Just starting out. What am I missing?

[Crackhead Johny]

OK I have just taken up an interest in shrimp. Enough so that I drove out to my father's place and grabbed my tanks that I abandoned there when I went to college.

 

So right now I have a 55 with a fluval 306 with a corner filter over its intake (I want to add a spray bar to cut the current). 2 large pieces of drift wood. and plants 6 Madagascar lace, 2 big swords, moss, etc. right now there are otos in it and some amano shrimp (I can spot 1), today it got 10 small celestial dannios. Up and running a few months now.

In this tank I want to have bloody marys and a mix of tibee/blue bolts/pandas/oebts/etc (plan to find on CL as I do not know anyone in MN with cool shrimp at a non-silly price). I'm not getting the PH or solids down far enough yet so will be picking up iSpring rcc7 RO. Substrate is Caribsea eco complete with one sack of some sort of glassy petco lava sand since the bags of carib were not enough.

right now 74.x degrees, PH 7 (want to go 6.5), 0 nitrates/nitrites and too much hardness 50 I think (I'd have to run another strip)? Moderate/Heavy tannin.

1. As I understand you can have a whole pile of different cardenia and they will all breed then you can pick out the interesting ones from the herd and put them in another tank? Where as I can only have one variety of neo?

2. is the iSpring rcc7 a go RO for shrimp? I have been filling small fluvals with distilled and it didn't kill any cherrys but I do not know if the coil is stainless plated.

 

15 gal with drift wood. Caribsea floromax and more of that petsmart lava sand. Big HOB power filter with sponge over the intake. Same water as above other than right now it is 78 degrees. My thoughts for this was that anything interesting bred in the main tank would end up here. right now there are only plants, moss and 1 big ghost shrimp which would go in a bowl if valuable shrimp were moving in. Light tannin.

 

10 gal. like 15 but no driftwood. It is breeding bettas right now so can't be used for shrimp. But might be open in the future if bettas go wrong or we run out of space for more bettas.

My wife's fluval 5 has 7-8 cherrys in it but they do not seem to be breeding (tank is insanely planted so it is hard to tell). I know why the 2 cherrys in my tank didn't breed (the "male" developed a saddle after being in the tank a week)

 

I was going to make a large snail "tank" out of a plastic tub, foam filter, and moss with a heater and grow light so I can grow food for my new dwarf puffer (in fluval 3). At the moment I may or may not do this as the puffer refuses to eat snails or anything else. If I did do this and the water was right (no nitrates) shrimp could grow here too.

 

Might add some blue neos to pea puffer's tank (2.8 fluval aquascaped) as puffer will not eat them or it seems anything else (didn't touch the cherrys that were in the tank).

 

1. So basically what am I missing? I plan to get cardenia mainly off CL to keep the cash lost to dying shrimp down (I understand there is a leaning curve with cardenia and everyone loses shrimp at some point).

 

2. For bloody marys I see what looks like a handful of pics on the internet by vendors that may get reused. Many appear to be fire/painted fire listed as bloody a few are the clear looking body with red looking insides that I'm looking for . I am looking at the ones from soshrimp (are we allowed to mention vendor names?)on Amazon as the pic looks like what I'm looking for but no one answers my questions which makes me suspicious that this is just stock photos. Is there a good place to buy these? Will they be DOA for an order to MN in the winter?

 

3. For the mix of cardenias in the 55, is there a recommendation for what to put in the tank for best odds of eventual cool looking descendants?

 

4. anything else I'm missing?

 

5. Should I have bought the 270 with stand for 250$ during the black Friday sale (keep in mind I'd be living with it on my lawn if I did)?

 

6. What is expected tank growth rate if I fully get into this hobby? What I mean is how often will I need to add "Just one more tank and this is the last one"?

 

Thanks in advance for any advice/bad news.

[Louie]

As I understand you can have a whole pile of different cardenia and they will all breed then you can pick out the interesting ones from the herd and put them in another tank? Where as I can only have one variety of neo?''

 

 

When I started out I had 6 cherry, chocolate, orange, yellow , red rili and 4 crystals in a 30 gallon .   I got amazing babies with the most unusual colors but come 3 generation or so the babies are drab .  Some looked like poor quality cherry or even tiny ghost shrimp .

 

Granted I never separated the babies and bred them as you intend to .

 

 

''What is expected tank growth rate if I fully get into this hobby? What I mean is how often will I need to add "Just one more tank and this is the last one"?''

 

 

Well you need an extra tank for each unique pair of shrimp you want to breed but it can be a small tank .  The drab babies you can feed to your puffers but it is interesting they wont touch the cherry shrimp .

 

 

I do not use RO water but most here do. I use dechlorinated tap water and ph here is high this is ''hard water'' .  The shrimp thrive .  I have lots driftwood in tanks and all heavy planted so maybe that lowers PH .

 

I don't test the PH so I have no idea . My temps are 76 during day and 72 at night .

 

I do add BorneoWild Shield after water changes .  I don't sell anything thus no vested interest if you buy it and others here might suggest better products but I have noticed much better breeding with this supplement and I only use half tiny spoon not full dose and once a week .

 

 

''. So basically what am I missing? I plan to get cardenia mainly off CL to keep the cash lost to dying shrimp down (I understand there is a leaning curve with cardenia and everyone loses shrimp at some point).''

 

I never had any die offs as far as several dying other than an adult here and there since I have had shrimp for 3 years imagine that might be old for some shrimp so adults do disappear in the plants once in awhile .  All my shrimp went in old established planted tanks which at one time contained male guppies .

 

This is why IMO ,I never had die offs .

 

I set up a few smaller planted tanks a few months ago and will soon start adding shrimp so perhaps my luck might run out because these aren't old tanks .  Just cycled .

[35ppt]

IMO, the quality of a shrimp consists of the appearance and the overall health. Health is affected by genetics and environment. Getting CL/ebay shrimp runs a higher risk that you will get lower quality shrimp.  I would think twice about buying from someone using one of those photos, as that seems shady to me. I do know how hard it is to get a good clear photo of shrimp, but you really want to know what the seller's actual shrimp look like. This is especially important when you pay for a higher grade, but end up receiving a lower grade.

 

Starting with low quality (less healthy) shrimp is increasing your risk of failures. Start with the healthiest shrimp! What you can do to save some cash, is look for culls. These may have less desirable coloring, but otherwise fine for you to learn how to shrimp with.

 

The nice thing about forum members selling shrimps is that you can look at the posts by other members, and get a pretty good idea what kind of seller they are.

ETA: I suppose one good thing about CL is that you can see the shrimp before you buy them, I assume.