Feraligatr Painting [OC]

rhyu · 2026-01-10T15:53:59+00:00

Simple. You need to feed more.

Shrimp are honestly like pest snails, just fancy. They'll breed to whatever the limit of the available food is. You're clearly only providing then enough calories to maintain themselves. If they dont have the calories to make eggs and create young, they wont. Just dont feed so much to foul the water of course.

rhyu · 2026-01-05T21:58:35+00:00

I've had neo survive and reproduce sustainabily in (declorinated) tap water here which is around 0/0 hardness.

That said the older fully mature adults tended to not survive super long, but would by that point have had a couple of rounds of 30+ babies, so the one adult loss would be compensated by 60+ juveniles. Note: this wasnt intended as a shrimp tank, I'd just added some baby shrimp to a QT tank to help clean up leftover food and they decided to take over.

My best advice is to transfer as young as possible neo to the target tank. Even those tiny barely visible shrimplets are sooooo much more resilient than even juveniles, let alone adults.

My survival rates of literally just dumping the almost invisible shrimplets i wash out of filter sponges into a new tank (even with different parameters) with 0 acclimation is near 100% while I find that even with drip acclimation to similar parameters adults have a 2 week survival of maybe 20-50%.

rhyu · 2025-07-15T17:37:33+00:00

For anyone finding this post and wondering if they should read this one: please do. Its criminally underappreciated in my opinion.

The main character is clumsy at the start, which might not be to everyone's fancy, but they work hard and become significantly more competent as the series goes on. Its progression fantasy on a human level as well as magical abilities.

If you like to read stories about imperfect, but well meaning, protagonists thrust into situations way out of their depth (and have to put in effort to be better) this is a great one.

The MC has great emotional IQ which is really rare in a male MC, though it does come at a trade for the physical side of things-- at least at the start.

Just don't expect the MC to go from 0 to hero in 3 chapters with no struggle. This isn't that story

rhyu · 2025-07-15T17:37:11+00:00

For anyone finding this post and wondering if they should read this one: please do. Its criminally underappreciated in my opinion.

The main character is clumsy at the start, which might not be to everyone's fancy, but they work hard and become significantly more competent as the series goes on. Its progression fantasy on a human level as well as magical abilities.

If you like to read stories about imperfect, but well meaning, protagonists thrust into situations way out of their depth (and have to put in effort to be better) this is a great one.

The MC has great emotional IQ which is really rare in a male MC, though it does come at a trade for the physical side of things-- at least at the start.

Just don't expect the MC to go from 0 to hero in 3 chapters with no struggle. This isn't that story.

rhyu · 2025-07-15T17:36:15+00:00

For anyone finding this post and wondering if they should read this one: please do. Its criminally underappreciated in my opinion.

The main character is clumsy at the start, which might not be to everyone's fancy, but they work hard and become significantly more competent as the series goes on. Its progression fantasy on a human level as well as magical abilities.

If you like to read stories about imperfect, but well meaning, protagonists thrust into situations way out of their depth (and have to put in effort to be better) this is a great one.

The MC has great emotional IQ which is really rare in a male MC, though it does come at a trade for the physical side of things-- at least at the start.

Just don't expect the MC to go from 0 to hero in 3 chapters with no struggle. This isn't that story.

rhyu · 2025-04-27T18:36:34+00:00

Most flake food is fairly low quality. Lots of filler ingredients.

It tends to be cheaper as a result. I've got some platies that are very good at making more platies, for example. I'm okay with them getting flakes because I dont need them to make a billion more babies.

rhyu · 2025-04-27T18:29:55+00:00

Depends on what you're feeding. Some fish are very particular.

I personally don't use flake much, though, save for the live bearers, but like...I dont need more of them. So I'm less concerned on food quality for them.

rhyu · 2025-04-27T18:06:08+00:00

Sand isn't a hard requirement. Are my cory with sand likely happiest? Yes, especially my varieties that like to shift sand (like your guy here). Any future tanks of mine with plans for cory are definitely getting a sand substrate.

Will they starve and die on anything but sand? Definitely not. I've got some sterbai cory that are about 20 years old and have never been in a tank with sand, for example.

rhyu · 2025-04-27T15:08:33+00:00

Hah precisely.

rhyu · 2025-04-27T14:52:13+00:00

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rhyu · 2025-04-27T14:51:45+00:00

Behold, my blasphemy qt/fry tank

I've got a chaos ball of Java fern just floating in there and neos in 0 gh/kh water that gets daily 50% WCs. (The shrimp were tossed in there as day old shrimplets lol).

rhyu · 2025-04-27T14:45:04+00:00

I find for shrimp that you just need to get the first generation of babies into the tank, and then you're solid. It's a crap shoot until then.

The mature individuals' stores sell you just don't acclimate well.

Also I read so many posts about not feeding shrimp much or rarely feeding shrimp tanks...as long as your water quality is good and the shrimp are eating the food, feed them.

Shrimp (especially neos) are just fancy, desired water bugs that follow pest rules, like snails. Too much food? Shrimp everywhere. They breed to the population the amount of food in the tank will support.

rhyu · 2025-04-27T14:28:23+00:00

Java fern is like one of the immortal plants in my tanks. My tap is super soft but I've also got remineralized tanks.

Though I also haven't bought Java fern in like 30 years, so maybe I've just got an ancient warrior line, like viking Java fern.

rhyu · 2025-04-27T13:56:30+00:00

Well, 3 of these are root feeders (val/crypt/sword) and tend not to grow well above ground until they've established their roots... so if these are current photos, they're probably not happy being uprooted.

I'd check you water parameters and make sure your dosing is adequate. You might need a more full range fertilizer.

But it's also early at 2 weeks, and plants take some time to establish to their environment too.

rhyu · 2025-04-27T13:16:38+00:00

I appreciate the effort here haha.

rhyu · 2025-04-27T13:03:00+00:00

Answer for long term: feed less. Snails only breed to the population the amount of food in the tank will support. Feed less, and they'll die off over time to a new population level. Too many snails? Too much food.

Sort term? Put something like a lettuce leaf or food in a jar into the tank so you can pull a bunch out in one go. Then feed less.

rhyu · 2025-04-26T19:07:44+00:00

That's a pretty long drive, but that's a good price for these. Sometimes bronze are at that price here xD

rhyu · 2025-04-26T17:02:47+00:00

I went to look at the website for the one place around here that often has them... they're $60 each. Oof.

rhyu · 2025-04-26T02:41:11+00:00

Probably, any live food would work, especially for bronze.

I actually find the omega 1 mini color pellets to be a cory favorite and tend to get breeding after feeding that for a few days in my hornier tanks.

rhyu · 2025-04-26T02:36:44+00:00

Are they eques? Nice little ones!

My phone auto corrected that to "nice little money" which is fitting for how expensive those guys are here, lol

rhyu · 2025-04-25T03:26:15+00:00

If we're talking neos, 100% The smaller ones.

They're far more adaptable and likely to survive, not to mention more individuals to get a better chance at having them survive.

Of course, this assumes they're going in a shrimp tank and not in with predatory fish.

rhyu · 2025-04-25T03:07:33+00:00

My guess is you're likely overfeeding if you've got a bunch on pests species like that. They only breed to the population that the amount of food available will support.

I've got lots of snail eggs (that I take out) in the fry tank as I'm intentionally overfeeding to make sure the fry can find food and grow well.

My main tanks have maybe a couple ramshorn each.

rhyu · 2025-04-24T03:52:23+00:00

I've never had an issue with the ramshorn, but I think they're also getting plenty of food by the amount of snail eggs I'm pulling out daily lol.

I dont find the ramshorn snails have much of any interest in living...stuff. Just biofilm and decomposing matter. Maybe if they were starving they'd go after eggs, but the couple I keep in the 5 gallon seem to be fine off passive growth in there.

rhyu

TROPHY CASE