[Pavel Chaloupka]

I dont think they would need special food to have offspring. They are very well equipped to get all they need from bacterial film in the tank, algae and every other piece of organic matter. Its their natural diet and they dont get anything else in their natural environment. From the information available her on the site it seems that shrimps are the the key part of the foodchain that makes nutrient available for higher standing organisms. Also for C. simoni soft and acidic water should be better than tap water especially when its conductivity is 900 μS. Yes it may be to soft or/and to acidic, but still there may be other factors that block their reproduction. For example fotoperiod could play a role and as you cant see your shrimps much, you cant be sure that young shrimps just do not get consumed by paros before they grow up. Even getting 15 animals to start with, there is also a slight chance you did not get one of the genders. Plus even water quality could be a problem, shrimps are sometimes more sensitive than fish to NO3 levels for example. Temperature comes to mind too. Not putting the new shrimps to paro tanks and trying if you are able to breed them under less extreme conditions could help to learn more about what parameteres are limiting with your particular aquarium shrimp population. Most of the time getting first generation that survived under your conditions and reproducing these from there on will give best results.