Need advice on shrimp breeding?

I am resently getting into shrimps and wanting to breed. What I tried so far in the last 8mos. is not working well so far. Have tried cherries, yellows, fire reds, grass and now malawa's without any breeding occuring. Most species listed are now gone... Tanks are 2+ years old and well seasoned with no preditors, so what's up? Please help!!!: confused: 

I will be watching this thread! The only shrimp I can keep alive is Amano & Whisker I've killed $100's worth of fancy shrimp...

By no predators, you mean no fish whatsoever? Every single fish is known to eat shrimplets. If there isn't enough cover, they are doomed. Do you treat your water with anything? What's your PH, and all the other water parameters? How often do you change your water? Do you use a sponge filter or HOB or canister, etc?

I started with a group of shrimp from pbmax months ago and have had hundreds of babies without doing anything other than change the water and provide them with plenty of plants.

I have raised cherry's in a tenG. with only livebearer fry.
My malawa's are just not doing anything...no berried females at all  
The parameters in all my small tanks(4) is;
Well water is 8.2 out of tap, 7.5 in tank.
hardness 6-10dh
no h.o.b.'s just U.G.'s, & or sponge filters
Water is changed in 2 week intervolds
All tanks have logs w/some algee and are live planted, substrate is 1-4m.m. gravel/turface mix

What's the TDS like in your tanks? That would give some indication of organics in the water in addition to minerals. Malawa should definitely be breeding... the hardness shouldn't bother them at all and really it isn't that high.

What's your KH? I imagine it's high with PH of 8.2 out of the tap, but that shouldn't matter unless it's super high.

I have the same water change schedule as yours - I do 50% every 2 weeks. I also fertilize most of my shrimp tanks twice a week.

Do you have floating plants at all? I use these in all my tanks (amazon frogbit or water lettuce) - they're a fantastic natural filtration mechanism. They also provide more surface area for bio film which shrimp love to munch on and natural hiding places.

Shrimp can be tricky.. I'm still trying to figure out how to get my yellows breeding again consistently. The only major difference I can see between our tanks is I don't use wood in my tanks. I do, in fact, have a densely-planted turface tank with madly breeding malawa, though you wouldn't know it since the african dwarf frogs eat most of the juveniles.

How much light do you have over your tanks and what's your photoperiod?

What is TDS pbmax?

TDS is total dissolved solids. Typically TDS is measured with a TDS meter that has electrodes on it which really measures the conductivity of the water. TDS is slightly more complex than simple conductivity, but conductivity is close enough for our purposes. It's a good measure of both organic and inorganic ions in the water.

Basically it's how much stuff is in the water. High TDS readings can be a good thing if GH and KH are high (when keeping livebearers or mystery snails for example), or a bad thing (when keeping CRS, blue tigers, and other sensitive, soft-water shrimp). High TDS readings when KH and GH are low indicate a high amount of dissolved organics - dirty water. This is generally bad.

pbmax wrote:TDS is total dissolved solids.  Typically TDS is measured with a TDS meter that has electrodes on it which really measures the conductivity of the water.  TDS is slightly more complex than simple conductivity, but conductivity is close enough for our purposes.  It's a good measure of both organic and inorganic ions in the water.  

Basically it's how much stuff is in the water.  High TDS readings can be a good thing if GH and KH are high (when keeping livebearers or mystery snails for example), or a bad thing (when keeping CRS, blue tigers, and other sensitive, soft-water shrimp).  High TDS readings when KH and GH are low indicate a high amount of dissolved organics - dirty water.  This is generally bad.

Interesting...
Do you have one of these TDS meters? Where can someone find these? Dont think I have ever seen these at any LFS.

I do; you can find them super-cheap on ebay or wherever.

pbmax wrote:I do; you can find them super-cheap on ebay or wherever.

Ill research this a bit more then perhaps pick one up. Thanks!

I see a TDS meter as a way to keep an eye on tanks that are dirtier than they should be. A lot of folks say certain shrimp should be kept with a TDS under 200.

Hey PBmax,
I have these guys on well water including my livebeaers, it's 8.2ph and a low 6 degrees kh. I know it sound weird but it's a high P.H. and a soft combo. I live above the Duvall valley which is in the Snoqualmie valley basin. I should get a test from the local river and see what it reads as my well feeds off this water table. The well is 310' deep. I believe it is in a granite aquafer feed.
We have never run dry but last summer the garden hose ran dry briefly and when it recovered the p.h. test went up to 8.6p.h. or so almost beyond my test parameters! It was as high as lake Lenore at 8.8! I should take a sample to the local water municipality and test for dissolved salts and minerals as well. Thanks you know your stuff!!!! 

6 on GH and KH isn't crazy high. I've noticed the same about my water - it's soft, yet the PH is pretty high. This is especially evident when I adjust the water for my hot tub.

Our community well is somewhere over 200 feet deep, but we're switching to City of Lacey water within a month or so due to higher than the federally-mandated max level of arsenic. So goodbye great water and hello chlorine.

Heh, at least I fake it well.

Worst case you could buy a reverse osmosis system and create ideal water from scratch using a product like Seachem Equilibrium (this is what I use to bring my water up to spec for platies and mystery snails). I use R.O. for my drinking water (the aforementioned arsenic issue), but with only a 3g tank it's not terribly practical for water changes.

How long do you keep the lights on over your tanks?

Pbmax,
Thanks for the sound advice! I keep all my tanks (6) on 12/12 timer schedule. Tell me more about Seachem Eq. I would like to harden the K.H. but still be able to control the p.h. to around 7.4, will this product help??

That photo period is fine... no issue there. I asked because some folks never turn theirs off - that's bad.

Equilibrium increases GH, which is why I mentioned it in combination with R.O. water. This would enable you to build "perfect" water by starting out with nearly zero minerals (reverse osmosis or distilled water) and then adding minerals from a known source to build your GH. Then you'd add something to boost the KH (baking soda or something like Seachem Alkaline buffer, which I use). The point of this would be to rule out a component of your well water that may be affecting shrimp breeding. You could also try running the water through a decent set of carbon filters before using it in your shrimp tanks. Have you tried adding carbon filtration to one or more of the shrimp tanks?

Seachem alkaline buffer stabilizes at a PH of 7.8, or so it says on the bottle. Given that yours is higher, I'm not sure what would happen if you added some. You could try it and find out I'm guessing it would simply increase the PH along with the KH, but it may be more complex than that.

Carbonates and bicarbonates comprise the largest portion of water's alkalinity. KH measures only these anions. Others, such as hydroxide, borates, silicates, and phosphates, can also increase PH, but we don't typically measure these for aquarium purposes. These are likely responsible for your high PH - a KH of 6 isn't enough by itself.

One thing I've noticed since being here (4 years now) the P.h. will hold @7.5 using A.P.I. P.H. down then will slowly creep up when I check it just before doing water changes. Some tanks are more apt to do this than others. As you already know each is unique.
One year I had a stable 10g. totally have a catistrophic P.H. crash, and in two weeks time it went from 7.5 to 6.2!!! The water here seems to be different from summer to winter. I should buy a phosphate test kit and have concidered it as some tanks get a massive fuzzy algee in a short amount of time. I have learned to control some of it by changing lighting spectrums and putting a single pleco in my bigger tanks! Boy do they clran house!!!!

Without buffers the PH will swing in my aquariums. I like using woods, so every once in a while my systems will drop PH quickly & kill(below tester readings!) . So, I have off set this with measured amounts of crushed coral within the filter system & weekly water changes. If I slack & not conduct a weekly change the measured amount of crushed coral won't let PH drop lower than 6.8 (our water supply is neutral).