# CRS babies?



## jetajockey (Nov 11, 2010)

I have a group of RCS and a group of CRS together in a 40g planted tank. I've had the CRS for several months now, and I've seen them carrying eggs, yet I never see any babies. 

The RCS had lots of babies, and eventually I stopped seeing their babies also. There is no fish in the tank. 

I removed a few dozen of the RCS and then a few weeks later I noticed some small RCS shrimplets, so I'm hoping maybe there was just too many in there, although it doesn't really answer why I don't have any CRS babies. 

Any ideas? 

MY GH seems to be really low, like hard to even get a measurement on the liquid test. I've never messed with it in the past, but we moved to this place a few months ago so I decided to test it. Should I be concerned with raising the GH a bit?

Thanks!


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## spypet (Jul 27, 2007)

I'm going through the same headache - RCS & CRS with no fish, yet they keep dropping eggs.
Right now I have 2 of each in a net breeder box, and hope isolating them will help a bit, but
it will be weeks before I know for sure what matters. I've checked everything from water to
hard scape to food choices, and nothing specific seems to fix it. There are many gimmick
products of minerals, bacteria & foods for CRS, but I'm too poor to buy into that money pit.
I have read that first time mothers are more likely to drop their eggs if they not full size yet,
but I'm pretty sure one of my RCS still dropped the second time out, and she is fully grown.
I've read other forums about egg dropping, and usually they find a water parameter problem,
so I guess I just have not found mine yet despite my shrimp active and molting correctly.


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## jetajockey (Nov 11, 2010)

After doing some research last night I think that a low GH may be the issue. I'm not into throwing money at magical shrimp powders and potions and blah blah either lol. 

I'm going to slowly raise my GH up through dry dosing with gypsum and epsom salt. I *might* use dolomitic limestone at this point, but I'm still undecided. I still want to do a lot of research before making any big changes, and I'll log the changes along with results.


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## spypet (Jul 27, 2007)

CRS are supposed to prefer low GH as they come from mountain streams full of leaf and branch litter (making the water soft) and the water has less time to run through limestone sediments (which would make it hard). if you insist on experimenting, the safest way to add a bit more GH is to get some aragonite sand CaCO3 used in brackish/salt water tanks into a filter bag, and put the bag into your canister filter. just make sure you don't buy LIVE aragonite sand used by salt water hobbyists. needless to say I already tried adjusting my GH and it did not seem to matter so my own tank mystery continues.


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## jetajockey (Nov 11, 2010)

I actually have aragonite sand in my mono sebae and also my shellie tank. I may add a bit and see if it helps any.


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## Gordonrichards (Apr 28, 2009)

Size of tank, and number of occupants? You'll max out your colony around 20 shrimp per gallon in my experience.


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## jetajockey (Nov 11, 2010)

40 gallons. there was only about a dozen crs and about 100 rcs till i started thinning the herd.


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## Gordonrichards (Apr 28, 2009)

It has nothing to do with your population size. I keep 100+ in my 4 gallon tanks without issues.

I bet your tank isn't truly planted out? If you have scarce vegetation your shrimp don't have any places to hide.

Lighting schedule? It might pay to increase the light, so your plants keep the water cleaner. A little algae isn't a bad thing for shrimp tanks.

Photos and tank specs?
Substrate/Lighting/Filtration/Heat/Food?


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## jetajockey (Nov 11, 2010)

Gordonrichards said:


> It has nothing to do with your population size. I keep 100+ in my 4 gallon tanks without issues.
> 
> I bet your tank isn't truly planted out? If you have scarce vegetation your shrimp don't have any places to hide.
> 
> ...


I have nearly 2 dozen plant species in there so I think I'm o.k. plant-wise. 
Lighting is fine, 8-10 hours of single t5ho over 40g breeder tank. 
Substrate in this tank is ecocomplete mixed with gravel. Filtered by a magnum HOT filter. Tank isn't heated, sits in the low to mid 70s.

They get fresh veggies along with kens veggie sticks + calcium, spirulina heavy veggie flakes, NLS thera+a pellets.

I don't' have any recent up close pics of the tank, as it's been wildly overgrown.

This is one my gf took a few months ago









It's interesting because my GH is really low, but my ph is still in the mid to upper 7's. I added some alder cones to see if the tannin-stained lower PH water has any positive effect. I've done pretty much everything else I can think of at this point, and it is looking better at least from the red cherry shrimp standpoint. I'm seeing a lot of RCS shrimplets in recent days, so that's a good thing. Hopefully the CRS will follow the trend.


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## onefang (Apr 10, 2011)

your GH could be low and your kH could even be low, and your utility company could be adding sodium hydroxide to your water as a pH buffer(like they do here). It took me a long time to figure out what the heck was up with our water here, GH of .5, kH of 2, pH of 7.8. In any case, gh is somewhat important to CRS, but not nearly as important as pH. 

Also, If you want to get a better bearing on your gh, you can do the test using a dilution. Basically, you'll use twice the amount of water, and each drop will count as .5 degrees of GH. I use one of my daughters old glitter tubes, and pour two of the API vial measures worth of water in. This works for kH as well.


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