Liberty1776

yeah looks like a female to me also, i was pretty accurate in guessing mine at a certain point of their growth into juvie/adulthood.  im going off the somewhat flat back your shrimp appears to have, not being as arched as males have it. 

looks like a blue bolt,  what kind of shrimp is it? 

Welcome fellow shrimper!  love the diy tank mod.  thanks for taking the time to come around and share your knowledge/pics

looking forward to some pics of the neo colonies you got, im guessing 2 tanks or?

got mine ^^

thanks for getting this out to us !!! I couldnt resist and got all 4 products you offer from them.  After all of the recommendations, this was a no brainer to get.  Will be doing a review on this, and will be using this as my only supplement and food addition to my carbon rili breeder tank. 

Just placed my order early this morning, Ive purchased from discobee.com before and the shipment was fast, packed very well, and had a freebie included.  I wont spoil the freebie, but its ALWAYS nice to get a lil something for free, even if its a cool sticker with some disco dancing scrimpys, which I also got   Top notch and highly recommended to do business with.

Pics to come!

just wanted to chime in for a minute in your Journal Pika.  been awhile since i checked it out and it is loking tops!  great work.  congrats on the berries and welcome back from your trip as well.

So my two cents on the dry ferts, you have the right idea to start with teeny doses.  i started dosing at the recommended amount for my size tank, and used too much, over dosing will encourage algae growth from what i have seen and read.  the calculator i used to get the measurements was found on GLA website.  I also dosed with dry ferts, using the EI method vs the PPS Pro.  this required a 50 percent water change every week though.  on a 10 gallon, its not so bad.  however, one thing i would make sure of if going the EI method, is to get the water temps as close a possible when doing water changes.  i got my dry ferts from GLA as well as the containers used for holding premixes of your micro and macro nutrients.  in the planted realm of aquariums, ive noticed more hobbyists doing EI.

if cost is an issue for you, and if you dont mind paying the shipping, i can send you a months worth of dry ferts to try out since I am not dosing any ferts at the moment. well, not counting the flourish i put in my moss only tanks, bucket.. whatever

Great looking tank Pika!

Been super busy, so gonna do a quick update.  Found a berried female in the tank last week.  This is her first batch of babies, and the mama is looking good.  I plan on raising them all until I come up with a soild plan to track the family tree and do some "tree-trimming" I suppose .  that sounds better than, the culling, the purge !!

The tank has been doing great.  I wish I had some pics to post right now, but I havent had a chance to get the pics off Magan's phone, my wife, but I will soon.

New additions to the tank:

Tried out the Mulberry Leaves from Tantora line - got this from Bostoneric

Put in a catappa log from Tantora - Got this from Bostoneric also

3 pieces of cholla wood - from Oblongshrimp

ShrimpKing sample pack - been trying the 5 types in the samplepack to see what they like, ...will post my findings on that another day

SaltyShrimp ShrimpMineral gh/kh+ - waiting to use this, still on tap.  Got this from theshrimptank.com

Glas Garten Product Line - getting this in the mail from Bostoneric, finally got my hands on the Bacter AE and couldnt resist trying out the entire line.  Which includes the baby food, shrimp dinner, and immunogoblin.  Highly recommended by the pro's, so I got mine at discobee.com

The java moss wall I made is doing great, and the way it has grown in the tank, the shrimp are able to hide in it easily.  I am feeling very confident with the setup and it definitely looks like the shrimp feel at home.  This is my first dedicated shrimp tank, and I am very happy with its current state. Off topic, BLM are thugs and harry reid is an evil man against humanity, i love Liberty, what can i say..dont you?  Cliven Bundy sure does.  So I started out with 5 +1 carbons that i got online in February and we will see what that number grows to

One thing is for certain.  I plan on using the Glas Garten products on this tank only, to inlcude natural products like leaves.  Other than that,  I will only be using this for food and supplement and nothing else, so when that comes in the mail, I will make a log in the journal for its day 1.  I have a weekly feeding schedule as recommended in the guidelines.  You can expect a very good report on the use of these products from GlasGarten.  Will try to include as many parameters, readings, findings as possible in the weekly ?? report? maybe bi-weekly depending on time.  Anyhow, if ANYBODY has any suggestions as to what include in the report, what to look for, which details to record so it is beneficial data... I am all ears and open to suggestions. *crosses fingers hoping soothingshrimp chimes in*

Finally, I just wanted to say that I am still on tap water for a bit.  With the constraints I have on my budget, I havent purchased the RO system I want, had to get the glasgarten first.  Good news is, i purchased four 5gallon jugs for waterchanging, got em for 10 bucks on CL, so I will be buying RO water from the LFS until I can get my own.  Feeling good though!  Things are starting to settle down here a little bit, almost ready to put life back into cruise control and enjoy the ride for a few miles.  pics to come, have a good day shrimpers

Very well done sir!  great attention to detail is necessary to do things like this, and you certainly demonstrate that. 

You mentioned getting more equipment... are you looking into the new 3d printers? (insanely expensive)  Sure would be nice if you did, I would like to make a Liberator if I had one

looking forward to more pics for sure !

"Adding some algae eating mini shrimps to my 20 tall..."

That was my thought as I made my first purchase of red cherry shrimp at my lfs. It was actually recommended to me, along with the Oto, to help as a clean up crew for my first planted tank. I was having issues with algae on a few plants, and the 3 siamese flying foxes I had in the tank already werent eating all the algae I wanted em to so I put in 6 rcs and an oto.

Now this tank was my first attempt at a planted tank, and dirted at that, so I had a DIY co2 system I was using with a powerhead and sponge filter I controlled the rate of release by using an air flow valve and confirmed approximate co2 levels with a drop checker using the proper water in it, also had a hob on the tank already, just used some batting to cover the intake of that and got the rcs and oto in after acclimation and within the first week I had 1 loss. The rest survived this brutal beating:

50% weekly water changes done with TopFin water conditioner ( Had to do this as I was dosing dry ferts the "Estimated Index Method" way which requires 50% weekly WC

Cohabitated with the following fish - Otocinclus , Clown Loach x 2 , Siamese Flying Fox x 3

( got the clown loaches because I failed at disinfecting/cleaning some plants I got in the mail which gave me ramshorns, loaches took care of it quick. )

NEVER fed them any kind of specific shrimp food.

Tank received 2 spirulina wafer, and about 15 - 20 micro pellets of fish food every other day for foxes and loaches, and thats it.

I was able to successfully keep the shrimp up unto the point where I had to tear it down, I am currently in the moving process and downgraded from 5 tanks to 2, just got two 10 gallons now. Sucks but, oh what the future has in store... Dad is getting a garage =D ! well soon enough! Although the RCS are now in a non co2 ten gallon at grandpas house, they were happy and healthy.

I will also add that I tried something on my tank that I hadnt read about anyone trying that might have affected the parameters somehow, is how i turned off the venturi tube air intake during the day when i had the co2 on, and had it ON at night when I turned off the co2. I just figured that if im bumping up the co2 that the plants breathe during the day, maybe i should increase the oxygen going in at night, since they take in oxygen at night. This tank was doing awesome, and I was so close to saving up enough money for a good led, which was the last thing I needed for the tank to really do great, and that is how it started.... I was watching the shrimp more than monitoring the growth of the plants, i got hooked and havent bought a plant since then. Not because I dont want to, I just dont have money for it now, but thats ok cause I have learned to be patient in this hobby, and I am pleased to see it eminate in other areas of my life as well. Id rather buy some ShrimpKing food and cholla wood from theshrimptank, oh wait I did =)! Just waiting to pick up the package, been busy moving.

Back to business, I think its also important to note that I agree with Oblong and boston about the "slowing" effect. I say this because I see how it has also effected how often they molted, which was no where near as much as my other shrimp, the carbon rilis are doing now.

In short, I urge people to consider the challenge of balancing that extra parameter ( co2 ) as the rewards are amazing shrimp in a beautiful truly planted tank, if you can afford any mistakes that is. I kept RCS using DIY co2 and did pretty good, imagine a real deal co2 system solenoid, bubble counter... should be easy peasy.

As far as acid and what danielt was talking about, I was interested to read more about the topic and reasearched a lil bit, and still have more to read. I would like more elaboration on the topic if possible, maybe another thread cause this is good stuff. Im stumbling on terms like co2 bicarbonate equilibrium, buffering system... please consider sharing your two cents. Just from what I have read, acids are indeed very bad, but only some of the co2 forms into carbonic acid, which is considered to be a weak acid in the first place.

So we have a small amount of a weak acid that is created when co2 is introduced to h2o because all it needs is that extra proton from hydrogen and there you go, its a carbonic acid, its in our blood, its as normal as the sun coming up, and I am coming to the conclusion that its not bad in your tank, that being said, the bigger the tank the better, due to more wiggle room for parameters to shift. And I dont see too many 5 or 10 gallon planted tanks with co2 injection =) so i would say not to worry about carbonic acid. Ph spikes are the shrimp killer in the co2 injection scenario, its all about balance.

Lastly, this worked for me and theres no telling if it will work for you. Give it a try if you can afford it, otherwise, get some moss and some kind of wood, add a leaf from soothingshrimps leaf list and ur shrimp ill be alive and kicking, "fast" mode =P

Heres a pic of the tank when it was up and running, and a pic with a RCS in it:

links of carbonic acid research:

http://www.cs.duke.edu/~narten/faq/chemistry.html

http://www.aquaticcommunity.com/aquarium/chemistry.php

http://ion.chem.usu.edu/~sbialkow/Classes/3650/Carbonate/Carbonic%20Acid.html

1)Triton

2) Doc4PC2 - Rock On - on Facebook

pi) Gilby (pi is a number from 1-250, but let's round it to 3)

4.) wicca32 (maybe i will get lucky lol i never win these things ha ha)

5) Oblongshrimp

6) Liberty1776 sweeet

Score! Sending a pm

Heres a pic of the mystery buce, has 5 leaves, new rhizone, lil silver spots all over the leaf surface, an awesome plant for sure.

Below is a pic of a giant red vein elise, you can see the side shoot and how red the vein is, even under just 1 t8 bulb.

I bought my first batch of buce after new years. Coming all the way from borneo, indonesia, half the plants died, and the rest lost almost all their leaves. Damn "home ornaments"

3 months later, having kept them in my dirted tank, they are now shooting leaves out the sides of the rhizone. Hmmm.... that reminds me, i found a little piece that is growing very nicely that was hiding in between some lava rocks I have the buce on. I put it on a little piece of lava rock to make its home. Its not able to be identified which type it is because the leaves are so small. I have a list of the 17 or so species it may be from, one day the leaves will tell... maybe i should make a raok for it? What does everyone think about that ?

Could be

dark/pink blibis bilbis

Brownie ghost

Mini catherine

Penelope

Elise blue

Icarus bell

Icarus velvet

....others cant remember off the top of my head.

You can find rare or hard to find buce in most planted forums, i got mine thru a popular online auction site. Note, however, that these plants are endangered and a protected specie, theres debate as to whether or not the hobby is hurting or helping the plant. Deforresting is going on over there, a an inevitable consequence of industrialization, so some argue that we are saving them before they are destroyed forever. I think its a good thing, just make sure to buy from in the states to avoid legal issues.

I cant wait for my leaves to grow out full and catch a pic of a shrimp on it, double awesomeness

Good luck finding the ones your looking for, btw I would do buce for buce trade

There's different types such as yellow nose, red nose, etc. But they are all pretty much the same. Beautiful shape, but won't have larvae survive in fresh water.

Ooohhh yellow nose, thats very cool, I have only seen pics of the red one, and seen red ones at the lfs. You know your shrimp sir

Nice tip Stef, thanks for the info, I have been wanting to get my hands on something like that also, however, like wikka said they are just a bit pricey. This will be a good diy project. Good stuff!

Yeah I always thought so as well, had to throw that out there as a litmus with the shrimp pros. Im becoming quite a collector of shrimp foods so I needed a little reassurance there, thanks guys And so, I must get some Shrimp King shrimpfood to add to the shrimp pantry !

How much do those usually run for? Id like to try it out if the price is right.

Gotta love the diy aquarium tools. I have a few jury rigs myself, not of the catcher yet though. I have done my fair share of research on the topic though. And to make any kind of dent in the infestation, you would have to starve the planaria before they will rush into the catch. And it could take weeks to completely rid the tank of it. So one could put their shrimp in a standby tank while this was going on.. alternatively, you could feed just veggies until the planaria numbers are down or completely gone to your liking. Leaves would work to help change up their diet a bit while they wait for their gourmet shrimp pellets/granules

I have seen the occassional planaria in my tanks when i disturb the substrate and rarely when just staring in. But just in case I did my reading and decided I would try some benibachi planaria zero if i can ever find any. Thats the route i would take, have read a lot of good reviews on it. Maybe someone has used it here that can comment on it.

Well good luck with the hunt and nice job on the diy catcher

That sucks man, sry you lost some shrimps. Did you check all the water params when you found em dead? Thats the first start to do some CSI work. Casualty Shrimp Investigation . I have read about how tap water can change a lot from one day to the next which is why I am also looking into an ro unit. Found a popular one on a site that SoothingShrimp and others have purchased one from for around 70, great deal from what Ive seen so far for what we need.

So what do you think happened anyways? Maybe something nasty came in thru the tap? I read thats possible, and there is fluoride in it for sure if your in the states. Sry for the loss, good to see you looking into an ro unit to keep shrimpin! Game on after that!

Awesome looking tank Pika! And your cherry shrimp have a real nice red to em too.

Is that the trellis you were telling me about?, looks real cool great job! So what kind of clay did you use to make it?

How are the floaters doing? I was unsuccessful with my first attempt at frogbit, the water surface was to intense from my hob and they died off slowly but surely. From your pics yours are doing great. Whats the secret ?! Lol

Thanks for sharing your sweet tank!

Bulkreefsupply for sure.

this is the exact system I use.

I LOVE the built in digital TDS meter.

http://www.bulkreefsupply.com/brs-5-stage-water-saver-plus-ro-di-system-150gpd.html

If I was a homeowner id be all over that, especially if it took out the fluoride. I really like the built in TDS meter too. How long have you had yours boston?

Awesome indeed. What kind of substrate are you using? I like the color and size a lot.

Btw, what is that cone thing floating on the surface?

Thanks for sharing and keep us updated!

This is awesome! Thanks for getting this to us Oblong, I will be getting this soon. Was wondering what the shelf life is on them do ya know?

I remember reading about pinocchio shrimp, or RDS as what the breeder acronymed it, to be the best shrimp at eating hair algae and I have read a few accounts confirming this. Also, they wont mix/breed with neos for sure, but I dont recall the other types of shrimp, probably not though. I definitely want to get some one day myself.

Hope this helps ya out

1. Merth

2. myklt8

3. Liberty1776

5. kcoscia (this is great!)

6. invertedtank

7.Oceangirl

8. Soothing Shrimp

9.BarbaraBetta

11. GreenBliss

12. Axelrod12

13. wicca32

17. ShortGirl

18. Art By Stef*

21. huffman.517

22. JerSaint

32. bostoneric

37. oblongshrimp

41. Mosspearl

42. Teruterubozu

46. Finchaser

48. Pika

55. Darkcobra

56. BluePearls

67. jdrowe30

76. MarkNJD1

77. Carrie.a.gordon

85. Triton

Hello Zul

Hello Duke