Lizzyduff

Oh my, what an emotional Rollercoaster! I hope you are able to find out the cause of the deaths soon. It's so stressful not knowing why. One of my 3 shrimp tanks sprung a leak overnight last week. Woke up to the awful sound of a water pump about to catch on fire. There was still about 1 inch of water in the tank so I was able to rescue everyone in time, I think. Didn't find any bodies so... shrugs. Unfortunately for them I had to unceremoniously scoop them up and dump them into the two other tanks at random. So now I have 2 skittles tanks and 1 brand new uncycled tank with only snails for now. Those little sh*ts are not easy to catch so I have no idea how I'm going to catch the ones I want to put into the new tank once it's ready. (((Banging head on desk))). I've noticed my blues are blue almost from day 3 or 4. My reds are the same. The yellows though... those are either clear or look like wild type until almost a month. I had a whole jar of culls that turned out to be yellows... SMDH. Have a great trip, try not to worry too much while you're gone. When I go on vacation for a week in June, I might have to find a shrimp sitter here on the forum while I'm gone 😆 🤣

Is that safe for shrimp and snails?

We just bought a 30-40 gallon pond insert from home depot, and they've got various kits and pumps, spillway and even plants on their website. Recommend covering most of the surface with floating plants if you're going low tech. Also, we bought a solar powered floating fountain that's worked in our birdbath for years, from Amazon for about $15.

The carbon worked perfectly, thank you! Unfortunately, having never used carbon before, I didn't rinse it first, but once the dust settled the green tint was gone. Huge relief, much appreciated!

Was using that neon green dyed moss stuff for some terrestrial plants nearby and somehow managed to drop a piece in there, and didn't notice until today when my water turned bright green...St. Patrick's day style. Will activated carbon help clear it up? Or do I just need to do some water changes and be patient?

I was about to add this to my tank but...

How did your snails do? I suppose I could pick them all out and put them in a different tank for a while. Nuke this one, then put them back later... 🤔

I'm so glad I'm not the only one...I just started feeding fry/baby shrimp food to my tank now filled with babies so of course within a week or two I now have a hydra infestation...well...I saw 5. Still though. I heard ramshorn snails and other larger snails will eat them. Most of the fish that eat them like bettas or mollies would also happily eat the babies too so that isn't an option. There's the chemical 'no planaria' powder stuff but it'll kill all the snails and most of the detritus worms risking a tank crash... I've also heard that removing your fish, heating up the tank to 105 Fahrenheit for a bit works... just make sure to cool it back to regular temperature before putting your fish back in...for now I'm hoping my ramshorn snails will eat them and once the babies are big enough, I'll just starve the hydra out. Not sure what else to do.

So... something that I probably should have thought of sooner...what happens when they have so many babies they outgrow the tank? Buy more tanks? 😳 I only have 2 nano tanks and never intended to breed these things but they're in there humping like rabbits and now I've got 4 berried ... ((face palm))

Mine just hatched too! I'm curious how long until they get color... right now they're still clear, look like commas lol.

Cherries and blue velvet neocaridina 🥰

Oh. God. I didn't even think of feeding them. I never intended to breed shrimp... guess it just seemed like some thing that might accidentally happen waaaaay in the future. Ugh. Thank goodness.

So I went in to do my regular sponge filter maintenance... and there were shrimp babies all over it. It's it ok to postpone the filter cleaning until they're old enough to... like... move? What are some other measures I can do in the interim to ensure the water stays healthy?

Yeah. I like to use bladder snails to help cycle. Plus I use them as feeders for my assassin snails and a friend's puffer. I almost ran out once, had to start up a jar with a couple, over feed like crazy for a couple weeks to repopulate 😆 Glad I'm not the only one who has missed a few shrimplets... makes me feel a lot better. Oh! I I didn't see the biofilm, that's perfect. If I'm at the biofilm stage we should be getting closer- excellent! Makes sense. 🤔

I recently set up a new nano tank intending to eventually put snails and shrimp in it. Eventually. I THINK one of my blue dreams hitched a ride on some plants, and I must have missed the wee thing entirely. Fast forward a few weeks, I'm still working on getting it cycled (pH 7.4, ammonia 0, Nitrites around 1.5, nitrates around 10) using old tank filters, plants, substrate, water, snails, etc. Then I see this wee critter swim out grab something to eat, and swim back to...wherever he's been hiding these past few weeks! The tank isn't ready for guests yet! Should I leave him be, or try to catch him and put him back into his original tank?

5 gal- Right now I've only got 3 juvenile blue dream neocaridina and some snails in there, but there are a couple more on the way. I'd like to add some pygmy Corys but am worried they'd eat the shrimp... I've made plenty of places to hide, but still.

Oh dear God... it's this a detritus worm? I kind of wish I hadn't bought the magnifying glass or hand held microscope now 😳

Will pigmy corys be coming in?

I'd like an android app where you could record the type of setup you have (i.e. nano blackwater), and the species you're keeping, so that when you enter in your water parameters it can tell you if it's ok or not for that particular species. Preferably using color coding for those of us with dyslexic (dyscalcula) tendencies, for whom trying to figure this stuff out is simply migraine inducing.

I just did a salt dip using a little cup of salt water. I was worried dosing the whole tank would upset the snails 🐌 the shrimp did not seem to particularly enjoy the salt bath process, but it worked almost instantly so... shrugs. Since it's probably still in the tank and the shrimp may re-infect themselves I'm also putting 10-drops per day of API Pimafix, to clear everything up since eventually these guys are going into the main tank and I need to be sure none of this stuff remains.

Ah OK. That's a huge relief! Algae I can live with- especially in a temporary quarantine blackwater tank. I worried it was parasites or bacteria or something. Great news, thank you!!

The salt bath worked! No more fuzzy shrimps! Thank you all! 🥰

Ah, I'll do that first thing in the morning. Thanks!

If the population gets out of control, could try an assassin snail or just feed less.

Forgot to attach this photo, another fuzzy shrimp.