aotf

A couple pictures I snapped this morning, that was the first time I've seen the blue speckled shrimplet. Hoping for something blue-steel-ish!
 

 
 

 
 

That is indeed a saddled female.

Actually yes!

Almost all of my previous F2s died off (I think a couple made it to adulthood) but they were very tangtai-looking so nothing too special there. Since then, I've had several batches and many of them are surviving. Most are juvies at this point. I've gotten some shrimplets I'm pretty excited about. Most (60-70%) are tangtai, a couple are some weird low-grade CBS-looking things, some YKK-looking shrimp with more white specks/striping, 5 BKKs (!) and one weird blue steel or king-kong like shrimp that I only see once every couple weeks so I have no idea if it's still alive.
 
I have another 3-4 pregnant females so more shrimplets to come.
 
In order:
CBS-thing

 
YKK-thing

 
BKKs

 
Blue steel thing??

 
 
 

I'm no expert on this and I haven't done the specific cross you're mentioning but I'll take a quick stab until someone more knowledgeable corrects me: 
 
The interesting part of that cross is that --despite both being called KK-- red and yellows have very different genetics. They're not just variations on the same base, YKKs are widely believed to have some TT mixed in. As far as what they'll produce... no real idea. I would guess a variety of pintos and TBs, maybe some interesting and colorful taitibee-like patterning that could be selected for over generations. Not an average of the two parents or a WT reversion (unlikely in caridina), but probably not exclusive RKK and YKK offspring.
 
 
...please follow-up if you try it out, that would be a super interesting cross.

Tiger shrimp and CRS/CBS are not the same and are generally kept in different parameters.
Tigers would most likely be in neo parameters depending on where you get them, while CRS/CBS would be caridina parameters.
Take a look at this:https://www.discobee.com/blogs/news/17030569-dwarf-shrimp-water-parameters
 
I also recommend you do some reading on water parameters and buffering since it sounds like that's new to you and you want to have a handle on that before buying any livestock.
Specifically, look into gH, kH, and pH. I don't have any links handy but it's covered plenty of places (including on this forum) with a bit of googling.

To answer your direct question:
- for neo parameters https://flipaquatics.com/products/shrimp-mineral-gh-kh?variant=43063556100
- for caridina parameters https://flipaquatics.com/products/bee-shrimp-mineral-gh?variant=43063611268
 
You actually do want to mess with water chemistry, like by adding specific minerals to promote shell growth or to keep the water in specific pH ranges, for example.

@Shrimp Life nailed it, you have two big problems here (and a third that will bite you later):
- tank not cycled. Shrimp will continue to die until it is cycled. Have you tried jumpstarting it with commercially available bacteria? Dr. Tim's comes to mind.
- tap with buffering soil. Your soil will constantly be fighting to pull the pH down but your tap likely has some kH to it. The tap will eventually win (infinite supply vs finite soil) and your water will creep up to tap parameters.
- gH and kH are not right for neos
 
This setup will cause you a lot of headaches but since this is what you have, here's what I would do (besides tearing up the tank or converting it to caridina parameters):
Transfer the shrimp to Primed tap (assuming your tap has parameters they can live in, which I don't think it does without supplements) for a couple weeks while you jumpstart the cycle. When ammonia and nitrites are consistently 0, add them back in. During that time, you saturate your tank with baking soda to burn out the substrate's buffering ability so that it stops fighting your tap.

Your gH is too low and your kH is being pulled to 0 by the substrate so I don't know what your tap looks like. Sounds like it's too soft for these shrimp, you'll probably need to get some SaltyShrimp GH/KH+ and supplement your tap water or you'll get molt-related deaths.
 
Good luck! I'd recommend some reading/research on gH, kH, pH, buffering, and cycling. Welcome to the hobby, it can be a rough ride

So much buce!
 
Please post a follow-up picture in a couple months, this will look great grown out.
 
What is the darker looking buce in the middle and the substrate?
 
I also just did a bucescape myself but the greens don't pop as much so it looks kind of drab. Jealous!

Well not really entirely new.. I re-scaped my tank and now made it in to a planted scaped shrimp tank.. =) 
 
Bloody mary's neo and Super tigers with otos. 
 
 

Picture dump!
 
The quality isn’t amazing because these guys are tiny and I’m taking these pictures with a 5S, but I’m getting some really interesting variety and I thought I’d share. 
 
Many will be boring tangtais but a couple are really promising.
 
Clear with white stripes

 
Pretty eh

 
Clear with red specks

 
Getting more interesting

 
Black?

 
...green? With white stripes?

 
Nice blue with stripes

 
Whatever this is, I’m excited

 
I also saw what looked like a blue steel but couldn’t get a picture.
 
That’s it for now! I’ll post more when they grow up.

Got it.
 
What confused me (and still does) is why you assume that all of the 20% of heat waste generated by the LEDs get transferred to the water. As you say, it's an engineering problem and I won't pretend to be able to solve it, but I would imagine that the amount of heat transferred from the LEDs to a water column 4-12" below (depending on the setup) through convection is relatively low, not 100% of the heat generated on the light fixture (air is a bad conductor, there's a lot of air in the room, and hot air tends to rise anyway so the convective transfer seems limited). Not saying it's negligible, just that it would be a fraction of the 20% you use in the calculated rate of temp increase.

Radiation, on the other hand, seems like it could account for a lot. Soils absorb roughly 80% of the light that hits them, so if you had an amazonia bottomed tank with no plants, you'd be looking at a decent amount of heat generated by the LEDs.
 
(37.533(0.8*0.8))/(0.999*62.31*2.94)= 0.13 F/hr

dT = 1.05 F in 8 hours.

...so not as much as the pump, but still something! One easy way to get around it is to lower the light output (dimmer), which would also decrease the waste heat/convective transfer or go with a higher albedo bottom in the tank.
 
Fun stuff!

Hahaha!  I have a Notepad document with all of this stuff in it, I just copy/paste now!  

Hello human shrimp,
I’ve only been keeping shrimp for about a year or so but it sounds like you’re shrimp may have something called “Scutariella japonica” . I’ve never had it but I have heard you can treat them with a salt bath. If you look on YouTube or google you will find exactly how treatment should be done. Also after treatment is done I’ve heard it’s good to remove any molts you may see in your tank for a couple weeks after treatment in case some japonica are left on the molts!
 
not an expert though, I’m sure someone here would know how to fix the issue as well. 
 
Good luck!

Picture dump!
 
The quality isn’t amazing because these guys are tiny and I’m taking these pictures with a 5S, but I’m getting some really interesting variety and I thought I’d share. 
 
Many will be boring tangtais but a couple are really promising.
 
Clear with white stripes

 
Pretty eh

 
Clear with red specks

 
Getting more interesting

 
Black?

 
...green? With white stripes?

 
Nice blue with stripes

 
Whatever this is, I’m excited

 
I also saw what looked like a blue steel but couldn’t get a picture.
 
That’s it for now! I’ll post more when they grow up.

Picture dump!
 
The quality isn’t amazing because these guys are tiny and I’m taking these pictures with a 5S, but I’m getting some really interesting variety and I thought I’d share. 
 
Many will be boring tangtais but a couple are really promising.
 
Clear with white stripes

 
Pretty eh

 
Clear with red specks

 
Getting more interesting

 
Black?

 
...green? With white stripes?

 
Nice blue with stripes

 
Whatever this is, I’m excited

 
I also saw what looked like a blue steel but couldn’t get a picture.
 
That’s it for now! I’ll post more when they grow up.

...so here are some pictures!
 


These F2 shrimplets are only a couple days old (marsilea crenata leaf and hair grass strand as references in second picture) and are the result of:
TT x BB => F1
F1 x BB => F2
 
The BB group they came from had some mosura in it, so clearly not "pure" BB.
I expected maybe some blue or a lot of orange, but certainly not white and red.

I'm guessing I'm dealing with some kind of low-grade CRS mischling business or the beginnings of a pinto line.
Hope they survive!

I've also got some F1 x F1 =>F2 on the way, they should be hatching this week.

...so here are some pictures!
 


These F2 shrimplets are only a couple days old (marsilea crenata leaf and hair grass strand as references in second picture) and are the result of:
TT x BB => F1
F1 x BB => F2
 
The BB group they came from had some mosura in it, so clearly not "pure" BB.
I expected maybe some blue or a lot of orange, but certainly not white and red.

I'm guessing I'm dealing with some kind of low-grade CRS mischling business or the beginnings of a pinto line.
Hope they survive!

I've also got some F1 x F1 =>F2 on the way, they should be hatching this week.

For some reason, once I tag someone I can no longer exit the "tag" and I can't write anything else.

Anyway, manticore is probably the biggest fissidens and moss enthusiast I've seen here.

Can't help on the specific diameter you need but good chance Han can help you out: http://www.hanaquatics.com/ss-filter-guard/

I decided to be a bit more thorough in my testing and -surprise surprise- it looks like my substrate was the culprit all along. Really frustrating since it's crushed red volcanic rock, which I was sure would be inert. Shame on me for not testing it before using it, I suppose.
 
The tests:
tank water + fresh Controsoil overnight => pH 6.2, kH 0
took rocks out of tank + sock full of Controsoil in tank overnight => no change in anything except sH = 1 (sock content of water)
RODI + fresh "inert" substrate 4 hours => pH 6.8, kH 1 (from pH 6, kH 0)
 
At that point, I concluded the substrate was to blame and decided on what I had to do.

A good part of yesterday was spent ripping out the entire tank, swapping the gravel for Controsoil and rescaping/replanting everything. Can't say my back was too pleased with it all but I got it done and moved the shrimp back in. It looks like I may have lost one or two in the process (the pH dropped from 6.8-7 to 6.2 in a couple hours) but I'm hoping this is for the better. I got a tally of my bees while moving them and of the 26 I originally received, only 14 remained. Oof.
 
I'll post a pic in the next photoperiod.

Thanks again for making me look for the cause (rather than try to convince myself everything was ok)!

I decided to be a bit more thorough in my testing and -surprise surprise- it looks like my substrate was the culprit all along. Really frustrating since it's crushed red volcanic rock, which I was sure would be inert. Shame on me for not testing it before using it, I suppose.
 
The tests:
tank water + fresh Controsoil overnight => pH 6.2, kH 0
took rocks out of tank + sock full of Controsoil in tank overnight => no change in anything except sH = 1 (sock content of water)
RODI + fresh "inert" substrate 4 hours => pH 6.8, kH 1 (from pH 6, kH 0)
 
At that point, I concluded the substrate was to blame and decided on what I had to do.

A good part of yesterday was spent ripping out the entire tank, swapping the gravel for Controsoil and rescaping/replanting everything. Can't say my back was too pleased with it all but I got it done and moved the shrimp back in. It looks like I may have lost one or two in the process (the pH dropped from 6.8-7 to 6.2 in a couple hours) but I'm hoping this is for the better. I got a tally of my bees while moving them and of the 26 I originally received, only 14 remained. Oof.
 
I'll post a pic in the next photoperiod.

Thanks again for making me look for the cause (rather than try to convince myself everything was ok)!

If you really want to keep your seiryu, you can seal them so they won’t leech kH into the water. 
 
 
 

Shrimplets often have lighter colored eyes that will darken as they age, I would wait a couple weeks before going all out on your breeding setup for these guys since there's a good chance it will fade.

Don't want to stamp out your enthusiasm, just keep an eye (ho ho) on them as they get older.

Shrimplets often have lighter colored eyes that will darken as they age, I would wait a couple weeks before going all out on your breeding setup for these guys since there's a good chance it will fade.

Don't want to stamp out your enthusiasm, just keep an eye (ho ho) on them as they get older.

I have to question the assumption that the peat is cheaper than a buffering substrate. A super quick google search showed that 500g of it goes for just under $20. Sounds more expensive than substrate by weight, even more so if you have to swap it out of your tank once or twice a year.
 
Why not get a buffering substrate and throw a cup or two in the filter? Swap it out when you start to notice pH creep and you should be able to use a single $40 bag of substrate for a loooong time (and multiple tanks). (I just read @ClownPlanted's strategy, basically the same thing)
 
Disclosure: I'm doing this with one of my tanks right now but it hasn't been long enough to say whether it's a viable strategy. Just hoping to avoid having to rip up the entire tank to replace substrate when it runs out.

In theory it could use the Venturi principle to pull air but in practice it doesn't work as well since the outflow slows over time (inlet filter clog, media clog). An air pump ends up being very reliable.
 
You are correct, this let's you both guide the flow of water in your tank while also creating very fine bubbles. You don't get the sound or sight of an air stone and the bubbles are actually so small they flow through the water column with the current, whereas with an air stone they sort of just go up. It's a nice way to oxygenate your water.
 
EDIT: reread your post and thought I would clarify. It doesn't adjust flow rate, just direction.