Matt_95

Welcome, nice choice with the wilds, what species are you considering?

Welcome! Do you have any photos of your set up?

Welcome Doug have you got any fish yet?

Welcome to the forum, do you have any photos?

Welcome, there are a lot of great resources here :)

In my experience live food definitely makes the dry grow faster.

Welcome to the forum. Have you bought any new fish yet?

The anemone has bleached, make sure you take good care of it and ensure it gets food since it cannot photosythesise.

Actually, one would think the reds are less hardy because they have been inbred here longer, the gene pool in Australia is far smaller than the gene pool overseas. Even though it says that that does not mean it is completely true, how can a substarte be spherically designed to give optimal conditions for two species when the optimal conditions are different for both. You see people using it with them because they also keep crystals with them or because they have been told by someone selling their products that it is best. Many overseas breeders of high quality cherries use the salty shrimp minerals, the Bossaquaria site even recommends that.

They can carry diseases if they're bred in a system with unhealthy fish, some people keep them in sumps or similar and they feed on the fish waste, if there are sick fish in the system the blackworms can transfer them. If you buy them from a reputable source you shouldn't have any problems though.

The other colours are just as hardy as cherries, like cockroaches. I would recommend the salty shrimp Sulawesi minerals over a shrimp substrate because they're designed for soft water shrimp, cherries can live in a wide range of parameters but will do will do better in some conditions than others. I'm not saying that, but those substrates are designed for shrimp that hail from soft water, usually Caridina cantonensis, not Neocaridina heteropoda, they come from harder water than the crystals and you can buffer them with coral chips or the Salty shrimp minerals. The thing that the shrimp substrates would do that those can't is bind heavy metals often present in tap water as they have a lot if carbon compounds that bind them up, IAL and soil will do the same thing.

You've been misinformed, it is not needed or a must for any of the the N. heteropoda varieties, they prefer a neutral to slightly alkaline water and these substrates make the water acidic. They will do well on a normal gravel and tap water is usually fine, I include something to buffer the water such as coral or limestone usually.