Crystal Red Shrimp

[j-gens]

i am looking into getting / breeding crystal red shrimp
what do i need to know... and i want to get a high grade so the more info the better so i dont throw my money down the drain

[msjinkzd]

They like cooler temps, low 70's. They need softer water (ph in the 6's), a covered intake. Alot of people use ADA aquasoil in their CRS tanks as it lowers pH but be careful because it can cause ammonia spikes initially.

[j-gens]

right great is there anything i need to do to make them feel confortable? mosses? climbing wall? stuff like that?
w/c's?? how often?

[msjinkzd]

They love planted tanks, mosses, anubias, ferns, are all fantastic. I do weekly water changes on my shrimp tanks. If you go low light plants and no ferts, 20% weekly or so should be fine. If you decide to go higher tech and dose ferts, i would do 50% weekly.

[j-gens]

perfect Thanks msjinkzd you rock.

[msjinkzd]

here is some more info: http://www.theshrimpfarm.com/crystal_red_shrimp.shtml
http://www.plantedtank.net/articles/Crystal-Red-Shrimp-Care-and-Breeding/22/

Good luck, they are fascinating shrimp!

[oblongshrimp]

I have my high grades (SS-SSS) in a 20gal tall tank with aquasoil 1 (aquasoil 2 doesn't buffer as well). I use 100% RO water and have a Eheim filter and a chiller on there. Although I have a sponge filter on the intake I still find shrimp in the filter when I clean it. I have moss and driftwood in the tank and I try to keep the water temp around 75. I feed them sirakura food .

As msjinkzd (http://www.aquariacentral.com/forums/member.php?u=66215)mentioned aquasoil 1 will leech large amounts of ammonia for several weeks when it is new. Frequent and large water changes can decrease the time the aquasoil leeches though. I would let the tank mature for at LEAST a month before adding CRS to it, but the longer the better. You may want to try your luck with A-C grades before moving onto the higher grades. In my experience the lower grades seem to be hardier, easier to breed, and can be significantly cheaper.

[j-gens]

what is a good source for the sss grade?

[TwoHobbies]

I also have my S grade CRS in aquasoil II. It also needs a good 4-6 weeks to stop leeching amonia, but buffers the water nicely. If your tap water is above a PH of 6.4 you need to handle that problem first.

[pik01]

I am looking into getting CRS myself (first gotta get past the hurdle of southern california's liquid rock: great for snails, not for CRS) and that plantedtank article is a good one :)

[pik01]

so as I understand it, 100% RO water and aged aquasoil 1 or 2 as substrate would give good parameters for crystal red shrimp? that crystal red profile msjinkzd linked suggests 1-5 dkh for hardness...last I checked, the tap water here has gh of 20 and a kh of 10 :(

oblongshrimp: what is your GH, KH, and pH with 100% RO and aquasoil 1?

[Yadokari]

Aquasoil I and II are both the same in terms of their water changing properties. I use I and II for tigers/crs and they both work fine.

It is best to go low-tech for shrimp because it's incredibly low maintenance and you won't have to do WCs if you make it a low-tech planted. Less WC = better for CRS in my opinion. Of course, that means you need to have zero nitrates all the time, thus allowing you to escape the burdens of a WC.

Why is doing less WC better for CRS (and shrimp in general)? For aquasoil users mainly, if your tap is 7.6 and your tank water is 6.8, doing a water change will basically cause a huge PH flux and will cause a lot of stress to the fragile CRS. I used to do a ton of WC because I thought I had to, even though my nitrates were at 0. I would find a dead CRS from each WC. So I stopped doing em all together and the deaths stopped occurring. Just remember, WCs are needed to remove nitrates. But if nitrates aren't even there, why do em?

All I do is top-off for my shrimp tanks since nitrates never go up due to plants.


The ammonia spike isn't even really a random spike. Aquasoil MUST be cycled before used inside tanks with fauna. It's as simple as that. Once the initial set-up is made, aquasoil will no longer make your ammonia jump. What's great about this soil in terms of cycling is that it leaks out its own ammonia, therefore, you don't have go add an ammonia source to cycle the tank. Just let it sit there with the filter on and you're set.

So anyway... CRS parameters...

Low PH soft water
70-74 temp

and... that's pretty much it.
Plant the tank with some moss and you're pretty much set.

[msjinkzd]

total dissolved solids still need to be removed, and if the tank is planted and being fertilized, water changes are necessary. It would be better to do small wc's to prevent flux, or age/treat the wc water before changing it than to not do them at all. Nitrate reading is just one way to measure the "bad stuff" in our tanks.