Anyone Breed Freshwater Shrimp?

[Pteronarcys]

Looking for people who breed freshwater shrimp. The stores all sell them for ridiculous prices and often have them in with lots of dead ones. It doesn't make me want to purchase shrimp at $15 to $20 when there are 30 dead ones laying around. Makes me feel like I would just be purchasing shrimp that will soon die. Not to mention the amount of algae, snails, flatworms, etc that I have seen in the tanks with them.

I understand that they don't have ideal set ups and that they lose a lot in shipping, plus shipping is expensive for them, so they have high prices in stores. I have thought about ordering them online but worry about shipping in heat and any delays with shipping (I have had a lot of issues with canada post not delivering things when they don't fit in the mailbox or leaving delivery notices that show up days after they are dated, especially when I was home each day and they didn't knock/ring the doorbell).

For these issues I would prefer to purchase from others who have stabilized them and have had successful breeding. I can confidently purchase from people who have had them in their tanks for sometime without issues.

I currently have yellow neocaridina. I was thinking of adding caridina species (any) into my 65gal and maybe get the blue diamond/blue dream neocaridina for my nano tank. Though I am open to options of what might be out there.

[jumpsmasher]

There are a few ppl here in Calgary they either breeds them or organizes import / group orders.

I been breeding mostly caridina's for the past few years but my main focus has been for line breeding so I rarely put them up for sale unless I decide to do a big cull or need to reduce my population - I tend to be quite the shrimp hoarder

Currently breeding Pure Red Line CRS, Pure Black Line CBS, Taiwan Bee's (BKK, Panda, Blue Bolt, Red Ruby. etc;), Golden Bee / Snow White, Orange Eye Blue Tigers (OEBT), Orange Eye Black Tigers (BTOE). I also have some neo's too but not really focused on them (Pumpkin, PFR, Blue Dream).

I got rid of my regular CRS's last year but I think there might be some ppl here that picked them up and got them to breed for them.

Other than myself, here are the usual suspects :P

Ron usually organizes a group order 2-3 time a year with Ebi-Ken from Vancouver. You can check with him when his next order will be.

Caine has been bringing some shrimps in as well and selling them - check with him on what his current stock level is like.

And there is usually someone selling some neo's either on here or on Kijiji

What kind of set up do you currently have?

[Pteronarcys]

My 65 gal is heavily planted. I just use tap water but inject CO2 from a cylinder through a reactor tied into the eheim return. I have a CO2 controller and my pH is currently 6.6. I am using EI dosing dry ferts and running 2 T5HO fixtures (4 bulbs) at 6500k. I have 3 fixtures but only running 2 right now. I have 2 buildmyled fixtures coming in by mail next week, a 6500k and a 10000k plant lights. I had also ordered the SoLunar light controller (program sunrise and sunset or %voltage dimming), but that is on back order.

I also have a fluval nano tank with 2 compact fluorescent lights on it. I recently ripped all the plants out of there and started over with some new plants. I just use excel for this tank, but I do have a small paint ball cylinder CO2 system for this. It is just a pain because it runs out fast and it is difficult to get out to refill it often. Wanted to buy several cylinders but haven't got around to it yet. I figure since this tank isn't high tech, if I can get a hold of some blue diamond neocaridinas then they can go in here, since they are hardy.

[jumpsmasher]

What is the parameters on the 65 gal (temp, gH, kH, etc;) and what kind of substrate are you using? Are they any fish in that tank?

[Pteronarcys]

The GH is around 200 mg/L as it is just Calgary tap water. The KH I recently measured at between 7-8 degrees. The temperature of my tank is between 78F and 80F depending on how hot it gets. My place doesn't get that hot, most of that temp issue is my lights which are generating a lot of heat (3 T5HO fixtures), hoping when my new LED lighting comes in that I won't have as much heat issues as most of the heat generated will be from the ballast which will be away from the tank. I will have 2 LED fixtures which are a fraction of the size of my current lights which span the whole top of my tank.

ADA soil (mixture of Amazonian and Malayan) in the 65 and fluval shrimp stratum in the nano. Both tanks have been set up and running for about 2 years.

I know that some shrimp need soft water and lower pH. I am not in a situation to set up an RO system because I am renting and purchasing water isn't something I really want to get into. I am not expecting to raise the most sensitive shrimp in my current situation. There are neocaridinas that can handle a wide range of conditions and many people who have caridinas (certain types) in conditions similar to mine. I am currently looking for some variety, not really looking to raise SSS grade shrimp.

[Pteronarcys]

As for fish... 12 oto cats, 30 pygmy cory cats, 4 neon tetras (my gf needed a place to store them for the summer) and 9 khuli loaches. There are many yellow neocaridina shrimp, 12 amano shrimp, red rams horn snails, and 8 nerite snails.

I want to add a nice size school of chili rasboras, if I can get some. No one seems to have them locally. Debated on the least killifish (smallest live bearing fish).

[jumpsmasher]

Yes, neo's should work fine in either setup.

As for cardidina's - your water is hard - 200 mg/L is is equivalent to a gH of approx. 9-10 I believe.

The most common cardina - CRS and Tigers prefer much softer water, around 3-6. Temperature is a bit high as well - I find my CRS's start to stress out and develop bacterial infections once temperatures go about 26 C. with my tigers they are even more sensitive as they prefer it around 22C and lower.. Sulawesi shrimps are the only ones I know that can withstand harder water and high temperatures but they even more sensitive than tigers or CRS.

Also having an high tech planted tank and fish also increases the level of difficulty.

Your best bet would to find some that have been raise / breed in tap water. Blue Ram was the only member that I know of that was able establish a stable, breeding colony using tap water but I haven't seen her post any new shrimps for sale for a very, very long time.

I know Riverfront keep their CRS using same water as all their other tanks so it might be worth a shot if you can't find some from members here. I might have some Golden Bee / Snow White up for sale in a bit, but all my shrimps are raised using remineralized RO water so might not be ideal for your situation.

Edited July 27, 2014 by jumpsmasher

[Pteronarcys]

the GH was an estimate based on my liquid dropper kit. It goes blue and its hard for me to tell but its on the higher end between 150-200. Calgary tap water is very hard. I have some dip sticks too and they show GH has on the higher end of the scale (not super accurate those sticks).

At night when the lights are off, I get 24C or 76F. I hope my new lights lower the temp of the tank. The only other way to lower it is using a chiller, but I am not going that route. The lights on there currently are resting on the rim of the tank. They are aquaticlife fixtures attached together. They have plastic legs for them to raise them up, but my cats keep jumping on the tank and breaking the legs. The hood I have for the tank rests on the legs putting pressure on them too and break after a while. Since I had gone through my 4th time purchasing new legs, I decided to rest the fixture on the rim and then I noticed the tank temp increase. I got fed up and decided to go the LED route a few weeks ago. Did a lot of research on good LEDs and decided to go with buildmyled.com. Should get them mon or tues. Everything I read seems like they put out minimal heat from the fixture. The ballast has some temp but that sits down on the floor.

The shrimp I have read about that seem to do well in my conditions are pretty much any neocaridinas and lower grade crystal shrimp.

When I buy a house, I plan to have an RO system and a man cave with several tanks. Until then, I have to make due with the limitations I have.

[jumpsmasher]

I hear ya, I always struggle during the summer months to keep the temperature down in all my tanks since I live in a condo. I end up using a bunch of computer fans to keep my tanks cool. Can't wait until I get a house of my own as well with a basement

If the GH test kit is one of those that say one drop = 20mg/L (or ppm) and you can roughly tell what the gH is but how many drops you use as 1 drop = 1 gH. 1 gH = 18.7 ppm if i remember correctly but counting the number of drops is a quite and easy way.

Perhaps try posting a "looking for" ad in the classified section if you haven't already done so.

[Pteronarcys]

After some research on what I may like. I am thinking blue dream or blue diamond or carbon rilli. I am wondering if you put carbon rilli and blue dreams together will you ensure blue and the rilli pattern. The carbon rilli's have black heads and tails. They are neo's so they breed easy and are hardy.

Saw a few places online that sell them but with shipping and each shrimp is $8 to $10, to get around 15 shrimp would be close to $200.

Pisces had some dark blue shrimp but they were in a tank that said fire red cherry. There was only 2 left and I asked what they were and the guy didn't know which ones they were. He said they must have gotten out of their section. Then he told me they are $16 a shrimp by finding the sticker that said blue with the highest price. That particular tank was packed full of spirogyra algae. I had gotten that algae in my tank before and after trying everything the only thing that killed it off was dosing my whole tank with some peroxide and then hitting it with a high dose of excel. Lost about 15% of my shrimp doing that and my riccia. Don't want to risk that again. I will have to try to check the shops as they get shrimp in or when they are off quarantine.

I am in a condo downtown and renting.

[jumpsmasher]

Dream Blue come from the Rilli line while Blue Diamond comes from Chocolate shrimps. In the end, either one breed 100% so you will always get a mixture when it comes to their offsprings. (i.e. some rilli's from Dream Blue and chocolate from Blue Diamond). Also since they are all the same species (Neocaridina davidi / heteropoda) as with Red Cherry, Yellow, pumpkin, rilli's, chocoloate etc; they will interbred and you might get some of the "wild" type offspring which essentially look like low grade brownish coloured cherry shrimps.

Blue Dream / Diamond along with Red Ruby are the latest neo colour morph to hit the hobby (at least in this side of the world) so their prices with remain relatively high until something else comes - $8-15 is generally the going market rate for them from reputable online dealers like Shrimpfever or Shrimpwiki. Maybe check with Caine as he been working with Shrimpfever to bring some shrimps in under his new company
http://albertaaquatica.com/index.php?showforum=171

But most of use shrimpers here get our shrimp mostly from group orders or direct imports. It is unfortunate that Pisces don't do a better job with how their shrimp tanks are setted up as they have shown the willingness to bring in a good variety of shrimps