Rehab

Hello, So, I have pintos that I have been keeping for years... They are mixed (black and red), with different patterns, and they used to breed insanely before. I think at one point, their numbers were close to a 1,000, so I had to keep rehoming them. However, for this year, they just keep dropping the eggs and I have no idea what the reason is... They do get berried and I see them fanning quite often, but they drop their eggs pretty soon after a few days or weeks. The thing is, I have another tank right beside the pinto tank, which started out with EBBs (but bad strain so now it's a mixture of light BBs ~ EBBs), and they are still consistently breeding. They have the same plants, same substrate (ADA Amazonia, although pinto's substrate is like a year older), same water, same salty shrimp gH+, almost the same TDS, sitting in the same room, similar temp, same food... I kinda stopped measuring the parameters since last summer, because they have been staying consistently at: pH ~6.0 (ADA Amazonia) gH ~5~6 kH <1 TDS 100~120 (when it comes time to top up or change water, it becomes around 120). temp ~ 22C ammonia 0 nitrite 0 some nitrate -- I would have to re-measure them again, but both tanks have been staying at these levels for a longgg time. Any tips or suggestions would be much appreciated... Why are they dropping their eggs all the time...? :(

Wow! so I am assuming that, over subsequent generations, the shrimplets adapt to the higher pH?

Nice to meet ya. I am from Tdot as well!

Hello, Currently I have been keeping caridinas. It was my first time trying it out last year and I would say overall it has been quite successful - although here and there I faced some difficulties and shrimp loss. I have two tanks: - One with CRS A/S, with higher grades popping up here and there. - Another with CRS x golden bee (I got them for free). I am trying to see how their offsprings would look like - possibly golden bees that I would want to try breeding. I will not be mixing these guys with my CRS A/S though. Anyway, I hope I can learn more and also share my bits of opinion in shrimp keeping here! The photos show growing shrimplets from the CRS A/S tank!

Wow this is very interesting.. so it is possible to grow the Caridina shrimplets in such high pH? Even 7.4-7.6 seems pretty high...

Hello, I am wondering if anyone has good knowledge about the effects of kH and temperature to the pH? I noticed that sometimes the pH of my small 10G tank fluctuated, but the substrate, ADA Amazonia, was still fresh. To this day, it has still not been a year since putting the new substrate. For instance, as the season changed from winter-spring-early summer, the pH seemed to have increased to 6.3 ish (before it was very consistent at 6.0). Plus, during that season transition, I ended up losing blue bolts and some high grade CRS as the temperature unexpectedly increased too much (I suspect it was the temp. because other parameters were all within the normal range) - it was my first time trying out BB :(. So, in order to solve the temperature issue, I moved my 10G tank down to the basement, and now the temperature is consistent at 20~22 degrees Celsius. What is interesting is that the pH is now back to being 6.0; the API test kit appears as yellow! Now, I have more than 40 shrimplets which are very healthy and growing. Many have successfully entered the juvenile stage. + I think that about 3 months after setting up ADA Amazonia, I noticed the pH change once, which I did not consider seriously as shrimps were still healthy. - I did some search online and read that the low kH levels could lead to the fluctuation of the pH... So my question is: Does the temperature usually affect the pH signficantly in a tank with RO/DI water + salty shrimp GH (hence kH <1)? Or... could it be that the substrate was defective? I doubt that honestly but meh there could be many other possibilities. It could be wrong observations, too (but others also noticed the pH increase!). The 10G tank parameters: pH 6.0 or less ammonia, nitrite, nitrate 0 GH 6 KH <1 TDS 120 No CO2 injection (only have mosses and low light plants for shrimps) During the season change and shrimp deaths: the temperature increased a lot, and pH increased by ~0.3 Thanks!