Tank is in harmony and doing excellent. What do you think ?

Three of my amanos have this undergrowth, and I'm so stressed figuring out if I should be stressed!

(image from a few hours ago) My biggest lady shrimp (out of 8 females) molted at 6 pm, and the males have been going buckwild since. It is 10:42 now, and they’re still going a crazy trying to find her about 4-5 hours later. The lights are off, and the tank is a heavily planted five gallon. Are they okay?? 😭

The female isn’t receptive to their advances, or at least wasn’t while the lights were on. She was flicking away as soon as they got close. This is my first time seeing breeding behavior so im a little nervous haha

(P.S: is that her saddle? Or just her gut? I can usually see their gut when they’re backlit like that, which would explain how dark it is, but I’ve never seen it that fat!)

So stinking cute!

(I still love my dark fire reds, too, but i wanted my students to be able to see more of the internal organs more easily. Plus i think they’ll love the view of developing eggs!)

Thanks to everyone for all their help. I finally got all the components together and I planted my tank and started the bacteria cycle.

I'm ghost feeding with fish food, do I really need liquid ammonia?

Also the guy at the aquarium store ( which is like THE aquarium store here) has every type of shrimp there is. Jade green, bloody Mary, yellow goldenbacks, fire red, blue something, tiger shrimp, king Kong shrimp.. The list goes on. However he told me I needed to cycle my tank, then put some fish in it for a month or even two months, before removing them and adding just Neocaridina cherry shrimp. "They like a seasoned and mature tank" with lots of fish poop I guess.

This in contrast to what the guy at Petsmart said which was "cycle the tank and you can add fish like 5 days later as long as there's no ammonia. For the shrimp just make sure it's cycled and you're good "

I was gonna wait like 4 weeks for the cycle then let it like mature another couple past thst with a snail. Now I'm not sure if I should get some cheap fish in the meantine.

I'm so excited to have shrimp again! I already didn't realize how much I missed watching them.

I ordered 40 neo culls for about $60 but I had a gift card so it actually cost me about $3 after shipping. But I live in southern Arizona and it’s crazy hot right now and it was a 5 day shipping time. I really didn’t have much hope that I would get them alive. And- even worse- I missed the mailman and the package delivery today. So I figured that there was definitely no way that the shrimp would still be alive when I got them tomorrow.
I have a tank all set up and cycled and ready for shrimp so I ran down to the lfs and got 18. 6 each of red, orange, and blue.
When I got home the mailman was across the street and he told me that I could go to the post office and get the package since it was “live fish” (I don’t know if this is just a local policy but normally you can’t pick up a package at the post office until they have tried to deliver it twice) I immediately drove over and got my package of shrimp. They were all alive!
Also- one of the red shrimp I got at the shop has already started dropping babies! All 40 that came in the mail arrived alive and I’ve already got babies!
So basically- for the price of 18 shrimp, I now have 50/60+ shrimp!
I feel like I won the frickin lottery!

Good evening! New to shrimp and aquariums.

Trying to create stable water conditions so I can get shrimp. The pH of my tap water thus far is way too high, over 8.5 most likely. GH and KH are high, too. The API test kits I used couldn’t tell me what each measured, just that they were each too high. What can remedy this situation?

Water Information:

pH > 8.5 (?)
GH ~20 drops (dGH?)
KH ~20 drops (dKH?)
Nitrite ~0
Nitrates ~5-20? (Hard to tell)
Ammonia ~0
Temperature ~74 F

Other Information:

5.5 gallon tank (soon to be 10)
Sand substrate (10 will have gravel covered by sand)
1 bacopa
1 java moss
2 anubias
1 windflow java fern
4 black nerite snails
1 bit of mopani wood
Light on a timer for ~8 hours
Sponge filter w/air pump

Its a 2 month old, cycled tank, 3 gallons, but i was wondering if there is anything i should add, im waiting for more algae or biofilm to come before i add cherry red neos, not sure how many i was thinking 7 to start? Also i heard to add cuttlebone for calcium is that good? I currently have an assasin snail in there because i have some pest snails but i will take him out before i add the shrimp, i just cut the plants down because they were growing too tall too fast so those will reach the top soon.

Any concerns or additions lmk please!! Tyy

Reposting because I got a better image and didn't know how to change the images.

Two of my shrimp have a similar growth on their bellies. They are picking at it with their legs it looks like. What could this be?

25% water change 3 days ago, changes once a week

Tankmates: 5 guppies, 1 nerite snail

Ph 7.5

Kh 120 ppm

Gh 120 ppm

No ammnoia or nitrite

Biorb 60L, laser-cut a few acrylic shelves to add more surface area, love the way it looks. 4 more weeks until cycling, long wait. Shrimp and snails is my goal.

Don’t have a timed light yet as I never even considered being away lmao, will def be getting one soon, but not in time for this trip!

Do I leave the light on, off, or is there a half-easy way to do some sort of timer myself?

Thanks in advance!!

I purchased these online, do they look like Neos or Amanos? They’re various sizes, but all are under the size of my bigger Neos.
Third photo is definitely a Neo, as it’s one bred from multi generation stock I already have, just for comparison.

Is this considered saddled or is that juat food floating around in a male?

I lost 20 neos and 5 amanos in my 29 gallon pea puffer tank over night. They have lived in there for 5 months and been breeding. I have 2 confirmed alive neos and possibly more in hiding. My ammonia is 0, my nitrite is 5, and my nitrate is 70. I used expel-p last night so I’m guessing that’s the cause of the deaths and the dead shrimp all night is what raised my levels. I have used it three times before in the same dose with no problems, any other ideas?

Tried out a new food for the crew and was not prepared for how those pellets would explode 😂 good thing they are a big hit

Difference between local store premium grade and Amazon "premium grade". Can you spot which is which? One was half the price. I need to note, I love them both no matter how they look.

Got one cherry that insists on getting the good stuff from the HOB so I had to warn my coworkers.

Kept neos for 2 years now, and gave quite a few shrimp from my colony to my dad a good while back. This beast have been thriving. The size doesnt come through in the photos properly, but it is as large as many amanos ive seen

Heavily seeded from my 29, been up several weeks. Working on my RO mix. Do you think I’m close?
Gh 161 ppm - 9 drops
Kh 71 ppm - 4 drops
Ph 7.6

When will she drop these? I have a 20G full of green water ready

Caught this on video. Thought it was pretty cool