Shrimp mystery? Help!

[phreeflow]

Been raising multiple batches of yellow, blue, and orange neocaridinas in 3 different tanks...a 10 gallon, 12 gallon, and 20 gallon. Some are planted and others are bare. Some get more or less water changes and all the shrimp healthy...eating, growing, molting, no deaths.

However, they NEVER get berried. I have had some of these shrimp going on 3 years and they never berry. Started with 80 blues, 60 yellows, and a couple dozen orange but no berries or shrimplets. They just live but never breed.

What am I doing wrong? They get high quality fresh food and pellets. No one I’ve talked to can figure it out. Any thoughts? Please help

[sc91006]

What are your water parameters, temp, etc.?

[Kongro]

What are you exactly feeding? Weekly water changes?

[phuchuynh92]

My colony stopped breeding a couple weeks back so I completely redid the whole tank with new substrate and new remineralized water. This and the fact that I have been giving them a more food more consistently is giving me a lot of berried females. The down side is I am also feeding the planaria in the tank, but you probably don't have planaria so yeah.

We can start troubleshooting with sc91006's question of what is your water parameter and your maintenance routine.

[phreeflow]

Temp is 74-79 and I am feeding a combo of MKBreed, CSF, and Borneo Wild pellets, almond leaves, guava leaves, green beans, spinach, and barley. I change 25% of the water every week with tap and I don’t test for other parameters. I thought they were a lot more adaptable and didn’t need to be babied as much as bee shrimp.

I used to measure hardness, tds, etc, and remineralize RO water and use ADA or Controsoil for my Taiwan bee shrimp but got tired of lugging around RO water so I switched to neos. I have friends who literally toss neos in any of their tanks or even in their ponds or buckets and they have shrimplets coming out everywhere. They even breed in nasty LFS water in their sales tanks. I have them in 3 different setups, shrimp only, in well established tanks and nothing.

[phreeflow]

Oops...double post

[Kongro]

I had around 50-70 PRL in a 7g tank, they stopped breeding so I assumed they reached the max capacity. Recently sold 30ish and saw 2 berried last week. You running a heater? Feeding everyday?

[phreeflow]

Yep, feed everyday and have a heater. I had the blues and yellows for 3 years so their numbers have dwindled slowly over time since they are not breeding so it’s not crowded at all. Should I start using RO and remineralizing...for neos though? Seems overboard but I’m completely stumped

[jem_xxiii]

I would say it may be something with the parameters. I personally used remineralized RO water, as I never had success with shrimp in tap or 50/50 mix.

[phreeflow]

I would say it may be something with the parameters. I personally used remineralized RO water, as I never had success with shrimp in tap or 50/50 mix.

You remineralized RO for your neos or caridinas?

So, no one has this experience of neos not breeding? Come to think of it, I’ve never met someone who couldn’t breed neos either lol.

Weird thing is this happens in all 3 tanks and one of the tanks is in a completely different city, different tap.

[phuchuynh92]

Any pictures of the tank? seems a bit weird indeed.

[Nick Shades]

Are you treating your tap water with dechlorinator?

[ahboram]

You remineralized RO for your neos or caridinas?

So, no one has this experience of neos not breeding? Come to think of it, I’ve never met someone who couldn’t breed neos either lol.

Weird thing is this happens in all 3 tanks and one of the tanks is in a completely different city, different tap.

Yes ro and remineralizer is the way to go. I never got my neos to breed in tap for some reason. I just use petco sand and got a ro buddie from Amazon ( I think it was like 40 bucks when I bought it) ss gh/kh monthly wc. I had the same thing happen to me when I tried to breed them with my tap water. They just live but never breed also what is your tds? Realized they do the best when you get them local shrimpers and match their tds. I never had luck from lfs/online shrimp vendors shrimp, all my thriving shrimps were from local breeders I met here or reddit.

Also I'm pretty sure the max capacity thing is a myth my pure red lines hit over 200 in a 3 gallon with only a sponge filter.

Also another thing. I know my blue diamonds don't really breed in summer time. It slows down then explodes when it gets cooler. Like December I feel like they get berried nonstop. My caradinas go really hard summer and fall and slow down winter until Marchish.

[jem_xxiii]

You remineralized RO for your neos or caridinas?

So, no one has this experience of neos not breeding? Come to think of it, I’ve never met someone who couldn’t breed neos either lol.

Weird thing is this happens in all 3 tanks and one of the tanks is in a completely different city, different tap.

I have neos and cardinias (neo params) both in RO water. Like mentioned above, I have zero success in regular tap or even 50/50. Got a TDS meter?

[Vincent Tran]

Your temps are too high. Slowly drop the temp down to 70-72 degrees and you should see a lot more shrimp soon.

[phreeflow]

Are you treating your tap water with dechlorinator?

Yes, I treat with either Prime or Aquasafe

[phreeflow]

Any pictures of the tank? seems a bit weird indeed.

It’s nothing special...just a regular tank

[phreeflow]

Your temps are too high. Slowly drop the temp down to 70-72 degrees and you should see a lot more shrimp soon.

Not sure how I can get it that low consistently without a chiller but I’ll try. My heater is set low so I should be able to hit those temps this fall and winter but it’s been 3 years and it never made a difference. I’ll try again

[phreeflow]

I have neos and cardinias (neo params) both in RO water. Like mentioned above, I have zero success in regular tap or even 50/50. Got a TDS meter?

Wow you too? At least it’s not just me. Makes me feel better

[phreeflow]

Yes ro and remineralizer is the way to go. I never got my neos to breed in tap for some reason. I just use petco sand and got a ro buddie from Amazon ( I think it was like 40 bucks when I bought it) ss gh/kh monthly wc. I had the same thing happen to me when I tried to breed them with my tap water. They just live but never breed also what is your tds? Realized they do the best when you get them local shrimpers and match their tds. I never had luck from lfs/online shrimp vendors shrimp, all my thriving shrimps were from local breeders I met here or reddit.

Also I'm pretty sure the max capacity thing is a myth my pure red lines hit over 200 in a 3 gallon with only a sponge filter.

Also another thing. I know my blue diamonds don't really breed in summer time. It slows down then explodes when it gets cooler. Like December I feel like they get berried nonstop. My caradinas go really hard summer and fall and slow down winter until Marchish.

Again, it’s good to hear another hobbyist have the same experience. I did get the orange neos from the LFS but got the yellow and blue from a local breeder but not sure what conditions they kept them in. I guess it just surprises me that they breed like rabbits for some folks with zero intervention and for the rest of us, we have to to use RO and remineralize and jump through hoops. My Taiwan bees and crs were easier to breed than these guys. If I have to go through the extra effort, I might as well switch back to caridinas