AJanzen

Yeah, I have slightly increased the dosage for ammonia spikes. I also have the big Al's water conditioner I could use but it doesn't mention anything about eliminating the ammonia. Should I not worry too much about ammonia with the shrimp? Or is leaving it out overnight sufficient to get rid of the ammonia? Also, down another 2 shrimp today without any changes to the water parameters or CO2 added... May not have to worry about the shrimp after the long weekend if this keeps up

I've been monitoring the PH levels all week and they are steady at about 6.7 I haven't added anymore CO2 since the first post however I have had about 4 more shrimp deaths. GH/KH levels are standard for Edmonton water. Nitrite levels are 0ppm and Nitrate's are between 0 and 20ppm. I do water changes about once a week using tap water left overnight (temp is the same the next day) and treated with Prime to remove any ammonia. The initial deaths were about 5 days after the last water change.

So, not too sure what's going on with my tank but today I picked out 4 dead RCS and yesterday I had picked out 2. All other shrimp in the tank seem happy and healthy, but among the dead ones today was a heavily pregnant female. This is a 5.5G Fluval Chi planted set up with live plants, the goofy mini CO2 system that comes with, and a fluval nan filter etc... I checked all my water parameters and everything looks good so not sure what the problem is. Temperature is 25C. Background on the tank. Set up with just plants 2.5 months ago, waited a week then cycled with neon tetras for a month. All fish have been removed and the only other inhabitant of the tank now is one zebra nerite snail. After the 6 dead shrimp I'd say there is about 20 cherries left. Any help here would be appreciated, in the past any Cherry Shrimp tanks I've had required little to no maintenance and the little guys flourished/bred like crazy. My only thought here is that I may be putting too much CO2 into the tank as this is my first experiment with CO2. It's just the little Fluval CO2 20 that I'm using and I only fill the chamber in the morning each day (none on weekends as this is a work tank).

Looks like Hydra to me. A couple spixi snails will get rid of them.

So I did a major no no and set up a 5.5G with a male and female multi. They have now matured and are breeding like champs so obviously the 5.5 isn't going to cut it much longer. Some of the fry are already about 1/3 full grown. So my question is how do I move the little dudes? I'd like to move everyone as a group so there's no issues in a larger tank but don't want to hurt the fry and some of them are still pretty small. If I just move the adults and wait for the fry to mature is this going to cause aggression issues when I finally introduce them to the larger tank? Thanks for any advice as I'm kicking myself as I did know better and still put them in a too small tank to grow as a family.

Always loved the Mantis Shrimp. That's a great little breakdown though.

Siamese Algae eater's are the answer. Had the same problem setting up a 75G. This is not a long term fish for a community set up though so be prepared to part with them. 3 or 4 juvi's should take care of the problem in about a month.

I have a tank set up specifically for this reason, right now it's just some a small BN pleco grow up tank as I figured they wouldn't harass the babies. I have an egg tumbler as well, the reason I want to strip her is that I have yet to have my cichlids hold full term (pretty sure the reason is none of them are big/mature enough). I've had a couple fluke survivors in my tank who were obviously spit out, somehow managed to hatch still, and survived long enough for me to fish them out and separate them but so far I would say I've gotten 1 baby for every time I see a female holding. If I do hold her is the slime coat an issue? Or are cichlids hardy enough not to worry about?

So my female strawberry peacock is holding, looks like a lot of eggs. I want to strip her in the next couple of days before she spits them out, any tips? I've seen videos of guys holding the fish and opening their mouth with a small tongue depressor so they'll spit the eggs into a bucket. My concern with this is messing with her slime coat, injuring her, etc... This will be my first time so I don't want to lose a fish due to inexperience. Also, if you do hold the fish I'd have to treat her after to help her slime coat... correct? I have a cycled fry tank set up with an egg tumbler. On another note, every where I've read says people strip their cichlids after two weeks. I'm not too sure how long she's been holding but it looks like she's ready to burst. Is there any harm in stripping before the two week marker? Thanks in advance!

Just letting everyone know, buy one get one free at Nature's Corner Store. I was just in there on Monday and they had some good stuff in, a fair selection of corys etc... (looking at you SuperGuppyGirl). I'm gonna go check it out this afternoon and hopefully not be in too much trouble when I bring new fish home.

Yeah those cherries are crazy, in about a 6 month period I went from 30 to probably 1000 in a 10G planted. Remove all predators and the sky's the limit with these guys.

As jvision said cherry shrimp are probably the easiest to do. First step would be to decide what type of shrimp you want and then go from there. When you start looking at the high grade CRS and CBS they can be a fair bit more finicky.

Sounds like spixis are my answer here, no plants in the tank yet anyways, just hidey holes and driftwood. Still baffled where they came from though. Never saw one when the tank was teeming with RCS and they show up now? Is it possible the shrimp were keeping them under control while the hydras were still small? I've just always heard that the hydras can eat juvie shrimp, not the other way around.

So... picked up 5 BN's from Harold today and when I got home put them in a 10 gallon I had previously used for my RCS. The tanks been sitting empty for a while (stripped of all plants and shrimp) and just been sitting with the substrate and some random snails in it. I had done a water change out, put in a sponge filter and added some (brand new) malaysian driftwood. After I got the plecos acclimated and turned the light on, lo and behold hydra on the glass. My question is what's the potential problem here? Don't think they're going to be able to hurt the BN's but I'd still like to get rid of them. I've heard spixi snails do a good clean up on the little buggers, but will the BN's just take care of them on their own? I'd eventually like to breed my BN's once they get a little bigger and definitely don't want to be battling hydras at the same time. On a side not, the 10G won't be their permanent home. Just a place to chill out for the next few weeks until I set up my empty 55G for them. Was kinda hoping to use the ten for fry eventually though.

Haha, if my family ever leaves me I might have a chance of doing this in my basement.