Brolly33

Great article. I love that you really go into some of the techniques that worked and those that did not.


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Shrimpaholics anonymous?


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Do you add KH when remineralizing? I would think high KH would "wear out" soil buffering faster, but I have not done the experiment.


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If you'll notice your TDS is not usually equal to your GH + KH in ppm. For instance I keep a tank at 0 dKH and 5 dGH. In ppm that's about 100, but that tank hovers around 160-170. That's because the difference is made up of dissolved organics used by plants, animals, and (more importantly) biofilm for metabolism and biosynthesis. If your water is too clean there may not be enough bioavailable nutrients for these processes to be carried out, thus restricting the flow of energy through the trophic levels, and ultimately reducing survivability rates.

I must be missing something critical in my knowledge. Total Dissolved Solids, as measured by conductivity, includes The solids that make up General Hardness and Karbonate Hardness. I thought the GH and KH parameters had more to do with molting and metabolism of shrimp and were the primary desirable constituents making up TDS targets in shrimp tanks. TDS meter does not care I'd the dissolved solid is Good Stuff like calcium, or Bad Stuff, like Nitrite or Ammonia. I guess I always though of TDS as a "not to exceed" while keeping GH high enough but not too high for good molts.


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Welcome Brian. I too used RCS Neos as my "starter shrimp". I still remember getting my first berries.

For low maintenance plants, I would suggest Anubias species.  Very common in pet stores and very slow growing.

Java Fern is almost impossible to kill off and grows a bit faster.

Floaters are also very easy to keep alive, like mini water lettuce, frogbit or giant duckweed. Since they float, they take CO2 from the air and have a huge growth advantage over submerged plants.

@Ahboram, I too am struggling with what to do when my controlsoil's buffering wears out.

The most common solution I have heard about is to cycle a second tank with new soil and move the shrimp.

I have not won the battle with the wife to acquire another tank yet, so I have been considering alternatives.

Here is a proposed process to try to avoid a heavy cycle and killing off all the shrimp.

Prep: Age/cycle another batch of substrate in a 5gal bucket with sponge filter for 1-3 months.

On change day, siphon 75% of tank into a second set of bucket(s).

Catch shrimp and move to buckets.

Remove 1/2 or 3/4 or all of existing substrate (thinking here is to leave some undisturbed)

Add aged substrate + aged substrate water to tank.

Let set for 2-3 hours then test tank water for ammonia.

Drain 75% of tank.

Return the old bucket water back to the tank along with shrimp.

Run Purigen for 2-3 weeks while testing for ammonia/nitrate/nitrate spikes.

Alternatively, I guess the shrimp could live in the bucket, with filtration, of course, for 2-3 months while the tank cycles in the new soil...

Would love to hear what the community thinks on this topic.

I love the islands of green. This balance between sparse and plants hits my personal aesthetic very well. I may have to steal this for my future rack.

Are the 120x45x30 custom built tanks or prebuilt with dividers added?

On 8/24/2016 at 0:34 PM, Maurice said:

I personally also like the look of not a lot of extra stuff in the tank, just a piece of wood and some moss, ferns or buces, the greenery of plants makes it also look more natural and the added benefit of removing nitrates and so on

 

This is my preferred way

 

I love that you are using floaters for nitrate control here. Since they are "up", I would expect they don't mess with culling operations as well as being super effective nitrate sponges.

My shrimp seem to love the BacterAE. I use a chopstick to scoop out a tiny bit and I put it right in front of the filter outflow about once a week. It seems to mix into the water pretty well that way. The bits that float, well the shrimp just swim upside down on the surface to gobble it up.

Wet toothpick? I would worry about fouling my supply with tank water, but I also cannot argue with success.

Love those blue bolts.

For me, tank philosophy depends on your goals. For me, the top goal is to keep both shrimp and plants healthy and thriving. It's the balance of fertilizing the plants vs best fertility of shrimp. They seem to be contrary goals to me, which brings the fun of balancing. I like the ecosystem.

Others are building a breed (or several).

Others want the most beautiful environment in their tanks.

Others are trying to maximize baby quality, output and health to make profit.

Sparse tanks makes for easier culling but less tank beauty.

This shrimp is Batman!

Hard to tell from the pictures. Size? 

the nostrum does not look like Neocardinia nor Cardinina.

Tampa Bay keepers! Sweet! I am over I. St. Pete.

Control soil, 12 months. R/O remineralized only. KH 0. Still stable. 1 tank. Bee mischlings. Decent breeding.

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=tank+glass+thicknesses+calculator

untempered or tempered?

My 12 gal long, 9x9x36, they use 1/4" on sides and 1/2"on the bottom untempered.

I have looked at 1/8 before. I would only consider it for internal dividers.

I love the tight formatting and easy to scan list. If I was in Canada, I would totally try you as a seller.

I recommend buying her a diamond and keep the tank.

Yes,  add minerals to RO.

Pure RO is missing the calcium that your shrimp need for their beautiful carapaces (shells). It is also missing Magnesium and a host of other trace minerals necessary for aquatic metabolism and life.

I use the Fluval Shrimp Mineral Supplement, but SaltyShrimp and SL-aqua both seem very popular with the hardcore shrimpers here.

Find one that works for you and stick with it. Shrimp love consistency.

I read in your other posts that you have very hard tap water and had a dieoff. RO is a good restart option for you.

@Rivergardennursery

I really liked the 1 week interval videos portion of documenting your test.

It does look like you have less green hair algae in your tank now.

The Twinstar could have had an effect, or it could just me that the algae has corrected the underlying nutrient imbalance and went away on it's own.

I would love to see a side by side test in a couple of clear plastic 2-liter bottles in a sunny window.

Seed both with your hair algae, feed both some fish food once a week, for nutrient load.

Once both have a big clump of the hair algae, drop the Twinstar in one of the containers and run test for 2 more months. 

Compare the bottles weekly.

Having a control is the key to a good experiment.

Do you feel like some amateur kitchen science.

If you were to do a 50% water change, and test tank water for ammonia before and after, does your test result go up, down, or stay the same?

When you remineralize with salty shrimp, before you put the new water into the tank, does it test positive for ammonia?

If you bought a gallon of pure distilled water, does it test positive for ammonia?

If incoming water has no ammonia, and your test kit is good, then it has to be in the tank already.

Your filter should be pulling ammonia out. If you were to accidentally kill the bacteria colony in your filter you would get a double whammy due to the dead bacteria not eating ammonia anymore, as well as their microscopic little bodies decaying. Are you dosing anything strange that might kill off your filter? Hydrogen Peroxide treatment? anti-biotics?

Your plants look nice and green, and should be pulling ammonia out for you. Ammonia can be a by-product of organic decay. Fish waste does this, but you don't have any livestock in there. I don't see any dead leaves or dead plant material in your tank picture. If you wood is rotting, it might be releasing ammonia (doubtful, but testable)

You could put your wood hard-scape into a bucket of tested RO and see if you get an ammonia spike over 1-2 days.

You could do the same bucket test with a small handfull of your substrate and your RO if you wanted to eliminate it as the source of ammonia.

My Hagen test kit compensates the test color of the ammonia against pH of the sample. I wonder if the API test kit is effected by pH of the sample?

Lots of fun variables to eliminate

Use your test kit on the filtered water coming from that Glacier machine. I have had terrible luck with grocery store "filter" machines water quality.

Start with your TDS meter.  Good RO should be <5.0 and great RO should be 0.0.

Have your tank ready to co and fully cycled and stable before shopping.

Consider your tank water parameters and try to find a seller who's numbers are close to yours.

Imports tend to be more fragile than locally tank bred.

Consider shipping temperature and time your buy for when both you and the shipper's weather will not be terribly hot nor cold.

Consider shipping distances, as the longer the shrimp are in the bag, the harder it is on them.

Consider buying younger shrimp, as the old ones are harder to adjust to a new tank after the stress of shipping.

Check the for sale threads here and other boards, watch for feedback from other buyers and consider how long they have been selling to the community.

My mischling culture came from @Sbarbee54 about 2 years ago. Quite satisfied with the shrimp and the seller.

@Rivergardennursery

Update? Did the treatment work?

Any treatment related losses of moss or lifestock?