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Science fish has the water results 25/11/23 PH 7.4 Ammonia 0.0 Nitrite 0.0 Nitrate 10 ppm Hardness 70 Carb Hardness 3 Thanks all and have a great day

Those are some great shrimp and the tank look awesome! The tiger shrimp are between neocaridina and caridina when it come to ease and toughness. They should be fine in the neocaridina tank until you are ready to transfer them to their new home. You may need to drip acclimate them when transferring them if the water parameters of the 2 tanks are different and I would just transfer a couple to start just to check as it hasn't been running for long. Also make sure you have finished with the additives/chemicals (especially ammonia) you are using before adding any shrimps, apart from bacter ae which is ok as I use regularly anyway and the tank is set up and running as it will be regularly, light time etc.. Being a small tank anyway you don't want to risk throwing the balance out by adding too many shrimps in one go at the very start. You may want to decide on one or other of the filters as you don't need 2 and are making extra work for yourself, but if you decide to remove 1, leave the sponge in the tank for a few weeks for the bacteria balance not to crash etc. From the way you have set it up the tank probably is cycled but there won't be much for the shrimp to graze on yet (another good reason to just do a couple for now). Be very cautious about using plant fertilizers, I know you don't have soil substrate, but I would try NO ferts from the start as the shrimp waste etc will be a source of fert. If you later find you do need fertilizer then be VERY cautious and use as little as you can get away with, but I suspect you snouldn't need any when you have the tank with enough shrimps in it. Aside from that you don't want the plants to grow quickly anyway in a small aquarium as that just makes a lot more work and disturbance. When dosing bacter ae (or any powder, inc food) I use a wood matchstick or similar, dip that quickly half a cm or cm in the water, then put it into the bacter ae, shake excess off and then swirl the matchstick in the tank, this way you don't get too much in the tank and it gets spread around more, and is just the easiest way all round. I would add 2 or 3 shrimps and if all goes ok for a week then transfer the remainder? Maybe do a 50%+ water change first because of all the stuff you have been using to get everything started? Good luck and i'll keep my fingers crossed!

Does anyone keep tiger Caridina shrimp on inert substrate successfully? I’m 1 week in to cycling a new 3.5 gallon aquarium for 5-10 super tiger shrimp. I’m using plantable (small pebble) inert substrate which I sprinkled with Bacter AE when I set it up. I’ve also mixed some Bacter AE with tank water and added it to the aquarium. Three tiny ramshorn snails are now in the aquarium. I’m so anxious to add some tigers that right now are being kept with my neocaridina in a tank that is a couple of years old. Despite the tank being so small, I’ve added a separate tiny nano sponge filter and tiny air pump, in addition to the existing HOB filter with a course sponge over the intake, ceramic rings and the filter cartridge (right now with the carbon it came with - I usually slice the filter and shake all of the carbon out in all of my tanks), plus some old dirty filter floss from one of my established aquariums. I couldn’t fit all of the filter material I took into the little HOB filter, so I do have a piece of dirty filter floss just sitting in the aquarium also. There is already many botanicals, some covered in thick fungus/biofilm, which have been soaking in the water for the full week. That includes catappa bark and leaf, an oak leaf, casuarina cone, alder cone. There is a lot of plants, although not the stem/rooted kind. There is a small bolbitis herteroclita, a could tiny windelov ferns, a rosette sword that stays small, a coconut moss covered arch, a rock covered in moss, and a piece of cholla wood covered in black pearl Bruce which had been sitting in an established tank for several months. One Thrive fertilizer table is sitting under the sword plant and a small dose of Flourish Excel was added which probably bumped up my TDS some. I’ve added a few drops of household ammonia last week but checked the next day and never had any ammonia reading when I tested. Now I don’t want to add any more ammonia because the ingredients on the bottle indicate added “fragrance” which I don’t think is good for my aquarium. I have been added Stability from the start in addition to the Quick Start. There is no algae growing in the tank yet, but I have left the 6500K lights on 24/7 over this past week. I realize this may have slowed some bacterial growth initially. TDS this morning was around 165 and I did a small water change to bring it back down to 150. I am so anxious to begin to add some tiger shrimp to the new little aquarium. I did a similar process with my neocaridina back when I first acquired them and my tank was about a week old when I added the bloody Mary’s and I suffered no losses. Might I be as lucky with Caridina Cantonensis? Thanks for reading my post. I attached some pics of the subject shrimp currently living in my neo tank and my new little empty aquarium.

@beanbag, Anything that is likely shrimp safe is probably not going to harm these "Shell bugs" either. Have you tried anything that is not safe for shrimps, but in super low doses? That might kill the shell bugs but not the shrimp. Here are some meds, USE WITH CAUTION and only in a hospital tank for experimentation of this specific case, namely, to find something that will kill "Shell Bugs". Trichlorfon/Dylox is useful for treatment of: Hydra, Lernia (Anchor Worms), Parasitic Copepods, Monodigenetic and Digenetic Flukes, Fish Lice (Argulus), Leeches. Malachite Green - has some use in controlling protozoan parasites. Might work in this case too. Formalin - targets similar parasites like MG above. Often used in combination with MG. Copper sulfate products - like Cupramine. For treatment of freshwater and marine ich (Cryptocaryon), Oodinium, external parasites, fungus, shimmy, and even algae (especially in ponds). Kordon's Fish Therapy Bath - use of citrus oils (oils include citrus, neem, and lavender oils) to treat termites, fleas, etc. Lavender Oil also has repellent abilities. Neem oil is reported to be effective as an insecticide as well as some anti-inflammation properties, anti-fungal and limited anti-bacterial. A lot of meds target bacterial symptoms, so I have avoided listing them above. Good luck, and remember - Don't treat the main tank with this. Only use these meds in a hospital tank.

Sorry to hear you are still having this issue! You could try another aquarium but I would keep everything new and seperate so it will be a slow process. I would get new shrimps for it as well when it is ready! My 'incident' with the heater caused the new trial to not work and I don't really know why to this day? I don't think there was anything wrong with the setup or tank, it worked before the incident well and I used all new stuff except the tank. It has put me off trying again so that tank is still empty and I keep looking at it thinking I should try again (then I think of what that involves), but after the last attempt failing for some unknown reason I can't get the incentive to try again as it is such a long, expensive, time consuming process which may just fail again! It is very frustrating, as you know, when you can't work out why it fails and everything seems 'ideal'. My betta is doing well and has some red cherry shrimps in with him and a friend gave me some small slightly blue snails and they are breeding wildly, so that tank is doing very well! Good luck and hopefully you'll keep us informed/updated.

Much later update: After only one addition of peat, the pH was in the upper 5's. Without doing much else to the tank, there would just be cycles of good weeks and bad weeks. Various meds I tried like Maracyn 1&2, prazi, and Metro did not solve the problem permanently. Then I did another round of peat to drive the pH down to the low 5's plus started dosing Shrimp Fit. Amazingly, one shrimp that had the short antenna disease got cured and grew it's antenna back. This also caused the longest yet "good streak" of one month+ with very few deaths. Plants started growing faster and more algae formed on the walls. But alas, this good streak came to an end and the short antenna disease and random deaths came back. The only difference I can think of now is that nitrates are higher, maybe 10+ ppm. (Hard to tell on the API test kit) Perhaps due to overfeeding (even though the shrimp finish the food in a few hours), or "old tank syndrome". Like maybe too much poop in the substrate and so nitrates keep coming out and the plants somehow can't absorb it fast enough. Or maybe water pollution, and nitrates are just an indicator. For now I change the water more frequently and starting using Seachem Purigen to help with the nitrate issue. I've done gravel vac in the past, and assume that removing mulm removes a big source of nitrates. But then again, every time I do a gravel vac a few shrimp die over the next few days. (probably kicked up bad stuff) Maybe try dosing H2O2 regularly? Well anyway, a very experienced shrimpkeeper told me that sometimes a particular tank can just kill off shrimp for no obvious reason, so may as well start another tank from scratch.

Followup : Metro, even dosed over approx 5 days, didn't get rid of the shell bugs. Maybe they're just protected of the shell of the shrimps.

Thank you!

So relaxing.

Thank you very much! The green on the stones is algae, but it’s nice and balanced 🙂 the plants are Crypts and they have been bulletproof This forum has been there from the start (actually even before the start) sdlTBfanUK it is because of your advice that this is a no fertiliser tank- I bought some in the initial shopping list and you advised me not to use it! ( for shrimp health) I am very happy to have kept with this decision. A big YT name Father Fish (100k + subs) subscribed to my channel and left a really nice comment. This success partly rests on this forum and all of you that have helped with this build. Thank you very much

Beautiful setup and good to see lots of shrimps running around and the ember tetras are looking good! Everything looks healthy and very settled in now, I especially like the large pebbles covered with something green (moss?) and the plant on the far right (think you also have same on far left?). Thanks for the video update, always good to see how things are getting on!

https://youtu.be/MeOoWj71ir8

12 shrimp were added yesterday of different ages. Taiwans/CRS/ mischlings. I don't plan on feeding until i go away and even then as you said it will just be a small piece of snowflake food as there will still be plenty of food in the tank. Will continue to dose a multipower with helps with water parameters and encourages growth of algae. I tend to leave instructions as my friend feeds my chameleon as well while i'm away. I appreciate all your help and support. Hopefully if all goes well come the first week in December i should be able to get some black galaxy fishbone and add them to the tank. Will keep you updated and will provide photos.

I hope all is still going well and assume you will be adding the shrimp about now? The new tank will have enough food for a few shrimps for a few weeks but you may want to add a small bit of snowflake for when you are away. It maybe best if you leave instructions to not feed the new tank (very easy to overfeed with only a few shrimps, plus they may not touch the food if there is plenty of yummy biofilm anyway) while you are away as there should be enough in the tank and if someone overfeeds then that could kill the shrimp and/or cause ammonia spike. If you add a small bit of snowflake before your holiday that won't polute the water, but breaks down slowly. Hope you have a great holiday!

Well done!

Looks like the tank has cycled . Ammonia and Nitrites are at 0 with nitrates being at 20. Plan on doing another water change to bring this down and leaving it to stabilise for a few days and then add some shrimp from my other tank to make sure everything is OK before purchasing some black galaxy fishbone.

Sorry should of made myself clear , I do plan on adding some shrimp from my other tank if the ammonia is reading 0 . This will give me an idea if the tank is running OK. When the tank first started i added some Indian almond leaves and some cholla wood. They seem to have plenty of growth on them . I've already got some snowflake food. I have a medicine box I make so that my family and friends can go in and feed them once or twice a week.

If you can get some leaves and put those into the tank, dried brown leaves, not from anywhere they may have polutants on them! Oak leaves, mulberry leaves etc or buy some Indian Almond leaves, they break down slowly and stuff grows on them that the shrimp will eat! Put the leaves in as soon as you can so stuff/food can grow ready for when you are away! I have read (not tried) that this food, called snowflake, made from soyabean husks, are great as holiday food (both your tanks) as it doesn't polute the water and gradually breaks down, like all food though try not to use too much. https://www.pro-shrimp.co.uk/pro-shrimp-value/5010-pro-shrimp-snowflake-food-50g-5060689410595.html Usually from proshrimp (above link) there is no P&P for 1 item? They usually sell some leaves as well. Just add a few poorer quality shrimps from your other tank to test and keep everything ticking over whilst you are away. You can add a few snails as well if you want/like them.

Perfect. That's exactly what I expected. Don't leave the tank empty for 2 weeks though. Once the ammonia is gone, the beneficial bacteria need more food source to survive. So that means, once ammonia is reading zero, you add fish or shrimp, or a bit of food to breakdown.

Tank is going well. 85-90% water change done last week and ammonia drop within range 1-2 PPM. After testing a few days later this has dropped to 0.5-1ppm. Nitrates are rising nicely as well around 20ppm. Going to leave the tank another week and do a further 80-90% water change and leave for another few weeks. I'm away on holiday for 2 weeks so I'm not rushing it.

Hope it is all going well and to plan!

@herrwibi, any update on your tank?

Sounds like you have made the necessary changes. Just give it time now.

Temp has been increased. Not long done a 80% water change, hopefully it dilutes the ammonia . Changed it with tap water and used dechlor since i'm only cycling. Saves using RO water and Gh+, also added filter booster and a multi powder which should help. Will do a full test tomorrow and see.

You need to increase temps to 26. A 50% water change now is a good idea to reduce the ammonia. Then your test kits might be more effective in measuring the changes. Ammonia level are likely to be higher than the test kits can measure right now. So reducing it with a water change will allow you to measure the changes.