Shrimp breeding, take 2.

[vince82]

After killing all my shrimp in the first attempt to get a colony established, here I am for take 2.

Spoke with a local shop that keeps and breeds a variety of shrimps, and we came to the conclusion that my water was probably too hard. He asked if my males died before my females (they did),and he recommended I checked my TDS and that he has the best success with TDS around 120, and that TDS above 250 would cause the shrimps to not be able to molt and die. I had gone by measuring KH and GH, aiming for 3 and 6 respectively, which was what I had, yet he says those are not reliable and that TDS is best.
I did find some shrimp dead halfway through molting, so.. maybe he was right.

I have a TDS meter, so I got home and measured: 500 ppm WHAT THE HECK?? retested kh and gh, 3 and 6....

I DON'T UNDERSTAND KH AND GH at this point....

I then put up a new tank, 10G tis time instead of 3, and used SaltyShrimp KH/GH+ to reach 120ppm TDS, reused the filter, got 10 new shrimps.

Wish me luck.

 

[seangee]

I have a TDS meter, so I got home and measured: 500 ppm WHAT THE HECK?? retested kh and gh, 3 and 6....

I DON'T UNDERSTAND KH AND GH at this point....

TDS stands for total dissolved solids. It does not tell you anything about what those solids are. I find it useful for measuring the output of my RO system because it tells me when my filters need changing - when it gets to 20 I change my filters. But fertiliser, fish food, fish waste, kattapa leaves ALL increase TDS (i.e. anything in the water that is not pure water). KH and GH are actually all that matter, and 3 & 6 are perfect values for neo caradinia. If your TDS is going up over time it simply means you are not changing enough water. A drop in TDS will not harm any aquatic life if GH and KH stay constant. This is because all it means is you are replacing dirty water with clean water. But TDS can go up without increasing KH and GH - and that is when you start having problems. It affects shrimps earlier than fish because they are more sensitive to dirty water.

P.S. If the stuff lying on top of the substrate is food you are feeding way too much.

 

[vince82]

P.S. If the stuff lying on top of the substrate is food you are feeding way too much.

Mixed gravel types, made this tank with reused gravel from a previous scape.

 

[vince82]

All shrimps are still alive and well. However, some hydra made it to the shrimp tank from the previous 3 gallons cube, and they grew, a lot. There is a couple dozen hydras that I can see and surely many more hidden.
Since I have 2 growing tanks and one is hosting nothing (just plants growing), I am pre-emptively treating the empty tank with no-planaria at double dose, to kill all hydras if there is any, and then in 5 days will do a 90% water change in the empty tank and transfer the shrimps there, before doing the same to the shrimp tank and put them back..

 

[vince82]

Whole loop completed. Hydra seems no longer present in either tank, shrimps are back in the shrimp tank, no casualties.