Ramp Inc.

Hello! I'm new to shrimping and I have a question about crossing caridina lines. I've got a colony of BKK/BKK Panda and I was wondering if adding BTOE (BT0 & BT1) shrimps might produce attractive offspring? What color would their eyes be? Would they resemble anything pinto? Any ideas on what they might look like or what I might expect to see?

I got one of those cholla branches from save-on-crafts.com and it pretty much looks like the picture. It's big. It cost a lot to ship though and in my opinion it's too ugly to use as a center piece. Don't bother buying the "bonsai" wood. My piece was tiny and stupid looking. But their manzanita pieces are great.

If I wanted to cross BKK or panda with OEBT or royal blue tiger would their offspring have orange eyes? Im interested in doing some selective breeding and don't particularly care for the orange eye phenotype.

Awesome find! Alternatively, you can use Rit clothing dye powder ($1) to dye pvc any color you want. Just boil water in an old pot on the stove, add the dye and pvc pieces and let it simmer for 20 mins. Once you're satisfied with the color saturation, rinse it off and let it cool. The color is permanent and doesn't come off in water. Works great for smaller pieces but long pieces are of course difficult.

Thanks for the info Mr F. I hadn't considered that it might be diatoms. The stringy stuff is in long thin, clear strands and it seems to be growing on brown leaves and collaboration wood. And growing fastest in the parts of the tank with a lot of current. Since it's cycling with an Aqua clear 110, roughly half the tank has strong current. I had forgotten how powerful these filters are and will be taking steps to restrict the flow before I add my shrimp. Instead of nuking the tank I went to the LFS and picked up half a dozen small mollies. If I remember correctly their flat mouths are well suited to eating string algae (if that's what it is). They seem to be happily foraging for food and leaving the hitchhiker alone. Hopefully they keep doing both because I dont plan to feed them. At the very least they'll help cycle the tank. Are there reasons people prefer ramshorn and nerite snails to keep with their shrimp? Would either of these work to clear up the mess?

Hi all, First time poster, long time lurker here. I have a 40b newly planted tank cycling for future shrimp. Last week I bought a huge clump of pellia/java moss from my LFS. It looks great, is doing well, and actually came with a free cherry shrimp hitchhiker. But after a week of high light from the finnex 24/7 I noticed a few strands of thread algae on it and some other plants in the tank. I'm not looking for treatments to control it. I want the algae dead. Like, eradicated dead. Hopefully before I add my shrimp and it gets harder to treat. What are my options? If I remove my pioneer shrimp can I use an algaecide followed by water changes? Will it leave a deadly residue for later? Will the HP treatment harm my bacteria cycling?