Soothing Shrimp

Divide by 17.8 and you'll have degrees, which is what most of us use in shrimping.

Not entering, but wanted to say thank you for the raok!

Agreed. You are not only paying for the shrimp, but the blood/sweat/tears that the breeder has put into them.

Has to be open celled for water to flow through.

Welcome back dude!

That's a tip someone gave in another post. Before that, I didn't realize it either.

Just for fun, I've found you can make a mini rainbar by using a sidearm and inverting it on the outer airlift tube with the black ring. Never tried it though. If you do, let me know how it works!

I just made a write up on sponge filters that may help? http://www.shrimpspot.com/index.php?/topic/4888-double-sponge-filter-tricks/#entry62570

These are some of the things I've learned over the years taking care of my sponge filters and thought it may come in handy for some people. If you have any additional tricks, feel free to share! We all need to help each other. Most of my experience has been with the XY 2831, however most of the models are pretty similar. The pieces are like legos. Pop them off, put them together. Double to Single So you can make a double a single if needed, by rearranging the pieces. Pop off the air lift, pop off the side arm, pop them together and voila. Nice to know if you have an extra filter around and a small tank. Even Flow After buying a sponge filter, take off the sponge and look at the sponge arm. Looks kinda like a silencer on a gun. Sometimes all the holes are not open due to plastic pooling during manufacturing. The plastic is soft, so just use a pair of scissors and put the point in the hole and twist. By opening all the holes, you have a nice even draw across the sponge. Bubbles Have Slowed or Stopped So you say you are losing that air power? Your air pump must not be working right? Are you sure? Pop off your air hose, and drop it in the water. Still good power bubbles? Then it's your air lift. Let's fix it. There's three fixes that can be done. Just depends where your blockage is. I'll list in order of most likely to least likely, however having said that all three have happened to me at one point or another. Pop off your air lift tube, and take the 2nd inner tube out as well. Take a new small dollar store toothbrush and scrub the inside of the lift where the clear meets the black inside. Sometimes some crud or a snail is lodged there. Still not clear? This is what the hole looks like inside the black air lift seat. Sometimes the clear plastic lift tube gets pushed down too far and blocks the hole partly or totally. It shouldn't do that, but sponge filters sometimes don't read their own instruction manuals. Take some pliers or hemostats and pull that tube upward to expose more of the hole. On some filters it is easy, on some it can be a struggle. On the easy ones, sometimes you can wiggle them with your hands and pull up. On the harder ones if you use your tool to move it back and forth like a wrench on a nut, it helps. Still not working? There is one more fix. See the air hose hole? A coffee straw is the perfect size for plunging. Sometimes a tiny snail gets stuck in there. By plunging that hole, you break up that snail shell and it gets expelled once the air hose is reattached. Air Pressure Air pressure to the sponge filter is actually a complicated relation of how long the air hose is, and how high or low the filter is placed. In short, if the filter is on your bottom rack, and your air pump is high, it has to work harder to push down the air down there. The same is true in your tank. If your filter is located deeper in your aquarium, it is harder to push the air there than it is if it is located near the top of your aquarium. Soooo, if you have more than one filter on an air pump, and you move one to clean it or for another reason, when you place it back in, you may find the ratio of air going to your tank connections is off. That's just because the placement of your filter is either higher or lower than it was before. Cleaning the Sponges Provided you are using a double sponge filter, clean one one week, and then give at least a week for that to recolonize before cleaning the other one. If you don't, your bacteria colonies may crash and you'll start losing shrimp. To clean, squeeze the removed sponge in either removed tank water or RO, then replace. Don't worry about shrimp getting into the sponge arm holes. The tubes are hollow, nothing dangerous inside, and they'll find their way our with the current from the bubbles. My Sponge Feels Like Clay, or It's Now Hourglass Shaped You are either using a sponge as a prefilter, or it's been a super long time since you've cleaned your sponge. Basically the pores are clogged. Clean the sponge and you'll be surprised how much crud/black water comes out. I hope this has helped some. Feel free to add more tips and tricks.

Looks like a golden with some red bolt splashes.

Thanks Water7! Nadia loves climbing her grandmother's tree on days off. heh I think it must be in kids' natures to like climbing.

Red was the first selectively bred, so it is still almost in all the lines, just hidden. Wild is considered the lowest common denominator, and so it's dominant over all.

Looks dead? If so, the body has already changed color.

From my reading and experience with neos: Cards- Males carry color Neos- Fems carry color Both will have some impact, however.

Wygglz, if you would be willing to post the information here it may help others as well.

Congrats!

So here's your first crossroad. The smaller your genetics pool, the easier to isolate the trait. The larger the pool, the more diverse your genetics, but the hardier your shrimp from the start. Neither is right, nor wrong. Decide your plan, and then redecide each generation.

Very intereste. in your striped tt project.

Excellent point, Sarah!

Congrats!

Auto change. Thanks for the clerification.

My suggestion- put all males back in the original tank, and keep fem where she is. Wait it out to see what the babies look like, then you can breed those as a colony or breed back to her.

If thats paper white and not flash,that's. Bacterial, or something causing decaying tissue.

Yeah, but it was a cull tank.

Yay! Great to have you back, dude!