kell73k Posted November 24, 2014 Report Share Posted November 24, 2014 My tb community tank was not breeding. last week I decided to give them a treat of bloodworms when I was feeding my fish. I now have 4 berried females in the tank when nothing else changed. Did the increase in protein cause the breeding, and were they not getting enough before? I was strictly feeding bacteria, leaves, and snowflake prior to this. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
julianzh Posted November 24, 2014 Report Share Posted November 24, 2014 Interesting. If it true, I wanted to try too. Which brand of bloodworm? kell73k 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shrimpy Daddy Posted November 24, 2014 Report Share Posted November 24, 2014 Snowflake has a lot of protein. Hence, I don't think they are lack of protein. You mentioned you are feeding bacteria. Are you able to elaborate more? Are you referring to feeding those shrimp-specialty bacteria powder? How long did you shrimp stop breeding for? kell73k 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kell73k Posted November 24, 2014 Author Report Share Posted November 24, 2014 Interesting. If it true, I wanted to try too. Which brand of bloodworm? Not sure I threw out the box they came in Bought them at a lfs was the cubed frozen in reddish box packaging. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kell73k Posted November 24, 2014 Author Report Share Posted November 24, 2014 Snowflake has a lot of protein. Hence, I don't think they are lack of protein. You mentioned you are feeding bacteria. Are you able to elaborate more? Are you referring to feeding those shrimp-specialty bacteria powder? How long did you shrimp stop breeding for? I have been using ridx to feed them once a week and the snowflake a few times a week. They never breed for me at all until now. They have been in the new tank for about a month now. I could not get the nitrates low in the two tanks I had so I made a larger community tank with ADA substrate, it has been up a few months now. They have molted before and danced around but never berried. I fed them the bloodworms and noticed two molts and then two berried. fed them bloodworms again and now two more berried up making me think it was the bloodworms. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shrimpy Daddy Posted November 24, 2014 Report Share Posted November 24, 2014 It is very normal for new shrimp not to breed in new environment. This could be caused by too young of age or health issue. What you had observed was most likely coincident or your shrimps lack of nutrients (not protein) and bloodworm supplied it. However, lack of nutrients problem usually need at least 2 weeks to fix. Therefore, it is very unlikely resolve the problem by just a single feeding. Be careful on feeding live bloodworm. It does pollute water badly when overfed. Sometimes it will carry pathogen or other type of worms (such as planaria). In order to combat this, it is better to use freeze-dried type. kell73k 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kell73k Posted November 24, 2014 Author Report Share Posted November 24, 2014 It is very normal for new shrimp not to breed in new environment. This could be caused by too young of age or health issue. What you had observed was most likely coincident or your shrimps lack of nutrients (not protein) and bloodworm supplied it. However, lack of nutrients problem usually need at least 2 weeks to fix. Therefore, it is very unlikely resolve the problem by just a single feeding. Be careful on feeding live bloodworm. It does pollute water badly when overfed. Sometimes it will carry pathogen or other type of worms (such as planaria). In order to combat this, it is better to use freeze-dried type. Ok thank you. I do worry about if they are getting proper nutrients. I use ss gh+ and a pinch of mosura mud. I also bought a kit to measure my calcium but could never find anything anywhere to tell me what it should be so even after I knew it meant nothing lol Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shrimpy Daddy Posted November 24, 2014 Report Share Posted November 24, 2014 Not just you, it should be 99% of the shrimp keepers unable to find out problem based on test kits. There are hundreds or thousands things that are not measurable at home environment. I ever thought of writing an article to target problems. But I was too busy and don't have time to pen it down. Hopefully, I should be able to create this article by starting next year. There is a guy with the forum nick called ShrimpFan. I have taught him a lot on taking care of TB. If you have question, you could ping him for guidance. Soothing Shrimp, kell73k and EricM 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JamesHe Posted November 24, 2014 Report Share Posted November 24, 2014 snowflake is not staple food. you need regular shrimp food for daily basis. I only feed snowflake not more than once a week. I highly recommend MK-Breed shrimp food. Han has it. kell73k and h4n 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kell73k Posted November 24, 2014 Author Report Share Posted November 24, 2014 Not just you, it should be 99% of the shrimp keepers unable to find out problem based on test kits. There are hundreds or thousands things that are not measurable at home environment. I ever thought of writing an article to target problems. But I was too busy and don't have time to pen it down. Hopefully, I should be able to create this article by starting next year. There is a guy with the forum nick called ShrimpFan. I have taught him a lot on taking care of TB. If you have question, you could ping him for guidance Look forward to reading it Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shrimpy Daddy Posted November 24, 2014 Report Share Posted November 24, 2014 Forgot to mention this. If you wanted to prevent the new tank to have nitrate overloaded issue, just use Purigen in your filter. Recharge it whenever it is medium brown. When it reaches medium brown, it will lose efficiency by about half. Based on my experience, it is about 2 to 3 weeks recharge once (1 small bag per 15 to 25G tank). kell73k 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kell73k Posted November 24, 2014 Author Report Share Posted November 24, 2014 snowflake is not staple food. you need regular shrimp food for daily basis. I only feed snowflake not more than once a week. I highly recommend MK-Breed shrimp food. Han has it. I was having trouble finding something my fish would eat. Han sent me some samples with my plants and they didn't want any of them and after reading where others were keeping good water quality by only feeding snowflake and bacteria I decided to give that a shot especially since I was having nitrate issues. Now that they are in the newer tank I have found they will eat almost anything I put in, so I think the other tanks just had enough stuff to keep them full all the time. I do also give them leaves and veggies. I will be letting them have some other foods from now on though. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shrimpy Daddy Posted November 24, 2014 Report Share Posted November 24, 2014 Eh.... I doubt a strict snowflake and bacteria diet is good for shrimp. Snowflake will pollute water badly too, just that you can't measure what it leeches. Regarding the bacteria, how do you ensure you have plenty in tank? I think I asked in my previous post but you may have missed it. However for your new tank, if you are using proper substrate there are plenty of nutrients. Usually lack of nutrients problems will only occur with older tank. Feed 1/4 shrimp wafer (use your finger nails to break them) every 3 days (this is enough for 50 to 100 shrimps). Take out unfinished food after 4 to 8 hours. Choose those that does not melt in water. kell73k and EricM 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EricM Posted November 24, 2014 Report Share Posted November 24, 2014 snowflake is not staple food. you need regular shrimp food for daily basis. I only feed snowflake not more than once a week. I highly recommend MK-Breed shrimp food. Han has it. not sure i totally agree with this. feeding regular shrimp food on daily basis is great way to ruin your water parameters. this is why i recommend the SL-Aqua foods, they DO NOT break down in the water. I recommend fresh veggies, having plenty of leaves in your tank, a protein here and there, but not daily food. also good to have a mix of different foods. shrimp seem to get bored when feed the same food daily. remember they get most of their diet from the tank and we are only feeding supplemental foods for things they naturally cant find in our tanks. kell73k 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JamesHe Posted November 24, 2014 Report Share Posted November 24, 2014 I was having trouble finding something my fish would eat. Han sent me some samples with my plants and they didn't want any of them and after reading where others were keeping good water quality by only feeding snowflake and bacteria I decided to give that a shot especially since I was having nitrate issues. Now that they are in the newer tank I have found they will eat almost anything I put in, so I think the other tanks just had enough stuff to keep them full all the time. I do also give them leaves and veggies. I will be letting them have some other foods from now on though. If they lost appetite, then would be health issue. Don't get me wrong, I feed my shrimp with varies of shrimp food, not single one. there is my feeding schedule: Sunday: Mulberry Leaf / Snowflak / Barley Straw Pellets Monday: GlasGarten Shrimp Dinner, one Gran per 3 shrimps Tuesday: MK-Breed Red, one stick Wednesday: GlasGarten Bacter AE, 1/2 dose Thursday: MK-Breed Cheeseburger, one stick Friday: Other brand shrimp food I have, random feed. Saturday: Bloodworm, one cube, every 2 weeks/ GlasGarten Bacter AE, 1/2 dose I have about 300+ shrimp in this tank. I do not follow it strictly, but close. food would be gone in an hour or so. I do 25% water chagne weekly to control the water quality, and lots of floaters plus I have Purigen in filter. svetilda and kell73k 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JamesHe Posted November 24, 2014 Report Share Posted November 24, 2014 not sure i totally agree with this. feeding regular shrimp food on daily basis is great way to ruin your water parameters. this is why i recommend the SL-Aqua foods, they DO NOT break down in the water. I recommend fresh veggies, having plenty of leaves in your tank, a protein here and there, but not daily food. also good to have a mix of different foods. shrimp seem to get bored when feed the same food daily. remember they get most of their diet from the tank and we are only feeding supplemental foods for things they naturally cant find in our tanks. Boston, it depends. If you have lot of shrimp, daily feeding is required. I don't have any algae in the tank with lots of shrimp. only some green spot algae that shrimp doesn't touch. Besides that, the tank is very cleaning. I do dose GlasGarten Bacter AE to make sure there is ncie Biofilm on the surface inside the tank. EricM and kell73k 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kell73k Posted November 24, 2014 Author Report Share Posted November 24, 2014 Thanks everyone for the suggestions on feeding. I do have lots of leaves in the tank for them. I think I will get another type of bacter to feed and once a week let them have some other type of food and alternating bloodworms every other week since they go crazy for them. I only have about 40 or 50 shrimp in the tank and do try to remove what they don't eat after a few hours with a small airline tube. I will definitely be ordering some purgen to add to my filter as recommended so nitrates don't spike up. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jadenlea Posted November 25, 2014 Report Share Posted November 25, 2014 Don't get me wrong, I love Purigen and I have used it for years in all my tanks but it is no miracle nitrate eraser . Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shrimpy Daddy Posted November 25, 2014 Report Share Posted November 25, 2014 Don't get me wrong, I love Purigen and I have used it for years in all my tanks but it is no miracle nitrate eraser . Purigen is more effective to remove organics before becoming nitrate. It does remove nitrate if you had put enough quantity inside. If you are encountering high nitrate even after using Purigen, then possibilities are: You did not recharge frequently; The amount of Purigen is not enough; Overfeeding .or over-populated Too much decaying material, such as plants. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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