use it in my Amazonian biotope tank for Apistos, Discus and tetras.

The Fulvic acid I saw was from

http://www.fulvicminerals.com.au/

We gotta get Dean to bring in the Salty shrimp blackwater powder.

Bunnydom' date='

I'm currently half way thru my bottle of Brightwell Aquatics Black water extract. But I mainly use it in my Amazonian biotope tank for Apistos, Discus and tetras.

The Fulvic acid I saw was from

[url']http://www.fulvicminerals.com.au/

We gotta get Dean to bring in the Salty shrimp blackwater powder.

Never new that we had fulvic product in Australia :stupid:

But yes, it's a bit pricy and I'm not sure if it'll fit for aquarium use.

Since you're using it, that sounds good though:congratulatory:

And YES we do need to get Dean for Salty shrimp blackweater

I'm didn't use the Fulvic acid from the web site, just to be clear. It was too expensive.

I decided to just use blackwater extract instead. I already have blackwater for my fish tanks, so I add half dosage to my shrimp tanks.

And like you, I've noticed very good shrimplet survivals too. I don't know if it's specifically Humic/Fulvic acids though, since I dose the tank with all sorts of things.;)

Oops my bad:p

It is expensive maybe because it's made for human consumption.

Good to hear that black water extract is working for you too jayc :o

I'll be testing different product as soon as I reset my tank and share it to the forum

I have some of the blackwater powder on order. It was really hard to find though. Hopefully it becomes more readily available. I've been using the Aquasonic brand extract and IALs and things in all my tanks for the meantime. It seems good. I just go through a lot of it pretty quickly.

I have some of the blackwater powder on order.

You've ordered the Salty Shrimp Blackwater powder?

Where from? and how much?

Only place I could find that sent to Australia was Alpha Pro Breeders. Hopefully the AU distributer gets it soon though cause postage is a killer.

How does fulvic acid raise pH if it's an acid? Did I miss something?

Just wondering what the dose would be for the Fulvic/Humic powder?

How does fulvic acid raise pH if it's an acid? Did I miss something?

FIGURED OUT!

Thanks for your sharp observation mate!

Fulvic acid meant to "LOWER" pH as its own pH is 4.3 however in some occasion it will increase pH after denitrifying nitrates in the water:rolleyes:

Thanks mate, but I'm still confused... I did a bit of googling and it would seem that acids might donate their protons to the denitrification process, BUT the pH would only rise to the level it was at prior to the addition of acid depending on how much acid is consumed. Correct? Is this something you have read scientific literature about?

Thanks mate' date=' but I'm still confused... I did a bit of googling and it would seem that acids might donate their protons to the denitrification process, BUT the pH would only rise to the level it was at prior to the addition of acid depending on how much acid is consumed. Correct? Is this something you have read scientific literature about?[/quote']

The previous reply came out from my experiment :confused-new:

From the above pic in my last reply, the left is pH result of my shrimp tank- 6.0

where 3rd from left is the result when I added a dose of Lian fulvic extract.

As you can see it clearly rose to 6.4.

I'm adding lots of stuffs to my tank and now I dunno which reacted with fulvic extract :crushed:

I have contacted the manufacturer yesterday and got an answer to only add few drops a day to prevent WP swing.

...ooopsy

Cool, thanks for the info mate :)

I have heard it is meant to stabilise ph in a similar way to carbonates (useful if you want to avoid swings with low Kh) but I'm not sure the exact mechanism.

Great research buddy! Thanks for the info :)