Brolly33

How is the noise level in the room?

What did you use to guard the inlet against shrimp entry?

On 6/14/2016 at 7:09 AM, Kurobom said:

 

 

 

Holy Gorgeousness, Batman!

I have dreams of owning shrimp like this and being able to pop off macros this crisp.

Out of the initial buy of 20 mischlings and 1 Blue Bolt I lost all but 3 mischlings. This was before I switched to control soil.

Staring from those survivors, 2 females and 1 male, 1 year ago,  I now have a healthy and strong colony, 3 generations deep.

Current population is about 100 shrimp.

1 low quality red bolt

2 low quality blue bolts (but I have not seen one of them in a while. He might have been a loss)

10 CRS of various grades and patterns

6 CBS of various grades and patterns

There is an interesting brown trending to purple on the cheeks of some of the second generation females. I am very curious to see where it goes.

Somewhat lower than the 25% I was suspecting, but still very rewarding.

I only have one tank, so I don't have options for selective breeding. Nothing astounding or show quality has come out.

If you want to have top quality, prepare to spend a few years aggressively culling to your goal, or invest in an established line.

If you want great starter shrimp at low cost and the potential for some nice surprises, go Mischling!

15 days totally uncovered -  water loss about 15% of total volume. I started with full (1/16 inch from top) and ended as you see in the screenshot. Here is a closer shot.

I did not measure inches, but I would guess between 2 and 3 inches loss.

House temp was sustained 78, as we left the AC on for our trip.

Ohmiko, I started my colony with mischilngs as well. They were about the same price as low grade CRS/CBS and the big fun of it is getting TBs popping out from time to time.

As starter shrimp, they are awesome.

I got a postcard as well. Looks like any prior customers got one.

At the risk of turning this into a product review... I have been running 1" of control soil in my 12 G long for a year now and it has retained it's buffering so far. I only use reconstituted RO and I run 0 KH, both of which are likely extending it's life. My plants grow, my mischling CRS/CBS breed well, overall I very happy with it.

Plan executed - results successful. I returned from 15 days away to a happy colony and acceptable water parameters.

2 IAL in the tank

2 nuggets of snowflake

Started TDS of 145, ended with 175 due to evaporation.

pH unchanged (thanks control soil)

Nitrates unchanged (thanks plants)

After extensive consideration, and a bit of testing, the consensus is to remove the CO2 (done 3 weeks ago) and add an Indian Almond Leaf (IAL).

The IAL grows bio film yumminess for the shrimp to eat. The sponge filter will provide the rest of the "food" while I am gone for 2 weeks.

The filter is mature, so no worries about water. My evaporation test showed no ill effects from a 2 week stretch of "do nothing"

Good news: "do nothing" seems to work.

I dropped the CO2 3 weeks ago. Plants still happy. Temperature stable. IAL in place. Filter changed. 

I did a 14 day stretch without feeding or topoff. Water parameters crept up but well within happiness margins. Not even the berried ladies seemed to mind or notice.

All set for my trip.   Thanks for the advice.

Did seller's parameters closely match your own?

You only really need 1 berried female to hatch. Babies born in a tank have much better survival rates.

On 3/14/2016 at 5:41 PM, Mr. F said:

I've recently had some experience with hygrophila polypsperma. Highly recommend. It's a beautiful, fast growing, low light, nutrient sponge.

On the Federal Noxious Weed list and Illegal in some states. Great at growing, but be careful at water changes, even partial leaves can grow into whole plants.

I like the Wisteria suggestion the best.

Very interested to see results of this. Will your moss live? Any shrimp or fish losses? Will the string algae actually die off?

 +1 sponge filters.

There are some that come with twin sponges that I prefer, since you can clean one sponge and leave the other dirty.

Congratulations. I remember my first RCS babies.  That moment will totally hook you!

One year use out of my lifeguard 36". Only runs 5 watts and super cool to touch.  I expect to get a good long life out of it. Was about $75. 

Stray tank voltage can throw off pH probes a lot.  Suggest taking the water out of the tank in a glass to test it.

I boiled up an IAL and tucked it away in the corner. So far the shrimp have been unimpressed with it, but I think that will do the trick for my 2 week vacation. Thanks for the wide consensus and suggestions on that topic.

Evaporation is an important part of my overall shimp-ecosystem due to it's cooling effect on the tank. 

My AC runs 78F and my tank runs about 75F.

Covering the tank will effectivly raise the temprature while maintaining water level and mineral concentrations.

If I cover the tank, I think I should also shut off the CO2, due to much lower O2 exchange (especially if I used saran wrap)

If I add an ATO (overall it's an attractive idea) I increase risk of flooding (depending on how sophisticated I get)

If I ATO, I will need an additional reseviour of pure RO for top offs.

If I were to drip ATO with overflow, I would need to drill a hole in the wall for the wastewater. This would have to be done in top secrecy to avoid the wrath-of-spouse.

I typically do not top off but instead do a 10% water change once a week.

Start of water change is typically about 150-170TDS

Incoming water is 110-120TDS reconstituted RO (with ferts for the plants)

Post change TDS is usually around 140-150.

There are no neighbors close that I would trust with my tank.

I am leaning heavily towards KISS and not do anything about evaporation and simply water change when I get home.

(Tank with IAL tucked away)

OMG. I just found this DIY feeder design on U-toon that has me laughing and impressed at the same time

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=CgfZN8JOuxo

Too much food, so I cannot use it.

@plantdude I have never tried Mulberry leaves before, do you have a favorite supplier? Do you use them the same as Indian Almond leaves (IAL) - boil and drop in?

@bostoneric I have some IAL that I have used from time to time in my shrimp tanks. Thanks for that reminder. I will go that route.

Water evaporation will be substantial, and will push my parameters out of whack as TDS and GH will rise slowly. I loose about 1 gal/week, so 1/6 of total volume loss. I have some float valves around here somewhere and could rig a 5gal on a gravity feed ATO but I worry about the float getting stuck open and coming home to a ruined floor.

If I water change just before leaving and drive my TDS down to about 140, I should still be under 180 in 15 days from evaporate + food. Hmmm. Need to run the test

@pokeshrimp sounds like a double snowflake + grazing on IAL is the popular idea.

Thanks for the suggestions. Any others?

I am headed out on vacation for 15 days and thinking about options for feeding the CRS tank while I am gone.

It's a mature 12 gallon long. I have solid filtration (Eheim ecco pro 130) with dual sponges on the inlet.

The CRS seem pretty happy and breed quite often.

In a typical week I feed 2 pellets of snowflake + 3 matcheads of Bacter AE + 1 little stick of Azoo Max Breed.

My trip is a few months away, so I have time to experiment.

I was thinking of just dropping a ton of snowflake in. (or slighly less than a ton...  maybe a metric ton?)

I considered one of those little feeder pyramids for about 30 seconds, but I think it will mess with my GH and TDS too much and would overfeed terribly.

Considering one of the rotational daily feeders with just a small amount of BacterAE in it.

Maybe I can solder a resistor in to make it rotate once every 3-5 days instead of once a day...

I could just let them graze and hope for the best.

Other ideas?

 

Overall a successful treatment of hydras so far ! 

Update? Hydras gone? Shrimp happy?

This is going to be a good thread.

For people that don't have a lot of space for multiple shrimp tanks, here's what I'm doing this year for breeding.

My tank is full of tb tibee mischling and Snow White and golden. What I'm planning on doing is letting the tank breed out this year until breeding slow to a complete stop. By that time all the juvis should be of age where there color has shown through, once breeding stops I'm going to cull and weed out the ones that don't have any traits I want. Show faded and washed out color etc and sell them as culls. This way for next breeding season the ones I want to have any traits or color passed down will be in the tank and ready for next breeding season. I also have a breeder box on hand to put in a male and female and selective breed the ones I want for the traits patterns or color I want that will improve the chances of not having too many culls by the end of the year.

Breeding season. This is the first I have heard mention of a season. Can you elaborate on what you mean here? Are there specific months for breeding? Is it related to light? water chemistry? general durations?

6 more packages out. Mischlings are getting low. Reduce on the red Tigers for 10 shipped 88. If you want more I will have to add a little to cover shipping weight

It's the sale that never ends! The BB package came in today. The shrimp look delicious. I can't wait till they settle in and start producing.

Thanks so much for the welcome guys. I'll admit it can be a bit intimidating joining an already established community especially when I'm as shy as I am..well, initially anyways.

Thanks for the recommendation on substrate miwu, it's what I was thinking of anyway, just needed that push.

I'll be sure to check them out soothingshrimp!

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Welcome, fellow Floridian. I am up in St. Petersburg. I too just upgraded from cherries to some CRS. ADA amazonia is hard to find in FL. I picked mine up out in San Fran Cisco at Aqua Forest on a business trip out there.

I hope to have a colony of Blue Bolts going strong by this time next year.

Hypothetical question. If I wanted to increase the size of an existing colony, all things being equal, should I add from another trusted vendor or keep the same gene pool (assuming I know what I'm doing - yeah right) and purchase from my initial vendor. Really a genetics question... Then dollars.

Thoughts and advanced thank.

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Adding shrimp adds diversity but also risk of disease.