Water Parameters

I have two shrimp tanks a Semi Neon Yellow Colony and a Taiwan Fire Reds and I did a water test.

Both tanks are running 75-79 Fahrenheit

Feeding once a day w/ different diets
Gigi's WF, Hikari Tropical Algae Wafers, Hikari Tropical Micro Wafers, Color Fish Flakes, and Plecocaine

Parameters:

Yellows: 15 Gallon column tank
PH - 7.6
Ammonia - 0.25 PPM
Nitrite - 0 PPM
Nitrate - 20 PPM

Reds: 6 Gallon rimless bowfront tank
PH - 7.6
Ammonia - 0 PPM
Nitrite - 0 PPM
Nitrate - 80 PPM

Any suggestions for rapid breeding or at least happy life for them? I was thinking about bringing down the PH for about 0.2 should I or just keep it that way? Diet wise is it okay to change foods almost every day. and sunday is a no food day.

Thank you!

Yellows Tank:
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Reds Tank:


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Test the first tank again and if ammonia is present determine why. Get the nitrates down in the second tank

plaamoo wrote:Test the first tank again and if ammonia is present determine why. Get the nitrates down in the second tank

I would assume i overfed one time cuz i saw pieces that was leftover. And i actually lost a shrimp

What the best way or easiest and safest way to bring down nitrates?

Add floating plants!!! This has worked for me. I don't use duckweed though. Try water lettuce or something.

Red root floaters (i think this is what they're called) or frogbit.

How's your water change schedule? They probably don't need them too often, but that would help control the nitrates. Do a water change and retest the nitrates/ammonia. Don't forget to squeeze those sponges!

Also, while it is nice to have a diverse diet, I would switch it less than daily. That is not because it is bad to switch it every day tho. Rather, it would be hard to figure out portion control every day, so feed a single food until you figure out exactly how much they need, then switch.

In my experience, you will get rapid breeding when you stop watching them. I can't believe the number of times I've hear people say "I gave up on breeding X, and then suddenly they bred"... All you gotta do is give them a stable environment. How long have you had these tanks going?

Will I am wrote:Red root floaters (i think this is what they're called) or frogbit.

Gotcha! I like that red root floater. I gotta find a local seller. Thanks!

MRTom wrote:How's your water change schedule? They probably don't need them too often, but that would help control the nitrates. Do a water change and retest the nitrates/ammonia. Don't forget to squeeze those sponges!

Also, while it is nice to have a diverse diet, I would switch it less than daily. That is not because it is bad to switch it every day tho. Rather, it would be hard to figure out portion control every day, so feed a single food until you figure out exactly how much they need, then switch.

In my experience, you will get rapid breeding when you stop watching them. I can't believe the number of times I've hear people say "I gave up on breeding X, and then suddenly they bred"... All you gotta do is give them a stable environment. How long have you had these tanks going?

Every week 25-35% i usually squeeze out the sponge every other wc.

So should i start with gigis since. Its an awesome food? And next the algae?

I kinda thought of that. Maybe shrimp is still pretty new for me. The tank was a fish tank but got converted to shrimps about 2-3 months ago.

Thanks!

Frogbit and water lettuce are much better water processors than red root floater - I'd go with these instead. They grow much faster than RRF and faster growth means more stuff pulled out of the water. I tend to prefer Frogbit over any of the others due to the fine root structure.

That sounds like a regular enough schedule. I would retest before and after to see if there is a meaningful change. And start with whatever food you like gigi's sounds like a great place to start.

pbmax wrote:Frogbit and water lettuce are much better water processors than red root floater - I'd go with these instead.  They grow much faster than RRF and faster growth means more stuff pulled out of the water.  I tend to prefer Frogbit over any of the others due to the fine root structure.

Oh i had frogbits. But now they got frozen because i forgot to put alll my emersed plants inside the house. I'll try to defrost and see if they still survive. Only thing i didnt like on those is the duckweeds that shows up out of nowhere!

MRTom wrote:That sounds like a regular enough schedule. I would retest before and after to see if there is a meaningful change. And start with whatever food you like :)gigi's sounds like a great place to start.

Yeah i'll do my wc tomorrow or sat since thats the schedule. Yeah i'll try to go gigis one week straight. And see if it makes a difference. Thank you sir!

jettej wrote:
Oh i had frogbits. But now they got frozen because i forgot to put alll my emersed plants inside the house. I'll try to defrost and see if they still survive. Only thing i didnt like on those is the duckweeds that shows up out of nowhere!

Duckweed is an insidious beast.    I fought long and hard against the stuff in all but one of my tanks and I'm happy to say I won the war.   

In my case, the stuff was hiding up under the tank rims.  Even completely dried, desiccated, brown bits of duckweed stuck up where you can't see it can create a whole new ARMY OF DUCKWEED.    Every week I'd splash water up under the rims and remove every last piece of duckweed I could find floating in the tank after that.  This meant yanking all my floating plants, rinsing them several times, and then putting them back.  But you only have to do that once as long as you stay on top of it.

I'm still losing the war against watermeal...  

I'm betting you can salvage a bit of your frogbit; it's pretty hardy stuff.

Yeah. I have a tank that i regularly harvest duckweeds. LoL! Yeah i'll try to salvage it.

Actually when i had frogbits on my tanks i notice shrimps hangouts there and munch on something. Stems looked cool.
Only other thong is they block the overhead lights.

jettej wrote:Yeah. I have a tank that i regularly harvest duckweeds. LoL! Yeah i'll try to salvage it.

Actually when i had frogbits on my tanks i notice shrimps hangouts there and munch on something. Stems looked cool.
Only other thong is they block the overhead lights.

The shrimp love to hang out on the stuff. When the tank gets relatively full of it you just throw half out - easy nitrate removal!   

Sounds great. Ill probably do this on my reds tanks more than the yellows. Im scared overfiltering the 6 gallon.

Will I am wrote:Add floating plants!!! This has worked for me. I don't use duckweed though. Try water lettuce or something.

+100 to this. Floating plants are magic, in fact I am now stuck with floating plants and am afraid to get rid of them, because I think the water parameters might go wonky if I do. I have been trying to slowly remove them, but I keep forgetting about it and then in about 3 days they grow back to where they were

But, they are very good at taking nitrates etc out of the water. I like amazon frogbit, but my favorite is cupped salvinia. Cory has lots at Aquarium Co-Op