Look at all these shrimps. Well here we are at the Desert
tank. We should probably be calling it the string algae tank. It's probably a better
name for it. But regardless of that it has turned into a shrimp breeding factory for
me. There are hundreds upon hundreds if not maybe even like a thousand of these black
neo shrimp in here. So we're gonna be primarily talking about that today because I know a
lot of people get shrimp for the first time and they don't have success with them. But
it's actually really simple. And I want to give you guys all the pointers that I could
possibly give you. To be successful with shrimp and end up with tons of them. But I think
before we start talking about that guys we need to do something with this aquarium. We
need to clean it up. It's it's crazy. Okay. And I'll explain why I let it get this way.
I mean it wasn't just because I was lazy. All right. I mean that's that's mostly the
reason why. But we should at least clean it up a little bit before we stare at it and
talk about shrimp for the next five or 10 minutes to work on this tank. We're gonna
be primarily using a toothbrush to get rid of his string algae you'll see how effective
this is in just a second but we're also gonna be using some of these spring scissors that
I got recently. Now it's not very often that I get my hands on a product that I haven't
used before and absolutely love like I love these scissors like these these things are
awesome. OK. And I'm gonna tell you why. Let's see if we can find right here yeah. So these are typical aquascaping
scissors that you see they have the curved blades on them but they're really long. OK.
Which you think would be a good idea. You can kind of reach stuff easier maybe and that's
that's true but it really just comes down to the amount of time you have to spend using
these scissors doing this. Holding them in your fingers. They just. They suck compared
to these like they. That's the only way to put it these things like you will see in a
minute are just. Way better. They're way more comfortable they're
easier to use your fingers don't get tired and obviously this isn't the best thing to
use on the algae but when we get in here and we trim the moss on the cactus I mean we're
just going to go to town and it's going to be super super easy so these things right
here they are a little spendy their like 20 bucks they're stainless steel. I just found
some random listing on Amazon. They don't necessarily have like a specific brand name
or anything there's a couple different listings but I'll throw the exact ones that I got in
the description so you can check them out and maybe get some if if you're interested
in that if you have a planted tank if you're trimming a lot these things are gold. Anyway
guys let's go ahead and let's clean this tank up a little bit. We're about halfway through on
our water change guys. I also did a little bit of trimming here on the plants as you
saw I might do a little bit more in the back. But we're doing a pretty good job so far I
think the tank is going to turn out looking pretty good. Look at this ginormous ball of
algae that I pulled out of this thing so far. That's crazy whoops. We don't want that going on with
the siphoning I was doing trying to remove as much of the hair algae down at the substrate
level as possible. I definitely ended up getting more than a few shrimp into this bucket so
we'll let things settle out here and then we'll try and net out as many as we can but
it's just impossible when you have this many shrimp in a tank to not suck them up. You
just have to do your best. I'm feeling pretty optimistic about the scape. I don't want to
just get rid of it quite yet. I want to explore. Kind of messing around with some additional
rocks down here that match escape to try and get it back to something that I'm happy with
that I enjoy looking at. This has always been a special aquarium to me and I want to try
and keep it for as long as possible. Look at all these shrimps. They're just dog piling in there
I threw in some food and they're just going crazy for it. I think everybody's over here.
There's probably some stragglers Yeah. They haven't they haven't figured it out yet but
they'll be over here very soon to hang out with their buddies and get some food but they
are loving the water change guys. The water's still a little cloudy you know it doesn't
look super great or anything I did put the cacti back in here. I wasn't sure if I was
going to do it just because they kind of still have some algae on em and I I have a feeling
that they are one of the main sources of that big bloom of the string algae. But we also
added in a couple extra rocks and whatnot in here. I don't know how I really feel about
the scape. I mean I've been kind of looking at the same thing for a long time now and
I would like it change but I don't have a ton of other materials to add so I don't know
well we'll see if we can fight the algae and maintain a more balanced aquarium here for
a while. And if we can't then then we'll kind of float the idea of maybe changing this tank.
But I just I really like this aquarium I don't want to have to change it. I promise that
we're gonna get to talking about the shrimp. I know if you if you came here for this video
looking for the breeding information and how to keep your shrimp we are going to get to
it I promise. But for those that are regular viewers you know I got to give you the full
update here so you know had to clean out the filter it was pretty much not moving at all
there were some shrimp down there that we saved got the lily pipe's kind of cleaned
out here. I'm really loving this setup. You can't really see it at all. Got everything
cleaned out. This is something we will touch on with the shrimp keeping. But we have a
intake sponge over there on our intake just to prevent anybody from floating up there
in the past that had fallen off and I wasn't good about getting it replaced. So it's just
relying on the vegetative material the plants the dead leaves and stuff blocking that. So
no more of that. That's rookie stuff. Now we got everything 100 percent back to normal
and looking good. OK guys let's talk about keeping
shrimp and how to get them breeding like crazy lots of new shrimp keepers have problems with
this. I know I did when I started to keep them. So first off you want to make sure that
your water parameters are ideal for them. These neo Caridina shrimp aren't as sensitive
to water parameters as their cousins the caridina shrimp but you still want to make sure you
have them in water that is conducive to them being happy and healthy. If they're not then
they definitely aren't going to breed as much or as frequent as you want them to. So a good
set of parameters are as follows a pH that's as close to seven as possible but definitely
in the range of six point five to seven point five has been really good in my experience
a GH between four and eight and your KH can be anywhere from two to 15. Some of these
have super wide ranges but the take home message here is consistency as long as your main parameters
stay the same. You should have an easy time keeping these guys healthy while promoting
them to breed. An example of how you can mess up this consistency is adding too much CO2
to your tank and thus creating too much of a shift in pH between night and day. This
is something that I've done in the past without realizing it. And not only did my shrimp not
breed many of them died as a result. Consistency always wins and not just with shrimp keeping.
So I always recommend a new shrimp keeper's go with a low tech tank and keep things simple
to avoid these problems. If you need to adjust your water parameters here are a few tips
because I know not everybody has the ideal situation. If you need to soften your water
you can use an active substrate like BrightWell soil and or you can cut your water with RO
water if you need to add hardness like I do. I like using the shrimp mineral GH and KH
booster just make sure that you're staying consistent and adding the correct amount each
time when you do your water changes. Now let's talk about temperature because while it's
definitely a water parameter I like to keep it separate and here's why these shrimp will
behave differently in colder versus water like with most organisms but there's definitely
a strategy here. Colder temps like 68 to 70 degrees Fahrenheit are great for longevity
but it will also result in slower shrimp growth as well as the rate at which they're going
to breed. So if breeding is your goal then you can raise your temperature up to more
of a normal temperature like seventy six to seventy eight degrees Fahrenheit and you'll
most likely see a big difference when you first get shrimp in. I would recommend keeping
them somewhere in the middle like 72 to seventy three and that way you can hopefully get them
adjusted to your tank fairly quickly. Another important thing is making sure you get quality
shrimp. Make sure that they're mature and already at a breeding age if that's your goal.
On top of this the more shrimp you can start a colony with the better. If you start with
five shrimp it's going to take a lot longer to get a large colony going versus if you
would have gotten your hands on like 20 of them. So keep that in mind. You guys know
if you've watched the channel for a while I get my shrimp from Flip aquatics dot com.
They're a sponsor of the channel but I wouldn't work with them if I thought the quality wasn't
there. So check out the links in the description. If you're looking for a new source of shrimp
as far as feeding goes I really just try and not overcomplicate it. I typically use the
shrimp king complete food it's got everything that the shrimp need to grow and be happy
and healthy so I feed one pellet per day. Even in this giant tank when I'm really wanting
them to grow and breed quickly. Now you don't need to feed every day if you have a lot of
shrimp you certainly can do that but it's not even really required because ideally you're
going to have a tank that has a ton of surface area with a ton of bacterial films that your
shrimp can be nibbling on throughout the day. Here are a few other tips that aren't 100
percent required to get your shirt breeding but it will definitely help them overall cover
your filter intakes with some type of sponge. This is going to prevent small shrimp from
getting sucked up and also give them an additional spot to feed on relating to this using air
driven sponge filters or like a matten filter. It's also a really great idea for shrimp tanks.
Not only are they safe but it provides a much larger area for them to feed on as well. I've
opted to not really do that in the desert tank here but you can tell it's still working
out for me. Another thing that seems super obvious but needs to be said is that if you
are really focused on breeding and increasing your numbers keep your shrimp by themselves.
Even though there are many small nano fish that can be paired with dwarf shrimp you always
run the risk of those fish picking off the new shrimplets. So just avoid fish altogether.
If you're breeding focused. So yeah guys that's pretty much
it. Those were my main tips that I wanted to share with you. As you can tell the tank
is looking pretty good now that we got things cleaned out. I mean it's not perfect. There's
still a little bit of algae in here but we've made some steps in the right direction. Yeah.
Hope you enjoyed the tips. If there's anything that I left out drop em down in the comments
below. Share your knowledge with other people that are trying to learn more about shrimp.
And yeah if you're new don't forget to subscribe like the video if it helped you out. And we'll
see in the next one.