Shrimp Quest "Please Help" by AutumnSky (Long)

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Autumnsky

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Presently I have a one Bamboo Shrimp, pretty reddish white stripes, three Amano Shrimp, in my community tank, and four Ghost shrimp and Cory in my Edge, plus some temporary guppy fry, so far. Ghosties can go live with the guppies or the community tank, are they ok with Amanos and Bamboo shrimp?

My 6.6 Edge will be the home of the new shrimp. It has black Petco sand, light and fluffy but not floaty, the Cory loves it.

He will go to another tank with his friend Cory, and I am looking for a dwarf Cory group, still deciding... plus what is available. Would like to hear your preferences and why. Or if I should have them in there.

What else is in the tank:

I have a plastic plant for cover for the fry, tiny leaves, have a temporary Mondo grass for the fry, a Japanese moss ball (golf ball size), a Java fern ball (ping pong ball size) floats with fishing line and sinker, sm Java fern small sword, micro sword grass, and two stems of some kind of Rotala, (probably temporary put in for fry cover) a small plant which came from a different tank just starting to grow and I don't know what it is. Several stones and a petrified wood chunk.

Will try to post a pic in the morning.

Parameters:
Fresh water - pH is 7-7.5 over the past 3 months, nitrates 10 or less,
nitrite 0, alkalinity 100, hardness 90-100

Has the two little round halogen lights which came with it.

This has been set up since end of January/beginning of February (can't remember exactly, it was my daughter's tank) with established tank water and filter seeding.

Cycled w/o fish.

Shrimp are so fun to watch. I would like to raise some shrimp for fun and trading, as a hobby, so far I like the Green shrimp, Blueberry or Blackberry, Sunkist or orange shrimp...really like Blue Tiger but not ready for that one yet. The red ones are nice and white and red too one of the Bee or Bumblebee shrimp don't know the difference. I really would like a blue which has some blue babies.

If I got the orange ones that were sports of the Red Crystals (not sure of name)??? would they be mix of red and orange or just orange..I was told the blue ones from them have mixed babies, true or false?

There are so many beautiful kinds of shrimp. My one hour drive away local fish store has a number of these, as does a new store I haven't ever been to yet.

I don't want to have to put them into brackish water for babies, as I am just starting, too much trouble for now.

From what I have read from AA, I can have two different species so they don't cross breed/ hybridize? are there any others I can have together?

What else should the tank have?

Am working on getting lots of Java moss and looking for Christmas moss and whatever else is good for the shrimp.

Still learning about shrimp so please forgive my Newbie-ness lol.

:thanks:
 
If you are new to Shrimp start with RCS. Keep those alive and then sell them and try fancier colors. If I'd started with Crystal Reds I'd be so discouraged. I love my Shrimp.

Learn on easy Shrimp. Buying by looks alone may just kill your Shrimp.

Most blue shrimp don't breed true. Most aren't that blue.

If you want Shrimp, forget fish. Set up a Shrimp only tank. Much easier to get it right.
Ghost Shrimp may grab Guppy Fry.

Don't mix Ghost with Dwarf Shrimp. Ghost are too aggressive.

Blueberry Shrimp are Neocaridinas. If you want to try them, set up a tank for them. Don't try to mix two species. Just be successful with one first !! That's my best advice.
 
What color is your edge, is your ammonia also zero?

Guppies are pretty dirty creatures. And according to others, a 5 is pretty small for dwarf cories.

If your edge is the pretty orange one, go with sunkist, if not, go with sunkist anyways. They're so pretty and I'm kind of convincing myself that I want them now because most people don't have them lol!
 
Coursair said:
If you are new to Shrimp start with RCS. Keep those alive and then sell them and try fancier colors. If I'd started with Crystal Reds I'd be so discouraged. I love my Shrimp.

Learn on easy Shrimp. Buying by looks alone may just kill your Shrimp.

Most blue shrimp don't breed true. Most aren't that blue.

If you want Shrimp, forget fish. Set up a Shrimp only tank. Much easier to get it right.
Ghost Shrimp may grab Guppy Fry.

Don't mix Ghost with Dwarf Shrimp. Ghost are too aggressive.

Blueberry Shrimp are Neocaridinas. If you want to try them, set up a tank for them. Don't try to mix two species. Just be successful with one first !! That's my best advice.

Agree with everything. You only need one species in a species only tank for it to be full healthy and beautiful.
 
MABJ said:
What color is your edge, is your ammonia also zero?

Guppies are pretty dirty creatures. And according to others, a 5 is pretty small for dwarf cories.

If your edge is the pretty orange one, go with sunkist, if not, go with sunkist anyways. They're so pretty and I'm kind of convincing myself that I want them now because most people don't have them lol!

The reason more people don't have Sunkist is they are Low Form breeders. Babies have a Larval stage. Not one I would recommend to a newbie at all if they want to breed Shrimp.
But they are very cute.

Stick with ONE easy species to start.
 
Coursair said:
The reason more people don't have Sunkist is they are Low Form breeders. Babies have a Larval stage. Not one I would recommend to a newbie at all if they want to breed Shrimp.
But they are very cute.

Stick with ONE easy species to start.

Definitely, and good info about the sunkist, but I honestly can't see them being too hard to breed. I accidentally raised ghost shrimp babies LOL. And we know how hard that is.

If you've got them in a species only tank, and you can grind food up to tiny bits or afford hikari first bites, ect, you really should have a decent population.
 
Presently I have a one Bamboo Shrimp, pretty reddish white stripes, three Amano Shrimp, in my community tank, and four Ghost shrimp and Cory in my Edge, plus some temporary guppy fry, so far. Ghosties can go live with the guppies or the community tank, are they ok with Amanos and Bamboo shrimp?

My 6.6 Edge will be the home of the new shrimp. It has black Petco sand, light and fluffy but not floaty, the Cory loves it.

He will go to another tank with his friend Cory, and I am looking for a dwarf Cory group, still deciding... plus what is available. Would like to hear your preferences and why. Or if I should have them in there.
I have ghosts, bamboo and amano all living together in my community tank. They are fine together.

The ghosts will eat all your fry, so don't house them together.

Any corys need more room than the 6.6 gallon.

What sizes are the other tanks? I'm a little confused and couldn't read that entire "war & peace" post. :hide:
 
I'm a little confused and couldn't read that entire "war & peace" post.

Hahahaha! Yeah I'm like Linda I got to floaty fluffy and light, then skipped to the replies, figured I'd find out the questions quicker that way.

Anyhow get some Red Cherry Shrimp, I know they aren't the color you like, but they are cool lil fellows and it's best to start off easy so you can learn from your mistakes, and your mistakes won't wipe out all your shrimp since they are fairly hardy.
 
MABJ- if my Edge was orange it would probably still belong to my daughter, her favorite color, she got this one on clearance because of the halogen lights are previous style and current model is LED. Ours is black.

A few weeks before we got ours, the orange ones had been on clearance $99. then 75. but still too much and the next time I checked they had sold for like $20.00 WOW, of course I was bummed out I had missed it.

Then at the store, ours was sitting on a aquarium stand sideways so you couldn't see the front picture, kinda looked like a misc. box.

So I asked for a price check and it was on clearance for $29.00 Yipee!!! SHE wanted it and bought it though. Her feeder goldfish died (tank was cycled properly) and she decided she didn't care for fish after all. She finally let me have it for my Mother's Day present a couple days ago!!! I'd been borrowing it!!!
 
The other tanks are 18 gal bowfront peaceful community - one Goldstripe, and two Emerald Brochis, a 4" Spotted Raphael Cat, five Neons, 3 Harlequin Rasbora, 4 guppies, two black skirts and my 3 Amano and 1 Bamboo shrimp, female Betta.

LyndaB-Sorry, I'm verbose.

New to me 35-37gal JEBO, am setting this this weekend. (will become the main peaceful community tank after it cycles)

15 gal QT/ hosp, Has some guppies in it who are waiting for a new home and a male Betta

32 gal Half Hex - Guppys, 11, two Otos and a fantail Gold fish

The guppy fry were in the Edge due to the last minute deciding to save as many babies as possible since their mommas were in the community tank and I wanted to see some grow up. I had a crazy guppy moment of weakness.

And I will be moving the Goldstripe Cory to be with his friend in the community tank.

Thanks for mentioning not enough room for the Cory group in the 6.6 Edge. I am still learning about them, and the dwarf ones. For instance AA advised me my Emerald Cories weren't Cories. I was shocked!!! I no longer trust fish store people for my info, b/c I have AA. See, I am already learning!!!

I am not in love with my half hex like I thought I would be due to the tiny little opening in the top so I am considering ditching it for the guppies and exchanging them to the 18 bowfront when the main fish go to their big new JEBO tank.

It is musical fish right now. Only everyone will get a tank!!!
 
That will make the Edge 6.6, for shrimp only, (y)
maybe a few Otos?

Ghosties can go to the guppy tank or something.

Too small for otos. Otos need to be in a minimum of 10 gallons because they pretty much rely on natural algae, which your smaller tank won't support.

The ghosts will eat any guppy fry or slow adult fish they can grab.
 
Bad Ghosties

That isn't very nice, now is it.

Do the other shrimp we are talking about putting in my tank eat the fish too.

So far I have kept them pretty well fed and haven't noticed missing fry, I am moving the fry out of there this weekend and the Cory.

Could I put the Ghost shrimp into the main tank/peaceful community with the Amanos and Bamboo shrimp? There are lots of fake and real plants, rocks and a big fake drift wood. I will try for pics tonight.

I can leave them in the Edge till I am ready to buy new shrimp?!? Then put them into the main tank?
 
Bamboo shrimp are filter feeders and will not eat fish.

My amanos have never bothered any of my fish at all.

The ghosts can definitely go into the community tank.

Can you leave who in the Edge?
 
LyndaB said:
Too small for otos. Otos need to be in a minimum of 10 gallons because they pretty much rely on natural algae, which your smaller tank won't support.

The ghosts will eat any guppy fry or slow adult fish they can grab.

Lynda, if you heavily supplemented them, would they work? I've always liked ottos lol.
 
From what I've read from other members, not all otos will accept supplemental food. Mine do, so I don't have an issue. Others have had their otos literally starve to death, even though algae wafers and the like were available to them. It's a coin toss.
 
LyndaB said:
From what I've read from other members, not all otos will accept supplemental food. Mine do, so I don't have an issue. Others have had their otos literally starve to death, even though algae wafers and the like were available to them. It's a coin toss.

I'm not really willing to toss coins, so it's probably not going to happen for me for a while lol.
 
Why not get a tub full of rocks, toss a bit of old tank water in there, let it sit on a window sill to get plenty of light, and grow a bit of algae for them that way? Toss one rock in, wait a few days take it out replace it in the tub, and toss a new rock in. Ya'll think that would work?
 
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