Purplepanda

Congrats ! So you did not feed them anything other than the algae or green water generated from the spotlight ? Presume you did weekly water changes and just had an air stone running with no filtration ?

Just slow down, take a deep breath, do the research and plan your new hobby thoroughly, otherwise it will be short lived and end in tears... Make sure your tank is cycled/matured and its params are ok for shrimp, then start off with a few tough tester basic shrimp like ordinary cherries and then in the coming months decide how you want to progress with being a shrimper or not.. .

thanks, I can usually sex my shrimp having collected and bred for several years, I mainly wanted confirmation on the two adolescents which I suspect are both male, but wondered if they could possibly be females that have not developed saddles yet ?

ok thanks, I'm thinking the two shrimp together in the first pic are males.. have only four or five OEBTs so keen to find out..

As for the tubes just remember you get dimmable and non dimmable tubes..

Some great tanks there, amazing how they all seem so well kept and trim ! Is there not an option of adding more on the roof, once the hurricane subsides of course ?

Consider LED tubes, I find the strips a bit fiddly and needs quit a bit of DIY with aluminium tracks.. If you go this strip route I would consider the brighter 5630 strips rather than 5050, but depends on the depth of your tanks and your mounting height of course .

Apologies for the low quality phone snaps, the single shrimp in the last pic is the same as one of those in the first pic ? Shrimp are not full grown yet ... They all look the same to me

I'm using the conventional grid plate UGFs in many of my shrimps tanks combined with sponges and canisters in the bigger tanks, work great ! The trick for me.. I add two layers of plastic fly gauze one directly on the plate to minimise any substrate granules going though underneath and then another layer above 20mm of volcanic/ larva granules which I have directly above the plate with the ADA or whatever above this. Works a charm. When I w'change I often do a light gravel vac of the ADA, so the layer of gauze underneath make this very easy and user friendly and prevents the ADA getting mixed with the larva chips. A couple of times a year I w'change by siphoning out the gunk underneath the UGF plates thought the up pipes, removing the air stone and pipe first of course. pic taken at back of the side of a tank, as can't see the UGF from the front

It's too late if berried with eggs underneath, breeder boxes are normally used for selective breeding so you can choose you preferred male when the female is ready to be mated and the eggs are clearly visible in her saddle rather than already fertilised and in her undercarriage/ abdomen.

I will be giving the tubs or trays in my case a go shortly in a large shallow 350L tank. Might drill lots of small holes, smaller than the substrate of course, into the trays to increase air flow, was also considering raising the trays a little off the ground to aid circulation and another hiding place for the shrimp. Nothing tried nothing gained .... might as well link this thread as kind of the same thing.... https://www.google.co.za/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=8&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwjrw6S3-f7TAhUrIsAKHVBhB98QFghjMAc&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.shrimpspot.com%2Findex.php%3F%2Ftopic%2F1328-soils-substrate-and-bare-bottoms%2F&usg=AFQjCNGox-kHzTIRHY-NrxFXzKn8sj6Mig

not an easy task, but a few folk have managed it with limited success ..

the gunk and stagnant pockets. Shrimp go crazy for the turned over substrate their bimonthly highlight and seems to work a dream. I always leave the white bucket with the waste to settle and using a headlamp on the floor shining through the side remove any shrimplets..

more importantly did the shrimp care for it ? How long would ADA Amazonia buffer for with zero KH I wonder ?