danielt

I'm thinking on trying to do something close to graze using soya beans from the nature shop. Leaving them like the mulberry tea to sizzle for a couple of weeks.

Had many females berried but I cannot get plankton. Was thinking on looking at salt water products but I'm fearing they will pollute the water quickly. Unfortunately I cannot get a starter colony to grow my own. Any alternatives that anyone had success with? Brewer's yeast works?

Water does not contain the nitrifying bacteria, you can change all of the water in the tank without fear of decycling it. SaltyShrimp is what I also use. Also I use bacteria suplements, the usual ones recommended for starting up the cycle. Like Sera Nitrivec, Tetra SafeStart, or the EasyLife one with each water change. It will replenish the bacteria in your tank and also provide enzymes for them to feed as shrimp will consume the biofilm they can get at. After introducing the shrimp, test for nitrites and do water changes if the test picks up even trace amounts the first couple of days. Avoid feeding them animal protein. Vegetal protein is ok. Like soya beans, hemp flour and seeds. These contain good vegetal protein. Avoid doing more than 10% water changes. Introduce the water slowly. I use an air tube to put the fresh water back.

The photos I take are indeed modified for "artistic impression" Most of them to enhance detail on the shrimp: contrast, crop, and others.

TDS & Hardness (gH) are the two main parameters that I try to keep as constant as possible. Even neos prefer a low TDS with 6-7 dgH of hardness if possible. Especially if they were bred in such clean water. I keep CRS/CBS in TDS 330ppm just fine, with berried females but the water change is done not more than a week apart with a volume of 15-20% AT MOST.

Some of the names look familiar, from other forums or past searches on the web for information.

6-7 dgH. Had 12 berried mothers at some point. I got 60 or so but it's heavy planted and looks like there's no more than 20 shrimps in there. Until they get food.

They bred fine. It's the hardness that's more important as far as I noticed with mine.

I'm from Romania, somewhere in the Eastern Europe

I noticed that myself. IMHO the commercial products just provide confort from ease of use. Not that they're using some hard to get, expensive, substances. Calcium and Magnesium can be found pretty much everywhere. Dialing in a mix that provides a nice balance between hardness and TDS is the hard part. For instance, the SaltyShrimp products I bought from a guy that went out of business seem to be pretty good from the experience i have so far with them. However, I lost the only source in my country for these products. Ordering them online costs two-to-three times more than what I used to pay for them. The bulk is in shipping, mind you. Unless I get to make a split order with someone else it will be counter productive for me to order them online. The only other product for remineralizing RO water available in my country is JBL AquaDur. Which is not that good to use with shrimp, Neos, maybe. But I prefer not using it at all near my shrimp tanks. I did tinkered with CaSO4, CaCL and MgSO4 before, however, I didn't got the tests I do now. Was thinking on making my own mix and try to get some numbers out of the SaltyShrimp products. Afterwards, I plan on reproducing the same numbers with my homemade mix. Trace minerals I can get out of cosmetic clay products, that's where I get my montmorillonite

Same for me, using Firefox 27.

I don't want to hijack this thread. Please let me know if I'm off topic with this. Are there any recipes out there on how to make a remineralizing mix suitable for shrimp using CaSO4 or CaCl and MgSO4? I'll try to decode what I can from SaltyShrimp products. At the moment, I don't have a clear idea of the Ca/Mg ratio you need to reach and what quantity of each ingredient is needed to reach it. However, I do have a TDS meter, Ca test, Mg test and gH test. Just curious if someone already has some numbers on this.

Neos tolerate high pH. I keep Rili in water as high as pH 8.4. If the value does not swing they will be fine.

I don't agree with the statement "pH is softness" since hard or soft water is determined by hardness, not pH. You can have either way, low/high hardness, regardless of what pH you have. The reverse is also true, pH can be either way irrespective of hardness. kH controls the pH because the chemical reaction that carbonates regulate in water controls the amount of hydrogen ions produced. pH is affected by the quantity of free hydrogen ions present in the water. The more free hydrogen ions present in the water the lower pH gets turning water into an acid. The less free hydrogen ions the higher the pH turning water into a base. The most common naturally occurring cause is CO2 that diffuses in water which from this process it will produce free hydrogen ions that carbonates (kH) regulate. Now, kH is good for any aquatic creature as it will buffer large pH swings. However, most shrimps we like to keep, mostly Caridinas, prefer water with low kH as their natural environment is low in carbonates. I suspect due to a large quantity of tannins and organic substances that get dissolved in the water from decomposing vegetable debris and leaves which eat away carbonates. kH can be reduced with peat, peat moss, blackwater extract, IAL, alder cones, and any leaf rich in tannins. But don't expect magic if you need to reduce more than 1-2 german degrees of carbonate hardness.

Some of my shrimps