aqua_che_scapes

Quick update. Shadow pandas are doing really well. The parameters seem very stable. These shrimp are absolutely stunning in this dark substrate tank. I couldn’t have picked a better shrimp to start with.

I would rotate them between my neocaridina shrimp tank and the TB tank but I can’t put snails in any of my other tanks cause I used fenbendazole (for planaria) in them earlier this year. And it doesn’t wear off. I tried putting nerites in the neo tank 6 months after dosing the dewormer and they died within a few hours. Even with a longer acclimation. Until one day I can tear down one or more of my other tanks and start completely over, I can’t house snails. I grow limpet pests that look like snails just fine tho. I don’t know. The TB tank is the only dewormer free tank cause it’s newer and I don’t use the dewormer anymore in my tanks. Works great but not if you want snails ever again. People have told me that if you use some filter carbon and wait 6 months or so the dewormer will be gone and snails will be fine but that’s not true. That stuff is like permanent.

Nerites in 4.7? Wow. I hope they keep doing ok. I’d be curious. I’d love to put atleast one or two small nerites in my shrimp tank. I worry about the egg laying too. Some people get nerites and say “never again” after a bad case of eggs scattered and glued to every tank surface. Maybe at a lower pH it’s not ideal for breeding so they won’t lay eggs but will still help eat algae .

Thise are super cool! But don’t snails die and their shells get eaten away by acidic water when the pH is below 6?

Thats interesting. Cool. Yes i use a sochting oxydator and I only dose the Bacter ae once a week or on water change day. I think the algae just got cross contaminated from my other shrimp tank that had it. I just have been removing it manually with a tooth brush. Im thinking about maybe removing the affected moss pads and soaking them in peroxide/RO water, rinsing with tank water and putting it back in but not sure that’s the best route. I’d rather put a snail in.

I wouldn’t mind putting a snail in this shrimp tank for the algae but the pH 5.2 is too low for them I thought. The acidic water will kill them. Especially nerites. I like horned nerites. I got some last year but they all died cause the dewormer I used in my tank 6 months prior was Apparentally still inside the tank and they died.

Uh they aren’t that rare I guess. I have mini pellia, fissidens fontanus, fissidens nobilis and real fissidens mini. My other tanks have a lot of Pilo moss. I love that moss. I have several buce from Han aquatics that are cool, like buce SO64 and Metallic black and some super mini varieties. I’ve had atleast 5 or 6 types of buce plants melt away on me since July too which totally sucks. Before I switched my shrimp tank to SL Aqua I had major problems trying to cycle it as an aquascape not a shrimp tank with aweful spiderwood and reused Amazonia. I spent months trying to cycle it and fix it and tore it down. Started over in October basically. pH was constantly dropping below 4.5, the spiderwood was clogging the filter with black fungus gunk I had NEVER seen before in a tank and the tank had the worst case of month or two long cloudy water blooms that stunk like hell. Nothing I did was solving it. Decided to go with a simple shrimp tank setup and dump everything out and start over using only reputable shrimp brand products etc. It was the worst tank start up I’ve ever had. Let’s just say I am never re using soil, OR ever using spiderwood ever again. Not a fan. Yah I never buy tank lights that don’t come with a dimmer switch. I use mostly Chihiros RGBs that has a dimmer remote control and it’s on a WiFi app iPhone controller so I can schedule the photoperiod and turn it on and off with my phone. All 4 of my tanks are like that. Makes things a lot easier and accessible and customizable. I also have two USA Satellite planted pro plus LEDs on my two aquascape fish tanks. Nice.

Only rising issue with this shrimp tank is I somehow got hair algae in it. And it’s been slowly attaching itself to my fissidens moss pads and buce plants. I’ve significantlg lowered the lights and the floating plants should help remove any of the algae’s food source hopefully it’ll be weakened. I haven’t wanted to be bothered with the algae too much since I just want to leave the tank alone and focus on the shrimp. But it might get I slightly.

I just finished netting my shadow pandas into their new tank. I’m currently dripping water back into the tank to fill it back up so I can’t take a full tank shot yet. So far the shrimp are exploring the tank but just walking around, no swimming. No signs of immediate stress. The 5 extreme blue bolts I ordered to put with these shadow pandas was suppose to arrive today and the tracking is showing it’s still in some other state... I picked a bad time of year to order shrimp...

JonRon. Thanks for the insights. Love your tanks wow! So when I dose bacter ae I literally scoop out about a small fingernail clipping size with the scoop spoon, mix with tank water in a test tube with a lid and I use that amount in both my shrimp tanks. So it’s pretty minimal. I may even be underdosing it.

WOW nice tanks everyone! I wish I had that many tanks 😭🤣 I do have three other nano aquascape tanks, 2 of which are co2 injected with micro Rasboras and amanos only. But the two smal shrimp ones are Just low tech shrimp scapes for me to learn how to keep different shrimps for the first time. I’ve only had amanos and neos and ghost shrimp before last summer. So I’ve spent 6 months or so trying to learn and start with caridinas. The TB tank is simple and I don’t have to worry about it so much except caring for the shrimp and also a grow out space for some bucephalandra and rare mosses. I’ve been very planted tank focused in the hobby but I want to slowly shift over to low tech and caridina shrimps now.

Here’s my acclimation setup. Just throwing whatever I have together. Obviously the tank water level gets low during acclimation since the tank isn’t that big. After the shrimp go in I will have to match the water and drip it back in to fill it up. The red root floaters are doing great in here and helping out a ton. I think In shrimp tanks smaller than 10 gallons, floaters are almost critical to me keeping my water stable. I like the look of my tanks without the floaters but it feels a lot safer when they are there soaking up anything bad.

I have been wanting to get one of those hang on marina breeder boxes. There is the kind that has a small mini pump like an hob and the. The regular airline kind from what I’ve seen. For drip acclimating obviously the non-pump kind. The container the shrimp are being acclimated in is actually a glass Marina Cubis betta tank. It’s just what I had sitting around honestly. Yah when I wrote my reply last night I think the shrimp had only been dropped for maybe 2 x the starting water volume. I had the drip going WAY too slow yesterday. I wish I had known about the “better to acclimate to lower gh/tds” before yesterday. Next time 👍🏻. The shrimp were at TDS 133 and the tank is 138 so hopefully that’s not a bad difference. GH matches ok. The rest of my shrimp come today. I was reading more last night about matching gh and osmotic Shock. It is stuff I just haven’t read up enough about. Good reading material.

when acclimating the shrimp I realize it’s important to match temp, gh, kh and TDS but what about pH? I can’t aeem to get the pH to match the new tank at all. The shrimp are in 5.7 and the tank is 5.2. That seems too big of a difference to move the shrimp over. I acclimated the shrimp to the new tank water a long time today but pH is the only water parameter value that’s not matching up.

WOW that seriously makes me feel a hell of a LOT better. Thanks! I’ve just read so many warnings about how difficult TBs are and how sensitive they are and it’s scared me into some overreacting. I feel more confident now. I started the shrimp on a slow drip. I REALLY appreciate all the time you (madcrafted) spent replying to my post and helping me out. I would still be totally confused still right now without your insights/help. 🤣 💪🏻 Thanks!!!! I’ll update the thread with photos of the shrimp happy in their new tank probably tomorrow. I have 5 extreme blue bolts and 6 BKK shrimp coming tomorrow and Monday to combine with the shadow pandas in the same tank. I’m definitely going to have to upgrade their tank this next year if they do well.