For all you successful RCS breeders I need some insight toward my 2nd RCS attempt

R

rice4lifelegit

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Jul 3, 2011
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ok so the first time I got a little hasty bought 10gal with a few decors got 25 rcs's along with a bottle of prime and stability and added them accordingly to this new tank. However within two weeks they all died(:wall:) so my question is, when you all started out your rcs tanks did you let it cycle fully before the shrimps were added in? as I think the problem in my situation is I didn't let it naturally cycle in hopes the stability would have done it for me. The only other thing I can think of was the acclimation was too quick, which was about 15% increases in water from tank over hour in half. Hopefully some of you guru's can give some insight so my wallet and shrimp don't suffer. :cry:
 
I would always recommend cycling a tank before putting any fauna in it. I just found my first RCS carrying eggs on her swimmerets earlier today. The tank was cycled about 2 months ago, and I have over 30 fish, 4 nerites, and a dozen (soon to be more) RCS.
 
TheShrimpFarm said:
Yes, I would recommend cycling for a little while. Do you have any live plants in the tank? Were you feeding them anything?
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Just the moss they came with, the tank was pretty bare. I fed them some algae wafers but they didn't seem to eat it at all. I've read that this is probably the "death dance" when people put shrimp into an unmatured tank. Currently i'm cycling that same tank with a guppy and some bacopa monieri. The plan is to get some ghost shrimp first at pet smart to test out the cycle before I go cherrys again
 
All that was needed was a well aged filter. As long as you get the temp within 70 degrees it should have been fine.
 
I've had many shrimp tanks, but have always found that new ones never do well. It's more than cycling, the tank needs to develop a mature biofilm, some algae, and some other microfauna before it's going to have a high success rate. I'm not saying you can't keep shrimp alive in a new tank, just that it's much harder and you're less likely to have them reproduce.

My most successful RCS tank right now is a barebottom 4 gallon cylinder, which has 2 planters with 5 bamboo trees rooted in them. The tank gets a lot of indirect, and some direct light during the day, and has a really small led pendant on it 24/7. The tank is about 3 years old I think. When I initially got the cherry shrimp, I split them up, putting 6 or 8 in the cylinder, and some in two other new tanks. All the shrimp in the new tanks eventually dissapeared, but the older tank started pumping out cherries almost immediately. And this is with non-ideal water as well, since my ph is low and the water is soft. I add about a teaspoon of crushed coral every 2 weeks or so, but that's about it for buffering. I rarely need to feed the tank, the biofilm and algae on the glass and bamboo roots is more than enough for the 30 or 40 shrimp that are in there now.
 
i wouldn't mix the 2 water conditioners,.. one or the other not both,..
get some cycled media or sponge from another tank to start a new tank i started a different tank just set up with older media from another tank,. and they are fine,.
 
I agree with dixienut,
If you have a second healthy tank, take a well used filter media from it and run it in your new tank for a few days. If available, you can also do the same thing by moving some substrate, or plants, to the new tank.
 
Also, you don't need 25 to successfully breed rcs. I started out with ~5 in my 10g, 2 of which were females. Now I can't count them all. I also have java fern and moss and a couple of mollies in there. I agree with everyone tho. You should get the tank cycled first.
 
My new 10G had stability added daily, was heavily planted and after 4 days was very cloudy. I took a sponge out of a healthy, stable tank's filter, and washed it out next to the filter intake in the new tank. The water cleared overnight and 3 days later I added shrimp. I had berried females within 5 days and haven't had a death. If you have no other tank, take all the time you need to cycle the new tank before you add shrimp. A few danios will aid in cycling, as will a few ramshorn, briggs or pond snails.
 
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