jumpsmasher

Those are just glass feeding dishes - i use them to keep my food in one place and for easy removal of uneaten food. The deeper ones work great with the barley pellets that i feed my shrimps

depend on what you want to do with the tanks - my shrimp tanks only have a bit of moss and java fern so my lighting requirements are minimal. unless you plan ton have plants with high light demands you probably only need a single or dual bulb setup. I think my dual T5HO fixture puts out too much light for what i have in the two middle tanks

that particular one is the Hagen Glo T5HO fixture - most of the other lights on my racks are LED. I will probably switch that one out for LED eventually as LED does not generate as much heat so it would lower the demands on my cooling system. I have have my fans all the time as i live in a condo it stay fairly warm, even in the winter.of cost if heat isn't an issue T5 or T8 are a lot economical. You can get those sunblaster t5HO strip lights for around $40 ea at Lee Valley Tools or any T8 shop light from home depot for around the same

23G? Where did you get them made? Gotta be a custom job to fit that stand.... Plantfan They are rimless tanks made by Hagen a few years back - don't think you can get them any more or nor did i never see them at any LFS. I saw them in the catalog and as able to get my friend to order them in for me. similar to a standard 20G but a bit deeper - it used metric unit for dimensions: 60 (W) x 40 (H) x 36 (D) cm. Not as nice as the ADA tanks cuz it uses black silicon but they only cost a fraction of the price of the 60cm ADA tanks.

hmm pH seems a bit high with ADA aquasoil - I would expect it to be more aggressive at lowering the pH, although i have never tried it myself with tap water. Which one are you using and how deep of a layer do you have in your tank? Amazonia?

I have a couple of racks set up for my shrimps tanks. I know Ron and a couple of shrimp guy in calgary also have done the same. 2 x 23G in the middle and 3 x 10G on the bottom I also started a 2nd rack; 33" x 14" with 20G long tanks on the top 3 levels The 18" are fine but just leave some pack behind the rack if you plan on having HOB filters. If you have the space I would recommend investing in the more heavy duty racks from Home depot or Rona. I believe they are a bit bigger, 54-60" wide and 24" but a lot more studier! I know I would have done that route for my first one if i had to do it again.

Just use cold water and let it sit overnight and it will be at room temp the next day. Be careful with a product like neutral regulator. Firstly, KH affect the PH buffering ability and since neutral regulator is used as a PH buffering agent, it might affect (increase) your KH as well. Second, if your KH is already high, neutral regulator is not very effective unless you increase the dosage which leads to the third point. I believe it is a phosphate based buffer you will have to really keep an eye on your phosphate levels. High phosphate levels might also kill your shrimps. I won't mess around with the water in tanks with shrimps in it already, other than slowly replacing the water with distilled water.

Yay this is how you end up with multiplying tank syndrome :p your one line of Rili shrimps will turn into 3 - each with their own tank! Don't forget to add a 4th one for your culls as well :p

Pretty much what every one else had said will work for cherries or oother neo's: 10gal, sponge filter, room temp, moss, dwiftwood etc; If you use a power or canister filter (which you probably won't if you have a small tank) than just to be sure to put a sponge or something over the intake of the filter but ya for a something like 10gal, a simple air driven sponger filter will work fine. Do make you any rocks or gravel you use is inert and doesn't affect the water chemistry - even if the package say it won't i found that most of the more "natural" ones will buffer the ph and hardness up. Of course it goes without saying that you should properly cycle the tank before adding any shrimps. And yes be fore warn, 1 shrimp tank turns into two, than 3 than 10 very quickly so make some plans for future "expansion" :p

well I hate referring to the various patterns as "grades" since I don't think any particular pattern denote a high quality shrimp but ya they will throw out a mix of patterns until you selectively line breed them for a particular pattern for many generations. And when breeding Mosura's (SSS), you will get the odd snow white / golden bee. Even some JPRL breeders say they sometimes get snow white / golden bees in their pure line - when you say they don't have golden gene it just means they remove any golden offspring but there is always the chance you will get some when breeding Mosura shrimps with lots of white coverage. WHat's you pH like with ADA and tap water? I usually just add a leaf every 2-3 weeks - I don't think it really do much other than encourage a bit of bacteria growth and provide a bit of food for the young ones. They are probably a month or so from breeding, you should start to saddles on the females if they are grade A ones. The survival rate for the shrimplets on my BKK tank is not great. Usually only 3-4 per batch and haven;t really seen any "pure" BKK shrimplets, only hybrids at this point - I think my pH is too low.. lol Probably try moving them to the tank where the CRS are now now when i transfer my CRS to their new tank. How's your OEBT doing? Mine are starting to take off but still too many blondes for my liking.. lol

With any shrimps is really up to you to decide which characteristics you want to focus on. Traditional Rili's should have a solid head and tail and a distinct mid section but that should only matter if your goal is to produce the perfect "Rili" type pattern - no one is going to stop you and say you don't have a proper Rili shrimp if you decided to type to create some other type of pattern from them. There so many new patterns popping up in the hobby these days! Even with the solid colored Neos like cherries and orange there are several variations or shades within each color group!

Yay, ADA Aquasoil rocks! It really turned my luck around when I redid all my tanks early last year with it - can't recommend it enuf. Are you using it with straight tap water? pH: 5.8-6.0 gH: ~ 4 kH: 0-1 TDS: ~ 140 Temp: 22 C My CRS tanks use a mixture of ADA Amazonia + Africana or Akadama for the substrate, with 100% R/O water remineralize with Mosura Mineral Plus or Bee Shrimp GH+ . Might just be their age, the ones we got from the last group order are just starting to get berried, most of the baby shrimps in that tank are from the F1's that were born in my tank May / June of last year. I only spotted 1 or 2 of the SSS CRS we got last time that are berried. Are any of your females CRS berried or saddled? Do you keep them with fish? if you do get berried females and keep them with fish chances are the fish are snacking on the shrimplets

I just use 100% R/O water and mineralize using something like Mosura Mineral Plus, GH Bee Shrimp GH+ or Fluval Shrimp Minerals. I fine it is a lot easier this way and it ensure that get constant water all the time as tap water may fluctuate seasonally. The pH in my bee shrimp tanks range from 4.8 - 6.8 but anywhere around 6.0 - 6.8 should be fine. If you use an active buffering substrate like ADA aquasoil it should buffer the pH automatically to the above range. If you have an passive setup using inert gravel or none at all, you probably do any pH adjustment outside the tank and might need to add something to keep it from jumping around too much. I used Ebi-ken Sosei, which is basically type of Fluvic powder to keep my ph aorund 6.8 in my tiger tanks. In either cases make sure you don't have any rocks that might buffer the pH up. For hardness, get a GH / KH test kit and uses those values to determine your hardness. GH: 3-6 KH: 0-1 TDS inside your tank can increase due to several factors (age, additives, food etc;) without affecting your GH/KH When mineralizing your R/O water, TDS can vary from 100-200 depending on how "dirty" the product is that you use. When I am trying out a new product I usually mineralize to around 100 TDS and than test my GH and add more if needed. For Mosura Mineral Plus & Bee Shrimp GH+ my GH is around 4-5 @ 100 TDS. With Fluval Shrimp Mineral it get the same GH at around 150 TDS. Once you established those figures as a benchmark, you can just use a TDS meter for future water changes.

Was doing some work in one of my shrimp tanks today just before feeding time and a bunch of them came out from hiding. Since i never really followed up on my initial shrimp rack post I thought I would post some quick pics: This is my standard CRS group - these guys been multiplying like rabbits! It seems like there is a new batch of shrimplets being dropped every week as there are so many different sizes in there. How many shrimps can you count in this photo :P This started as my nursery tank for the above and than became my "cull" tank when i moved some of the better one to the larger tank. They been multiplying lots as well - to the naked eye it seems like there is a lot more of them as there is less hiding spots in this tank - been very please with this tank in general! At the end of last year I set up a new rack with 30" long tanks (20G/23G) for what I hoped was be my collection of Pure Line CRS / CBS shrimps (PRL / PBL). Things didn't start out great as 3 of my 5 Pure Black Line CBS decided to go for an extended walk during their first night in the rack. Found one of about a meter away from the tank the next day! Luckily, the remaining two paired up and soon my big female was berried. Unluckily, both parent to decided to go for a walk shortly after the shrimplets were born. But the shrimplets are doing well and growing fast; here is one of them (they are about 3 weeks old right now) Last but not least, my Nishiki-Ebi JPRL These guy are only consider low-grade JPRL's so to the naked eye they are not much different than decent quality standard CRS. Unless you buy the higher grade JPRL ($$$-$$$$), you are pretty much getting their culls and banking on selectively breeding their offsprings. These two are probably the top ones of the batch I got in so hoping they are a M / F pair . Not the greatest photo but so hard to get these guys together in the same photo and in decent light :P Fingers crossed : )

I believe the OP was referring to CRS (Cystal Red Shrimps) and CBS (Crystal Black Shrimps). When I started out a couple years ago with CRS, I managed to get my first batch of CRS to breed for me using Calgary tap water and Fluval Shrimp Stratum (FSS). Had a fairly high survival rate as well with that first batch- close to 30 shrimpets that survived to adults. However, with all future batches the shrimplets never survived passed a few days, even after I switch to R/O water but that is another story as many other people have had similar experiences with FSS. I switched all my tanks over to ADA Aquasoil and never looked back. My CRS's been breeding like rabbits for me now. Several LFS' had said they were able to raise CRS fine using tap water as well. I remember Riverfront used to have some in a Fluval Edge display tank and they seemed to be breeding quite well as there are many young shrimplets and juvies in it. The guy at Aquarium Central also mention they do fine in his tanks as well using tap water. I have also came across several local hobbyists who had bred them using tap water as well; there was a fellow forum member who been breeding them for years using Calgary tap water. And recently one of my neighbors set up an ADA style nature aquarium (with ADA Aquasoil) with some CRS's from Pisces and from what he tells me, they are slowly reproducing for him. I think as long as you are able to get a pair to survive and breed in city water, any future offsprings from them should be already acclimatized to tap water. Of course, ideally you would want some that have been locally bred or some from the LFS that have been acclimatized - the younger the better. Myself, once I to switched to ADA aquasoil and R/O water I haven't looked back. To me the cost of the R/O system was minimal compared to the cost of the other equipment for my shrimp tanks and more importantly the costs of the shrimps that I have acquired over the past year.

Even if you can live in the similar parameters as Neos (cherry shrimps, etc;) Tiger shrimps are more sensitive and less hardy. I find they are even more sensitive than Crystal Red shrimps. pH should be neutral to slightly acidic - 6.5 to 7.0. Ordinary tigers prefer it more acidic while Blue and Black tigers should do fine at 7.0 - 7.5 - depends on what they are used to. as for the Hardness, I only look at gH and kH - gH should be around 4-6 and kH 0-1 tds can vary greatly depending on what is inside your tank and its age. It shouldn't really affect them if your GH and KH values are in line and if they are acclimatized slowly. I only measure tds when I an premixing R/O water with my shrimp minerals, but even than I test my GH to establish a target TDS. I also find Tigers prefer it cooler than Crystal reds, ideally around 20-22 C. They are highly susceptible to bacterial infections at higher temperatures. It goes without saying that there shouldn't be any temperature fluctuation during the day and night. I would pick up a GH / KH test kit in addition to the standard test kit that you have if you don't already have them and test your parameters. If the pH and / or hardness of your tap water is within range but it is t higher in your tank than something inside of the tank is likely buffering it up. If this is the case, remove anything in the tank that may buffer the ph up and / or increase the hardness. This include rocks, gravel etc; To reduce your hardness get some distilled / R/O water and do a partial water change by removing some of the tank water and replacing it slowly (i.e. dripping) with the R/O water. This will not lower your pH however as the R/O water will get buffered by whatever is inside the tank that is causing the ph to sit at where it is. I recommend something like fulvic acid powder, indian almond leaves or alder cones to lower the pH. I have used Ebi Ken Sosei with great success to keep my tiger tanks at around 6.8 using inert gravel Hope this helps, good luck!

I just call them wild cherry shrimps because they is essentially what they are. Red cherry shrimps were actually brown in the wild before they were selectively bred to be red, yellow and the various other colours and patterns they come in these days. Red Cherry, Red Sakura, PFR, Yellow, Orange Sakura / Pumpkin, Blue Velvet, red / blue / carbon Rilli's, Chocolate etc; are all the same species (Neocaridina heteropoda) or just Neo's for short Granted, the original wild cherry shrimps were not as solid as the one in your photo but they were brown nevertheless. People have mentioned that cross breeding with the various coloured Neo's (i.e Red with Yellow) will result in having mostly the brown "wild" type offsprings - that is why it is generally not recommended to mix the various Neo's I mention above. I chronicled the journey of my own "wild" cherry from shrimplet to adult a while back: http://albertaaquatica.com/index.php?showtopic=36529 I eventually separated them and breed them to a couple of generations before losing interest when Chocolate shrimps hit the scene. If you want to try increasing the brown color of them just cull out the clearer coloured shrimps form time to time but make sure you leave several nice males. I am not 100% certain but I believe to go from a wild cherry aka brown neo to a chocolate shrimps you will need selectively breed them to 1) Solidify the brown pattern i.e. like going from regular red cherry shrimp to a painted fire red 2) Remove or minimize the lighter coloured "racing strips" on their backs 3) For the Dark Chocolate shrimps (almost black) you will need to stabilize the blue tint that is form the base shell colour most likely from crossing with Blue velvet or Blue Rilli's hope this helps

There are several freshwater shrimps species that require brackish water when they are in larvea stages. In the wild, they migrate upstream toward freshwater where they live as adults. In an aquarium, the adults are fine, but the baby shrimps don't survive long after they are born. Now, I can't say for certain if this is the case for ghost shrimps, but it is certainly the case for some species such as Amano shrimps, Orange Sunkist shrimps (Caridina propinqua) and red nose shrimps edit: seems like they breed fine in freshwater but because they have a larvea stage and require certain type of food (plankton / green water maybe?) the survival rates of the larvea are very low http://www.planetinverts.com/ghost_glass_grass_shrimp.html

that looks like the brown "wild" form of the cherry shrimp. They pop up from time to time in red cherry colonies. The base colour range from clear to blueish with a brown pattern (where you would see red on a normal cherry shrimp). They can be selectively bred to increase the intensity of the blue and coverage of the brown to be more solid as seen in "Chocolate" shrimps. It would take a while though to get from a "wild" cherry to a solid chocolate shrimp though and i believe the darker chocolate shrimps (almost black) got their blues from blue rili's / jelly shrimps (another color variate of the cherry) as the blues in the wild forms are not very stable.

looking good Ron! Your Blue Bolts and BKK looks like they are growing nicely!

very nice! my new prl rack is similar in size and configuration as well. The 20G long is really size to work with. I have divided my into 3 section for selective breeding purposes. What type of rock do you have on the left hand size of the SSS CRS tank?

Thanks for the suggestion Steve, it helps justify my decision to buy supplies a while ago. I actually picked up 6 - 50L bags last time I drove through Edmonton, same trip I dropped off your shrimp . The guys at the grow shops here mentioned that Hydroton wasn't available anymore so I got the last 2 bags at Hydro-Lite and 4 bags at All Seasons in Edmonton. I was even thinking of using Zoomed Hydroballs but that would have been very expensive. Did you clean the shops in calgary as well? :P Looks like you are almost out of space in that room.. lol

Thanks Ron, Don't think i have room for a rack that size just yet.. will need to clear out some stuff first but thanks for the heads up. btw, my "smallish" PRL rack is well on its way.. the first two tanks have been partitioned and should have the substrate in and water filled within the next few days

very cute. Do they get along fine in the same tank as long as there is a lot of hiding places?

Thanks Ron, I might need to get my friend in TO to pick them up for me at AI than. : ) Ya, 15/20G tanks might be the way to go if you have different set-ups or tend to move things around. The partitioned tanks are mainly for breeding - selective breeding to be exact. I found it was a hassle to acclimatize everything time I was culling my shrimps as they were being moved to a separate tank. Swiss Tropical (the NA distributor of Poret foam) has a nice fishroom setup using 15 Gal tanks and their HMF filters http://www.swisstropicals.com/Swisstropicals%20Fishroom.html if only i had a basement...