Soon putting CRS SSS in the 120 any tips for succses?

Dennis Singh

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One thing you need established for sure is your biofilm. I never understood all these new fancy products......


The biofilm is what your shrimp n babies are going to feed off of. Constantly feeding. So right now stable water parameters and stable biofilm created by the light is what I recommend. I feel like you rushed this tank setup
 
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SwampGremlin

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strungout said:
One thing you need established for sure is your biofilm. I never understood all these new fancy products......
The biofilm is what your shrimp n babies are going to feed off of. Constantly feeding. So right now stable water parameters and stable biofilm created by the light is what I recommend. I feel like you rushed this tank setup
Yes it was deff rushed i saw a thread about crs in a hi light hi co2 tank and ordered them. then i was told no co2 no salts ect so i did rush to get this tank together. But i have to do what i can to keep them alive since they were in the mail already. I am just trying to find that out and so far ive had some very helpful information thrown at me.


I have Plants and light and established filter and so on i have shrimp food. If i was able to get anything locally that would help bio film instantly i would, but south florida lacks alot of things and pet shrimp products are one of them.


I was reading about how hibiscus leaves would help and i have some drying out right now but still unsure if i will put them in the tank. they are home grown hibiscus that i do not spray with pesticides or anything but, I would not throw them in the tank unless someone on this forum told me it wouldnt hurt and and has had experience with them because i dont trust what all these other web sites say all the time.


Have to make the best with what i have and i ordered some masura online this morning but who knows when it will show up.
 

kilauea91

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haha, I felt the same about those shrimp products too. Just smell a lot of snail oil BS in many even more so than certain planted tank stuff. I don't believe nor waste my money on them. I took over someone's whole SS-SSS CRS setup who was getting out of hobby more than 2 years ago(shrimps, tank, filter, food, supplements...etc everything) Some of those supplements came with the purchase and I just used them hoping to duplicate previous owner's success. I recommend BioPlus only because I see the some positive result personally. I do buy all sorts of food.for the shrimps. I like Repashy too for both my shrimps and Stiphodon love it. And maybe some indian almond/ mulberry leaves as food back up in case I am away on vacation and can't feed them as scheduled for extended period of time. Once the shrimp tank stabilized, just feed them every other day, monitor TDS once every week and GH after each water change and requires virtually no effort to maintain otherwise. You need to watch out for temp during summer though as I found they don't like high temp(>80F).
 

SwampGremlin

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Well i beleive this might be a success. The shrimp seem very active i feed them once every other day a small amount and they look much much whiter than when i first got them. The energy lvl is great and they are molting successfully. Water parameters are super stable as well.








Thanks for all the feed back in such a timley manner i apreciate it.
 

kilauea91

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Gorgeous SSS. Give them some time and hopefully its population will explode and there are plenty of room in there.
 
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SwampGremlin

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I hope they breed alot because i really really would like to see if they will thrive in the 120. If they will ill probably remove most of my fish, i really do not like the fish waste in the 120 probably move all the fish from my 120 to the 75 eventualy and make the 120 shrimp, otocat, neon only if they thrive in there. I also have 5 blue velvets in the crs 40 breeder i hope they will breed aswell. The only bad part is there is alot of cherry shrimp in the 120 and i know ill never be able to rid them all. they come from no where. Ive been finding cherry shrimp fry in the tank with the crystals and i bet they are spewing out the the established canister i put on that tank. I sit down for about 30 min every night before bed and hunt as many as i can see with the mini shrimp net.i dont want them fertilizing the blue velvets.
 

SwampGremlin

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Ok so now i have them comfy.. what is the trick to drop ph to have them breed without using co2. From my understanding they breed in slightly acidic water. Will it be possible that they will breed without ada aquasoil or something comparable because i only have blasting sand in there and that is not to good for dropping PH lvls.


Any tips greatly appreciated.


I want to get them in the MQQD. =)
 

kilauea91

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If you're using remineralized RO water and keep KH low(1-2dKH), your water should be slight acidic and right for CRS, assuming the blasting sand is inert and doesn't leech anything. GH shall be kept at least 5-6dGH or else them might have molting problem. There are few ways to lower PH with natural products, such as throw in some peat moss or granules in your filter, they can be bought in Home Depot gardening but make sure to get 100% natural ones without any fertilizer additives, or buy granules sold as filter media, the former is cheaper but can be quite messy to deal with. It will lower the PH through cation exchange and by releasing humic acid. ADA aqua soil is said to contain high concentration of peat that gives its high CEC property. Or throw in some dried Indian almond(Catappa) leaves or alder cones into the tank that also release humic acid. But all of them may cause tea colored tint in your water(blackwater) that many dislike. And all these stuff will be exhausted and need to be replenished every few weeks. I think the bottom line is, it's far more important to keep your water KH in check. If none of the above works, you may consider to buy those breeding liquid, it may sound like snake oil at first but I can tell you it really works.
 

SwampGremlin

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kilauea91 said:
If you're using remineralized RO water and keep KH low(1-2dKH), your water should be slight acidic and right for CRS, assuming the blasting sand is inert and doesn't leech anything. GH shall be kept at least 5-6dGH or else them might have molting problem. There are few ways to lower PH with natural products, such as throw in some peat moss or granules in your filter, they can be bought in Home Depot gardening but make sure to get 100% natural ones without any fertilizer additives, or buy granules sold as filter media, the former is cheaper but can be quite messy to deal with. It will lower the PH through cation exchange and by releasing humic acid. ADA aqua soil is said to contain high concentration of peat that gives its high CEC property. Or throw in some dried Indian almond(Catappa) leaves or alder cones into the tank that also release humic acid. But all of them may cause tea colored tint in your water(blackwater) that many dislike. And all these stuff will be exhausted and need to be replenished every few weeks. I think the bottom line is, it's far more important to keep your water KH in check. If none of the above works, you may consider to buy those breeding liquid, it may sound like snake oil at first but I can tell you it really works.
Can you give me the name of this breeding liquid.
 

Dennis Singh

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it may sound like snake oil at first but I can tell you it really works

Breeding liquid will put them in a frenzy looking for possible mates. Its definitely not snake oil, but its no guarantee either.


Look up benabachi breeding liquid, i believe thats what i used in the past.
 

nicpapa

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If you have ro .


Try salty shrimp mineral ,


Get a tds around 130 ppm, wiht this tds , you get 0 kh and 5-6 gh.


If the ph dont drop , add some leaves, alder cones , or akadama above your substrate.


What are the parameters now?
 

SwampGremlin

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I ordered some benbachi i was only 18 dollars on amazon wich is like 1/3 of what it costs everywhere else.... Hopfully mines not the snake oil one. I ordered a shrimp pack as well it had a few alder cones a couple pieces of chola wood a few of some kind of round rocks and some indian almond leaves. The bad part is ill probably grow 4 beards before it all gets here.
 

r45t4m4n

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Stay away from the breeding solutions, they will breed when ready. I have read quite a few stories of shrimp dying after they "dance", males can get really aggressive and possibly gang up and kill a female. My PRL tank started out with 2 PRL and now I have hundreds, just keep you params in check and they will breed naturally.


I use SL Aqua blue wizard for RODI remineralization. Keep a few almond leaves/alder cones in the tank. 20% water change weekly dosed with the remineralizer, trace minerals, and humic + fulvic acid (liquid form). I feed powdered food weekdays and on the weekends mulberry leaves.
 
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SwampGremlin

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Well I have left my tank alone for awhile and I noticed tons of baby crystal red shrimp everywhere all adults have died through the cycling process of the tank except one female that has giving birth to many new crystal red to give life another chance luckily.


 

SwampGremlin

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After a long time of zero ferts and Black diamond blasting sand.I lost all but one berried female CRS but now there is about 12 in there some are pure white cant really see any in the pic unless you look hard.The cherry reds just appeared into existence probably remnants of the seeded filter i had. Those cockroaches =)
 
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SwampGremlin

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nicpapa said:
What are the parameters?

Sorry i never responded to your question i have basicly given up i have like 2 crs left and i use r/o water and never dose the tank i think the fact that i leave my r/o container out side my water change water gets alot warmer than it should in this south florida heat and i dont think its good for the shrimp when i add it to the water change it changes the tempurater and shocks them probably i did have like 20 baby ones in there and they all disapeared one byone untill only 2 males and the original mother was left. So now i just top off the tank and let them be and see what happens. i also think the chola wood i added was a bad idea as well. These shrimp are far to expensive for me to keep ordering them as well. The only thing i regret is not putting them in my main tank to see if they would survive. Even tho i add Co2 i think the over health of that tank is alot better and less drastic water perameter changes might have been alittle better for the shrimp than a small tank that warms up really fast fro my hot R/o Water from outside but ill never know because i never added any to the large tank to find out.


Lol you should see the tank now, Even tho i never put and ferts in there the moss has almost filled the entire tank along with red vals everywhere spreading around, its a pretty green sight to see. I think im about to redo all my tanks again from scratch scape wise within the net week here getting tired of how they look already,
 
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