Sulewasi shrimp water parameters

[v200]

We have all talked about gh, kh and ph in regards to keeping these shrimps. Some are able to breed some cannot even survive even if water parameters are the same.
My question is, we keep comparing tds,gh, kh, ph. Is there something we are missing ?
How about salinity? Could it be these Indonesian lakes have some level of salinity ? Because we use coral chips to raise ph. Corals come from marine conditions right? it might be some users water might be more saline. hence even same gh,ph,kh, the shrimps might react differently.
Just some of my thoughts.

[Zenith82]

I think there should be a little salinity. For me I uses coral sand to buffer the ph, I use distilled water mix with seachem malawi buffer to mix to obtain ph 8.2-8.4. Temp at 29-30 degree, so far so good. Water change I top up with distilled and mix with mosura BT-9. Sometimes i mix mosura gravidas along. Hope it helps for starters who failed, maybe can try my method.

But very importantly, the source of shrimps are a great difference like wild caught or local breed. I usually don't choose from tanks in LFS. Because I felt that they dont acclimatize the shrimps well and this shrimps dont live long. Even the ph conditions are quite a difference from the supplier's pH. Those i choose from LFS in their tanks don't survive long. I tried ordering from LFS and remained in supplier bagged conditions are better. I ever tested out from supplier bag is about ph 7.8 but LFS is ph 6.8. But the ones i preorder in supplier bagged manage to survive in my tank till now. Or get shrimps which are local breed, which already adapted to our water conditions have higher survival rates.

[Draka]

Zenith, are you aware of any local bred that are available? I'm curious as the only one so far that I've seen is Tamama, although most likely I could have missed something. Will be more diligent ^^

[Zenith82]

Just look around the selling thread, ought to find. Or can any breeders whom are looking at this thread share more?

[Zenith82]

Alternative can also get from Matt, his shrimps are doing well in my tank too.
As Matt does proper acclimatizing and quaratine the shrimps for a while before selling them off.

[Draka]

Haha yep I sure know ^^ Selling threads haven't been any but tamama, his my only camping result on selling thread so far with exception of Matt. Thanks!

[v200]

I think there should be a little salinity. For me I uses coral sand to buffer the ph, I use distilled water mix with seachem malawi buffer to mix to obtain ph 8.2-8.4. Temp at 29-30 degree, so far so good. Water change I top up with distilled and mix with mosura BT-9. Sometimes i mix mosura gravidas along. Hope it helps for starters who failed, maybe can try my method.

But very importantly, the source of shrimps are a great difference like wild caught or local breed. I usually don't choose from tanks in LFS. Because I felt that they dont acclimatize the shrimps well and this shrimps dont live long. Even the ph conditions are quite a difference from the supplier's pH. Those i choose from LFS in their tanks don't survive long. I tried ordering from LFS and remained in supplier bagged conditions are better. I ever tested out from supplier bag is about ph 7.8 but LFS is ph 6.8. But the ones i preorder in supplier bagged manage to survive in my tank till now. Or get shrimps which are local breed, which already adapted to our water conditions have higher survival rates.

Hi Zenith82, seems like a lot of people using mosura bt with good results. Looks like I need to get this.
Where did you get yours ?
I guess with the salinity issue, unless we have the meter, it will be hard to come to a conclusion. But I have my suspicion that it does affect the shrimp in a good way. Suspicion only.

[v200]

Haha yep I sure know ^^ Selling threads haven't been any but tamama, his my only camping result on selling thread so far with exception of Matt. Thanks!

Ha ha.....so far have not seen anyone selling cardinals.....have been observing for a year..... only hope is Yany or Bro zenith82 or others are successful in breeding more....

[sateman]

I think there should be a little salinity. For me I uses coral sand to buffer the ph, I use distilled water mix with seachem malawi buffer to mix to obtain ph 8.2-8.4. Temp at 29-30 degree, so far so good. Water change I top up with distilled and mix with mosura BT-9. Sometimes i mix mosura gravidas along. Hope it helps for starters who failed, maybe can try my method.

But very importantly, the source of shrimps are a great difference like wild caught or local breed. I usually don't choose from tanks in LFS. Because I felt that they dont acclimatize the shrimps well and this shrimps dont live long. Even the ph conditions are quite a difference from the supplier's pH. Those i choose from LFS in their tanks don't survive long. I tried ordering from LFS and remained in supplier bagged conditions are better. I ever tested out from supplier bag is about ph 7.8 but LFS is ph 6.8. But the ones i preorder in supplier bagged manage to survive in my tank till now. Or get shrimps which are local breed, which already adapted to our water conditions have higher survival rates.

Good tip bro... I'm trying to start a sulawesi tank. Now conditioning the water. So far so good. The pH is always stable at 7.8 to 8.0. I've using airpump to aerate the filter column which I filled up with UP Black Pearl ( a bio filter media). It's a very small tank (about 1.5 gallon only). I've also added some coral chips. A few of my sakura shrimplets are adapting well to that water condition. I might try the BT like you suggested. I'm waiting for the sulawesi shrimps to arrive. I've placed an order from Matt.

Matt is doing a mass order...you guys migt want to check it out

[Zenith82]

I will suggest to use coral chips if you use normal gravel. If you use coral sand please don't use additional coral chips. As it will increase GH/KH which will cause PH to rise gradually. Try to stick to either coral sand or coral chips.

[Matt]

Yo Bro v200, I am not entirely sure how the salinity will affect the shrimps. Maybe you would want to tell us how long do the shrimps stay alive in your tank? Assuming that they do die prematurely in it. Or do you want to try like as Bro Zenith has mentioned, add some BT-9 or even mix some of the water from the shrimp supplier into your tank? That is, if you do want to take the risk.

I'm not sure about the other bros here, but I do not conduct WC for my Sulawesi shrimp tanks. I only top up with aged water that is conditioned with ShiZhen which also happens to be a Mosura product.

Maybe the most important step is to slowly acclimatise them. How slow? sometimes it takes me 1hour or 2 for a small tau huay tub size... irregardless of number of shrimps in it... Nowadays I use a 10ml syringe to draw water from tank and manually drip into the tub, counting about 2-3 drops/sec... let them "simmer" in it for another 10mins before I repeat the drip... tedious but works well for the shrimps.

[Jovel]

Yo Bro v200, I am not entirely sure how the salinity will affect the shrimps. Maybe you would want to tell us how long do the shrimps stay alive in your tank? Assuming that they do die prematurely in it. Or do you want to try like as Bro Zenith has mentioned, add some BT-9 or even mix some of the water from the shrimp supplier into your tank? That is, if you do want to take the risk.

I'm not sure about the other bros here, but I do not conduct WC for my Sulawesi shrimp tanks. I only top up with aged water that is conditioned with ShiZhen which also happens to be a Mosura product.

Maybe the most important step is to slowly acclimatise them. How slow? sometimes it takes me 1hour or 2 for a small tau huay tub size... irregardless of number of shrimps in it... Nowadays I use a 10ml syringe to draw water from tank and manually drip into the tub, counting about 2-3 drops/sec... let them "simmer" in it for another 10mins before I repeat the drip... tedious but works well for the shrimps.

Bro, using a syringe dripping like that really is very tedious, you can try siphoning from the main tank with an air tube attached with an air valve, adjust until 2-3 drops/sec. then hold it in place with suckers. Just remember to take note of the time when acclimatising, I usually do 2 hours for sulawesi's. If using a tau huay tub, maybe just half full with the water they came in. make sure you check on them so as it doesn't overflow. Best if you acclimatise them in a dark area so as not to stress them out, throwing in a piece of netting/moss/sponge to let them grip on also helps to calm them down.

Sometimes I drop a tiny piece of shrimp food to give them something to munch on. I'll never mix in any water sources from the bag as it might affect the main tank, only minimum from that half filled tau huay tub. So far 0 deaths when acclimatising, hope this helps.

Do check your nitrate levels and TDS in your tank, for all I know only pure water evaporates, leaving all the minerals behind, at long term it might be a factor to sudden deaths and your tank water might also start to smell.

[v200]

Yo Bro v200, I am not entirely sure how the salinity will affect the shrimps. Maybe you would want to tell us how long do the shrimps stay alive in your tank? Assuming that they do die prematurely in it. Or do you want to try like as Bro Zenith has mentioned, add some BT-9 or even mix some of the water from the shrimp supplier into your tank? That is, if you do want to take the risk.

I'm not sure about the other bros here, but I do not conduct WC for my Sulawesi shrimp tanks. I only top up with aged water that is conditioned with ShiZhen which also happens to be a Mosura product.

Maybe the most important step is to slowly acclimatise them. How slow? sometimes it takes me 1hour or 2 for a small tau huay tub size... irregardless of number of shrimps in it... Nowadays I use a 10ml syringe to draw water from tank and manually drip into the tub, counting about 2-3 drops/sec... let them "simmer" in it for another 10mins before I repeat the drip... tedious but works well for the shrimps.

Wah Matt, you use syringe? You very patient.
I used drip method. 1~2 drops per second for 4 hours. Water 3/4 filled by my tank water.
The shrimps were very lively in my tank. Thought all was good.
Then slowly 2 days die 1 shrimp.
I checked and gh 9.
I did some water changes over a few days and gh now is 6.
By then left 1 shrimp.
Yesterday, I cleared some of my fissidents because they had some sort of hair algae growing on them. Churned up a lot of stuff in the water....
Today, the last survivor is nowhere to be found
Will try to get the Mosura BT9 and try.

[Matt]

Bro Jovel, thanks for elaborating on the acclimatising of shrimps. Actually I know of the air tube and valve control method, in fact for my other shrimps which I shall not mention here, I am using that method. But as this Sulawesi tank is a Nano tank on my wife's desk in office, I dare not try too many stunts there. Just leave the tub floating on the water in the tank and slowly drip.

As for the water, I do not do WC as I have noticed that the TDS and other parameters are stable and does not climb after the water top up. As for nitrates, so far so good and am still checking it every now and then.

[Matt]

Wah Matt, you use syringe? You very patient.
I used drip method. 1~2 drops per second for 4 hours. Water 3/4 filled by my tank water.
The shrimps were very lively in my tank. Thought all was good.
Then slowly 2 days die 1 shrimp.
I checked and gh 9.
I did some water changes over a few days and gh now is 6.
By then left 1 shrimp.
Yesterday, I cleared some of my fissidents because they had some sort of hair algae growing on them. Churned up a lot of stuff in the water....
Today, the last survivor is nowhere to be found
Will try to get the Mosura BT9 and try.

Bro, yeah now I remember about the GH problem you told me earlier on. Dun cry over that lost shrimp bro. Remember I told you how I found a Cardinal in a somewhat empty tank? Supposedly, all that was supposed to be inside is just a Pinokio. Then after about 2 weeks, a cardinal just appeared out of nowhere and a few days later, tank is filled with 14-16 cardinal shrimplets?

So you may still find the cardinal soon. Patience bro

For the dripping, I'm not exactly patient bro, but that is my wife's territory, no choice there.
It's already a miracle that she allow me to convert her fish tank into a shrimps tank.

[Zenith82]

Just to share my acclimatize method, firstly i measure the origin water ph from the shrimps bag and measure the one in my exisiting tank. Pour the shrimps from the bag into a bowl and add in an airtube to blow air into it. Then I place a ph meter probe in the shrimp bowl. Next step scoop a portion of my current tank water in another small bowl, using a pipette to squirt about 10ml of tank water into the shrimp bowl. I'll add in 10ml of water every 10-15mins and monitor the ph meter, gradually bring the ph up to match the level in my tank. Usually about 15-20mins per raise of ph 0.1. So acclimatizing will depend on the difference in ph from bag to my tank. Usually take about 3-4hrs. Once desired ph reached I'll leave them in the bowl for an hour before introducing into tank.

[Matt]

Bro, your method is just as tiring as mine. but I do that just for the Sulawesi shrimps only.

[Zenith82]

To ensure proper acclimatizing, it's worth doing. I usually do it while I surf AQ or on the tv so i wont feel bored.
I do have drip hose, but i feel that the drip hard to control as mine is DIY and not slow enough.

[Matt]

Maybe next time when you come by my office again, I show you another method which I tot will be great too but alas I can't do it for the Sulawesi at the moment due to my "constraints"...

[kennethc]

Anyone student here? I am interested in joining Matt s mass order but the risk and price is very high.. I have kept Sakura, yellow and rilli but never Sulawesi shrimps. I need a help on setting up the tank.. I will be using coral but... Can the river sand be used?