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Crystal Red Shrimp 101

80K views 202 replies 26 participants last post by  vs5295 
#1 · (Edited)
Chapter 1: The Basics

I've recently noticed a lot of new members on gta showing an interest in keeping shrimps. So I thought I would post a continuous journal/blog on keeping and breeding crs (crystal red shrimp) and contribute anything new I learn. This hobby/ obsession will easily take up your mental time as it is very addictive and rewarding, which any shrimp breeders can attest to.

This information is based entirely on other breeders posts and my own experience with trail and error. There are many "bible laws" to crs keeping which I will go over and many debatable gray areas which I will try my best to avoid. I will however state the following with emphasis:

Do Not Ignore the Guidelines.
At the beginning of any new hobby we tend to take short cuts and make excuses with the rules. They are put in place because the experienced hobbyist at one time or another deviated from the laws themselves which had consequences which resulted in death of many shrimps. Now these rules are in place to prevent new hobbyists from such errors.

Let me start off by encouraging those currently keeping cherries to take the next step in this hobby and trying keeping slightly more sensitive shrimps such as CRS.
These shrimps paved the way for shrimp keeping and are famous world wide. They're price ranges anywhere from $5-$3000 USD each shrimp, and with a mother that can produce 20-50 offsprings in her lifetime (1-1.5 years), most breeders are more then willing to make the investment, but we'll come to that later on.



First let's take a look at what steps a typical person with a fish and/or cherries tank can take to equip their tank suitable for breeding CRS. We can do this by taking a closer look at the differences between the 2 tanks.

My friend Elva has a 10 gal with guppies and Cherries.
Her water is tap water with a ph of 7.6, temperature of 26 degrees due to her heater and her no3 is well over 20 ppm.



Let's take a moment to look at the Laws of keeping CRS.

1)Do not keep with fish.
If your interested in breeding crs, never keep them with fish, there are some crs friendly fish many debate over the forums but the fact of the matter is, no one is 100% sure these fish won't eat crs babies even if by accident and they pollute your water with excess NO3 which crs are sensitive to. Go buy a cheap used 10 gal off of craigslist or kijiji.
2)Use R/O water if you can. I go to walmart, pick up a 18.9 water cooler jug then refill in the store's culligan self help machine. For under 4 dollar I have enough RO water to last a month. However if you don't have a car or wall mart near you, use a brita water filter.
3)Keep water changes small, 15-20% every week.



4) You need shrimp soil to bring the ph around 6.6 ideally. Many have them breeding in tap water at 7.6 ph. To me that is like taking a person from sea level then forcing them to live near the base of Mt. Kilimanjaor. They will eventually adapt to the thin air but it isn't healthy for their body and will probably reduce their life expectancy. A bag of ada or netlea is only $40 and will last you a long time especially in a small tank.



5) Cover the inlet with a sponge or the babies will get sucked in and chopped up. They also have special sponge filters with large surface areas for bacteria to accumulate which babies love to feed on. In fact I've read many breeders had an increase in baby survival when switched to this sponge (photo below)



6) Don't over feed your shrimps. For 58 crs I will feed a piece of boiled organic spinach the side of my thumb nail every 2 days. Only what they can finish in under 2 hours.
7) Bacteria, bacteria, bacteria, the filter should consist of 1/3 sponge and 2/3 of bio media for bacteria to grow. Carbon is not necessary and most breeders don't even use this.
8) +10 gal, the bigger the better because it will give you a more stable water parameter.
9) Ideally you want the temp to be between 22-24 degrees.
10) CRS love aged water never expose them to any chemicals including chlorine, chloromine, copper, bleach! And here's the common sense part, never put your hand/forarm in the water is it's dirty or have just been exposed to a chemical such as dish detergent/body cream/hair product. Go to your local walmart and buy a cake of organic natural soap($3). Wash your hands with it before putting them in your tank, This stuff is amazing made with enzymes and completely natural os it breaks down easily.

Some of these points may be debatable but I can assure you that if you stick by them you'll a healthy booming population with minimal casualties.

 
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#85 · (Edited)
Tips and Tricks 1.3

As many of you may noticed it beginning to get warmer here in Toronto. The heaters are getting shut off and everyday that little plastic indicator on the side of our tanks moves up steadily. From 23 to 24 and last night mine was at 26. So I thought I'd post a little quiz for fun and see which of you would know the answer.

When your crs tank reaches 26 degrees what do you do?

A) Turn on AC

B) Open Window

C) Remove a pitcher of tank water and keep in freezer for 30minm. Once cold add this water (with same tank parameters) back into tank.

D) Add O2 into tank with either air stone or using an hob filter to break surface tension of water.

E) Use a fan to cool the water surface

F) Use pre-made tank water ice cubes

G) feed spinach

*hint* which one is most effective.
 
#89 · (Edited)
The most correct answer is

D) Add O2 into tank with either air stone or using an hob filter to break surface tension of water.

Every answer works except for the spinach. When the temp of water goes up it increases the metabolism of every living thing in a crs tank (bacteria, shrimp, snail, planaria (those bastards), copodes ect.) which increases oxygen intake of these organisms. Thus o2 levels will be low in warmer waters which is essentially what kills them, a lack of oxygen. You can solve this issue by breaking the surface tension of water (you'll hear the water splash) with a hob filter 2 inches above the water line. Air stones works too but are far less effective.

The best temp to keep CRS is at 24.5 degrees but only with sufficient o2 levels.
CRS can breed between 23-26 degrees, but 24.5 is a good balance between faster hatching rate and crs stress rate. Refer to chart below.

http://gtaaquaria.com/forum/showthread.php?t=24593
 
#90 ·
Hey Jay, just wanted to say THANKS for starting this thread. I have learned sooo many things just from reading this. For one I did not know that by increasing the air stone or hob filtration that it would cool the water down.

I have been opening my windows and keeping the lights off for half the day (as we all know lights over tanks also heat water up) especially the older type original hood aquarium ones. Not sure about fancy flourescent ones as I don't have any of those :(

I am going to turn up my bubblers a bit now see how that goes.

On the subject of the Netlea soil, I did rinse mine ( I always rinse soil first just a habit) before putting it in the tank. I noticed the PH was down the very next day to 6.8 in that tank (7 gallon) but I still had a small amount of ammonia showing on the test water. I swirled it around a bit and then pulled out 10% the next day and topped up with tap water (mine is 7.6)

I waited another 2 days, tested again, PH was down to 6.4 and the ammonia was almost at 0 I did a test run with some cherry shrimps to see if they would be able to handle things, and they were fine, so then put in a few low grade CRS....everyone is doing just fine in there now.

Going to take them all out and put in my adult high grade CRS to let them breed in there now as it looks like this soil will keep the PH steady below 6.8
unlike the Fluval Stratum that tends to swing a bit back and forth.

The Fluval is good for other types of shrimps so not dishing it, I keep my Tigers and Neos in it and they seem to like it just fine...breeding good!

CRS are more finicky shrimps so they need just perfect conditions to multiply and the Netlea soil seems to be a good choice, or ADA whatever your preference.

Keep up the good work, I am enjoying reading this thread. Learning new stuff every day.
 
#91 ·
Hey Jay, just wanted to say THANKS for starting this thread. I have learned sooo many things just from reading this. For one I did not know that by increasing the air stone or hob filtration that it would cool the water down.
Ana you're correct that Jay does deserve some big thanks for this epic thread.

However I think you've misinterpreted his suggestion to add O. You are not changing the temperature, rather negating the affects of the warmth.
 
#92 ·
Thanks Guys,

It's encouraging to get such positive feedback from everyone who has taken an interest to this thread. I think my initial goal remains the same throughout which is to make CRS keeping easy and to grow this fledgling hobby here in North America which as everyone here already know, has exploded over in Asia. Just in Taiwan alone, there are over 10,000 professional breeders.

I've started to use this recently and people use it in ponds and fish farms. The Barley straw absorbs nitrates.
 
#95 ·
That stuff is amazing, the shrimp love it!

But you can also get barley straw (Laguna) that costs 15 bucks for a 1.13kg bag.
But its larger pieces of barley straw and I'm not sure if the Borneowild one has more nutrients in it, it sure causes less of a mess... I put the barley straw in a tea bag and keep it suspended in the water.

And about the bubbler, when water temperature increase less oxygen is dissolved in the water, therefore with the air bubbler you are increasing the dissolved oxygen in the water.
 
#102 · (Edited)
Chapter 5: Sexing

Hey everybody, it's Jay here with another tutorial on crystal red shrimps. This one will be focused on differentiating between males and females a problem I know many members, beginners and even intermediates like myself have trouble with sometime.

Before we start, I've had some requests to organize this thread so the information is more easily accessible. Does anyone have any suggestions for this? maybe start another thread with all the tutorial posts in chronological order (like a blog) or just copy and paste everything here to the 1st page? that might be weird as all the comments then after will be out of context, I dunno, you guys please let me know if you have a good idea as how to sort all of this.

Okay so here we go. The following are photos of random crs which you'll have to guess if it's either male or female. The answers will be under each photo hidden with white text so just highlight to reveal the answers. Lets start with an easy example.



This one is obviously a male, just see the slim belly area, like a nike sign. They are also claimed to have longer whiskers (4 whiskers) then the female but this is hard to see sometimes.



Notice the protruding belly of this female. It's more difficult to tell with younger females as the belly haven't fully developed but it's a breeze after their first batch of babies. If the white isn't very thick you can also see a saddle (dark round area) right behind the head.




female


female


male


male


all female except for S,S+ V, and A


female


female


male


male??
 
#108 · (Edited)
Notice the intense white color?

I'm selectively breeding so i only get super white off springs. I'm not too concerned about what grade they are as long as they have an intense, high density, white.

I think this guy knows what he's doing so i will follow the basics of his tank design.





These Beauties are $400 a pop
 
#114 ·
I just found out something on the fluval shrimp substrate discussion that now makes perfect sense to me. I have the netlea soil in one of my tanks, the others have fluval stratum.

I have noticed some increased levels of PH in some of the tanks, and today when reading the posts I noticed someone mentioned that carbon raises the PH? If that is true, then I think I have now found one of the contributors to my problem.

I had to remove one of my Marina I 25 filters because it was blocked and accidently tore a hole in the filter insert, so went ahead and tore it open to see what exactly was in there, and if I could re-use it, and there's carbon inside.

I have now replaced the filter insert with just floss in it and we will see if that makes any difference to the PH level...maybe the carbon was increasing the PH as someone else mentioned.

Will test it again tomorrow.
 
#115 ·
I just found out something on the fluval shrimp substrate discussion that now makes perfect sense to me. I have the netlea soil in one of my tanks, the others have fluval stratum.

I have noticed some increased levels of PH in some of the tanks, and today when reading the posts I noticed someone mentioned that carbon raises the PH? If that is true, then I think I have now found one of the contributors to my problem.

I had to remove one of my Marina I 25 filters because it was blocked and accidently tore a hole in the filter insert, so went ahead and tore it open to see what exactly was in there, and if I could re-use it, and there's carbon inside.

I have now replaced the filter insert with just floss in it and we will see if that makes any difference to the PH level...maybe the carbon was increasing the PH as someone else mentioned.

Will test it again tomorrow.
interesting. I thought the carbon would only affect the ph if it was still active. How do you feel about the netlea compared to the fluval.

Just so everyone is aware shrimp soils are DESIGNED to lower the parameters once then after it maintains it steadily over a long period of time by slowly leaching acid compounds into the water from the core of each gradual. This does not mean you can perform 3-4 +50% water changes with tap water and still expect the soil to lower the ph back to 6.4-6.6

Update: I just checked my tank for TDS and it was only at 58 ppm!! which means my gh was at 3. I now bumped it up to 78ppm and will increase it lowly until I reach the low 90's which shoul be around 5.5 gH. This is why IMHO gH test kits are very difficult to use.

FYI: 50ppm around 3 gh/ 100ppm around 6 gh / 150 around 9gh.
 
#116 ·
OK on the one tank that I set up and let it sit for 3 days....everything checked out fine, even tried a few cherries in there to see if anything would be a problem (remaining ammonia etc) NADA...they were happy as could be, so popped in a few CRS...same thing quite happily exploring the tank and looking for food. Over the next few days they showed no signs of there being any problems and to date nothing untoward in that tank. I even put my delicate Black Crown Mosura babies in there, and they are just having a great time.

However, on the second tank, I did the same things as before, set up is the same, filtration the same. Put in a few cherries, nothing seemed out of place all parameters checked out. So transferred a few of my OEBTs to this tank because I was clearing out their tank for some TLC that needed to be done.

Almost immediately I see doa's each morning, at first I thought it was my older tigers (lifespan is up, and they are passing) but then I noticed the cherries (indestructable shrimps) are dying too.

Took everyone out, shut down the tank and am going to empty it and was and clean everything, then restart with new soil etc.

I am not sure what exactly the problem was with this tank, but something was OFF! Maybe the rocks I put in were leaching something into the water, I don't know....but rather than lose any more shrimps I just shut it all down and will clean and re-start it again and monitor it for 1 week + just in case.

So far the Netlea seems to be working, but not 100% sold on this soil yet.
JMO
 
#118 ·
Update: so I think I've found a root cause of crs death.
In the past few days I've bumped my gh from 58 ppm to 86 ppm. That's a gh of 3 to 5 in 2 days

Today I found a crs dead in my tank. nothing else has changed even temp is stable so I must assume it was the gh going up too fast. I often notice a death followed by tempering of the water parameters. This is why I hate keeping them in my 12 gal.

Currently in the process of setting up a 30 gal.
 
#119 ·
Hi can I ask a question regarding two things which you may get around to talking about.


First of all, how do snow whites work? I think you can add them to improve the whites of your CRS but this seems like cheating? Or is it common practice?

Secondly, I've heard several sources say that mosura gravidas can cause a molt but that doesnt make sense since isnt it suppose to be for berried mothers? Do you know anything about this?

Thanks!

Laura
 
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