Subtletanks91 Posted January 28, 2015 Report Share Posted January 28, 2015 In the following I will express my opinion and my experience as well as what I recommend for people just starting out. Again this is my opinion, I welcome everyone's opinion as well as there experiences. Not everyone will agree and I would like to keep this thread clean of vulgaris as well as heated debates. This is to help anyone new to th e hobby out not debate. I started out with cherry shrimp, what a mistake that was. My tank was established and we'll set up at a neutral Ph I cycled it with a beta and low light plants. That was two years ago. It was a ten gallon with gravel and some coral to keep the Ph stable. No matter what I did how I kept my parameters I always had a die off of at least half my shrimp. So I said screw it and Re did the entire tank. I started from scratch got a finnex light, floral c3, amazonia. I started cycling the tank the way I always do and it cycled in roughlythree weeks. I waited for some bio film to grow and put in my plants and ordered my first crystals. WI th in a month they had started to breed. Within 4 months I had tripped my stock and bought some more. The amazonia kept. Stable Ph. My tds was controlled by my remiN. Gh and Kh controlled by my ro Water. But I let my nitrates spike just to see what would happen. To my surprise no th ING had changed in the tempermenu or activity of the crystals. My point I recommend crystals for starter shrimp because no one gives them enough credit for there resilience, and you don't have to worry about cross breeding creating wild neos either. High5's 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RyeGuy411 Posted January 28, 2015 Report Share Posted January 28, 2015 Funny I have also had trouble with die off of my cherry shrimp and no issues keeping TB's. Im not sure what it was in my case, I suspect the water might have something to do with it. Tap for cherries and remin RO for TB's. But I have not altered my water for my cherries ever and now I have no die offs months later. BTW using well water with prime so the water does not change like some municipal systems. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
High5's Posted January 28, 2015 Report Share Posted January 28, 2015 I think there is some misconception with nitrates and shrimp keeping. If we where talking about saltwater I would say keep nitrates as close to zero as you can, but we are talking about fresh water and it's not as relevant to shrimp keeping as one may think. I would rather have 40 to 60 ppm of nitrate than 5ppm ammonia as long as ammonia and nitrite are zero should be your main concern this is what will kill your shrimp. Nitrates can be addressed over time ammonia and nitrites can not and must be remove right away or shrimp will die. As far as other parameters they can drift up and down as long as it isn't sudden, temp, TDS, GH and PH, for instance I can start with a TDS of 120 and GH of 4, over time this can drift to a TDS of 160 and GH of 7 as long as you keep between GH 4 and 7 your good at anytime I can slowly lower it back into my desired range. Do you catch my drift? R/o d/i water isn't necessary but it dose give you more control over water parameters. If you use tap I would recommend aerating and aging along with some type of de chlorinator before use. Active substrates aren't a must but give us additional control when keeping sensitive species. Neo's and Bee shrimp are a good start as they are pretty resilient as long as you provide a proper environment. Driftwood, moss and leaf litter are the holy trinity of shrimp keeping. Shrimping is fun and not as hard as you think, a basic understanding of water chemistry and willingness to learn is all that's needed to keep shrimp. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Subtletanks91 Posted January 28, 2015 Author Report Share Posted January 28, 2015 Exactly. As long as you can keep fish alive you can keep shrimp alive, now thriving and breeding always takes an extra effort with any specie. But I never had luck with neos and I kept them in optimum settings, I even had neos when I started my crystal tank and they survived for a long time in bee Params. But for meme, I will always revcomend bee as a first gateway to shrimp. It's easier to keep the Params under control, spot problems before th eri happen, and easier to treat illnes. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chibikaie Posted January 28, 2015 Report Share Posted January 28, 2015 I don't think it's appropriate to have any amount of ammonia in any aquatic system. If people are going around recommending high ammonia and zero nitrates, I *really* don't think you should be listening to them. Subtletanks91 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RyeGuy411 Posted January 29, 2015 Report Share Posted January 29, 2015 I don't think it's appropriate to have any amount of ammonia in any aquatic system. If people are going around recommending high ammonia and zero nitrates, I *really* don't think you should be listening to them. Who said anything about high ammonia? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
munakgirl Posted January 29, 2015 Report Share Posted January 29, 2015 Newbie question... what does ro water stand for? What's the difference in using ro vs conditioned tap? What are the different things you have to treat and control to get the right balance. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
woopderson Posted January 29, 2015 Report Share Posted January 29, 2015 I think Crystals are great starter shrimp as well. That is what I started with and have had great success. They are pretty hardy! In the following I will express my opinion and my experience as well as what I recommend for people just starting out. Again this is my opinion, I welcome everyone's opinion as well as there experiences. Not everyone will agree and I would like to keep this thread clean of vulgaris as well as heated debates. This is to help anyone new to th e hobby out not debate.I started out with cherry shrimp, what a mistake that was. My tank was established and we'll set up at a neutral Ph I cycled it with a beta and low light plants. That was two years ago. It was a ten gallon with gravel and some coral to keep the Ph stable. No matter what I did how I kept my parameters I always had a die off of at least half my shrimp. So I said screw it and Re did the entire tank.I started from scratch got a finnex light, floral c3, amazonia. I started cycling the tank the way I always do and it cycled in roughlythree weeks. I waited for some bio film to grow and put in my plants and ordered my first crystals. WI th in a month they had started to breed. Within 4 months I had tripped my stock and bought some more.The amazonia kept. Stable Ph. My tds was controlled by my remiN. Gh and Kh controlled by my ro Water. But I let my nitrates spike just to see what would happen. To my surprise no th ING had changed in the tempermenu or activity of the crystals.My point I recommend crystals for starter shrimp because no one gives them enough credit for there resilience, and you don't have to worry about cross breeding creating wild neos either. RO stands for Reverse Osmosis. RO is nice to use because you can control it's parameters. Sometimes tap water can have a very high KH/GH/TDS, whereas RO has much less. That way you can add mineralizer to control your levels precisely. This is ideal for most caridina shrimp. You can also use RO/DI (Deionized) to achieve 0 levels on all fronts for even more preciseness. Newbie question... what does ro water stand for?What's the difference in using ro vs conditioned tap? What are the different things you have to treat and control to get the right balance. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OMG Aquatics Posted January 29, 2015 Report Share Posted January 29, 2015 I think Crystals are great starter shrimp as well. That is what I started with and have had great success. They are pretty hardy! RO stands for Reverse Osmosis. RO is nice to use because you can control it's parameters. Sometimes tap water can have a very high KH/GH/TDS, whereas RO has 0 on all fronts. That way you can add mineralizer to control your levels precisely. This is ideal for most caridina shrimp. I might be wrong but I thought only RO/DI can get your TDS to 0? Unless your water was already 0 to begin with? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
woopderson Posted January 29, 2015 Report Share Posted January 29, 2015 That is correct, my apologies. I will correct it! I might be wrong but I thought only RO/DI can get your TDS to 0? Unless your water was already 0 to begin with? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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