MK-BREED Q & A

[randy]

Subtle, of course he uses his own product mk breed blue diamond. In my experience, it's about 3-4ml to adjust about 3 gallons ro to achieve Tds 140, gh 5.

[Soothing Shrimp]

Seems like it would be expensive for a tenner or 20g though with weekly wc, no?

[Subtletanks91]

I may be swapping rwmineralizers.

[randy]

Seems like it would be expensive for a tenner or 20g though with weekly wc, no?

 

A 200ml bottle is $15. So if you have a 10G tank, doing 10% weekly WC it requires about 1-2 ml. That's more than 100 weeks of WC or about 2 years + on one bottle.  Hope I did my math right.

[Subtletanks91]

So remineralizing 5g of water 5-7ml of blue diomand to achieve 140 tds and gh5 every week or two weeks for water changes gives you roughly 27 weeks of water changes and there's roughly 48 weeks per year. My math isn't so good either but that sounds about right to me. So overall your soending about 30$ on remineralizer per year for one tank wich is roughly the same cost as salty shrimp gh

[Soothing Shrimp]

gotta check my math here...

[countryboy12484]

That's what I was thinking too subtle, or around 14 weeks with one tenner around that gh.

So one bottle wouldn't last you a week hu?

[Subtletanks91]

Its times like this I'm glad I have one shrimp tank lol it saves alot of money.

[Sbarbee54]

I am glad i am down sizing.  I am thinking of getting out of NEOS all together

[Subtletanks91]

I like neos in the aspect they don't need much cars and that there is boundless colors and combinations but I think that cards and tb have more of a self rewarding statute when breeding them.

Yet there is two rcs in my tank still somehow, I thought I netted and sold them all Appearantly not.

[Soothing Shrimp]

So I just did several calculations here.  It really isn't bad if you have just a couple tanks.  I have tenners, and have experience right now with SS gh/kh which breaks down to roughly .06 per wc.  MK breaks down to roughly .15 per wc.  In just a few tanks, the cost isn't much of a difference- plus, liquid is much better in my opinion than powder which tends to clump up or be inaccurate at times.

 

However since I have more than one tank (60+), $173 per year vs $432 per year make a bit of a difference in my budget.  Wish I could focus on TB/Pinto tanks and make it all worth it.  My temp flux is just too great in my aqua room.

[Subtletanks91]

How the heck do you have room for that many tanks

[Sbarbee54]

He has a room dedicated to it.  I want a basement and i would dedicate it all to 60 tanks!  I had 16, down to 12 now, want to get down to 8 or 6

[Soothing Shrimp]

yeah, but you have expensive shrimp- so you come out ahead in my opinion.

[Sbarbee54]

Yes i do keep high end shrimp, but they dont sell well.  I can blow through neos probably 100-1 of my PBL or nicer shrimp.  Going to start a Pinto project soon

[Jayr_Tigley]

Do mk brees have official website?

[randy]

Do mk brees have official website?

He is working on it, he mainly uses Facebook and has thousands of likes.

 

Here is the link : https://www.facebook.com/mkbreed?ref=br_tf

[Greenteam]

I was curious about the MK-BREED Life Ball.

 

It says "effectively maintains a stable PH aquarium environment."  The thing is at what PH level? I'm not sure what it's doing to the PH or how it keeps it stable.

[Subtletanks91]

The only way to effectively assess the ph values of the balls is to use a ten gallon tank at a known tap water ph. Drop one in wait several days and test ph. Do this until you get a ph drop or change and it stays steady and stable.

[randy]

I got the answer today about the ph feature of the life balls. It doesn't change ph directly, but it absorbs elements in the water that may alter ph. So if you are planning to use them to lower your ph, you may get disappointed.

The main feature of life balls is releasing trace elements slowly into the water and absorbs elements thats harmful to the aquatic lives, at the same time it reduces the algae growth.

[Subtletanks91]

How does it reduce algae growth.

[randy]

Let me try to answer this, algae grwoth normally indicates inbalanced nutrients in tank, so too much of something and not enough of something else. These balls will aborbs and releases in a way to maintain the balance. He touched on this a bit while telling me whst these balls are. If you read other similar products‘ descriptions you will find similar claims. He did told me his formula is based on another product thats almost twice the.price and add more types of elements that are.known good for shrimps.

[Subtletanks91]

Yeah we talked about that already. Haha.

so next question for Mk. What qualities does he look for in shrimp when he selective breeds them. And what are some of his secrets to breeding successfully with only one tank available. Alsoooo, what his favorite food mineralized and powder from his products

[randy]

Yeah we talked about that already. Haha.

so next question for Mk. What qualities does he look for in shrimp when he selective breeds them. And what are some of his secrets to breeding successfully with only one tank available. Alsoooo, what his favorite food mineralized and powder from his products

What MK looks for in a PRL are, roughly in this order:

1. Shell thickness. The shell need to be thick and complete (not broken), and the whiteness must be good.

2. The redness on the body and legs. It's the quality of the colour, then coverage. (i.e. where it's red, it should be red, and the edge should be well defined)

3. Body shape. (the scale, i.e. not big head, or deformed)

4. Colour of the legs (coverage), and Maro Ten spots.

5. Pattern (what we call S/SS/SSS) doesn't really matter too much. Although each pattern may have slightly different "standard".

 

 

For one tank selectively breeding:

MK uses at least 6-8 tanks for each line of his PRL. He tried but couldn't think of a way to do it with one tank, and could only imagine how much more time it will require to achieve what he can do with 6-8 tanks.

 

 

For his favourite in his product line. He uses all the additive when setting up a new tank, and each different food has its own place and in his opinion they can't be replaced by anything else. He doesn't feed veggies directly.

[Subtletanks91]

Very good information and answers. Haha. So for each line of prl he uses 6-8 tanks. For one line