CBS issues

[dhgyello04]

Hello everyone,
I started a CBS tank back in February of this year. I started with about 20 shrimp (a mix of grades) and now have about 11 left. I lost some due to a bacterial infection that I have fixed. I had 3 females berried and hatched the eggs, but maybe only 2 or 3 out of all the babies survived. I did dose for hydra and other pest early on and have not seen any since.
I was wondering if you can help me get a better out come on the baby survival rate before I add more shrimp due to the loss from the infection. After the first of the year I would like to make another order of CBS and start again. My tank and parameters are as follows:

20gal long (standard)

Filter:
Small Ehiem classic canister filter (bio , mech, purigen, peat moss)
Sponge filter ran off of small power head

Substrate:
Fluval Shrimp Stratum

Plants:
Water Wisteria
Water Sprite
Anubius
Dwarf Sag
Java moss
Christmas moss
Fissidens Fontana
Subwassertang
(3) moss balls

Manzanita branches and Cholla wood

Water Parameters:
Temp. 71
Gh 4
Kh 0-1
Ph 6.2 – 6.6
TDS 170
Ammonia 0
Nitrates 5 ppm or less

I do a 10% water change each week and top of with straight RO/DI water. I add minerals to the straight RO/DI water with Mosura Mineral plus Ultra when doing the water change.

Any help is encouraged. I see the babies after they hatched and within 3 days there gone.

Don

[randyl]

Baby survival rate is the hardest part of this. A lot of hobbyists can get berried shrimps, but a lot less get good baby survival rate. So you're not alone.

I had that issue before, on counts of both CRS and OEBT. I have seen hundreds of babies released but very little survived.

Then I set up different tanks with different substrates (only significant change), and I get pretty good survival rate now. Not saying your choice of substrate is bad, just share my experience. I wasn't using FSS before anyway.

[wicca27]

i use FSS and i get good survival rate on my crs. i am bad though i dont do many water changes and when i do i try to use rain water i collect mixed with tap. when i see alot of little babies i do tend to feed more often like every day a few pellets of food ( i use hikari crab cuisine and veggie sticks with calcium from kens fish) as for my parameters i dont really have a clue what they are. any where from a ph of 5-6 depending on when i do water changes and i do know my gh is 7 and kh is 2 ( its that in all my tanks) and i maybe do a water change every month to month in a half on the 5 gal tank.

[sbarbee54]

Keep it simple, I would get ride of the Water
Wisteria
Water Sprite
Anubius
Dwarf Sag

Stay with moss, I would take the manzanita out maybe just use cholla wood or maybe some small maylasian drift wood. Doing this will make the need for nitrates to be 0, add floates, frogbit, DWL.

FSS is fine, my OEBT and BTOE breed great in it, MY PFR, NEO Yellows, and Velvets do fine too

Keep it simple, water change cycle looks good.

Are you sure you had "bacterial infection", I have noticed my CRS all types never get bacterial infections just bad molt problems. You can help this by trying to keep you GH at 5 and dose calcium Mont. You will stop haing issues asap with that.

Also get a good baby food feed 3 times a week, or something like bee pollen you can grind up and feed, even dried earthworm powder.
Make sure the tank is well established so it produces good bio film for them

[Betta Maniac]

Many say FSS is fine, but I had the same experience of baby shrimp just disappearing in that tank. When I moved my CBS to an Aquasoil tank, I got much better survival rates and a thriving colony. I was going to try FSS again, but was talked out of it.

[sbarbee54]

90% of the time it is not the soil it is what we do to the tanks, and water

[randyl]

Originally Posted by sbarbee54

90% of the time it is not the soil it is what we do to the tanks, and water

The purpose of the soil is to do something to the water though, and a big part of it.

[dhgyello04]

I would like to know if my parameters are ok or do I need to bump up or lower something. I can’t even imagine changing out the soil at this time.
If I was to do that though…. How would I go about doing that? Could I take all plants, some substrate, shrimp, and cholla wood and place them in a 5 gallon bucket with a small HOB filter that has purigen in it? Mean while that would give me the time to change out the substrate. How long does it take to cycle the Aquasoil? That will all be my last resort.

I did have a time early into my OEBT tank where the babies where very scarce. 3 years into it now and WOW…. You look at the substrate and it looks like it is moving there are so many babies in there.

Is there anything wrong with my parameters? Do I need to adjust anything?

[randyl]

Your parameters look perfect, but there are things in water we just can't test.

[Betta Maniac]

Originally Posted by sbarbee54

90% of the time it is not the soil it is what we do to the tanks, and water

Guess I'm the 1%. Because that's the ONLY thing I changed. Everything else, including tank decor and plants is identical.

Originally Posted by dhgyello04

I would like to know if my parameters are ok

They look good to me, hence my thoughts about the FSS. My tank was also "perfect" when I ran all the tests. Aquasoil takes about a month to stop leeching ammonia. You could probaly cycle the Aquasoil in a bucket with lots of water changes and then do a rescape.

[mordalphus]

Only thing noticeable to me, is the gh could go up another point or two and adding an airstone.

Babies love an aquarium with high oxygen content.

Other than that, things that raise the survival rate are removing males, adding snails, and feeding baby food

[sbarbee54]

Everything looks pretty good.

[dhgyello04]

Originally Posted by mordalphus

Only thing noticeable to me, is the gh could go up another point or two and adding an airstone.

Babies love an aquarium with high oxygen content.

Other than that, things that raise the survival rate are removing males, adding snails, and feeding baby food

Ok… I bought the baby food from you I think. I have been using that. I have one question why would adding snails raise the survival rate?

Should I try and use a breeding net when the female is ready to hatch the eggs then remover her when she is done?

[mordalphus]

No, don't use a breeding net for babies, they need to be free to roam the tank.

Snails move around the tank on a layer of slime they lay down. Infusoria and other microbes grow in the slime. I use ramshorns because they're not so ugly.

The baby food is good, for one clutch of babies id only feed twice a week.

[Soothing Shrimp]

Why remove the males?