eozen81

Sorry, I may have confused you. What I mean by "not to you liking" is the pH plunges way too low than expected. Personally, I prefer pH between 6.4 to 6.8. This is the optimum range in chemistry aspect; it does not dissolve stuffs especially minerals too fast.
 
Regarding siphoning the substrate, you only need to do it when your substrate is full of waste material or gunk. You can see the level of waste material gathered from the side of your tank. When you see the level build up more than half of your substrate height, then you will need to siphon them.
 
To siphon the substrate safely, you need the following:
A piece of net with hole that is no more than 5mm. an air tube or a 9/12mm tube (I prefer 9/12mm tube) Tie the net to one side of the hose, usually I use wire-tie. When you are siphoning, you need to poke the end with the net into the substrate by about 1 to 2 cm before you let the water flow; you can control the water flow by using your thumb to control the other end of the tube or you can use a tap connector. Once you see the water flowing is cleared, then move to the next location. Since you only let the water flow when the tube is in the substrate, there is no way to suck in baby shrimp.
 
One key thing about siphoning is that it can only be done with matured tank. This is because when you disturb the substrate, there will be no toxic substances release out.
 
For my tanks, since the substrate has good eco-system, I only see the waste material build up once every 1 year or 2 years. However for new tank that before the ecosystem is established, it potentially can build up rapidly within the first few months but will slowly disappear over time. 

No worries, I know a lot of people uses UGF.
 
I think I will share with you my knowledge and it will be your own discretion. However, it is a bit long winded and bear with me.
 
As you know, the best breeder in the world are Japanese and German, excluding those countries that produce for mass-market. Japanese breeder traditionally believe in over-filtration by using multiple canister filter cascaded together. Whereas for the German counterpart, believe in simple but effective method on the filtration, such as hambuger mattenfilter.
 
Sometime down the road, the Japanese started to think that by leveraging the substrate as filter media can increase the total surface for the bacteria to live; I think it might be Shirakura who started this trend. But with this approach, there are a few considerations in their thoughts that made UGF works:
Once the substrate is exhausted, they will change and usually within a year. They can do that easily because they have a lot of small tanks and capable of moving them easily. The UGF will be driven by powerful canister filter or powerhead and will minimise clogging (air-driven type is not powerful enough, unless you have massive air-pump) Japanese have a culture of meticulous in doing everything. As such, they willing to put in 100% effort and all the time needed to clean and maintain the tank. However, not everyone can do what they do in day to day tasks. (I'm half-Jap and live in Japan 4 to 6 months a year and I know their culture very well) Using the substrate with UGF will be able to produce a substrate that has 1 more benefit when competing with ADA AS. For this point I have been question a lot on all those substrates that advertise to have nothing, except buffering pH, but selling much more expensive than ADA AS. Imagine, you are paying more for less. Then might as well just use inert substrate. LOL!!! This is why, nowadays I am using inert substrate that are not for aquarium. As such, if you want UGF to work like a charm, you will need to follow exactly how it was designed for initially and, not mix and match the approach. On top of all these, it is better to have a low micron filter media that will filter all waste material the water coming from the UGF to remove any waste material and wash it or change it weekly.
 
That's all for how to make UGF work best. Now let me tell you the downside of UGF, especially if you don't follow the way it is designed for. In an aquarium, a healthy substrate will serve the following purpose:
Collect waste material and ensure they stay there and not polluting the water. Critters and microbes will flourish within the substrate to breakdown and/or ferment the waste. The waste materials will be breakdown and/or ferment into non-toxic and useful substances such as humus. Humus will produce organic acid (humic and fulvic acid) that will recharge back to your substrate. Substrate will collect precipitated minerals too. The organic acid will dissolve and/or chelated the precipitated minerals and recycle back into water column or feed the plant slowly If you are using UGF, it will disrupt the mini-ecosystem in the substrate and all the above will not happen. Like I mentioned above, if you are willing to perform what UGF is designed for, then you have no worries removing the substrate ecosystem.
 
If you are not using UGF in the best working way, the consequences will includes all or some of the following:
The UGF will be clogged in some area. The clogged area will be producing a lot of dissolved waste and leeching through the unclogged area. This will causes the water to contain a lot of organics waste. Since the mini-ecosystem is disrupted, the substrate may not recharge itself properly. Even though you see the pH is buffered, it may be buffered with nitric acid instead of organic acid. Precipitated minerals are not recycled, you will need to dose more and more minerals as time goes by. Without the mini-ecosystem, you may not get enough bacteria and zooplankton that can feed shrimps. Based on these information, like I said, it is up to your own discretion about UGF.
 
Personally, I will never use it because I don't like to rebuild my tank frequently as it is a hard work; I rebuild one of my tank over the weekend and I am still feeling tired till now (probably I'm old). Also, I prefer a naturally balanced tank so that I don't need to pay much attention to it or performing excessive maintenance tasks.

Added some lighting 13watt cfl in a deep socket dome fixture. I need to add a few things like some shrimp tubes, plants and possibly a  HOB filter.

I also kept them at higher temps as they used to be upstairs and I didnt have breeding until i moved them down here. I suspect that the temp played a large role in breeding as they were in the 70s being on the second floor, had ac but its still a challenge in the summer. Kept them by a vent so it stayed cooler. Some keep a heater for stability but i tend to have bad luck with them and keeping a stable temp, or shorting out so I removed them from the equstion. So far so good been a few months no deaths and surviving babies!

I never had issues with clogging and I put the ADA soil right on the UGF with no net. My planted tank was 3+ years with ADA and UGF never clogged.
 
In college I setup two identical small tanks just one had no UGF(too broke to get 2nd one lol) and when I would do a WC the ADA soil would take longer buffer PH down. But on other tank that had the same setup just UGF added the PH would drop within hours. Same water and same routine only difference was the time it took for ADA soil to do it's thing.

Congrats but what I love here is regardless of the volume of the users there are plenty of information shared. That's why here is special for me.
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Hi Emre,
 
Let's continue from where we are left off at the other thread.
 
I just saw your picture and it has UGF. Just a curious question, did you take up the user manual in the ADA Aquasoil bag and read it before? Actually, it said that it is designed not to be used with UGF. The problem with ADA AS is that it drops a lot of crumbs and these crumbs will clogged your UGF.
 
In addition, there are some tests performed in more scientific methods and discovered tank with UGF will introduce much more organics into the water column than the one without.

I always use tap for the initial fill, and I have cycled more than 50 tanks with ADA in the last 12 months.

When we formed the forum, we wanted free exchange of information with no secrets.  I think people appreciate that.

Congrats but what I love here is regardless of the volume of the users there are plenty of information shared. That's why here is special for me.
Sent from my LG-D802 using Tapatalk

It's been about a month and I find molts but no berried shrimp yet. Hopefully soon. They were definitely shy at first but have since become comfortable in their surroundings. In the meantime I perform 10% water changes weekly and check on them everyday. If things go well with them I'll add some yellow cheeks.

My tb's cary red bolt  genes. So, I'm hoping the red color will intesify on this shrimp. He's only about 4 months old right now but has potential.

Firstly, beautiful tank and setup.  I really dig the rack (I have a similar rack but it's better because its matted black  ).  I had a similar thinking process as you earlier last year.  You might want to check out this blog as it will be a valuable source of knowledge.  I noticed that you're cycling with plants.  I used to cycle with plants as well, but what I came to realize is that during the ammonia/ammonium phase, my plants would start to die and decay.  This added to a long list of problems later on once the tank is cycled in the form of algae and other annoyances.  Most of what i'm going to say will be included on the blogger but basically I do a lights out, no waterchange, slap a heater and crank it up to the 80's, and dose my Revive Vita and Sinewy Cereal S as a way to feed the bacteria so they can colonize properly.  Waterclears up by itself as bacteria establish and takes control of the tank.  The cloudiness will subside (I was a skeptic until 2 days ago).    
 
Because you're using ADA Aquasoil, I don't believe adding live animals is a good idea.  It's usually very toxic and so would most likely kill anything you add into the tank.  I'm usually against adding animals into a toxic environment with the sole purpose of cycling.  Saving a few days doesn't seems worth risking the life of another animal.  
 
Actually, I started cycling my 25gal Cubes about 2 weeks ago and the tanks are cycled now.  Well Nitrate and Nitrite is completely done.  Because the tank is going to be housing softwater shrimp living in an acidic environment, the 1 ppm of Ammonium should be safe.  I'm planning on performing a 90-95% waterchange and adding the finalized water that the shrimps will be living in on friday (mixing and aging the water tomorrow) and then adding shrimps first thing Saturday.  
 
This is my fastest cycling process to date.  If you're interested in testing the Revive VIta (bacteria blend) I can send you some to try.  ShrimpyDaddy has been stress testing it on iner, active, and ADA aquasoil and he's making a lot headway proving the effectiveness of his blend.  He's even stress testing it's ability to be a food source for shrimps. 
 
Oh yah.. you're not harrassing my thread, so don't sweat it.  I make things public and open so people can ask freely .  Why... isn't that why you came to ShrimpSpot in the first place? 

Lol never understand the" take a break" reasoning. I love the spouses who try to not let then play video games. They complain all the time but there they are phone glued to their hand 24/7. Never understand it lol
-Chris

Personally I think the traps make you feel good because you are able to see planaria caught, but they are still everywhere- even if unseen.
 
A while back when I had a planaria problem someone told me about planaria zero.  I did some research and found it was not uncommon to have shrimp deaths from the use of it.  This was one of my prized tanks with an unusual strain of cherries.  I really couldn't afford to have any die.
 
So, after some more research, I found fenbendazole wouldn't hurt my shrimp.  After some more research I found "fish bendazole" has a more active ingredient than just dog wormer (at least that's what I read) and it just made me feel better knowing it was for aquariums.
 
.1g per tenner.  Mix in a cup of tank water and pour it in.  Turn off light.  Wait 3 days, and repeat if needed.  Some people do a water change.
 
That simple, and worked great.  None of my ramshorns died off.  I took out my mystery as a precaution (and take any nerites out as well if you have any.)
 
I now have stocked up on this, and if hydra tag along to me from a shipment I use .05g.  A nice low dose and over the next 3-4 days hydra disappears.
 
Hardly ever use it now, but nice to know it is there.

If any of you are thinking of going cheap and doing a sterilite sump for your shrimp racks. There are a lot of not so ideal options. It took me a lot of trial and error to find the right container.
Dont get ones with a lot of folds at the sides. They will baloon out when filled with water. Usualy these are the heavy duty models. Like the sterilite ones below:

Also dont get one that has tiny stands that stick out underneath it. The weight of the water will just cause them to break and cause a leak. It happened to the one pictured below. Rubbermaid 40 gallon:

I found this one to be the most ideal for sumps. It has a flat bottom and no folds on the sides. Its also transparent which is nice so you can see the water line. Its the sterilite ultra 29 gal. Target has them.

It helps to keep the lid on to prevent evaporation and support the frame. Dont overfill it either. Mine is currently cycling with ada soil inside. I have a lifegard quiet one 991 as a pump and marinepure 1.5 inch for filter media. Theres also an airstone under the media do provide oxygen to it.

I didn't do anything special when cycling the 60P. I did use Seachem's stability during the process but I ended up cycling the tank for about 3mos before adding shrimps.
I am now trying a new bacteria liquid to cycle my cubes. It's been about 2 weeks (1 week with an actual filter running) so I'll update how those tanks are doing on a later post.

My fish room is in the basement so I have no trouble with the temp. They are kept at room temp no heater. Dont use any heaters in my fish room besides Sulawesi and fish tanks. Keeps the cost down, the room will be heated this winter and will probably be around 68F.

Congratulations Chris, amazing journal, knock on the wood   
 
May I kindly ask how  was the summer? I mean TB need low degrees and this is challanging especially in the summer days. Do you use air conditioner? Ay what temp are you keeping those guys? Regards pal.

One of the issues that I will probably have to deal with is cooling this tank in the summer days. I don't have an air conditioner at the room. One of my friends is using Temperature Controller STC-1000 with a simple cooler fan on top of the tank as you can see below. He confirmed he had no issues for 2 summers but only has to top off about the decreasing water which I can live with
 

 
This is a video showing the operation of STC 1000
 

Lots to update! Got my first set of Taiwan Bee Pandas from Puddles! Not Cuddles: -) they arrived healthy and happy. Must say I know exactly why people love them. Juvie colors are bolder than most shrimp I have seen. I moved a lot of my mischlings in with them also, will move the rest of them tomorrow. Seen active!!!!
-Chris

Update, all the dust settled still planning out the scape, really just threw stuff in I had laying around to help with cycle. I had some minuta I had around so figured why not. Got some Anubias, crypts, hornwort in there also. I have that nice rock someone gave me that is from Africa, very interesting piece.
Got some fissidens growing on some driftwood in my HT tank so it grows in nice before this one is cycled. Still no change in ammonia leaching. Done a few water changes, but stays pretty solid.
Also on a side not I posted an ad on CL about buying tanks. There's not much on there up, here. A lady emailed me said I have a 55g I'm going to toss out by the road. So I was like I'll at least go look. Got there and was a complete setup, stand, fluval cannister, lights and no scratches. She was like I have to move and no one wanted to buy. I left 40$ in her mailbox didn't feel right taking it, was a steal bc she also gave me a 20l for free. I made out like a bandit and more tanks for my fish room basement remodel. More to come tomorrow on that.
-Chris

There are many way's to cycle ADA aquasoil for Taiwan bee I think the old standard works well 2 month cycle, yes it takes time basically one month to leach ammonia one month to age the tank. There are many product/methods that can speed up the process, nothing beats time and patience. Using a seeded sponge filter really help's and mulm bombing even though it's messy is very effective way to introduce beneficial bacteria.

ADA cycling your trying to accomplish two things, 1) Reduce Ammonia and Nitrite to 0 prior to adding shrimp 2) Generate Biofilm. Usually the first 3-4 weeks I do quite the number of water changes, 1st week on my most recent setups I did a 20% water change almost every other day, then a 50% on the weekend. 2nd week I did 2 20% water changes and 1 50% on weekend, third week 1 50%, after just fill for evaporation. I also added floating plants this time to combat the ammonia. I think by week 4-5 I was free and clear of ammonia and nitrite but waited until the end of week 6 to add shrimp.
 
Prior to adding ADA I always add a bacterial product, like Bacter 100, Bacter AE, MK-Breed Z Silver Powder, etc. During the cycling process I would add Bacter AE/MK-Breed Z Silver Powder to help increase the production of beneficial bacteria and biofilm.
 
This is what I do, most people have their own way of doing this.

Hi guys,

Cheers from Istanbul/Turkey

After I got successful about my Cardinal tank (you can see the journal link from my signature) I decided to take my chances with Taiwan Bee shrimps. It was long research period that I spent to make sure building the tank with the best conditions as much as possible I could.

Size: 70x35x32h (84 liters)
Filter System:
- HMF Filter
- Sunsun Hw 603 B Mini Cannister Filter
- Undergravel Filter (PoweredWith Air Pump)
Lighting: Daylight, blue and white LED
Water chemistry: RO water + GH+ Mineral
Substrate: ADA Amazonia Normal type (1 package aka 9 liters)
Others: Mangrove, Mini Java Fern, Indian almond and some other seasonal leaves, Borneo Wild Bee Ball

1st days setup: 05/10/2014
pH 5.3 
TDS: 220 microsiemens
GH: 6-7
kH: 1
Temp: 21.5 C
 
- Since I had used HMF Filter (because it makes maximum bio area) I had to use high density sponge to make sure shrimplets will not pass through the sponge. Here below you can see the sponge I used:
 


- For the substrate:
Bottom 0: I had used Borneo Wild Minerax and Enlive at the bottom
Bottom 1:Undergravel filter
Bottom 2: A thin mosquito net to make sure shrimplets will not go to the bottom
Bottom 3: Sera Siporax Bio Ring
Bottom 4: ADA Amazonia Normal


The tank is now only 2 days old and in cycling period. I want it to cycle around 6-8 weeks but not sure If I should do water changes on a weekly basis to make sure ammonia to down or put a guppy into it and no water changes for 2 months or something, what do you propose?
 
 
The other set up pictures are below. I will keep you guys posted about the progress.
 
Regards
Emre