myenigmaself
Fishaholic
I'm looking for a good brackish shrimp species to inhabit my refugium. It's only co-inhabitant would be malaysian trumpet snails, and maybe some pond snails. The refugium is in a 30G tank, with ~20G of liveable space (the rest occupied by a DIY crushed coral filter and on the other side the return pump section). The SG is ~1.004/5 and the temperature is around 78F. I haven't checked the PH in a while, but I believe it to be around 8.
Ideally I'm looking for something that would reproduce, but I've had such poor success in the past at this point I'd just be happy with something that lived longer than a month. I've tried both ghost/glass shrimp and red cherry shrimp in the past. Both seemed brackish "tolerant," but none of the RCS lived longer than a month and all but one of my ghost shrimp died within a month. I had one lucky ghost shrimp that lived almost two months.
Regarding feeding, there's is plenty of algae and detritus for them to graze on, and I was also supplementing that every other day with some flake and some shrimp pellets. They always had full bellies and were active and eating right up to the day they vanished (I never actually saw a dead shrimp. I'm assuming that the other shrimp ate the dead and that the snails ate the last dead one. There's no way for them to jump out of the tank). The surface of the refugium is covered with pond plant (not sure what else to call it) and there are tons of hiding places. There's a mild but constant current from bottom right to top left, so there are areas in the tank where there is very little current and places with a moderate current. I figure that should make everyone happy.
So, does any of that sound like improper shrimp-care? Am I incorrectly blaming their demise on the salinity? Maybe my PH is too high? Everything I read said RCS should thrive in brackish, so I feel like I must have been doing something wrong. In any case, any advice or recommendations on shrimp that would be a good fit will be very welcome. Thanks!
Ideally I'm looking for something that would reproduce, but I've had such poor success in the past at this point I'd just be happy with something that lived longer than a month. I've tried both ghost/glass shrimp and red cherry shrimp in the past. Both seemed brackish "tolerant," but none of the RCS lived longer than a month and all but one of my ghost shrimp died within a month. I had one lucky ghost shrimp that lived almost two months.
Regarding feeding, there's is plenty of algae and detritus for them to graze on, and I was also supplementing that every other day with some flake and some shrimp pellets. They always had full bellies and were active and eating right up to the day they vanished (I never actually saw a dead shrimp. I'm assuming that the other shrimp ate the dead and that the snails ate the last dead one. There's no way for them to jump out of the tank). The surface of the refugium is covered with pond plant (not sure what else to call it) and there are tons of hiding places. There's a mild but constant current from bottom right to top left, so there are areas in the tank where there is very little current and places with a moderate current. I figure that should make everyone happy.
So, does any of that sound like improper shrimp-care? Am I incorrectly blaming their demise on the salinity? Maybe my PH is too high? Everything I read said RCS should thrive in brackish, so I feel like I must have been doing something wrong. In any case, any advice or recommendations on shrimp that would be a good fit will be very welcome. Thanks!
