Hey guys~ I am new to this forum, but I am not new to shrimps. Well amateur at the least I can call myself..

I had successfully kept Neos before like Yellow neo, PFR, Rilis, Blue pearl.

Did terrible with OEBT & TT none survived

I had ups and down with Crs/Cbs with tons of babies. However, when Hydra hit I wasn't prepared and I have no tank to hold them with a low ph tank, which it was running on 5.8ph. And that was the end of story, started 2011- ended on 2013. I stopped for a whole year, and now i am back into business again. researching and running from the old equips I have. Trust me I been spending too much, over $3000 worth, and I dont want to make the same mistakes again.

 

I have some questions & I did some modifications not really the tradition way of keeping shrimps, which I can post pictures later on

 

Some say if you do it right you are able to use the gravel for a long time? so how to make it last longer?

 

Some people say use Ro Water to neutralize the water to make it easy, but currently is there another way to lower GH without any chemicals because my gh is skyrocket high?

 

Do You think I overdo it too much with the equips I set up for the tank. 1 aquaclear hob, 1 canister, 2 sponge filters?

 

Planning to keep Taiwan bee or crs again? how to prevent Hydra? 

 

running with ada amazonia and u.p aqua shrimp sand

curently alive blue pearl cross rilis

in the past

Hey mate, welcome to the forum & glad to have you back in the hobby.

The best way to get the maximum out of your substrate is to use RO water & remineralise it to the right TDS with a product like Salty Shrimp, this way your KH & GH will be at the right levels & the substrate won't have to do so much work to buffer you pH. By using Salty Shrimp minerals you don't have to use any chemicals to adjust the water parameters.

Personally I think only the canister & sponge filters are enough.

The best way to prevent hydra is to keep your feeding to a minimum, but there are shrimp safe products to get rid of it available these days.

If you want to protect your investment, you must get RO water. I am much like yourself, got out of the hobby because of shrimp deaths.

I tried for months just using tap water treated with Prime and it just wasn't working, random deaths here and there but ever since I got RO, zero deaths.

Just make sure you set the GH with some GH+ (I use Salty Shrimp brand) and Mosura's TDS if needed up and you're good to go.

 

I lost several due to hydra infestation myself, treat using fenbendazole and avoid overfeeding. I feed mine in a petri dish to avoid food getting all over the gravel and just fish it out when you're done. No hydras since. 

"Internal Parasite Clear" is the safest product to deal with Hydra, Planaria etc. There's many examples on this forum of people using it successfully without any shrimp losses. Every other product seems to cause problems, at least sometimes.