# A bunch of questions and concerns.



## Splak (May 1, 2013)

Here I am AGAIN, looking for some help. I try to research a lot of my questions, but I get so many conflicting answers. So I figure, who best to ask, than this community!

1) I will start of a small concern of mine:

I use RO remineralized for my shrimp tanks. I get my RO water from Home Hardware.

I could never tell when I do a ammonia test in my tanks if I have a small amount of ammonia, or if I have none, or am getting false readings. So I decided to test the RO water right from the store, before adding anything to it.

I got a noticeable ammonia reading from it, which shocked me, maybe like .50-.75 ammonia. (Pictures are of RO tested and shrimp tank tested)

So, I use prime to condition my water with Salty Shrimp GH+, to get 5-6 GH readings.

After the 10-20%ish water change, I test again and still notice to me what seems to be .25ppm readings or less. Either I am color blinds, or I am doing something wrong.

NOTE: I get the same readings on my carbon rili 20gal and my cherry 10gal tanks.

There is a 4" sponge filter, and the sponge filter is at least 5 months old.

Tank houses 7-9 Crystal Red S-SS+ grade shrimps.

My concern is, I purchased 10 CRS about 3 weeks ago, and have noticed I lost 1 atleast, which was about 4 days ago. All the others are grazing and active, growing fast!

I see NO reason other than ammonia reading to be killing them.

Tank parameters are:

Ammonia .25ppm?
NitrAte: 5-10ppm
PH: 6.2-6.4
NitrIte: 0ppm
KH: 0
GH: 5-6

10 gallon tank, 2" Akadama substrate, java moss on driftwood, 21C temp, 1 moss ball, top covered in duckweed, 1 indian almond leaf which isnt adding noticeable tannings.

Any input would help a lot!

2) Question

My 10gal cherry tank, I have about 10 cherries, 4 of which are saddled, and have been for 3 weeks. I have not noticed any berried females at all.

Tank parameters:

9GH
4-5KG
.25 ammonia?
7.6PH
0 nitrIte
5-10 Nitrate

23C temp, 5 month cycled sponge filter, eco complete 2" substrate, 1 moss ball, tons of duckweed, 1 almond leaf, 1 driftwood with willow moss.

Tank has 10 cherrys, 2 assasian snails, 2 peppered cory cats, 3 .5" bn pleco fry.

Any idea why they won't breed?

3) Neo Specie breeding size?

I have a 20gallon long tank, with 5 carbon rili shrimp, and 2 2"+ mega clown plecos.

Tank parameters:

Same as Cherry tank

Fluval plant substrate, dwarf sag, 3 caves, tons of driftwood, tons of duckweed, assorted crypt plants, 5 month cycled sponge filter.

I noticed a few days ago, what appears to be a saddle, it is hard to tell as they have nice black around the saddle area. The saddle appears to be darker in color then what I would assume from my cherries, could this just be their shell effecting my view of color?

My main question is, they are only .75ìnches at MAX, is it possible for shrimp to saddle and breed this early? Or am I seeing something other than a saddle.

NOTE: I also keep this tank at 28C or 82F, the temp is high for my Mega Clown plecos, and the shrimp seem to be doing well in this temp.

ALL MY SHRIMP ARE FED ON BARELY PELLETS AND NSL GROW PELLETS, they are NOT over fed, they eat every other day and only a small amount, the clown pleco`s clean up the rest.

I am sorry for the essay type post, just trying to give as much information as possible.

Thanks for any help or input with either one or more questions!


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## solarz (Aug 31, 2010)

Seeing a saddle doesn't mean the shrimp is ready to breed. For neocaridina, the females usually have to be 1" in size before they will get berried.

How long have you had your cherry shrimps? I wouldn't worry about it too much. RCS are very easy to breed.


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## Fishfur (Mar 4, 2012)

You might want to try getting the Seachem ammonia test. Most other tests combine both free [ dangerous] ammonia with the ammonium [ not dangerous, bound up chemically], and give you the total of both. 
Seachem's test tells you if what you've got is free ammonia or ammonium only, which is not a concern. I find it hard to believe RO water would have ammonia in it.. but I suppose anything is possible.

But try the Seachem test.. at least with it you will not have the concern of false readings. That .25 persistent reading is often a false positive with the API and many other tests that use the same methods.

Shrimp saddle when they are sexually mature.. if they have a saddle, then they're old enough to have one. They become sexually mature before they reach full adult size, so I wouldn't be too concerned about them being on the small side. Typically once they reach sexual maturity, they moult and after the moult, send out their sex pheromones, at which time you'd expect to see the males in the tank become much more active as they try to chase down the source of the alluring hormones the females have released.

Once mated, then you'll see berrying. The mere fact a female has a saddle doesn't necessarily mean she's going to become berried right away.

I know from reading and listening to Randy and several of the other shrimpers that some of those special shrimp substrates leach ammonia for a long, long time before they stop. That might also explain ammonia readings.. I've heard of it taking a couple of months for the leaching to stop with some of those substrates.

I hope somebody who knows about this will chime in, as I haven't ever used Akadama or Netlea or any of those types of substrates and thus have no personal experience to share about them.


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## randy (Jan 29, 2012)

My guess..

For ammonia test result, if you get 0.25ppm on any water including RO, then probably the kit is faulty. Try shake the bottles really hard before dripping and see if it makes any difference. 

1) Even if you have 0.25ppm of ammonia in PH 6.2 - 6.4, the ammonia itself shouldn't kill your shrimps. Ammonia (NH3) turns to Ammonium NH4+ in low PH water, there would be almost no NH3 in water when PH is lower than 6.4. NH4 is much less toxic. So I would assume that is not what killed your shrimp. If I read correctly, you lost one out of ten and the rest are doing fine. I would tend to think there's no issue at all if the rest are happy and active. 

2) Very typical symptom, the only remedy is patience. You'll be laughing in a few weeks. Only possibly of no breeding is if all 10 are female which is very possible if they are from imported source. 

3) I find the carbon rili line of Neo start to breed early. I have some dream blue (the same line as carbon rili) that would start breeding at about 2 months old. So it's normal. I'd say being in 28 degree constantly may not be a great idea but as long as shrimps are doing fine it's okay. I would try to keep the temp a bit (2-3 degree) lower. The higher the temperature, the faster they will grow (as long as they don't die from the effect of high temp), but two things can be potentially causing issues. 1) bacterial infection (bacteria grows much faster in warmer water), 2) molting issue, if shrimps grow faster than they can form new shells, it can be a problem. They may be force to molt before the new shell is properly formed. (this is my guess)


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## Splak (May 1, 2013)

solarz said:


> Seeing a saddle doesn't mean the shrimp is ready to breed. For neocaridina, the females usually have to be 1" in size before they will get berried.
> 
> How long have you had your cherry shrimps? I wouldn't worry about it too much. RCS are very easy to breed.


The carbon rili is about .75" max, and the cherry shrimps are fully grown 1" plus.

I have had the cherrys for about 3 weeks now, and they were saddled upon purchase.


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## Splak (May 1, 2013)

randy said:


> My guess..
> 
> For ammonia test result, if you get 0.25ppm on any water including RO, then probably the kit is faulty. Try shake the bottles really hard before dripping and see if it makes any difference.
> 
> ...


Wow, thanks a ton everyone, I am going to lower the temp a bit in my carbon tank now.

I really appreciate the help and new info I am learning ahah!


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## Splak (May 1, 2013)

Fishfur said:


> Shrimp saddle when they are sexually mature.. if they have a saddle, then they're old enough to have one. They become sexually mature before they reach full adult size, so I wouldn't be too concerned about them being on the small side. Typically once they reach sexual maturity, they moult and after the moult, send out their sex pheromones, at which time you'd expect to see the males in the tank become much more active as they try to chase down the source of the alluring hormones the females have released.
> 
> Once mated, then you'll see berrying. The mere fact a female has a saddle doesn't necessarily mean she's going to become berried right away.


Interesting, I noticed about 5 days ago, before I saw a saddled Carbon, that 2-3 of my shrimp were going nuts for a few hours, swimming up and down, all over the tank, I also did see a molt on the ground. So maybe it was the shrimp I think is saddled they went after.


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## solarz (Aug 31, 2010)

Splak said:


> The carbon rili is about .75" max, and the cherry shrimps are fully grown 1" plus.
> 
> I have had the cherrys for about 3 weeks now, and they were saddled upon purchase.


Randy raises a good point. Do you have any males in there? Males are less red and more transparent than females. Do a google search to see the difference.


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## Splak (May 1, 2013)

solarz said:


> Randy raises a good point. Do you have any males in there? Males are less red and more transparent than females. Do a google search to see the difference.


The carbon rili's I have are black instead of red, with blue too. I do have atleast 1 that is a lighter blue though, although, I was thinking that was just maybe a slightly lower quality of shrimp.


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