I'm starting this new thread as a follow on from my
thread in the plant section. Since it's gone completely off the subject of plants I thought I'd better do something.
Quick summary:
I have had problems keeping cherry shrimp alive in my 50 litre tank. I was down to the last three (a berried female - that is, one carrying eggs - and two juveniles). Two weeks ago I set up my quarantine tank and moved them there together with some decor from the 50 litre.
One juvenile died a week and a half ago, and the berried female died last weekend with no sign of eggs in the corpse. I put the last juvenile back in the 50 litre and was clearing the QT when I discovered both baby shrimps and baby pygmy cories - the adults must have laid eggs in one of the plastic plants I moved over.
Now:
A week on and I can't find a single baby cory. They went missing overnight midweek. There are no bodies either, but between the baby shrimp and the tiny ramshorn snails, I don't think there would be much left to find.
But I do have a lot of baby cherry shrimps. I'm doing a daily water change using airline tubing as a siphon tube, and before I empty the bucket, I scoop the water into a small tub to check for babies. It takes ages, going through the water a scoop at a time. Today I had hoovered up 2 babies. There are less and less in the bucket now. Possible reasons
A. there are less of them
B. they are getting bigger and can swim away from the current going into the tube
C. they are getting bigger and I can see them better to avoid them.
I have been finding quite a few tiny shed skins in the scoops of bucket water, so that's a hopeful sign.
I'm using a 50:50 mix of new water and water from the 50 litre to refill the tank. The reason for using water from the 50 litre is that is the tank they'll be going in when they are big enough, so I want to make sure they can cope with the water in there with any bugs that are in it. That was the most likely cause of the bought ones dying - bugs in my tank they had no immunity to.
In the tank with them are 2 algae ridden plastic plants from the 50 litre tank, and a piece of wood with java fern attached. I shook the spherical plastic plant thoroughly mid week so I could swap it with the other one in the 50 litre, and loads of shrimps came out. In addition to the algae on the plants and micro-organisms on the wood, I'm giving them crushed Hikari Shrimp Cuisine - and by crushed, I mean pulverised into a powder with a mortar and pestle. I'm also adding Beta G to the tank on a weekly basis. I have the toe of a knee high sock over the filter so they don't get sucked in, and they have started grazing on that, so there must be something growing on it.
Fingers crossed they don't all go the way of the shop bought shrimps!