# completely broken



## dani2spot (Sep 19, 2013)

i had to put my dog to sleep the saturday before halloween. the shrimp tank is the only thing that i am able to completely distract myself with. thank god for shrimp.
the crs are not breeding and the tank is just under a painting of my dog, but i'm trying to stay positive and and be excited about it anyway. 
i know i probably sound like a psycho right now, but fishforums is my therapy, so deal with it.

deviating from the depressing, i have about 30 crs and 5 or so oebts and oebt blondes. no berries. i'll keep watching. i ordered a bag of amazonia regular and amazonia powder to start a new tank just for the oebts. hopefully there will be eggs somewhere soon. i doubt it though as my gh is always too high despite water changes with RO water only.

do you guys think that the white tuffa or lava rock that petco sells would be causing my gh spike?

i also noticed several days ago that my cannister filter was not running. i have no idea how long the tank has been without filtration. so i disassembled the cannister and threw in a sponge filter. 

anyway, wish me luck on the distraction front and the shrimp front.


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## weedkiller (Nov 18, 2012)

sorry for your loss, I know it feels like you have lost a good friend... stay strong and think of all your good times


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## TheOldSalt (Jan 28, 2005)

Just how high IS your gh? Shrimps and snails need some hardness for shell maintenance. Yes, that rock should raise it.


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## dani2spot (Sep 19, 2013)

it was off the charts. the dip strip said it was around 150-300 ppm, but i just did a ~35% water change with all RO water. 
it's been about 2 hours. the gh is now close to 75.


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## Ice (Sep 25, 2006)

Ditch the test strips. They're garbage and gives out pretty unreliable readings. Get API FW Master Kit. You'll get better results


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## weedkiller (Nov 18, 2012)

ice said:


> ditch the test strips. They're garbage and gives out pretty unreliable readings. Get api fw master kit. You'll get better results


+1


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## emc7 (Jul 23, 2005)

300 ppm is about right for liverbearers and Malawi cichlids. Don't panic over any one number, look at the animals and see how they are doing.


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## dani2spot (Sep 19, 2013)

thanks, guys. i'll look into getting the api test for gh and kh. i have the api for pretty much everything else, but not that.

the shrimp are still not breeding. i have not seen a single berried shrimp. i just received my amazonia aquasoil, so i hope to get a 10 gallon up and running and move half of my guys in there to see if that makes a difference. i'll let you guys know how that goes. maybe this will just end up being a tank for easier to maintain shrimp.


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## emc7 (Jul 23, 2005)

I've heard copper in food or meds can leave adults alive but prevent babies in shrimp


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## TheJakeM (May 11, 2013)

Yeah check the ingredients, copper makes them infertile.


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## BettaGuy (May 6, 2012)

Fluval shrimp food has copper in it for example, completely ridiculous when you realize that they made the food for invertebrates. But people just buy by looking at the packaging a lot. We have this at the pet store a bunch where customers say "theres a (species of fish) on this package so it must be good right?" I did the same thing when I started, might have caused my shrimp to die


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## dani2spot (Sep 19, 2013)

one shrimp died today, but it is the first since my last post on this thread so they're doing better.

ALSO one of the females is berried and i've seen two very very tiny shrimp in the tank. i haven't seen more than two at once though, so they may be the only ones that survived from the first clutch. either way, i'm excited to have offspring in the tank!

i have stopped feeding them altogether. there is enough microfauna and flora in the tank to sustain a shrimp colony much larger than mine, so they're good to go.

i haven't set up a tank with the amazonia substrate yet, but when i do i will move the oebts to that one and supplement that colony with shrimp from different vendors so i can expand my gene pool.

i will post baby pics soon =)


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## dani2spot (Sep 19, 2013)

TheJakeM said:


> Yeah check the ingredients, copper makes them infertile.





emc7 said:


> I've heard copper in food or meds can leave adults alive but prevent babies in shrimp


i just checked the packaging of the hikari shrimp cuisine (this is what i was feeding my shrimp about a month ago)...
ingredients include *copper sulfate* and the guaranteed analysis is *min. 29mg/kg*... awesome :-|

thanks, hikari...


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## dani2spot (Sep 19, 2013)

i just took a video of one of my berried shrimp fluffing her eggs. i hope to see these guys hatch soon. you can't see it in the video, but in person, i can see little eyes in the eggs and they look darker each time i see them.
i took some pictures too =)

you start seeing the eggs best around the 58 second mark
http://youtu.be/YN4oqjfQVuY



blonde and blue sitting together - they usually stay near each other; i think it's pretty neat



cyclops 



baby crs (the light brown in the upper left corner is a nerite snail, for size reference) 



baby crs on black sand



baby in hair algae



baby on a crypt



eggs


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