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Do bacteria powders make a noticeable difference?


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So I'm fairly new into the shrimp hobby, and with the past 3 months that I've had my little neocaridina colony I've had 3 berried females. After having them all hatch their eggs and letting them grow for a couple weeks I can count up to 42 baby shrimp in plain sight. So with all the ones hiding in moss and plants I assume that number to be double. This would seem to me to be a fairly high baby survival rate, so I'm wondering... does bacter ae and other similar products really make a noticeable difference? I want to get the best products I can to make the survival rate of the babies the highest I possibly can but I'm wondering if it really has a dramatic effect. With already such a high survival rate, do you think I need bacter ae? I mean it couldn't hurt to add, right? What are your guys opinions and experience with using bacteria powders? Don't be afraid of typing up a novel I'm really interested :)

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Hello NotKelly,

 

I am new to the hobby myself, and I am using Glass Garten Shrimp Baby and Bacteria bee max to increase the survival rate of my baby shrimp. From what I have researched on the net, these products are more of a use when you take care of caridina shrimp. Some of the blogs I have come upon say that new born baby shrimp of neocaridina species are more active and look for food themselves so they crawl around the tank. On the other hand the baby shrimp of the caridina species do not crawl to much and prefer to stay on one spot sometimes several days at a time mostly when they are new born up until a week or so. Please more experienced shrimp keepers shed some light on this and correct me if I am wrong. I have Neos as well as Caridinas (I have Orange Rilis, Fire reds, Blue dreams, Crystal reds and Crystal blacks). I put the bacteria products in few times a week mostly when I see that berried shrimps dont carry the eggs anymore and I see the babies hiding. When you put the product into the tank, it is powder like so it looks like its snowing inside the tank, it gets everywhere so the baby shrimp have enough food to go around. Together with any algae that you have in the tank it should be enough to keep them fed. The downside that I see is that when the shrimp do not eat all of the small particles, they sink to the bottom of the tank and are sucked into the gravel as I have also under-gravel filter (together with external canister filter and foam filters for the shrimp to graze on).

 

From what I see up until now, the survival rate of Neocaridina is much higher than the survival rate of Caridina shrimp, the time that they carry the eggs is similar and also the time it takes them to get berried is similar (nearly 1 month from the hatching, and about 30 or so days from berried to hatching)

 

My water params for Caridina

GH: 5

KH: 0

PH: 6.5

TDS: 150

Temp: 24 - 25C (Chiller takes care of stable water temp)

 

Neocaridina tank

GH: 6

KH: 2

PH: 7.2

TDS: 200 - 250

Temp: 26 - 27C, they also breed in 29C but die soon (no chiller so the temp sometimes climbs up)

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A few months ago, not sure if it was just the batch or coincidence but when I tried some shrimp lab Baby which contains several bacterial strains, dosing a tiny pinch about every other day, several weeks later I had a massive collapse over the course of another several weeks (1-2 deaths per day) that I can only attribute to a bacterial outbreak. Water params were perfect and I keep covers on my tanks, temp was 72. It was a rough few weeks. Stopped dosing and deaths slowed down (maybe also coincidence)?

Since then I haven't fed anything with bacterial strains and very rarely at that. Just mulberry leaves.

This is an interesting topic and def want to hear more about other experiences!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

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12 hours ago, NotKelly said:

But people just said caridina benefit more because neocaridina have higher survival rates to begin with

 

 

Not sure where you heard that, I've never heard of neos having a higher survival rate over cardina.  it's all dependent on making sure you are putting them in the proper environment.

 

 

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22 minutes ago, bostoneric said:

 

 

Not sure where you heard that, I've never heard of neos having a higher survival rate over cardina.  it's all dependent on making sure you are putting them in the proper environment.

 

 

People believe that caridinas do not move as much which results in nutrient deficiency which results in lower survival rate. Neos tend to swim all over and explore which is why their survival rate is likely higher. 

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In my experience neo babies do seem to explore a little more, but not a huge difference in my opinion.  I do believe certain powdered foods especially bacteria powders help exponentially on baby survival rates if not overused.  Overuse of any food/bacteria can cause issues.  I use vin ecological bacteria almost daily, and my tanks with babies i add a little more.  I split 1 scoop between 10-15 tanks when i feed it.  I have always used some sort of powder food/bacteria in my tanks but i have noticed even higher baby survival rates since using the vin ecological bacteria for neos, caridinas, and tigers alike.

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A thought just popped into my head (yaah really).  If I was to take a small bowl/tank with some leaf material in it and added a small amount of Bactre AE or Magic Powder, airstone, ect. would that provide a ready source of food available when shrimp are newly hatched?  I make it a point to always grow/collect nettle, mulberry, and amaranth to have on hand for adults already.

Thanks,,,,Mike

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3 hours ago, oem said:

A thought just popped into my head (yaah really).  If I was to take a small bowl/tank with some leaf material in it and added a small amount of Bactre AE or Magic Powder, airstone, ect. would that provide a ready source of food available when shrimp are newly hatched?  I make it a point to always grow/collect nettle, mulberry, and amaranth to have on hand for adults already.

Thanks,,,,Mike

 

would you add the babies to the bowl or the stuff into the tank?  why not just have that stuff in the tank anyways?

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Hey Eric.  I always have some leaves in the tank already as food and for biofilm.   My thinking is to add some extra when there is an ton of new shrimplets hatching.  The bacteria powders seem to possibly have some issues if too much is added as "a pinch" is an arbitrary amount.  Since it helps promote biofilm on leaves a separate source would eliminate those concerns.

  Thanks,,,,Mike

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On 6/30/2017 at 11:45 AM, bostoneric said:

 

 

Not sure where you heard that, I've never heard of neos having a higher survival rate over cardina.  it's all dependent on making sure you are putting them in the proper environment.

 

 

people in this thread just said that..

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