Vallisneria

If you search this site for Astaxanthin there are lots of threads discussing it. Its also sometimes under the name Naturose. Hopefully RD sees this thread and can chime in as he's the go to guy for fish nutrition info.

I've never had any problems with snails and shrimp together. In my shrimp tanks I've have ramshorn and pond snails, assassin snails, and sulawesi rabbit snails. Never had a problem wtih them hurting the shrimp, even the assassins. Thanks for all the responses. Its interesting to see how everyone else keeps them. I actually do what jason says, cover the bottom with black. I guess with this new tank I'll test out some fine gravel again but won't go changing my other tanks that are barebottom as they seem to be doing great. I'll maybe try some of the shrimp substrates that lower ph in the future but right now I'm not keeping any shrimp that requires it.

Cherries should just breed by themselves if you have males and females. I literally just added 10 shrimp to a 10g, with a little filter and added tap water. It didn't even have a heater. Within a few months I had dozens. Just make sure you have males and females and a place where the babies can hide and feed. The males are smaller and aren't very red, usually clear with a little red streaking. The females are the big bright red ones. Also make sure there are no fish that might eat the babies. If you did all that then I'm not sure why yours didn't produce babies. I"ve kept hundreds of them over the years and never had them not breed, even in the worst conditions. Good luck

Thanks for the comments about the Fluval shrimp substrate. I'd be interested to hear how you like it down the road. Might be something to try if I decide to give CRS/CBS shrimp another try. I"m not a fan of having to mess with the water(mixing RO, peat, etc) so that might be an easier option to bring the water levels down to happy shrimp levels

See I find its easier to not suck up the babies when its barebottom. I can quickly suckup any debris off the bottom and can see where the shrimp are all all times so they don't get to close to the tube. Trying one of the ADA products that lower the ph might be something I"d try in the future. Might make it easier to keep some of the more delicate species that aren't really suited for our tap. I've never had a problem with the shrimp, especially fry, finding food in a barebottom. Usually a nice layer of algae grows on the bottom and they forage off that. I also don't keep the tanks barren. There is lots of driftwood, coconut caves and the tank is pretty much filled with elodea, java ferns and naja. Its just easier to keep the bottom clean and see all the shrimp and babies. Maybe this time I might try a thin layer of fine gravel(Sil #9) again and see if I notice any difference. Can't hurt to experiment again.

I know gravel or sand looks better and makes the shrimp look better but is there any reason to use it for breeding purposes? LIke I have my barebottom shrimp breeding tanks and then I have my regular tanks with substrates that I do add my shrimp to also. But is there any benefit to having a substrate in a breeding tank? Does anyone think bare bottoms can stress the shrimp out? Even though in my own experince I haven't noticed that to be true. Has anyone bred the fancier varieties with different substrates and noticed a difference?

Just wondering how people like to keep their shrimp. This is more for the people breeding shrimp or shrimp only tanks, not so much for the people that keep shrimp in with their fish. Do you keep them in a barebottom tank or with some type of substrate, and if so which kind? I've always kept my breeding tanks barebottom as I like to be able to see the shrimp, especially babies and I find it easier to keep clean. I tried using a think layer of smaller gravel and found it to be harder to keep the tank as clean. I also tried black sand before and that was even harder to keep clean without sucking up the sand. So now I just keep them barebottom with tons of plants and some pieces of driftwood. They breed like rabbits so I don't think not having a substrate is doing too much damage. Only draw back to barebottom is the shrimp can sometimes be washed out looking but they brighten right up when added to another tank. I'm about to start another shrimp tank and it got me thinking again about this topic and I wondered if I should try gravel again. So just wondering about how you guys keep your shrimp.

Yes, I had that problem to. I couldn't stand the airstone noise or any bubbling at night. Plugged my co2 into a little Elite mini filter and attached it to my light timer and voila! Problem solved and it works better.

It is a sticky

I picked up a pair of full red albino guppies. I figured I needed to alteast buy something and these guys were pretty :P I sold a ton of plants but didn't buy anything to replace them so there is now a giant hole on the right side of my planted tank I was hoping for some nice swords but there were only a couple regular amazons that went a bit high for my liking. I agree that there seemed to be less people and lots. The chairs we partially empty when last time it was standing room only and there was definitely less lots. I was home by 3:30 today when last time we auctioned until 4:30. Not sure why. The fall auction should be awesome though as I believe we are having a show/auction weekend.

I just got home and had fun as usual. Ended up selling lots but only picking up a pair of Red Guppies. There was TONS of angelfish, bristlenose and synos. Also lots of nice plants too. But man i'm pooped, we need more people to volunteer as runners next time.

-ham- Excited for tomorrow!!! -ham-

I've used silicone to attach my rocks together and make caves. Works ok but even the clear silicone turns white after a while of being in the tank and can look a bit bad. So I wouldn't suggest slathering on a ton of silicone. I made my caves so they mostly stood on their own anyways. The silicone was just to tack the piece together so I didn't have much that was visible, but the silicone there is turned an opaque whitish color. Not the prettiest. A solution for this might be to put sand onto the silicone before it dries so it looks nicer and more natural. I think there is also an aquarium epoxy that salt people use to glue live rock and stuff. Its probably more expensive then silicon. Crazy glue is aquarium safe but I dont' think it would really work to glue a rock cave together.

They are pretty easy to keep but grow really slow. Just remember to keep rotating them so the bottoms don't get brown. They can also collect a lot of debris so I would give mine a gentle rinse in some tank water, like a sponge.

Yeah we've tried monthly, quarterly contests and also things like planted tanks contests. There was minimal participation compared to how much work it took to put them on. Like our last contest was the new logo contest and only 5 people participated and the prize was even $100! Or I think we only had 3 entries when we tried to do a planted tank contest. Considering we have thousands of members and hundreds that are frequent visitors, it didn't make it feel like it was worth the work. I'm not saying 100% no. Maybe we'll try it again in the future. So lets hear suggestions on what people might want to see in a contest. Photo? Beautiful tank contest? Etc?

Hey, sorry We've done contests in the past and they never really worked out. They were a lot of work to organize and member participation was usually lacking or quickly fizzled out. So I don't think we'll do another contest but you never know. Did you have any suggestion for types of contests?

Pretty much anything will grow in sand. You might run into some issues keeping your plants rooted with shellies digging around in the sand though.

I use prime and have kept many types of shrimp and inverts, no issues

I'm just using the little elite mini(also used an AC powerhead) but I've not had any issues with the co2 bubbles causing problems with the impeller. It does make a little bit of noise when the co2 goes through the filter but never had a problem with the impeller skipping or stopping. If you're worried about the bubbles being too big for the filter you can always hook an airstone up and have that flow into the filter uptake.That way a mist of bubbles is being sucked up instead of big bubbles. I've also tried it that way and it worked great except my airstone(a wood one) made this weird high pitched noise from the bubbles coming through it that I switched to the elite mini way instead.

I heard aponogeton bulbs go dormant every so often. Is this true? Does it just die off and then grow back later or do you have to do something special?

I'm glad your fish are doing better and you were able to save your angelfish. :thumbs:

Is it brown cloudy? Milky cloudy? Air bubble cloudy? How long does it take to clear?

I use a little Elite mini filter and run the co2 into the intake.

If the fish keep dying within a hour of putting them in the tank and everything else is ok, then it kind of points to some type of contaminant. Did the tank have any kind of residue on it? But you'd thinkthat would be rinsed out by now if that was the case. The heaters not short circuiting or something is it? How many fish have you tried putting in there?

What brand of silicone did you use?