Shrimp breeders come on in...

[Rory]

-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.

[gobies et al]

Sorry, I haven't bred Crystals, so can't help you out there.

I breed Neocaridina heteropoda (wild) as well as the var. red aka Red Cherry. Also, I am breeding Caridina multidentata,aka Amano Shrimp.

pH 7.6

gH 240 mg/l

kH 130 mg/l

Amano's salinity varies according to life stage from freshwater to 1.017.

[Vallisneria]

I breed cherries and I have bred Green shrimp in the past. In regular Edmonton Tap(ph around 7.8) and they breed like crazy.

I"ve been trying my hand at Crystal red and black shrimp without much success. I killed off my first batch trying to acclimate them from the 7.0ph water they came in to the Edmonton tap water. The 2-3rd batchesI bought(already acclimated to 7.8ph) also slowly died off, a couple each week until they were all gone.

But this last batch(attempt#4) of Crystal Black shrimp seem to be doing ok, they have lived a few weeks without any deaths. All are looking good and eating. So I think in a few more week if they are still doing good i'm going to attempt to lower the ph and see if they will breed for me. They aren't a fancy grade. They are just the cheap 4$ CRS but I wanted to see if I could do it with these before wasting anymore money killing these poor guys, lol.

The CRS are definitely harder then the cherries or green are. They were more water+shrimp= more shrimp but the CRS need higher water quality and softer water.

[Rory]

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.

[bosshog]

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.

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.

Edited January 31, 2010 by bosshog

[Rory]

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.

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...

[Vallisneria]

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.

Yes they are much more sensitive and harder to keep then the cherries. They won't do well in pH of 9.0, they are barely ok in Edmonton tap which is ph of 7.8ish. They do better in low Ph, softer water. If you want to keep them, and plan to breed them you will need to lower your ph.

I"m going to use Co2 to lower my ph as I already have a co2 tank right next to the aquarium. Hopefully that will help things. I dont' believe they will breed in hard water with a high ph. So if you want to breed them you will definitely need to change your water parameters to suit them.

Here is a pretty good CRS forum http://www.shrimpnow.com/forums/

[condor]

delete

Edited February 6, 2010 by condor

[bosshog]

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.

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...

Ahh, makes sense to me now. Thanks for the explanation. Good luck with your shrimp, always good to see people in this hobby taking on a challenge. :thumbs:

[Nicklfire]

If the ph is that big of a problem for you, then buffering from 9 is a pretty hard task in itself. If i were you i'd look into doing RO (reverse osmosis) basically just a bunch of filtering units which will turn your water into a pure water.. no impurities and which would bring your ph to about 6, alot easier to buffer from there.

always a option

The only thing with that is you would need a storage tank, which is fine and good if you have the space, then you just do water changes with the RO water

Edited February 6, 2010 by Nicklfire

[bosshog]

If the ph is that big of a problem for you, then buffering from 9 is a pretty hard task in itself. If i were you i'd look into doing RO (reverse osmosis) basically just a bunch of filtering units which will turn your water into a pure water.. no impurities and which would bring your ph to about 6, alot easier to buffer from there.

always a option

The only thing with that is you would need a storage tank, which is fine and good if you have the space, then you just do water changes with the RO water

RO water should be a pH 7. Neutral.

[condor]

yes, 7 your right

[jvision]

RO water is almost never pH 7. DISTILLED water is what pH is measured from, and is pH 7. RO is typically acidic and if left unbuffered can reach as low as 4.

[timbruun]

Will cherries or green shrimp not breed if the pH is too high? Or what other factors will prevent them from breeding?

[jvision]

I have Cherrys and Greens breeding in Edm. tap water - pH around 7.8, total alkalinity close to 110ppm. Clean water seems to be esential - I normally do 50% WCs per week, but if I miss a week or two I notice the pop'n doesn't seem to grow.