Ideas for water hardeners for shrimp

I am wanting to bring up the kh hardness in my water for shrimps, Please help???
I have been told cuttle bone works?? Isn't this use for parakeets??

Cuttle bone will increase the GH very slightly, but likely not the KH.  And yes, they sell it for birds.

You can increase KH with baking soda and/or a product designed to do this.  I use Seachem Alkaline Buffer to boost KH in my tanks.

Thanx again max, what about adding crushed oyster shell?

Cuttlebone crushed coral are both typically used to increase GH slightly. A little research finds that people use crushed oyster shells for the same reason.

In truth, all of these will likely affect KH slightly as well (calcium carbonate, after all), but for a measured and consistent increase in KH you'll want to use bicarbonates like baking soda or product designed to do it.

That said, it certainly wouldn't hurt to try and see what the effect of crushed oyster shells would be, but "dosage" and consistency will be tricky, I imagine. I use Seachem products for this reason - easy to get exactly what I'm shooting for in terms of GH and KH and keep it there across water changes.

I like to use zoomed plankton banquet blocks. Snails and shrimp swarm them and they are basically calcium with spirulina algae blended in.

Indeed - for shrimp you really don't need to worry about increasing KH that much, in my experience. A lot of shrimp (caridina species in particular) thrive in very soft and acidic water. Adding calcium to their diet like Cory suggests is likely more than adequate.

which shrimps?

PBmax,
I am trying the crushed oyster shell now in small amounts and the shrimp seemed to go for it. This is also for my livebearers I keep. I will look into to both suggestions though, problem is if I use alkaline buffets it will raise my p.h. back to my well water parameters which I'm already battling with to keep down.

Are you trying to reconstitute reverse osmosis or distilled water in this case and not use your tap?

I don't recall the KH of your water off hand, but I do remember the PH was over 8. There are 2 ways to reduce the buffering capacity of the water (KH and other components not covered by KH) - neutralize it by adding some sort of acid (either acid directly, not a terribly good idea, or creating a higher bio load in the tank which then releases more acids via the nitrogen cycle like drift wood or peat) or remove it all together via reverse osmosis or distillation or something like that.

PBmax,
No I'm stuck using my well supply which reads 6 gh directly, kh 107. ALL of my tanks (7) have good sized seasoned logs in them. Some have limestone from an Orcas Island lake which seems to help with hardening the water for those 2 tanks. The Turface Tank is still pretty young (4 months old now), It's holding it's p.h. at 7.4, perfect for swords. I will check the hardness in it tomarrow again. I do not have a R.O. set up and the only thing I could do is to get R.O. water in 5 g. jugs via the grocery store refill stations. It's cheap @ .41 a gallon. it would only be worth it in my smaller tanks for shrimp... Still looking for Yellows B.T.W.

In that case, you don't need to increase your KH for shrimp. KH is another way of expressing alkalinity - the buffering capacity of the water which enables it to hold the PH steady above 7. If your PH is stable then your KH is fine. Shrimp do like some calcium (GH measures calcium, potassium, and other ions in the water), but I've never had issues with shrimp and my water is pretty soft.

Why are you looking to fix by increasing KH?

I'm sorry PBmax I was doing it for livebearers as well. My p.h. isn't stable and after a 10 day period it will inch up to it's original reading @ 8.2 ph. I guess I'm a bit mixed up and are a lousy chemist at that. Those Malawa shrimp just won't breed for me and I'm probably going to get rid of them anyways.

Woops, in my above post I meant to say what are you looking to fix by increasing the KH. A higher KH generally leads to a higher PH, but there is a point at which the PH will stabilize and an increase in KH won't increase the PH any more.

A PH that creeps up is my definition of stable. That means that whatever is pulling the PH down can't overcome the buffering capacity of the water.

What are you doing at the beginning of the aforementioned 10 day period to pull the PH down?

What do your other water parameters in the malawa tank look like? Where are your nitrates at? How long do you have the lights on? Is it planted? What's the substrate? What are you feeding in that tank?

The parameters in the Malawa tank (a 10g.) is 7.8ph. Nitrates 0 to 5.0ppm lights are on 12 hours daily on timer, live potted plants, Crypto's potted, java fern on a small log, fine gravel substrate. Foods are micro algee pellets. Tank is near an east window so it gets morning light with some sun if sunny at all! Thanks you are a chemist at that!  You should come speak at a G.S.A.G. MEETING

My PH is really close to that (7.6 - 7. and my malawa have bred well for years now. All of those answers sound fine - the only thing I don't have in my water is wood.

If you're really determined, you could (as I mentioned previously) try starting out with distilled or R.O. water, build up a known GH and KH using various products, and go from there. That's likely more trouble than it's worth though.

What neocaridina species have you kept / are you keeping currently? They weren't breeding either, correct?

Heh, a chemist I am not; the last chemistry class I took was my sophomore year at WSU. But I appreciate the vote of confidence.

I have used crushed coral since I started keeping a couple of types of shrimp, and it seems to work well. I put some inside my filter and laid some on top of the substrate, and it seems to do well at keeping the PH consistently higher than my tap water, at least.

I guess I can't say much for how it affects hardness, because I don't have a hardness test kit, but my guppies seem to really like the result. I can't say much for shrimp breeding, because the only shrimp I have that have tried to breed are RCS, and they were in with the guppies, so obviously any babies have been eaten pretty quickly. They seem to be happy though, and the females are always berried, so I think it works out ok.

I don't know if this is the case (it sort of sounded like it), but if you have your livebearers in with the malawa shrimp, maybe thats' why you aren't seeing breeding take place. Or maybe, like my situation, when they do breed the babies get eaten by the livebearers.

Is it possible that the hardness of the well water could be TOO high for shrimp?

Malawa are a sulawesi species and like all sulawesi species should have no problem with slightly hard water.  The presence of fish or other predators does not prevent Malawa breeding, in my experience.  And by this I mean I still see berried malawa females in tanks where I keep aquaria that predate the babies.

You might try adding some alder cones or dried leaves or something like that?  Shrimp love these and lots of folks claim some sort of magic benefit from them.

I'm artificially increasing the hardness in a tank where I have a ton of breeding malawa, so if the issue is hard water I should see fewer berried females.  I'll keep an eye on them and let you know if this is indeed the case.

Thanks luminousaphid, pbmax,
I did a test with alder cones 6mos. ago in a seperate container and soaked them for a week in my kitchen, tested the water and the ammonia was throught the roof!!! I changed the water and let it sit abit longer and it showed a deep, dark green in the vial, so I through them out on the lawn! I would have killed everything if I had used them!
As for fish in with the Malawa's, I posted earlier I keep Endler fry in there but they could care less about the shrimp! The shrimp are just as big!!
Max as for other types of shrimps, I have a small gang of Neocardinia Sp. wild type breeding like rats in a 5.5g.! There is at least 3 berried females at one time and shrimplets everywhere!! I also am trying another small tank for some of the Malalwa's to see if it's just the current tank their in is not to their liking. I have raised fry in this same 10g. for over two years now. As I said before, No berried females at all! These M. shrimp are 8 to 10 mos old now.

Any decaying organic matter will produce ammonia - the key is to avoid overwhelming the biological filter. In a tank the nitrogen cycle bacteria would quickly process the ammonia away, provided you don't dump too much in. But they likely wouldn't help you anyway, so it's a moot point.

I'd try a different tank for sure. I have one tank where malawa breed very slowly and I rarely see berried females and another where I see tons of them. If neos are happy in your water then malawa should be too - they're less picky, in my experience.

My malawa experience has been a bit "meh" overall so far, I got 5 of them (which was my first problem, should have bought more) and put them in my little thrift store 4 gallon cube. They seemed to do alright at first, but then within a week or so 2 of them died, and the rest were beginning to lose color. I had lots of plants and hiding places, and the substrate was white, so it has been really hard to see them without any sort of body coloring. Usually I will notice their stomachs floating there and then realize "there is a shrimp" because they are so transparent and blend in so well. I have had a small sparkling gourami in with them for a lot of the time, so I don't know if that would make a difference. I have never noticed the gourami even paying any attention to the shrimp, he just likes to pick at the algae for things and eat blackworms.

Recently I put some Heterandria formosa in with them, and re-arranged the tank, and initially I saw more of the shrimp but now I think they have come up with even better hiding places than before. Since I never see them, yesterday I caught as many RCS out of my 10 gallon as I could find and put them in here, it's nice to finally see some color in the little tank.

So overall, the malawa I kept haven't been that exciting, and I haven't seen any with eggs at all. Maybe they're all dudes.

Sometime I will get a nice 20 or so to put in there to try and start a colony, I think then they would be much more interesting. I have heard they breed and multiply crazily once you get up to a good number like 50 or so.

I started out with 20+ malawa from Aquabid slightly over 4 years ago.  I initially kept them in a 10g, but they went on to invade and utterly infest 4 of my tanks.  I even had them jumping out of tanks and landing in other tanks below (no joke).

After a lot of time and effort and totally breaking down 1 tank I now keep them in my biggest tank (29g) and a 10g.  Are they anything special?  Not really...    At one point I wished I'd never purchased them to begin with, but they do serve a purpose now - african dwarf frog food.  Are they worth a ton of time and effort to try to breed them?  Definitely not.

Plain RCS are far more attractive, in my opinion. Neocaridina also get substantially larger than malawa do. Malawa are a bit more active in the tank than Neocaridina and they're much faster when scared (by a net, for example). They can breed much faster when they're happy too. None of that adds up to a must-keep species in my book.

Really, because my malawa are not really active at all, in fact I usually just see them sitting on the branches of my driftwood doing absolutely nothing, or at most grazing on the biofilm. Maybe they just aren't happy, but they seem like they are good... what food do you feed yours?

I don't really feed mine, and when I have used one of the plankton blocks that cory mentioned, they don't seem to touch it as far as I have ever seen. They do molt every few weeks, but I might need to get some of that repashy food to get them to eat better and be more active.

Mine are constantly moving and scooting around. In the 29g they get leftovers from the fish - Ken's flake mostly, but sometimes some Ken's veggie sticks with CA or NLS small fish pellets. In the 10g they get NLS small fish pellets and a mixture if Ken's veggie sticks with CA, Ken's catfish sticks, and Omega shrimp pellets.

It's most likely not the food that's the problem, but rather something in the water, I'd think. And it's probably something we don't measure or test for that has them displeased. Shrimp can be terribly picky sometimes. My basic advice for keeping any type of shrimp is go with new species in a minimum 10g tank and then keep them in smaller tanks after they get established. So much more can go wrong in a small tank.