Bacter AE for Shrimplets

[Riaan S]

Hi All

 

I have had mixed results with my TB Shrimplet survival rates over the last couple of years. The tanks I fed heavily had better survival rates but were also taken over with Hydra and Planaria.....irritating! I started up two new tanks (60 litres) with ADA a couple on months ago. Both of these tanks have between 14 and 16 adults in each tank, a couple of berried females in both set ups. Two females have dropped, how much Bacter AE should I be using in each tank......daily, weekly? I also feed Shrimp King Complete 3 x times a week. My water parameters are 100%.

 

Is there anything else I should be dosing with to increase the baby survival rate? I obviously don't want the Planaria and Hydra to become an issue again, so I guess a fine balancing act is required.

 

All the tanks are heavily planted, IAL and a couple of cones in each tank and some of snails.

 

Thanks

[madcrafted]

In a tank that size, with that amount of shrimp and heavily planted, you don't need to do much different for the fry. I personally like to feed every 3 days and I have tanks with about the same amount of shrimp as yours, some with a little more. I do like to sprinkle a little sl-aqua magic powder into each tank 10 minutes before feeding. I do this regardless of whether or not there is fry in the tank, so there's a constant source of beneficial bacteria and biofilm residing there at all times, plus the shrimp like to graze on the little bits as the settle. With Bacter AE, I would use less than the recommended dosage. When I was using that product I used a "drop" size measuring spoon (1/64th of a teaspoon) per 12-15 shrimp twice a week. Any more than that seemed to pollute my tank. Even with magic powder, I use a small amount because I feel less is more with these powders in general. I don't have a problem with planaria or hydra but the detritus worms let me know when to ease up on feeding.

[Riaan S]

Thanks for the feedback

[Tpshrimper]

Just my personal experience, but I had issues with bacter ae polluting my tank.  When I switched over to magic powder I had a massive increase in shrimplet survival rate.  If you are using bacter I recommend very very small amounts.  I remember reading on here before that someone recommended wetting a toothpick and dipping that into the powder.  If you overdo it you will have problems.  

[MNCarpenter]

So I just picked up magic.powder and used about 1/4 of a scoop in a 5.5 gallon tank and 5 minutes later had a almost full.grown.shrimp fall over and die. I had been using bacter ae about 4 months ago then switched to shrimp nature baby bio. Then .magic powder. Is there any recommended way to switch?

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[Shrimp Life]

My favorite commercial products to use for babies is SL Aqua Baby Food and CSF Baby Pro

[AquaticShrimpNoob]

Hi @Riaan S,

 

I like to share my experience with Bacter AE. I have Babaulti sp. Zebra shrimps in my tank, which is 20 gallon. The shrimplets have very slow growth compare to regular dwarf shrimps. I remembered that I used to feed lots (e.g. half scoop) of Bacter AE as well. Survival rate increased but I noticed hydras. Good news that the hydras were not all over my tank. They were growing on a specific area in my tank, which is weird in my opinion. Anyways, after eliminating the hydras, I constructed a feeding schedule.

 

I feed my shrimps once a day, five to six times a week. Of course, I vary the food type for nutritional purposes and to complement my rabbit snails as well. The hydras never came back and shrimplets survival rate is higher than before. There are combination of two keys to these great results:

1. Despite supplementing food, I make sure that the food that I give is enough to be eaten in at most 1 hour. Some people would say that you don't need food supplementation if you have good biofilm in your tank. I do agree to this to some extent. In my case, I supplement food in my tank to prevent the adults from competing with the shrimplets in biofilm. So far, this has been a success for me. Shrimplets are everywhere. There are so much (a bit exaggeration) that they are visible, which was something that I have not observed in the past.
2. I use feeding dish to control food. Most people believe that feeding dish is garbage (i.e. waste of money, scam, etc.) because food never stay in the dish anyways. Well, this is not true for all food types. I have powders and crumbling pellets. So, the shrimps are sharing equally with the food (e.g. a pellet being stolen away). In addition, food don't just disintegrate and fall in every nook and cranny of the substrate or fall in the very bottom of the substrate to become food for the bacteria. This is especially true for substrates that are granular such as gravels or marvel chips. In fact, food still diffuse through sand. The food that decompose in the substrate turns back in water and become nutrients for hydras for example. Adult shrimps and even shrimplets don't even have a chance to eat the food. Such a waste. 

I thought some of these reasons are common sense. I would not do something if there are no logical and/or technical incentive(s). Anyways, this is just my personal experience. I am fully aware that these may not work for you. We have different type of shrimps, take environment, water parameters, etc. Your call. But I do hope that this response give you some idea(s) at least.

 

Sincerely,

AquaticShrimpNoob