Rory

Forgive me if I'm missing something here, but wouldn't it be easier to buffer your water to whatever pH you need it at? If it's not that simple would you please explain why not to me? Always good to learn something new. My water is REALLY hard here in saskatoon so buffering it would entail lots of "work" on a weekly basis where as just running pressurized co2 would keep it at a constant ph where the shrimp would survive and thrive. Only been in this hobby for about a year so I might be going at this the wrong way...

I have heard they are sensitive to their water parameters but didnt realize they were that sensitive. Guess I will need to set up the pressurized co2 to lower my ph before even buying the cheap crystals. No point in buying $200 in S grade reds/blacks just to have them all die off slowly but surly.

What is a nice smaller schooling fish that isnt a neon tetra or cardinal. I still want "flashy" as it will be a 55g heavily planted tank in a wall. Will only have a few otto's along with shrimp so they cant see the shrimp as a meal either.

-What do you breed? -What are your water parameters -How hard is it to bring a grade B or C crystal black or red up to grade S or better? Im done with breeding red cherries successfully with a ph of 9.0 here in saskatoon and wondering if I could EVEN breed a crystal shrimp in my city water. The red cherries I found were quite easy to bring up to a bolder red as long as I kept on top of keeping the duller males out of the 55g breeder.