My Crystal Red Breeding Tank from Germany

[imke_j]

Hey Imke your tank looks great.
If you want a more permenant solution to the no3, i would add alot more low light plants.
btw your tank will have a much cleaner look if level and smooth out the substrate.

Thanks for your compliment, and you are absolutely right with what you are saying: I will add some more fast growing plants and smoothen the substrate. To be true, I have been ill for a couple of weeks and was not able to care as much as I like to about my tanks, as I have been physically handicapped. The JBL Nitrate EX brought NO3 down to 1 now - so, a good investment anyway. Perhaps I will put an 2213 in line when I am fit again.

For the Phosphate, I will open another thread.

[countcoco]

In summer (=now), my tap water comes with: pH 7.5 / GH 15 / KH 12 / NO3 20-30 mg

Hello Imke, I just read through your journal and your tank is very impressive!

I believe one reason why you may have suffered some early deaths is that your tap water must have an extremely high TDS/EC with the parameters listed above. I currently find that CRS deaths occur when I allow my TDS to raise above 250 ppm (ec~125) for an extended period of time (as per US TDS meters with 0.5 TDS to EC conversion factor.... I believe in Germany, your meters use a factor of 0.64 to convert TDS to EC). This is while my NO3, PO4, and temperature readings are more or less stable.

Furthermore, I have had extremely productive breeding over the past several months with the following parameters:

Temp: 20-24 C
kH: 0
pH: 6.0
gH: 7-8
TDS: 170-220

Maybe you could try using re-mineralized rain water.

I look forward to your post about PO4 levels. There are other credible sources that mention elevated PO4 levels are detrimental to crs health (I think silane has mentioned it in the past), but I have never found an explanation as to why or in what range PO4 levels are harmful.

[imke_j]

Hi all, a very quick update as I am still lacking time to take some photos and to measure all parameter.

A CR female has released 20 shrimplets om 23 July, and all look good and healthy 11 days later. I guess this rate is not bad for a tank with higher pH and harder water.

I also added some frog bit plants which start growing now, and dosage of bio CO2. Hopefully, I can do some detailed checks next week end and report more.

[bikersoy]

I use java fern and floating plants (water lettuce) to help with nitrates.
Jaba Fern gives very good hiding place for small shrimp.
Floating plants grow fast and are easy to control, also generates infusoria, good for shrimp.

[imke_j]

Some pictures from my offspring; I especially like the male with the white rostrum from the first batch:

CR_NAOKI_09.jpg

CR_NAOKI_03.jpg

CR_NAOKI_10.jpg

CR_NAOKI_04.jpg

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CR_NAOKI_02.jpg

[bikersoy]

Solid colors, congratulations

[Kingkong]

nice shrimps and nice pics Imke!!

[imke_j]

Since a couple of time, I have moved the CR to a recently set up tank with Akadama. I will post further updates on the Naoki Crystal Red in this thread:
Started-a-New-Shrimp-Home-with-Ibaraki-Akadama

In the tank shown above, I removed all gravel and put lava soil. Some Crystal Black moved in. I will open another thread on them later.

CB.jpg