CRS - Water quality

[bikeguru]

Do not feed these shrimps a high protein diet food. Around 30% to 35% (sometimes around 40%) is perfect. The food with lots of iron and minerals is the best as it helps to bring out their color. I tend to only use spinach once a week or once every other week. If spinach is used, please make sure the spinach is organic (no pesticides or insecticides whatsoever) and use only baby spinach leaves. This is very important because “normal” spinach that is sold out there have been sprayed with either/both of these chemicals, pesticides or insecticides. Just by using hand washing on the leaves under running tap water is not enough to remove it since these chemicals contains wax-like substances to make sure the chemicals stay on the leaves even when it rains. So to insure safety for your shrimps, try to stick with organic vegetables.

[bikeguru]

Have some moss and plants for them to forge on. It also controls the nitrate and ammonia level. Try your best not to use Anubias or Crypt plants, but if you have them just please try your best not to trim the plants (leaves and stems) inside the shrimp tank. Especially never cut the rhizome of the Anubias plant and plant it back right away in your shrimp tank. Freshly cut rhizome/roots/stems/leaves from Anubias and Crypt. Plants (especially Anubias) leak a toxic substance to your tank.

[bikeguru]

Or if you observe your shrimps swimming like crazy in your tank after you trim the rhizome of the Anubias plants, then you know you will have to take out the Anubias plant and carry out 80% water change right away. However, if you have great filtration/circulation in your tank, then it "should" not be a problem depending on the size of your aquarium but I will still recommend to carry out a water change just to be on the safe side. Do not use fertilizer if it contains copper for it is toxic to shrimps in general if the shrimps are housed in an aquarium already. If you still want to use fertilizer, then

[bikeguru]

I would recommend just using Seachem Flourish and cutting the doses stated in the bottle by half or more, depending on how much plants you have and the growth rate of the plants themselves. Java moss, peacock moss, string moss, Christmas moss, Fissiden sp. moss, or any other moss would work. If you have driftwoods or stones, tie your moss onto it using threads or very thin fishing line. Over time, your moss will grow very nicely (forming shapes) and your shrimps will have other grazing areas including areas for them to hide as well.

[bikeguru]

Ammonia has to be absolute zero, and nitrate has to be at a minimum. These shrimps love clean water so 30% to 50% water changes weekly is highly recommended.

CRS/Black Bee shrimps and Tiger shrimp cannot be housed together because they will interbreed and their interbred hybrid offsprings will look nothing like their parents but tend to resemble their "Tiger" parental shrimps. Because of that you will not get anymore pure CRS species which means all of the money you have spent on high grade CRS will go down the drain.

[eklikewhoa]

Damn bikeguru... where's the rest of the book? LoL

What are you doing for water? aging? RO/DI

[madehtsobi]

good tips! thanks!!

[76dragon]

Thanks for your post. Finally a real good real world breeder tips.

Phung

[bikeguru]

We all looking for that little thing......that little trick.........or special treatment that makes every shrimp special!!
Are we trying to bend the rules of nature??? Well not me, nature is as it is and live by it. as do my shrimp too.
There's no RO/DI unit in the rice fields of Japan or Taiwan!! Is the water sparkling clear??? They don't have that special food that makes them super shrimp. But than again a little bend in natures way can't harm them, you want the best water for them and the best as possible food. My tanks are not pretty where the shrimp are housing in but a general rule I say "Why fix it if it ain't broken" Yes my shrimp has downs but the recover.
There was once a plan "World of Shrimp"...............Ya like that?? Yes Robert Paul Hudson "Aquabotanic.com" and me almost did it to change the way of shrimp keeping and breeding..........Yes you can guess there's is always a BUT!! Long story short Robert went in to writing and radio shows about Nano aquascaping and shrimp. Me........... oh well I like what I do and enjoy it every day the fullest of it.
All what I try to say, do what you think is right for some healthy shrimping.

Feed your faith, and doubt will starve to death!

[76dragon]

interested in waste producer? What do you mean, dead or dying plants. Miracle grow dirt? mud??

What the heck is mulm??

I believe these are grazers. Also, these have been selective bred so much that they are no where near the quality in health as their more natural state. Plus you are talking about a body of water compared to a tub of water.


With the akadama I think you would need some sort of waste producer/mulm for it to absorb to it's full potential.

[eklikewhoa]

mulm is decomposed matter that builds up in filters or bottom of tanks

[76dragon]

So mulm is the crud that gets filtered out with filter socks and floss?? I got tons of that if thats the case.. Isn't that just fish waste that is decomposing??

[bikeguru]

It's all kind of waste that end up in your water column. It's the ultimate fertilizer for your plants. In a shrimp only tank it's ok to have if you just do WC with 100% ro/di cause you don't want to put nitrate and ammonia with it cause of a potential algae bloom overnight.
I have that mulm in my ponds and I guess the shrimp have mulm wrestling matches in there, LOL.