Brolly33

Been too embarrassed to post any pics cause I suck at it. These were taken with my Ipod. These babies are the results of Shrimpscales BKK, Joes BKK misch and Mayphly's taitibees that produce steel blues.

Pink! Thanks Andy!

More babies, but lower lifespan due to higher energy demand but lack of lipids.

"Higher metabolic rates at higher temperatures are accompanied by an increase in energy demand, which is mainly supplied by lipids in aquatic organisms [46]. The lowest lipid concentration in shrimps reared at 28°C (82.4°F) may also be explained by the fact that reproduction was more pronounced at that temperature than at the other temperatures tested." (Tropea 12)

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4359132/pdf/pone.0119468.pdf

[Day 90]
 

 
Hope everyone's enjoying their summer. I know Duke has been enjoying the sights that summer brings.
 

 

 
So remember that tank full of babies I wanted on day 40? I now have more babies than I expected. One of my blue bolts gave birth on 28 June, and the rest gave birth within that week. I'm glad they all made it through without any issues. Well, one of my blue bolts molted while she was giving birth so there were about 10 eggs still in the exoskeleton. I decided that since she was in the process of giving birth, I would just leave the exoskeleton alone and see what happens. Luckily for me, the rest of the eggs hatched by the next day and the exoskeleton was empty. I tried to count them 2 weeks after they were born, however, I ended up giving up after 40 or so. It's been a month since the first TB gave birth and it seems most if not all survived. I couldn't find any dead babies so either the adults ate the bodies or I had good luck. Regardless I have quite a bit. 
 

 
Most of the babies are red wine and black pandas. I'm hoping that some of the black pandas develop into shadows once they are a bit older. Among those though, there are quite the variation. I have seen one and two stripe ruby reds, one and two stripe BKK, and one that looks like it may even be a no entry.
 

 

 

 

 
I was a bit surprised that despite all these babies, I couldn't find a single blue bolt baby. I began researching the genetics and the highest chance of them seem to be mating a blue bolt male to a blue bolt female. Although three of my pregnant females were blue bolts, I couldn't see any blue bolts at all. Then about a week ago, I found a single one!
 

 
So I'm crossing my fingers that this one turns out to be an alpha male and brings his "A" game for the females! Besides that, everything is going well. The original adults are still active and doing their thing. I have noticed that the blue bolts have regained a lot of their blue color recently. The only thing I have been doing differently is leaving the amaranth leaves that I feed on the weekends in the tank longer. I was a bit apprehensive to let leaves sit in the tank too long in fear that they would foul the water. So I always removed the uneaten leaves after 1-2 days. One weekend I forgot to remove it and noticed the next day most of the adults and babies were gathered in the feeding dish devouring the leaf. I was a bit surprised because I've never seen them that aggressive eating it. I guess it takes a few days before the leaf gets soft enough for them to really go to town on it. So now I leave the leaf in there till it is gone.
 
Besides my TB tank, I bought a few golden back neos for another 45p and they are doing well. I didn't realize but I must have placed a few babies in the tank from the shipping bag. None of the neos were pregnant when they went into the tank, but a few days later, I counted 8 babies that survived my pack of mischievous chili rasboras. I forgot how much faster neo babies grow compared to TBs. In about 2 weeks, they are double the size of the TB babies. This tank is still a work in progress and hopefully, will be entered in one of the nano contests at some point.
 

 

 
So all in all, very happy with the tank health and the fact the babies are doing well. As I write this, I notice that my males are doing the dance so one of the females must have given birth again. I'm soon going to have more TBs than I know what to do with. I guess that's a good problem to have, though. Actually, it's a much better problem to have than the one Duke has...
 

[Day 40]
 

 
40 days down and all is doing really well! Made it through my first water change two weeks back with no issue. Ended up changing out 10% and dripping it back in. I've switch out remineralizers and use Lowkeys GH Mineral balance x4. 0.75ml of Mineral Balance per gallon of RODI water gave me 5gH for anyone wondering. There was nothing wrong with the MK-Breed Blue Diamond that I was using, and I will continue to use it on my other tanks, but I wanted to use Lowkeys exclusively in this tank. I have also added Lowkeys Amino Acid Vital Plus to the new water when dripping.
 
All the buces and moss have recovered from the diatom algae I had back during day 12. A bit of hair algae has replaced the diatoms on the top-most piece of mini pellia due to it being very close to the light. I didn't take that into consideration when placing the moss at setup. There is still some brown algae on the glass. I have employed a few new additions to keep that in check. Bought 5 tiny horned bumblebee nerites that are chipping away at the buildup.
 

 

 
If you were wondering what Duke Togo has been up to, he has been assigned a new mission...
 

 
He's closely guarding the tank due to berried TBs! I took these pictures last night, and this morning I awoke to two more berried females. In total I have four females berried, all three blue bolts and one panda! First berried was on 31 May, the next one was 2 June, and the last two were 7 June. So hopefully they all continue to successfully carry them. I decided to do water changes every 3 weeks with such a low bio-load, however I'm nervous to do another one with so many berried females. My TDS is a steady 140 with zero nitrates so I think I will hold off on this change. All females are actively grazing and look good. My poor males. The other panda and the two wine reds have been constantly dancing around the tank for about a week due to all the females being ready at once. Now that they are all berried, they can take a break!
 

 

 

 

 
So all-in-all, everything's going well. I've got to admit, I couldn't keep my hands out of the tank like I wanted, so I ended up buying a set of long nitrile gloves. Sure I could just wash my hands, but I feel you always leave some sort of residue on your hands no matter how much you wash. I have dry skin so I use quite a bit of lotion. Are the gloves necessary? No, but for me it's a cheap piece of mind and I have yet to have an issue with the tank *knocks on wood*. I also constructed a way to remove the leftover food/waste out of the feeding dish without getting my hands wet using a large syringe and some rigid airline tubing:
 

 
Not going to change anything up since everything's going well. With four berried shrimp within a week, hopefully the next update I will have a tank packed full of babies! That is, if Duke keeps everyone safe...
 

 

Until I can learn how to use my wife's awesome camera, or convince her to take some nice photos, we'll have to like my phone camera. It's done well so far, but I'm hoping for less washed out lighting for the next set of pics.
This is the viv from the front, trying to show the 4/5 terrestrial with 1/5 aquatic. It's on an Exo-terra stand, and they are very solid. I like the look of black trim all around, and the nice shelf is great for my testing kit/tongs. The top holds the crazy amount of technology (3 timers, are you nuts?) that keeps this box of nature as natural as can be. I likely forgot to mention the fogger, but it comes on at dawn for 30 minutes, and fills the whole viv.

And a close up with the viv doors open. All the top plants look washed out, but there's two orchids, a Tradescantia (middle, massive), Anubias, Tillandsia, some sort of fern, a few kinds of mosses... maybe some weeds in there too. Oh, and a spiral bamboo piece that may not actually be growing.... 

Getting shots of the underwater portion is a challenge, from a lighting standpoint. In almost every shot, I can see myself or the LED reflections. Here's what made it from those:

You can see one of my little shrimps in the middle of the big Anubias, and the tiny Anubias up front is looking much better! Was only able to keep 2-3 leaves maximum.

And this is the waterline today. Most of the sphagnum moss turned brown/black, but the java moss is climbing it upwards from below. There's a few blades of grass still hanging on, but it needs a place for deep roots.

 
So that's the whole viv, but I can still focus in, if someone needs to see something up close. For example, I mentioned "weeds". That's what I was told this was hanging from my orchid, but it's now a really pretty, super aggressive edge of the water plant. Anyone take a guess? Even just the family it's from?

 
 

So the DSM will start from seed glosso, emmersed grown Alternathera, and maybe some P. helferi. Planning on filling the egg crate with lava rock or power sand special-s just to give it a shot (though that requires another 4 hr round trip trek to SF). Then topping it all off with ~2-3" of Amazonia, which is the reason for the egg crate and lava rock in the first place; increase circulation beneath the soil and hold it all in place.


Here's the egg crate layout I went with. Easy to cut but it also cuts you easily, wear gloves.

Front view:



Top-down view:


Edit:
Decided to change up the species going in the tank. I already have some and need to order some still. Open to suggestions but this is what in planning so far.
Fauna:
TBs (BB and shadow panda)
Possibly fire reds if I can get them to survive in such a low pH
Flora:
Micranthemum "Monte Carlo"
Eleocharis "Belem"
AR mini
Hygrophila salicifolia
Hygrophila salicifolia var. "red green"

Lately i was asked to send out the entire colection. and this brought me to the point of starting to see how many species i do have. As lately i got also some new mosses from friends from several regions and also managed to find some new species for the hobby, counting them all brought me to about 80 species. From these only about 15 are the classical ones (live mini taiwan, peacock, pilo, cameroon, duriae and so on) and all the other ones i got from different other sources. si they are really many (only to count a few i would say now there are more than 30 fissidens, 10 fontinalis, 5 pellias and so on). i will work also on scientifical ID of these, but this will sure take very long time. the last images are new fissidens which i am not 100 % sure about species. And the nice news is several other Fissidens are on the way here (some more new species). Contact me if you have any questions.

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=tank+glass+thicknesses+calculator
 

 
untempered or tempered?
 
 
My 12 gal long, 9x9x36, they use 1/4" on sides and 1/2"on the bottom untempered.
 
I have looked at 1/8 before. I would only consider it for internal dividers.
 

I recommend buying her a diamond and keep the tank.

I recommend buying her a diamond and keep the tank.

I recommend buying her a diamond and keep the tank.

Just wanted to add my .02
I truly do welcome all the feedback, and I am not worried about anything negative, that is part of an experiment.  A few points I thought I would throw out
 
1. I have done a lot of research and knew going into this that a lot of people did not find the product useful and highly overpriced
2. I know about the DYI methods that Twinstar is trying to duplicate, however a lot of people will pay extra for something automated as a one stop shop product, the set it and forget it model.  A lot of shrimp owners are not 100% hardcore and are just causal shrimp keepers, sometimes packaged automated products are helpful for that crowd
3. I have had side business for a very long time and I can tell you the majority of people (in the US), want convince.  When I sold pond products, they wanted the whole kit all ready assembled or priced as one, not to research best of breed products and acquire them individually.  Aquariums... most beginners want an all in one to start out with, not try and by x-filter from here and x-light from there and x-supstrate from over there, and research everything how it all works
4. I am also leery of just relying on other peoples opinions, when they have not used or tested the product and only patriot what others have said, without any test themselves (i know DET has tried the product and enjoyed his review)
5. I am a little surprised about how strongly people feel about wasting money.  Money is all relevant.  If you bought or had 50+ PRL MK-Breed shrimp  (worth about 40.00 each) in a custom tank, I would think 70.00 is nothing.
6. I am not selling this product or trying to convince anyone to buy this product, I just thought it would be a fun little test, and the 70.00 did not bother me
 
All this said, I will continue to post updates.  Again just having fun and I do enjoy the reduction in my string Algae.  This shrimp tank is at my office, so I did not want to reduce the about of time I had the lights on, and I was not seeing any impressive results with Hydrogen Peroxide dosing.  I still have no idea if my shrimp will reproduce more or stay any healthier, but for 70.00 to set it and forget it, so far so good

Nuri, I agree with your points--that there are cheaper and more cost effective means to produce a healthy and pathogen-free environment for our shrimp, that the Twinstar technology has not been proven, that the right balance of lighting and CO2/Excel supplementation will eliminate the need for any algae-controlling products-- and I will not advocate to do otherwise. The essence of your argument is strong and helpful to the discerning hobbyist interested in these products. But I disagree with the manner of your argument.
 
Rivergardennursey and DETAquarium have taken the time, effort, and money to give their honest reviews of the product. DETAquarium, through his generous YouTube videos, has inspired many new people to join our hobby, and gave the rest of us useful tips, advice, and product reviews. Using negative words to describe the products imparts some negativity towards the people who actually bought them, and turns away readers to this forum. Let's not be like the other forums out there, where toxic comments pollute them, and make people turn away for good. We've all noticed a drop in activity since this forum was established. This can be due to a variety of factors, but a part of me believes that negativity has a part to play in retaining the members we already have. Let's make people excited to post on here again, and continue to build on our community and build up our members here at The Shrimp Spot.

Just wanted to add a few more pictures of my F1 Taitibees as I have a few F2 generations coming!
 

I will try to take a few extra pictures this weekend for you all but in my F1 Taitibee tank you would be so surprised of the different patterns. All of them are different! I have a picture here of a F1 Taitibee that looks to have a Zebra Pattern and another that is similar to the mom but better white coverage. I am currently setting up another tank purely to extend this project out. The cross from my Female Tibee above was with an Extreme BKK.

 
Thank you all for asking and keeping me positive through this long journey. It is your support that has kept me on this path to success.

We used 5 - 12Gallon cubes linked to a DIY 40Gallon sump.  I'm not really sure what the turn over was, never really measured it.  I just adjusted till i liked the amount of water returning to the tanks. Remember these are shrimp not fish so you dont really need heavy turn over rate.  I actually like the idea of it being a little slower.  Gives the plants time to absorb the extra nutrients going through the sump.  In the photo you can see the HUGE mass of Red Root Floaters in my sump along with nice piles of moss. I also use small containers for filter media and even soil.  I had a pile of amanos and even a couple betas living in the refugium section. I like the idea of fish down there to eat any pests.
 
I oversized the return pump,  a decent portion of the water was sent back into the refugium to alleviate back pressure on the return pump.  It took some tweaking to ensure water was evenly distributed throughout the 5 tanks.
 

 
 

Thanks for the comments! Here some pics off a rack that i build myself:
 
3 x glass aquarium - glass 8mm dimensions 82cm*40cm*28cm
 

 
building the rack:
 

 

 

 

 
Hoppe you like it! If you have any questions about the build just ask! I will be happy to answer!!
 
 

This is my latest achievement
It's actually one of my development and creation which I have been working about two years. Yes it took me some time but the result is worth it...
 
Very proud and happy to achieve it.
So what's next achievement?
 

So after cycling did you put any livestock in the tank? Some fish to create waste to feed the benificial bacteria. You might want to cut down on the water changes a bit when you get your shrimp. They like sability and if your prams are good a 10% every week should suffice. I have the api master kit, and my tanks come out zero ammonia. Tap not quite so much. If you don't have any fish or other livestock in the tank, I would be a bit curious about where the ammonia and nitrates are coming from, because if you are using ro the water should be good. Double checking your kit with the other tanks would be good, and if you want you can check your tap as well, just to see if you get different readings, because if your tanks and tap have the same readings I would be concerned that your kit is bad. Also if you are using remineralized ro you probably don't need to use prime every water change, there shouldn't be anything to detoxify.
You might want to also consider tankmates for you neos. Bobstropicalplants has some regular and super tigers for a good price, I am thinking of getting some super tigers to add to one of my tanks, they are near as easy to take care of as neos (but not as easy as opae'ula) and will not cross with them.
=^._.^=

I had plans  posting good videos showing my rack setups for 2 years already.Unfortunately I haven't found enough time to do videos right way.
So here are the 2 different setups  I use in the shrimp room.
 
My favorite one : easy to maintain,high number  babies productions,steady parameters.
 
 
Cheaper alternative , less space ,living room friendly:
 
 

Holy Gorgeousness, Batman!
 
I have dreams of owning shrimp like this and being able to pop off macros this crisp.
 

It was macro Mondays again (wife goes to painting class, so I have time to play more)! Tried changing up the background colours and a used a backlight so it isn't the usual black background. What do you think of the results?
 

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)
 
 

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)