Amyers22

So glad to hear that! Hope they enjoy them all. Let us know

Hello y'all! I've been shrimpin for a year and a half. This hobby is soooo addicting.... and expensive.... and AWESOME. Love to see some fellow ladies out there that share the shrimpy fever

Today I hiked up the Santa Cruz mountains with my daughter for some good ol bonding time. Oh yeah... and to search for aquatic moss.
I found a couple species that may or may not be fully aquatic. I'll have to look them up later. Here's some pics from our hike today.

My 'mixed' tank is turning out to be a wonder all by itself. There is a bit of this and that in there. Here is what I know is in there (all neos):
 
- A few wilds
- 2 or three reds of various grades
- a yellow
- a snowball
- a clearish one but not snowball
- non nondescript ones that look like wilds and can't honestly say more than that
 
The lighting in the tank is not that great, but I have been having fun just letting 'whatever happens happen'. I expected/expect a lot of wilds, but I am ok with that.
 
Well, someone had babies. Not sure who because, again, this is a no stress tank.
 
This morning I found babies on the glass. Most are shades of red (very light). Then I noticed several very dark, stunning blue babies the same size as the red babies.
 
I have no idea who the parents are but I know for certain that there are NO blue adults in that tank.
 
Any thoughts about this? Also, if I pulled the blues out and put with my other blues would that be good or a bad thing? I had no plans to pull anyone out of this tank but with this striking color I just might.

 

I set up one tank today on the new rack today with an HMF filter from Swiss Tropicals. I am sooo impressed by the flow coming out of the jet lifter tube. I barely have my air turned up and that thing is putting out some serious flow.

Very nice pics! RBT's are definitely on my bucket list.

Moved a couple more shrimp over today. Check this one out. At first glance it looks like a cbs but it is a Taiwan bee.
I also moved over a very nice blue bolt mama.

Yes, 100% sure. I work at an aquatics store and we got three or for shipments of these little guys. I put them in with our large PFR population and never noticed this happening. I moved some to 1.5g nanos by our register to show them off and stuck half a dozen blue jelly neos in with them and that's when I first noticed them going after shrimp. I figured it was because they were in a smaller space and still decided to get some of my own. I stuck them in my PRL tank and came home to one of them attacking a freshly molted shrimp. After the shrimp died it proceeded to pick pieces of the shrimp apart. So I moved them in with my snowball shrimp and started seeing it again. I watched one of my shrimp molt and just minutes later a micro crab came over and grabbed the shirmp. It did enough damage in that 2.5sec before I intervened that the shrimp died. All of the "attacks" that I have witnessed have been on adult shrimp. I moved them to my nano. They are always out and about.

Wow. I appreciate the info, Amanda.

Picture of the berried Aura Blue tiger. 

API test kit is good enough.
 
You can double the water volume to get the 0.5 reading.

I often thought the same way, they make PH, Temperature, TDS Pens, why not a GH/KH Pen. I still use the API Test Kit, works well.

I do this as well. I use a syringe to get 10mL in a 20mm fat test tube. No need to cap and shake... just a swirl. Divide the result by 2. Much better than using those API tubes that never seal properly and stain my skin with the KH indicator.

I've seen a saddled female straight up reject a male. She folds her tail under and the male can't get at the goods. She just stayed like that for a good hour with the male crawling all over her until he gave up. I think I have a cell phone video of it somewhere around here.

Yes, 100% sure. I work at an aquatics store and we got three or for shipments of these little guys. I put them in with our large PFR population and never noticed this happening. I moved some to 1.5g nanos by our register to show them off and stuck half a dozen blue jelly neos in with them and that's when I first noticed them going after shrimp. I figured it was because they were in a smaller space and still decided to get some of my own. I stuck them in my PRL tank and came home to one of them attacking a freshly molted shrimp. After the shrimp died it proceeded to pick pieces of the shrimp apart. So I moved them in with my snowball shrimp and started seeing it again. I watched one of my shrimp molt and just minutes later a micro crab came over and grabbed the shirmp. It did enough damage in that 2.5sec before I intervened that the shrimp died. All of the "attacks" that I have witnessed have been on adult shrimp. I moved them to my nano. They are always out and about.

What's the most accurate way to get a GH reading. I've been using test strips, but I know they can be inaccurate and I don't know how to convert ppm of the test strip to a reading such as a GH of 4. Is there such thing as a GH pen like a TDS and pH pen? I know there is a API master test kit, but if there is something I can purchase that reads only for GH and is accurate I would rather use that.
 
Thanks in advance

There is API kit that test only GH and KH. couldn't find it at the local fish store so I had to get it online.

Wow thanks Amanda for the info. That's the first time I've heard of that happening.

I was feeding my shrimps last night and couldn't believe my eyes when I saw one cherry shrimp (red rilli) has been attacked by assassin snail. I grabbed my Iphone and start recording video and then got my Canon camera when my Iphone run out of memory.
Today I managed to create a video clip and uploaded it on YouTube. It's better to see then tell, just watch what's happened.
Sorry about silly comments, I hope they make you smile

One of my pride and joy,MK breed Extreme Blue bolt. Love how even the color is throughout the shrimp.
 

All great questions. I've had it for less then a week and I just put plants in today. I feel like I would need a few weeks at least to be able to get a real impression of the lights. I can say they don't seem to get very hot. They do appear to be able to get quite bright on the max setting.

I wasn't aware that alder cones could grow sprouts......is this normal?  Is it safe to keep them in the tank in this state, or should I remove and replace?
 

Here is the example of saddled female of my Crystal White shrimp.
 

The pump is not inside the breeder box. It is in the tank, pumping water into the breeding box.
There is a couple reasons to replace the stock airlift. One is to increase the volume of water that flows through the box. The mosses grow a lot better with high flow. The second reason is noise. The stock airlift on the marina breeder boxes is extremely loud and I could hear the burping in the next room. The submersible pump is silent.