Shrimpscales

Hello all I have decided to try and do my first tank journal. Right now i have a 46gal mixed Taiwan bee tank that has been extremely successful. It is producing tons of beautiful Taiwan bees of all variety. So my plan is to sell off all my other shrimp and concentrate all my effort to producing higher grade Taiwan bees. This first tank will be dedicated to black and blue. Blue bolt, blue panda and blue mosura. My next tank will be for the reds. I was going to try and replicate the conditions in my first tank as close as possible. This did not work out because the amazonia aqua soil i used turned out to be a bad batch or something. Check this out, this was after two weeks and several 100% water changes. So this is actually my second try. This time i am going to try Controsoil. I know there is some debate on the benefits of aqua soil but in my experience it makes a huge difference in the survival rate of baby shrimp. Hopefully the controsoil works as well as the amazonia did. Time will tell. Here is some of the other products i will use as well as the parameters i am shooting for. Tank size 30gal ph 5.8 temp 72-74F tds 180 kh o I use ro water with salty shrimp mineral GH+. One scoop to a five gallon bucket works out perfect. I also add a couple drops of prime to each bucket as well as a pinch of Ebi-ken Sosei. Substrate will be two bags of controsoil fine black. I am also adding one pack of mosura old sea mud and some ada bacter 100 as a substrate additive. Filtration on this tank will be a Fluval 50 hob,a Eheim classic canister, one turbo twist uv filter and one air driven sponge filter. Lightning will be a Finnex planted led. I added water yesterday and the first thing i noticed is the water is crystal clear even while filling. Today it looks even better. So far so good for the controsoil. Now all that is left to do is wait. I do have some mosura bt-9 i will be adding to the water to try and help along the cycling.

Would a Nikon Micro-Nikkor 40mm F/2.8G DX SWM lens work? What is the differance between the 40mm, 60mm and 105mm?

WOW! Those are expensive. Is there a lens that is a little more affordable?

The camera already has a af-s nikkor 18-55mm lens and a af-s nikkor 55-200mm lens. Would either of these work?

So my wife has a nikon d5100 camera she never uses because is is just too much camera for her, too complicated. I am a total novice as well but would like to use it for better pictures of my shrimp. I have done some research and found out i need to buy a macro lens. But which one? Does anyone have this camera? Is it what i need for shrimp photography or will it be too complex for a beginner?

Thanks for the advice everyone. I have a tough decision to make, i will have to think about this one for awhile.

This soil was not dried out when i started. It was actually more moist than the last time i used it. The last tank i set up i used soil that was sitting in a bucket for a year. I had no problems at all. Now i am trying to decide if it would be worth trying to cap it with flourite or just scrapping it and starting over with controsoil. I have tried breeding taiwan bee shrimp with an inert substrate in the past and have found i have a much higher survival rate of baby shrimp when using an active soil.

Thanks but this will be my last time with amazonia. Its not worth it. Not only am i out the cost of the soil but also all the substrate additives and time i have invested.

Yea when i pick a piece up and roll it between my fingers it will instantly dissolve between my fingers

I am not for sure but i think it was new amazonia. They were out of stock at first and i had to pre-order. I am going to try and flush it a couple times with tap water. I did a 50% wc yesterday with pure ro and it is actually worse this morning.

I dont know the ph and kh as i didnt measure them. I used tap water mixed with ro water. It may have been a little high though because my tap is kh17 ph8.2. Does this make a differance ? when you say flush tank do you mean drain all the water?

I have been doing some research online and have found many people who had similar issues with Amazonia. It seems the product has a problem with consistency. I have two other tanks set up with Amazonia and noticed right away that this new stuff has a very different color than my other tanks. It is a more yellowish brown and seems to dissolve easily in water. I will give it a couple months of water changes and filtering before I give up but I am not to confident at this point. This tank will be for my shadow shrimp so I need to be sure it is correct

That is what i thought at first but it actually gets worse with time without doing anything. Keep in mind this is not the first time i have used aquasoil so i knew what to expect. Yea it is usually cloudy at first but should slowly clear up with time. I am thinking about trying to cap it with some flourite i have. Will i lose the buffering i want if i do this?

I have asked that same question a few times. I am starting to think its just a myth. haha

I setup a new tank last week with ada aquasoil. I noticed right away that it looked more brown in color than the last time i used it. Now it is dying my water a tea brown color. Water changes and filtering make no differance. If you pinch some between your fingers it will crumble and dissolve with very little effort. For this reason i cant see this tank ever clearing up. I am just sick over this, all the time and money i have invested in not just the soil but all the substrate additives will be lost. Any suggestions?

AWESOME! Merry Christmas everyone.