Upgrading My Shrimp Tank

[Mamashack]

I'm hoping they were old too. So far the others seem ok altho I can't find little Atom anywhere - hopefully he's good at hiding still!
Had a bit of a crisis with ammonia - been around 0.25 ppm last couple of days, removed virtually everything that can rot except the moss-balls and US fissidens as they seem very green still and when I tested it this morning it said 2 ppm!!! Panic stations!!
Did a small water change so as not to shock the shrimp and threw 50 ml Tetra Safe Start in and a couple of hours later it was a resounding 0 - so either Safe Start is the miracle of the decade or the first test was in a contaminated test-tube! <<< I personally think it was this one!
My nitrates seem to have settled at around 10 ppm so I'm happy with that.
Haven't abandoned R.O. completely - just need to know a heck of a lot more first - have ordered a small quantity of Salty Shrimp GH/KH+ to see if that helps stabilise the pH - should do in theory.
I've made a video on my phone of the snowflake food in action, but I can't get it small enough to send as an email at the moment - as soon as I do I'll post it. Might have to wait til my son gets here for the video have tried trimming it but it's still too big.
 
I think shrimp live to a couple of years old, but who knows what stresses they have had in transport and/or weaknesses they've developed due to intensive breeding programmes. Sounds like your amano could have jumped out of the tank at some point and possibly could be because of the drastic change in your TDS after the water change. Have been advised not to change the TDS by more than 100 max. and probably not even that much. Maybe try to reduce the volume of the water change too altho I appreciate you're EI dosing - tricky one that and not sure what to suggest. Maybe someone with shrimp + EI experience can offer help.
 
Will try to post the snowflake video as soon as I can.

 

[Mamashack]

Hopefully this will link to the video of the snowflake food exploding in real time on youtube - it's amazing how quickly it expands into lots of little flakes:
https/www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZkX3GHl0Ahs&list=UU1hGEBYRviyMtMPd0B0wRSg
Here's a picture of some of them enjoying the snowflake:

 

[Zikofski]

it says video is private mama

 

[Mamashack]

Thanks I'll go and see what I can do about that!
Try it now, Zik - think I've fixed it.

 

[Dandyman3]

That is awesome Mama! They're the moments which make it worth it when you capture it like that. It seems like this month has being a hectic period for everyone with shrimps. 
 
Next job for me now is going to be improving my filter system. 
Looking at getting a co2 diffuser (much prefer little bubbles rather than the big ones) 
 
Then finally look into shrimp again. 
 
Seems water parameters have settled now. Not sure what caused the freak spike. I wondered if it is something related to what ever is happening with these plants... Not too sure really. It is strange because the only thing it wiped out was the shrimp. All my other fish are swimming around nice and healthily at the moment. I suppose you live and learn!! 

 

[Zikofski]

wow mama that is very interesting to watch how much does it cost and where can you get it from? what happened to your shrimp Dandyman? did you have the fantasy blues?
 
oh and forgot to mention i made my journal for once if i remember you said i can link it here too so here you go
 
http/www.fishforums.net/index.php?/topic/435625-ada-60h-45-60x45x45cm-iwagumi-tank/

 

[Dandyman3]

wow mama that is very interesting to watch how much does it cost and where can you get it from? what happened to your shrimp Dandyman? did you have the fantasy blues?
 
oh and forgot to mention i made my journal for once if i remember you said i can link it here too

so here you go
 
http/www.fishforums.net/index.php?/topic/435625-ada-60h-45-60x45x45cm-iwagumi-tank/

 
Seemed like it was down to the high Nitrite levels which I was mentioning in the former post. I don't know what else it could have been. 
 
Can a Tropical fish tank be too hot? Could that affect Shrimps life expectancy? I know if you have a cooler tank they are apparently expected to live longer but wonder how it goes in the other direction... But that Snowflake stuff is so cool. Or I don't know if it is cooler that you  can put your hand in there right next to them without them even flinching. Lol 
 
Glad you've got around to that with the journal Ziko!

 

[Mamashack]

Sorry for the delay in responding. Just got back from a fantastic couple of days with a few friends in Manchester - saw a show (Jersey Boys) and drank far too much (champagne!) - as we all had a very special birthday this year (any excuse! lol)
Just caught up with your new iwagumi tank set-up, Zik. The snowflake food was £8.99 on eBay for 50g but a tiny bit goes a very long way as you can see from the video. Can send you the eBay link if you like.

 

[Zikofski]

hey thnx mama yea i would love to get some of that stuff, may help me feed my shrimp, have you had any problems with fish going after it?

 

[Mamashack]

Apparently it is meant to be a supplement rather than their staple food. If there are mosses and other things that have microorganisms or biofilm on them then they should be ok foraging for themselves and perhaps have something like the snowflake once a week. Unless you have absolutely loads it shouldn't be necessary to actively feed them. I was told by the breeder of mine that if there are less than 20 shrimp they can usually forage enough. I only feed mine occasionally because it was a new set-up for them - not a mature tank and altho the filter was mature there wouldn't have been much in the way of biofilm on anything else for them.
Mine is a shrimp-only tank so there are no fish to pinch the food. I suspect they would like the food as much as shrimp tho tbh.
I'll PM the link for the snowflake, Zik, altho it was easy enough to find doing an eBay search.

 

[Mamashack]

Finally got a KH test kit and it's a pitiful 1.2 in the shrimp tank - apparently 3-4 is more desirable for a steady pH. Having said that it is normally quite stable apart from when I stupidly did the 35% RO water change. That was my fault for not changing it over gently (no more than 10% at a time) Have now also got some Salty Shrimp GH/KH+ to try so I'll be doing the first top-up using that tomorrow.
I reckon if I do 10% every day using RO water and GH/KH+ it will take approximately a month to achieve 100% change over and the KH should be about 3.5 by then.

 

[Zikofski]

ah awesome what KH test kit did you get? mine only goes up in hole numbers 1, 2, 3 so on, thank you on the info for the snowflake food i was surprised its not part of the staple food but a treat very interesting to read thank you for the information

 

[Mamashack]

I got the Salifert one which basically works out how much KH there is depending on how much is left in the syringe when the colour changes from blue/green to pink/orange. There's a chart included and it's easy to read off what it is - it even tells you what the alkalinity level is, but that means nothing to me so I stick with the dKH. There is a method which preserves the test kit for longer and gives a lower resolution reading, but I haven't tried that yet.
I think my shrimp would love snowflake as their staple as they are all over it when it goes in and it doesn't see the day out - every last morsel has gone.
Have got some Shrimp King food on the way - I won it! 

Will see how they take to that! 

 

[Zikofski]

aah awesome congrats so much shrimp food your shrimps are spoilt haha they must love it 

 

[Mamashack]

I think that most of the ones I've got are actually supplementary anyway. They graze most of the time on the mosses etc so I only add stuff every few days. It's tempting to put it in every day as they swarm all over it, but they don't really need it at the numbers I've got at the moment. Hopefully if I can get it settled and they want to breed it may be a different story down the line!