@Monica fascinating! I have tried (and failed) with many shrimp over time.... had both neos and caridina.... tiger shrimp, amanos, ghost shrimp, red/yellow/blue neos, a type I can't remember the name of that hang out mostly on your filter.
I did more tests than probably anyone in the world. I like to breed fish that others consider hard to breed, so it's not like I don't know anything at all.... Had the best shrimp luck in heavily planted tanks, no luck at all in 5 and 10 gallons.
So from what you are saying, maybe I need to watch who I buy from. Thanks for that!
Partly, yes! But there's also other factors.
Did you also measure GH and KH for the tanks? Used buffering substrate, RO water and GH only minerals for the Caridina shrimps?
Being that you live in Florida, if you used tap water, high chance that the water was too soft so you'd probably need minerals anyway.
Even with as much knowledge as I've gathered on shrimp (and I still consider myself to be a newbie!), I struggle with Neos! The one time I was successful at it? Had tons of babies and shrimp happy? Roommate put something in the microwave that wasn't meant to be microwaved... killed a bunch of shrimp.... I thought it was okay, they'd recover... 3 weeks later, neighbors bug bombed their place. That's how I lost my first colony of YKK's. I was attempting to breed amanos. All the offspring died... (not like I would have had luck anyway since they aren't easy to raise) Lost several red cherries and bloody mary's as well. Some of the cherries made it so they are still breeding/surviving but extremely slowly. I don't know if I have any bloody mary from that line left... I ended up getting more, most of which have also died off... So far, the second group of YKK's have been chugging along, don't even know if any of the opae ulas have passed either... but then they can live 20+ years and are pretty hardy! Not as colorful or large as some of the more common species, but still entertaining!
Starting up a shrimp tank, it's recommended to do a fishless cycle using Ace Hardware Janitorial Strength Ammonia or Dr Timm's One and One Ammonium. Cycle for 3-6 weeks, 100% water change, add shrimp in of the type you want to keep. The opae ulas? They were dumped in same day the tank was set up! No deaths! Threw in more shrimp that seemed to be in water with too high of salinity. Again, no issues! I've got opae ulas of all ages! I don't know how many I have, but want to guesstimate at least 20-30 minimum but probably no more than 50 max. I can count around 15 of them without looking around the tank too hard. These guys are hardly ever fed, tank been up for maybe a couple of years now and probably less than a handful of water changes done on tank. It's hard to imagine people struggling to keep them alive but I know there's people out there! (came across a couple) They are like bomb proof just about!
I do recall seeing a bird person I believe on this forum also on one of the planted forums I joined to get more knowledge on the shrimp. Don't recall who it was though!
