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After a couple of years out of the hobby (and the state) I'm back with a Mr. Aqua 7 gallon tank i picked up cheap from Craigslist. I found some Crystal Red Shrimp and pretty high grade Red Cherry Shrimp in Dallas and have had everything going for a couple weeks. I picked up a used RO/DI filter and am going to try and be pretty serious about breeding the CRS out. Plants are on the way from Aquabid and I feel pretty good about the startup. I've had success breeding tigers and RCS before, but had 1 failed attempt at CRS/CBS. Here's to hoping for berried shrimp soon.
I'll update again once I get flora/fauna settled in.
-Simon-

Welcome back kotter, I mean Simon.

Is RO or DI water really the way to go? Crustaceans usually need a certain amount of calcium in the water to build their exoskeletons.

You're absolutely right, I'm going do a remineralization with Salty shrimp gh+. That will help keep the right mineral levels and low pH. I am suspicious that the plants will suffer from this, but they're not the top priority this time around.

After a couple months, I lost a few CRS and a couple cherries but added in some Tibee's (CRS, Tangerine Tiger, regular Tiger, Golden Bee, and OEBT in the gene pool). I've kept my lighting on a short cycle and the water is so soft that my plants are very thin and slow growing. I'll probably have to move more towards moss as time goes on. As for the shrimp, I have a couple berried cherries and 1 hatch already. Plus my only female Tibee that is really of breeding age is berried too. Hopefully when spring rolls around, I'll have enough to start doing some selective breeding and get some neat colors and patterns.

Very nice looking setup. Good luck with your shrimp project. I hope you are very successful and can share!