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Care and maintenance for an older tank


beanbag

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Hello folks,

This question is regarding my other shrimp tank, which is 10 months old now and 2.5 gallon.  It only has two amanos and one blue bolt who is as old as the tank plus however old it was when I bought it.  (I used to have more shrimp, but they died off due to overfeeding and water pollution)  The Amanos seems to be doing fine and generally appear well fed, but less lively.  The blue bolt seems to be slowing down and spends most of its time standing around or slowly digging thru the substrate.  I'm not sure if this is just due to old age, or over / under feeding or unbalanced diet.  A few other things things:

Water parameters still test OK.  I can't ever get finite nitrate readings even when dosing a little all-in-one fertilizer.  PH is upper 6's, which is higher than my newer tank that uses the same water and substrate.  (Oh, maybe substrate is getting depleted?) GH=5-6, but there is a little more "extra" TDS over the the TDS of my input water.  (OK, this might be due to ferts)

The moss tree is overgrown and now there is a big clump of moss in the center that blocks a lot of the light.

Some floating plants.

15% water change once every 1-2 weeks, but I haven't been doing any gravel vac.

The Dwarf hairgrass is yellowing and slowly dying off in areas.  Sometimes it is because the shrimp dig it up and chew at the roots, or maybe it isn't getting enough light?

I use to feed the shrimp every 3 days, but now that interval has been getting longer.  Even if I haven't fed them for 5 days, they still don't care to come out for the food.

I think maybe the "plants are winning"(?) because there used to be biofilm growth on the front glass and now there isn't any more?  Nitrates are always at zero and there doesn't appear to be much algae growth.

I wonder if I should do some moss trimming and floating plant removal, or maybe gravel vac, or just leave things alone?

Edited by beanbag
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It sounds like this tank is doing well which is good, I think shrimp only live 1.5 years (except amanos which are 5 years) so the blue bolt is probably nearing the end.

From what I have read over the years, it is best to keep on top of trimming plants when you do each routine maintenance rather than do a big trim as that can cause an imbalance which can be disastrous, so I would trim it but only a bit each time until you get to where you want it!

I'm not sure what the substrate is you have but I doubt you can gravel vac soil substrate very well anyway, I would maybe get a couple of snails?

There are a few grasses that do much better with CO2 so hairgrass may be one of those, but if the shrimps disturb it anyway it  would probably be best and easiest to try some other plant. Maybe the extra moss from the tree you could make a moss pad?

You could add any cull shrimps from other tanks to this tank when you get to that stage?

Simon

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1 hour ago, sdlTBfanUK said:

I'm not sure what the substrate is you have but I doubt you can gravel vac soil substrate very well anyway, I would maybe get a couple of snails?

I forgot to mention I use UNS controsoi, which is little balls around 2mm in size.  It probably grows a layer of biofilm because all my shirmp like to graze on it and roll the little grains over to pick at all side of it.  It is very easy to gravel vac and usually removes a bit of "mulm" (I think it's called that?) .

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    • beanbag
      Update to say that after a few gravel vacs, front wall scrub, moss / floating plant trim, that the condition seems to have improved.  My current theory is that it is due to waste / debris management, where "stuff" like that brown mulm accumulates in the substrate and behind the HMF filters.  Maybe some tanks can somehow deal with it, but mine can't.  Also another experienced shrimper suggested that maybe those "shell bugs" don't just live on the shrimps but also in this debris.  Maybe this is the reason some tanks fail due to "old tank syndrome" where all they need is a good gravel vac? Also, I am guessing that plant trim helps too because now more of the nutrients and light go into growing algae instead of more plants? Well anyway for this tank I will try weekly water change and monthly gravel vac / plant trim.  For my next tank, I'm thinking of something like an under-gravel system where this mulm can fall down and I vac it out.
    • sdlTBfanUK
      Good to have an update and good to hear you are getting shrimplets, so hopefully your colony will continue and you may not get to the point where you have to cull some to stop over population. These type of shrimp only live 12 - 18 months so the adult deaths may be natural? If you have the time I would do weekly 25% water changes, adding the new water via a drip system and do some vacuuming clean of the substrate each week, even if only a different bit each week! See if that helps in a few months and if it does then stick with that regime? It should help reduce any build-ups that may be occuring!
    • beanbag
      Hello again, much belated update: The tank still has "cycles" of 1-2 month "good streaks" where everybody seems to be doing well, and then a bad streak where the short antenna problem shows up again, and a shrimp dies once every few days.  I am not sure what causes things to go bad, but usually over the course of a few days I will start to see more shrimp quietly standing on the HMF filter, and so I know something is wrong.  Since I am not "doing anything" besides the regular 1-2 week water changes, I just assume that something bad is building up.  Here's a list of things that I've tried that are supposed to be "can't hurt" but didn't prevent the problem either: Dose every other day with Shrimp Fit (very small dose, and the shrimp seem to like it) Sotching Oxydator Seachem Purigen to keep the nitrates lower Keeping the pH below 5.5 with peat Things that I don't do often, so could possibly "reset" the tank back to a good streak, are gravel vac and plant trim, so maybe time to try those again. One other problem I used to have was that sometimes a shrimp would suddenly stop eating with a full or partially full digestive tract that doesn't clear out, and then the shrimp will die within a few days.  I suspected it was one of the foods in my rotation - Shrimp Nature Infection, which contains a bunch of herbal plant things.  I've had this in my food rotation for a few years now and generally didn't seem to cause problems, but I removed it from the rotation anyway.  I don't have a lot of adult Golden Bees at this point so I can't really tell if it worked or not. Overall the tank is not too bad - during the good streaks occasionally a shrimp will get berried and hatch babies with a 33-50% survival rate.  So while there are fewer adults now, there are also a bunch of babies roaming around.  I guess this tank will stagger on, but I really do need to take the time to start up a new tank.  (or figure out the problem)
    • jayc
      If that is the offspring, then the parents are unlikely to be PRL. I tend to agree with you. There are very few PRLs in Australia. And any that claim to be needs to show proof. PRL genes have to start as PRL. CRS that breed true after x generations doesn't turn it into a PRL. Neither can a Taiwan bee shrimp turn into a PRL despite how ever many generations. I've never seen a PRL with that sort of red colour. I have on Red Wines and Red Shadows - Taiwan bee shrimps. So somewhere down the line one of your shrimp might have been mixed with Taiwan bees and is no longer PRL. It just tanks one shrimp to mess up the genes of a whole colony. 
    • sdlTBfanUK
      Sorry, missed this one somehow! The PRL look fantastic and the odd ones look part PRL and part Red wine/Red shadow in the colour. They are still very beautiful but ideally should be seperated to help keep the PRL clean if you can do that.  Nice clear photos!
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