Can someone tell me which of these cherry shrimp are male and female and if any of them are pregnant?

[Tacocat]

I'm currently doing a 50% water change weekly as well as a manual algae clean starting Saturday due to algae buildup and no algae eaters that are doing a good job
.

 

[Madisonkeug]

Me without any testing stuff and have no clue how to treat hard water and have no clue what RO water is and how to get it

Actually what sort of stuff do I need to test my aquarium, and are the shrimp compatible with tetras?

Ro stands for Reverse Osmosis, it’s a set up people use to get purified water if their water needs to be altered. I personally live in BC Canada where we have very pure, very soft water straight from the tap pretty much the only thing in it is the tiny bit of added chlorine. That being said it is good for soft water fish (like the neons) where as harder water will have heavy metals etc in it... pretty much depends where you live. If you don’t know what type of water you have you can try googling for it but there are also test strips / or liquid tests that test for all the things you’ll need to know about your water (API test strips are the most accurate of the test strips in my opinion) you don’t honestly need RO water for your tank, it just means you’ll need to find out what type of water you have and which fish will be compatible with that type of water!
Fish have different care needs based on where they came from (these things were a wild animal at some point!) A lot of the ways we can tell if fish/shrimp will be compatible is through these main care points:
1) water parameter needs (hardness vs softness)
2) water temperature (fish have preferences)
3) fully grown out size (how big they will get)
4) nature (their natural behaviour)

shrimp are small and docile in nature, which means they are good for a community tank setting (good living with other species) they are a bit fragile in the sense that they can’t tolerate a lot of waste buildup in the tank as that will break down into poisonous chemicals to fish like nitrate, nitrite, and ammonia (like in bleach) that is why you need a test kit to monitor your levels

now compare them to neon tetras, they are also small and docile fish so they will also go well in a community tank. They also only grow to 1inch maximum in size so they won’t get big enough to eat your shrimp. In that they are compatible!

I do have a question, when you first set up your tank did you cycle your tank?

 

[Madisonkeug]

I'm currently doing a 50% water change weekly as well as a manual algae clean starting Saturday due to algae buildup and no algae eaters that are doing a good job
.

I would say try and identify what type of algae it is? If it’s just green on the glass I would leave it! That would be good snack for the shrimp and it means your tank is balancing itself out

 

[Tacocat]

I do have a question, when you first set up your tank did you cycle your tank?

I used an ampoule of concentrated bacteria when I set it up, and the fish store person told my parents and I that if we got the ampoule, it would be ready for fish almost immediately. I forgot to account for the time it would take for sand to settle, and I also forgot to wash our sand, and it ended up taking over 2 days, during which a cardinal tetra died. I guess during that time, the bacteria settled in, and also I had planted the plants a day before the fish went in, so that worked too.

 

[Tacocat]

I would say try and identify what type of algae it is? If it’s just green on the glass I would leave it! That would be good snack for the shrimp and it means your tank is balancing itself out

I guess I'll clean the front and side walls which I can see through, but leave the rocks, driftwood, and back walls.

 

[Tacocat]

algae

 

[Madisonkeug]

algae

Yes looks like regular old algae shouldn’t be an issue. If you want to get rid of it try lowering the amount of time you hav the light on to like 6hrs of the day

 

[Madisonkeug]

I used an ampoule of concentrated bacteria when I set it up, and the fish store person told my parents and I that if we got the ampoule, it would be ready for fish almost immediately. I forgot to account for the time it would take for sand to settle, and I also forgot to wash our sand, and it ended up taking over 2 days, during which a cardinal tetra died. I guess during that time, the bacteria settled in, and also I had planted the plants a day before the fish went in, so that worked too.

Okay, usually that is not the case since a cycle is referring to the nitrogen cycle. Yes the beneficial bacteria in that ampoule start the cycle by adding the first bit of bacteria you should usually wait for a period of time testing the water to make sure the bacteria is turning the harmful chemicals into less harmful chemicals that the fish can live with (nitrates) and then do water changes to remove the nitrates and replace it with better water... I would recommend you read up on the nitrogen cycle may help with your fish

 

[Tacocat]

Okay, usually that is not the case since a cycle is referring to the nitrogen cycle. Yes the beneficial bacteria in that ampoule start the cycle by adding the first bit of bacteria you should usually wait for a period of time testing the water to make sure the bacteria is turning the harmful chemicals into less harmful chemicals that the fish can live with (nitrates) and then do water changes to remove the nitrates and replace it with better water... I would recommend you read up on the nitrogen cycle may help with your fish

Ok! So next time I do a water change and clean the tank (tomorrow), I should do a nitrate and nitrite test. And what do I do if the nitrites and nitrates are above what they should be?

 

[Madisonkeug]

Ok! So next time I do a water change and clean the tank (tomorrow), I should do a nitrate and nitrite test. And what do I do if the nitrites and nitrates are above what they should be?

You should try and keep ammonia levels at 0
Nitrite levels at 0
Nitrate between 0-20ppm (parts per million)
To get your nitrates to go down you should do a larger water change with dechlorinated water, taking some of the old tank water out and replacing it with fresh water will not only get rid of the waste building up in there but it will lower the concentration nitrates

If you find that you have no nitrates then there is an issue with your tank not being cycled. all tanks that are healthily cycling and have fish that are being fed will have nitrates, the nitrates come from the beneficial bacteria breaking down the harmful chemicals (ammonia and nitrite) along with poop and uneaten food in the water. The Beneficial bacteria will turn these things into less harmful form nitrate which we can easily lower with water changes!

 

[Tacocat]

I see. So if there is a certain type of poison it's bad news, and if there's none of a different kind of poison, that's also bad news

You should try and keep ammonia levels at 0
Nitrite levels at 0
Nitrate between 0-20ppm (parts per million)
To get your nitrates to go down you should do a larger water change with dechlorinated water, taking some of the old tank water out and replacing it with fresh water will not only get rid of the waste building up in there but it will lower the concentration nitrates

If you find that you have no nitrates then there is an issue with your tank not being cycled. all tanks that are healthily cycling and have fish that are being fed will have nitrates, the nitrates come from the beneficial bacteria breaking down the harmful chemicals (ammonia and nitrite) along with poop and uneaten food in the water. The Beneficial bacteria will turn these things into less harmful form nitrate which we can easily lower with water changes!

 

[Madisonkeug]

I see. So if there is a certain type of poison it's bad news, and if there's none of a different kind of poison, that's also bad news

Yes while ammonia and nitrite are very harmful nitrates when in lower concentrations are relatively harmless, but if they get too much in the tank all your fish will die all at once

 

[Madisonkeug]

Yes while ammonia and nitrite are very harmful nitrates when in lower concentrations are relatively harmless, but if they get too much in the tank all your fish will die all at once

You want to have some nitrAtes because that means the bacteria is turning the worse chemicals into not so bad ones!

 

[Tacocat]

You want to have some nitrAtes because that means the bacteria is turning the worse chemicals into not so bad ones!

I see. Thank you!

 

[Essjay]

You do need to check if there is any nitrate in your tap water. If there is, you need to allow for that when measuring nitrate in a tank to know if the bacteria are making any or if it's all come from the tap water.





[As a side issue, it needs to be said that it is possible to have zero nitrate in a tank - mine is zero. But that's only because the surface of my tanks are covered with floating plants. In a tank with no live plants it is unusual to have zero nitrate]