

Now this is not a SSS grade, but........SS Grade Double Hinomaru is not bad.
Lousy pic, I'll get around to getting a better one.
So what have I done different?
Kept the temp lower mostly.
Better breeding.
Dosing plant ferts has had no effect.
I mentioned I'd had 12 from about 4 years ago, then moved and netted out 45 or 50 a year later in this EI dosed tank:
Now some had suggested it was only low grades I could dose like this and that high grades where more "touchy". Since at that time I had no high grades, what could I say? Not much.
But it seemed a bit suspicious..................first they said all shrimp where hyper sensitive and we should not dose EI. Then only the newer shrimps, then only CRS's, now Suliwalsi's etc.......then only high grade CRS's.
Well, I have the higher grades, no SSS's but heck, at this point I'm willing to go out on a limb and call Bull manure on this argument entirely. Same thing/pattern occurred with PO4 and algae, then NO3 and algae, then NO3 and fish toxicity, then Discus, then only wild discus.......then only some species of obscure inbred discus that only 10 people have in the world.....
Well yea, I cannot test every possible thing, but.........I can test enough to get a good comparative representation of the effects of ferts or food etc.........on a critter.
Thus I can generalize quite well and suggest dosing ferts is fine for shrimp tanks, even the more $$$ ones. I would not go whole hog and dose without care however........I do not have enough experience or data to go that far.
Still, this is a balance between shrimp needs and the needs of the plants. Many shrimp zealots go too far and do not help or aid the plants in any way, then add nothing. A sick poor growing plant is not a good thing to add. A moderately growing plant is a much better addition, and the shrimps are just not at risk from CO2/ferts. Low light will help reduce demands, so will sediment ferts and reduce the CO2. So there's not a huge amount of ferts that are required to the water column with this method anyway. My fire shrimps have done well, but I have to keep some in a separate fire shrimp RCS only tanks to keep them breeding true. Sort of a dumber, slower version of the RCS but nice color.
Still, I find the same type of on line back tracking and going to a smaller and smaller more obscure more $$$ livestock when each hypothesis is falsified. The local folks in the club can come over and see the results themselves. I still find plenty of people willing to believe correlation/speculation and myth are somehow on equal terms with an actual specific test that has falsified the claim. This same process was done with heating cables, with PO4, with NO3, with fish, with sediment vs water column, with algae, with light and with several species of shrimp and various grades.
I do not blame anyone for not testing their high grades but having bred them, I have some I'm willing to test some hypothesis out on. All I need to demonstrate if that they are not affected by dosing or CO2.
Perhaps I'm lcky because my KH is low, or my temp is low.
I can never be sure to a high degree there, but I can be sure of what is not causing them to die or breed less. I have to expose them to some risk, but we are all fish and shrimp killers at some point and time. We have all killed our livestock at some point.
Doing this in a controlled careful manner slow and stepwise, I reduce this risk. Sometimes I add too much or over do it, sometimes other hobbyists do this and report no ill effects. Then I know I have less to worry about it and the unknown risk is reduced. That is what this is all about, going from speculation, unknown conditions, myths etc, and seeing what we can learn.
This gets beyond all that Bull manure ranting cheap talk.
Put that same effort into testing and you will learn a lot more.
:gw
Regards,
Tom Barr