Louie

ctaylor, Well they certainly are very pretty , I have only seen them in pictures, They do seem to vary in color .

I had Triops as a kid but would never keep them with shrimp , Adult triops will kill shrimp. By themselves or with daphnia they are neat but don't live that long.

Thank you both great site but had no idea illegal to sell/buy over state lines. Oblong, why did you stop carrying them?

Has anyone kept Spixi snails and what has been your experience with them as far as being shrimp safe and keeping them with moss? Thanks

Liberty, I asked Han if he could make filter guards for my Penguin filters . The intake is "squarish" . Either way I received them and as you stated they fit to a glove , well made . He is a master craftsman . Removing and rinsing the sponge so that baby shrimps would not get sucked up was a big pain , BIG difference with Han's shrimp guard.

mayphly, Very pretty tank. What are those plants on the bottom that carpet your substrate?

Camaro, I have used CO2 and no longer do. You can have great planted tanks without it and does not have to be low light at all. Fast growing hardy plants like vals, water sprite, ludwiga and many others take off very nicely with the correct water or even a lower light tank of just driftwood with assorted jave type mosses ,anubias and other mosses is also very pretty and once they get going they grow great. I purchased Java moss from Han think about a month ago for a 20 gallon driftwood piece and this week it is sending out roots and new plants. My biggest tank I ran co2 but when I switched it to a shrimp tank, I stopped . The plants stopped growing daily and I did lose red color in some plants but other than that after a month they all kept on growing (not as fast) . I only use regular black gravel or small river type round gravel nothing special. Weekly water changes are big with me and the plants love them. I do not use any plant additives.

I think the failures with shrimp and CO2 have been in DIY system which you can't control the bubbles or running to much with the more advanced systems.

Doc, Yes they were cool and very pretty . The only drawback was that they only ate starfish but I used to go to the beach and get sand stars which were on the piers wood and throw one in their tank every month . I even had babies but unlike freshwater shrimp, none ever made it . Back than there were no freshwater shrimp around .

Lol oh you thought I had the harlequin Sulawesi . I have never seen them other than pics and from reading about them they seem harder than the starfish eating marine harlequins I had 20 plus years ago.

Great deals , killies can become 'addictive' just like shrimp.

The filter pad I leave alone . I just drop the bag of either purigen or chemi-pure in the filter behind the filter pad . They come in a mesh bag. I do let it sit a full 24 hours in a container with tank water so the media absorbs the tank water BEFORE going in filter in shrimp tank. The reason I do this is because years ago when I had saltwater inverts . The pet store owner told me that sometimes chemical media will fluctuate ph for a few hours if added immediately to the tank instead of letting it sit 24 hours prior in tank water. In a bigger tank it will not matter but one of my tanks back than was a 10 gallon long with Harlequin shrimp and that was how I added the chemi-pure (not sure if Purigen was around in 80s). My shrimp tanks are now 20 gallons (other than 1 bigger tank) so I stick with this method.

Amazing video thanks

Doc, I do not replace the filter pad in my penguin filters , I only rinse them out but again I drop a bag of the above in each filter and change that every 4 months .

I use either Purigen or chemi-pure in everyone of my filters but when it comes to shrimp tanks, after rinsing out the media under cold tap water, I let it sit in a glass of tank water 24 hours before using it.

I see. I have never seen it happen in my smaller tank , in my bigger planted tank it is impossible to count the shrimp. I imagine the trap works by luring the planaria in there with bait , than you remove the trap/planaria and re-bait?

Why would you want to get rid of planaria? I would think most planted tanks and tanks with driftwood are going to have planaria here and there.

I just saw the video. I am surprised that in one tank it was kept with a clown fish.

Decades ago when 'live rock' was sold without any regulations right off Florida and it was LOADED with life , keep in mind different times and no one knew any better as far as protecting reefs .. They were full of mantis shrimp and you had to get them out. Easy enough to do with any DIY trap baited with shrimp . The slasher mantis were easy to remove, the smasher types (think called Pistol shrimp) could shatter glass traps (never heard of them cracking tanks) but at night they would also kill each other lol (with pistol shrimp winning by maiming the slasher and eating them ) as you cycled the rock and after 6 weeks you remove the winner .

I have seen the Coral crayfish . A friend in another state has several types of crays. I know that the place you listed has stopped carrying several types of bigger crays because the regulations vary in state to state and it became a pain. I keep marbled , White Alleni and 3 CPO's which mate but never seem to get offspring . Either way I inquired about 2 Australian crays in aquabid but they can not be sold to Florida.

Doc, It could be that the current is taking the sheds to a certain area . That is my case with my 20 gallon tank, the sheds slowly wind up in same area . The bigger tank they shed all over .

Thanks . I imagine they will spawn fry which are the wild color? In other words will not pass on the "glo".

Thank you

danielt , What is IAL?

I have city water . Perhaps it is because I change 10% of tank water every week but do so by only changing 5% every 3 days that I have not had any problems. I do have a filter under my kitchen sink but that is for fine particles and chlorine. I do agree with everyone here that water can certainly change but in my case years of the same water and never a problem. The water here is actually very good water but again it high in PH