Cherry Shrimp Water Requirements

[daizeUK]

I'd like to add some blue cherry shrimp to my 35L tank and I want some opinions on what will work best for them.
 
Currently I dose Easycarbo and have been considering adding CO2 gas but I've heard that shrimp don't like CO2.  Should I ditch all the carbon and go low-tech?
 
The water here is hard (300mg/L CaCO3) and alkaline (pH 8.2).  The shrimp I want are bred locally but the breeder tells me they dilute with RO water.  Will cherries adjust to my tank water or had I better use RO too?

Can I use a special shrimp substrate as an alternative to RO water?  I understand that they lower pH/TDS, is this a permanent effect or does it wear off?  Do the shrimp soils have any advantage over a standard planting substrate that lowers pH e.g. ADA aquasoil?

Currently I use the tank to grow out juvenile platies (from 1-3cm) and once they've moved on I'd like to keep some Norman's Lampeye in there. The breeder tells me that shrimp will be happier without any fish. Would cherry shrimp coexist happily with either/both of these tankmates?
 
My local water report says I have a mean value of 0.1 mg/L copper in the tap water and I notice my Flourish comprehensive contains a tiny trace of it.  Should I worry about either of these?
 
Thanks

 

[Reeferbro]

I've heard of good results from many people using easycarbo with shrimp but have no personal experience. I used to keep cherry shrimp ( which are the same species of blue shrimp just a different colour variation)at a ph of 7.5 but many people keep them at a more alkaline ph and it is probably not a good idea to try and change the ph because a stable ph is better than the exactly right ph.
I would probably change out the flourish with shrimp substrate because of the copper flourish contains. In regards to the copper in your tap water I would run a good quality carbon and you should be fine
My shrimp didn't come out as often when I had fish in the tank and if you are wanting to breed the shrimp you should probably avoid fish because they may eat your shrimp fry.
Cheers

 

[214jay]

I cannot comment on Co2 and I have not used ferts yet.  However, I have red cherry shrimp in water of PH 8.2 (although this has dropped recently by a little) but they have thrived in 8.2 and I even had baby shrimp from one of them.  As long as the PH stays stable and you take a lot of time to acclimatise them the PH should be fine. I'm pretty sure Blue Cherry are very similar to red....
 
My LFS advised that most shrimp/fish that have been bred for a number of generations in aquariums are more adaptable than wild caught species.  Not sure if this is true but makes sense to me

 

[DerpPH]

Co2 will be ok. If kept in a low enough level to keep the pH from dropping. Co2 likes to stick with water to create CH2-O4 or carbonic acid. Keep it in those levels and it'll be le fine. Oh and i recommend Bee shrimps if you plan to dose co2

 

[KittyKat]

I've heard of good results from many people using easycarbo with shrimp but have no personal experience.

 
Glutaraldehyde, the active ingredient in liquid carbon, is toxic. EasyCarbo has a lower concentration of this than something like Excel. Of course, very few of the liquid carbon products list in what concentrations the glutaraldehyde is present, so telling how the recommended dosages compare is down to guesswork. In other words, start with a half dose or lower and slowly increase as needed because one doesn't know how much is really being put in (in some cases).

 

[daizeUK]

Thanks for the advice!  I didn't know that carbon could help to remove copper.
I will follow your advice and start with a very low dose of liquid carbon and see how they get on

 

[fm1978]

Thanks for the advice!  I didn't know that carbon could help to remove copper.
I will follow your advice and start with a very low dose of liquid carbon and see how they get on

 
Only under some circumstances...
 
Activated carbon is good at removing, among other things, organic compounds. If the Copper is bound to an organic compound then it might well be removed, but, free copper will not be, nor will other metals or minerals.
 
Sorry, meant to say...these are some of the parameters I go by with my blue and red cherries...
 
Temp... 18 - 28
pH....     6.5 - 8.0
TDS...   100 - 300
 
They're actually very easy to keep with quite a wide range of params...what they're not tolerant of is poor water conditions (NH3/4, N02, NO3 etc). Try to keep all the tank equipment as shrimp safe as possible - don't add any plants that you suspect have been treated with any anti-snail stuff. The 1-2-grow stuff is brilliant as it's guaranteed snail free and shrimp safe!

 

[daizeUK]

Ah that's my other problem, nitrates... my tap water comes pre-loaded with 30-40ppm of the stuff.  Is that too high?

 

[fm1978]

Ah that's my other problem, nitrates... my tap water comes pre-loaded with 30-40ppm of the stuff.  Is that too high?

 
No, it's OK, although you wouldn't want it to be getting much higher. Hopefully your plants should be helping to keep that down or at least under control. 

 

[Ch4rlie]

Interesting, my tap water nitrate reading is very similar to daize's, 30 to 40ppm.
 
Have read that you and other members have said do not want nitrates to be much higher than that 30 - 40 ppm range. Thats fine as understand nitrate is toxic to fish, but less toxic than ammonia and nitrite obviously.
 
Out of pure curiosity, what is the maximum 'safe' limit of nitrates for inverts and fish alike?
 
I have once seen my nitrate level at 80ppm and i did do a large water change as soon as i saw that level.
Although I have not seen this occurring again, and hope not to either!!
 
Think that was when I added new plants and bogwood to the tank that week, maybe that did something to the nitrate levels, made the fish a bit stressed therefore they pooped a bit more therefore more nitrates?
 
BTW, sorry daize for jumping into this topic, just interesting reading for me 

 

[daizeUK]

I tend to find my nitrate levels are fairly stable, even with quite a few plants in the tank.  Admittedly they are mostly very slow-growing plants but I guess my plants and my fish poo are more or less in equilibrium!  This leads me to think that nitrate doesn't swing around easily, certainly not from 40ppm to 80ppm unless you leave the tank for a few months or it's horrifically overstocked or something.  I can't imagine what could drive your nitrates up that high in one week.

 

[Ch4rlie]

Now I'm worried 

 

[fm1978]

I'm really not sure what the maximum, 'safe' limit might be for nitrates... I imagine as high as 80ppm would be OK in the short term, but, as always and as with any other tank inhabitants, the goal is to get as close to 0 as possible.

 

[DrRob]

Depends a lot on the stock. Several fish have been shown to be quite stable up to 200ppm of nitrate from what I've read.
 
Problem is that very high nitrates often goes hand in hand with lots of organics and such like, which isn't so good.