sarah

Aside from ensuring your aquarium is cycled completely, be sure to acclimate your new Blue Bolts properly, it can make the world of difference. Don't rush cycling your aquarium, I know how exciting it can be to finally get your new shrimp in, but that satisfaction will be long gone if you don't have a cycled aquarium and they kick the bucket.

At least someone should have received an order by now.

I have the same one in a few tanks. It seems to bop up and down in price daily, so wait till it goes back down to $2.79 http://camelcamelcamel.com/XY-2831-Sponge-Filter-Aquarium-10-gallon/product/B0056XVF82?utm_campaign=chrome_ext&utm_source=&utm_medium=camelizer

Sponges trap food, would seem like a nice protective place close to a food source???

Depends on your current water params.
 
You'll need to know things like your GH/KH and TDS to know how much RO you should be adding to get to the desired parameters and if you'll need to remineralize it or not.
You might be able to get the right levels of everything by doing a mix of RO and tap, but you'll have to have the test kits to know for sure.
 
 
You will want to slowly acclimate the livestock to the new water, however you do it.
It is probably easier overall to just go pure RO and remineralize than to try and get a perfect mix of tap and RO.

Nadia had her final competition for the year yesterday.  This was the big one.  You have to have a certain score on all around to even go.  This was State, so all the girls were very very good.
 
The groups were separated by age bracket, so Nads didn't get a chance to be with her other team mates except one.  Here's her scores:
 
Vault 8.50
 
Bars 9.275
 
Beam 9.150
 
Floor 8.675
 
AA 35.60
 
She got 5th on bars, 4th on beam, and 7th in the all around! :D
 
Whew!  She loves competing, and she didn't do too bad this year.  She's pretty proud of herself.  I am, too!
 
We're moving her to another gymnastics facility after this contract is up at the end of May.  Should be a better fit for her, and hopefully we'll see the scores improve even better by competition season next year. 
 
Yay Nadia!

I'm a little afraid to try it with my neos yet.  It has spinach if I remember correctly, which can turn my yellows color.

Going back to the beginning, what water was used to set up the tank(tap or RO)? I am guessing tap as you would not have a TDS of 170 from RO water. You mention your mom is doing 10% water changes with pure RO water, do you have an RO system or do you go out and but RO water? Are you sure she is doing just 10%, 2.5 gallon is very small so it would be very easy to do a much bigger water change than you think.
These are my concerns and recommendations:
1. Tap water, solution remineralize RO water. For dry go with Salty Shrimp, liquid SL-Aqua Blue or Red Wizard,
2. Too many or too big water changes. Do them less often, make sure parameters especially temperature matches tank.
3. Temperature changes, 2.5g next to a window... You may be getting a lot bigger temp change than you realize.
4. Hikari shrimp Cuisine, back off on feeding this and introduce other foods, Indian Almond leaves, Mulberry leaves, snowflake. Buy a higher quality shrimp food like CSF Omnia Pro. When using shrimp cuisine make sure to remove excess from tank that is not eaten as it will foul your water especially in a 2.5g.

I had a snow white female berried about 2 months ago, she took ages to drop the babies...approx. 38 days and I couldn't see any signs of them in the tank, so assumed they had not survived.
 
I was looking at one of my Oak leaves yesterday in the tank and noticed something red on one of them, got the magnifier out and WOOHOO  it was a baby.  Tiny but it looks like it might be a spotted head....white body with red head, can't see the spots yet, but when I was trying to grab a photo, I see another on the side glass eating algae, and on the opposite side another one.  All are white bodied with red heads, so unless these are Mosura's they would have to be from my red spotted head shrimp.   It looks to be about 3 weeks old, which would be the right timing.  They have probably been hiding inside the moss all this time and now big enough to venture out....didn't seem fazed by an adult grazing by.  If I have 3 maybe I have more....fingers crossed.
 
This is the 1st bunch of babies for me in ages that have survived and Im just sooooo excited.
 
This pic is very blurry and I couldn't get closer, but you can see the baby on the leaf.

If you have seeded media, you can do it almost immediately, but not really recommended.
 
The biggest thing in shrimping is patience. 

The shrimp seem to love it all the same. The new one seems to be softer than the old one.

Nadia says, "Thank You!" to all her international supporters!
 
This was taken Sunday at her gym meet held at the University.
 

Limpets.
Hate them. I've recently found some in 2 of my tanks. They are harmless and eat algae, but they are so annoying to have on the front glass.

Such a great lesson for any kid to learn! Hope you're feeling better now too!

Vault 8.8- 7th pl
Bars 8.65- 7th pl
Beam 8.7- 6th pl
Floor 7.9
AA 34.50- 7th pl
So four medals this time. Glad to see her confidence boosted.

People, people, the new tank is a gift FOR the husband. After all, it brings so much joy you want him to be able to exeprience it as well... "And it is already set up and ready to go with "my" favorite shrimp because after all, you deserve the best, Honey"

Amanos are very aggressive. Just a 1 second attack from Amano can do enough damage to oebt for it to not be recoverable. Seen it with my own eyes.

If you have more than one they act like little wolf packs. They are bad ass shrimps.

MTS enablers 

No, but I wouldn't be shocked if some got preyed upon by the Amanos.

MTS enablers 

"But honey, this new tank is full of life, and they're so cute.  Of course, we could have another baby."

No just a little, I caught it in time

Awesome! Now you can start cycling that new tank ;-)

All dry! Yay!!!