My RCS tank w pics.

[trevorhoang]

i just wanted to share some pictures of my 4 month old shrimp tank set up. I got some very nice cherries from members on BCaquaria 4 months back and the cherries are doing very well in my heavily planted 10g tank. there are babies everywhere but are too small for me to take the picture. i have about 20 adult cherries, 3 amanos, 1 tiger shrimp, and 3 juvie BNP.
Thanks to you guys for all the suggestions on how to keep the cherries healthy. I plan to upgrade to yellow shrimp and maybe even CRS one day in the future. enjoy the pictures =)

[InfraredDream]

Awesome tank!!
I don't seem to have success with shrimps, I am having them since July and lost a lot during medicine treatment, got a few new ones, but seems I am losing them as well
So, sorry for using your thread, but if you wanna share some tips I will highly appreciate it. I do what I am supposed to, but these guys don't breed.

You did great job, so good looking!

[trevorhoang]

well i use a 10g tank with a weak heater that i borrowed off a friend. the heater is good enough to keep my tank at 75degrees which is good for cherries. i put in a sponge that i got for a dollar from a petstore in the filter intake. i have no experience with testing the KH and GH level. i put in crushed coral in the filter to raise the GH level and i believe it adds calcium so it helps the cherries successfully molt. i do 20percent water change once a week ( i have been lazy from time to time but the cherries are forgiving). i add nutrifin african ciclid conditioner into the bucket everytime i do my water change. i dont test the PH level but our tap water is around 6.6ph from what i understand. as you can see, i do not use any expensive substrate like ADA, eco complete or florabase. its just plain old small natural looking gravel i got from pj pets.

thats about it. hope you do well with the shrimps you have.

[InfraredDream]

Thank you. This is almost what I do, but I use Equlibrium instead of crushed coral, it is supposed to give the hardness they need. And it is a 5 g.
I guess I will buy a few more and keep trying... I just can't figure out what I do wrong

Thanks a lot for sharing your experience.

[Petah]

What kind of medicine treatment did you use? Is there any traces of copper in it?

[trevorhoang]

i do not use any medicine treatment. unless you are refering to the nutrifin african ciclid conditioner. there should be no copper at all or the shrimps would die.

[InfraredDream]

Probably the question is for me. No, it wasn't cooper based and was supposed to be shrimp safe - Levamisole HCl

[Dosan]

Nice tank Trevor wish I could do the same thing.
Infrared, I have the same problem you have and I use equilibrium also. I think my problem is I put too much alkaline buffer in too, which raised my kh to over 20 and ph to well past 8 and have been slowly getting the kh back down with only little movement in ph. My parameters are as of today gh 7 kh 4 ph 7.8. Bad test kit caused the wrong dosages. Hope both our tanks come around soon. Sorry to hijack, Luis

[Diztrbd1]

Nice looking tank and shrimp Trevor.

Dosan, I find it best to not tamper with the water in the tank as stability was the big key to success with my shrimp tank. I do not use Equilibrium in there. I have a small bag of crushed coral in my filter and it has been great for the shrimp since I've started using it....babies, proper molting and such. I do however use the alkalinity buffer and only add it to my water to be added at the rate of 1 tsp per 5 gallons and even tsp of salt(my tap water is 0 KH). I have had no deaths in forever and I can't tell you the last time I even tested my water. Testing the water and trying to adjust it constantly will cause instability , in my experience. I'm by far an expert, this is what I have had luck with, best of luck with yours

[Dosan]

Thanks for the info John. Could i ask you a favor, if you wouldn't mind doing a water parameter test so I can at least know a baseline of what works, that would be greatly appreciated. I guess I'll go pick up some crushed coral today, a small bag should do yes? Thanks, Luis