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By sdlTBfanUK · Posted
Thanks, day 2 in the tank and the shrimp seem fine (not done roll call yet today), I saw 9 (got 11) yesterday and no dead bodies so I 'assume' the other 2 were hiding somewhere. I drip acclimated them over night so they had a longer acclimate and hopefully that helped, but it is early days yet, however so far so good. I am looking forward to getting blue bolts at the end of the week but I doubt they will be as pretty as yours, but at this point I will be happy enough as long as they survive. That will be the lot this time so I am calling this tank 'bruiser tank' as it will only be mixed 'black and blue' shrimps! I don't have any rocks this time just some small pieces of lava rock. The tests I did yesterday show KH is 0-1 (you can't test for 0 obviously) and PH was 7 on the drop test but the disc meter thing in the tank shows yellow so should be below 7 (the nearest match I think is 6.6) but all the test kits show in stages, and it can be difficult to tell when they are just different shades of the same colour. The seller of the shrimps said his tanks were PH 6.8 so we are at least closely matched. GH should go down slowly with the regular water changes/maintenance etc so hopefully the shrimp can handle it being a little high temporarily, seller had GH 5-6 (I assume 6 drops) and mine is just on 7. I am pleased with the sparser/simpler tank and the fact I can just glance over and see it when I am in my usual seat is great. I have a stick on thermometer so shouldn't have a similar disaster to before and have the heater set cooler at 21 this time, though in summer the tank will go above that most of the time. Hope everything is fine with yours! -
By beanbag · Posted
Good luck. I hope the Ph / KH issue is under control. If not... Maybe use peat? Edit: looking at a previous picture - maybe you should just remove those rocks for now -
By NoGi · Posted
My lil emerald green. It's a lot harder taking macro shots with 15mm glass tanks. -
By sdlTBfanUK · Posted
Here is a photo of the floating plant (Azolla). Looks great! I am probably tempting fate by even mentioning this but the first shrimp arrived yesterday and went into the tank today, fingers crossed.............. Pandas and shadow Pandas, I ordered blue bolts and shadow pandas so I may be getting the blue bolts next week free as it was the sellers (ebay) error, but at this stage it is one day at a time - will these survive even. Keep your fingers crossed for me please! I have to say I am enjoying seeing them in the tank even though black isn't the easiest to see in my tank as the background is black? The parameters are a bit off, GH 7 the main one thats off, but hopefully the 24 hours slow drip will have paid off and the parameters of the sellers tanks were generally close to mine, hence I got them from them for that reason. I guess it will be a 'black and blue' tank as there is no-one selling red ones at the moment, but blue bolts are my favourite and as long as they survive, well thats a bonus on the last attempt anyway so I'll take that as a win! Maybe sometime further down the line I may get back to what I had before??? Not rushing anything this time. -
By sdlTBfanUK · Posted
Time for another update! The PH this morning is 6 and KH 0-1 (you can't measure zero obviously). I plan to check everything tomorrow and then a water change on satuday. At the moment the TDS is 190 which should drop to 170 after a water change and then 150ish after the following/next weeks water change. Last time I checked GH it was 6, but again I will do ALL the tests tomorrow. I had to resort to using a PH/KH- product (AQUACID) to get to where these parameters are now but as the water I use has PH6, GH0 and KH0 I assume/hope I won't need to use that from here on, but will see if the parameters stay stable for the next week and have a PH alert disc in the tank which should indicate any significant change. I don't like using these sort of products as a general rule and wouldn't if there were any shrimps in situ and that product has raised the TDS at about .5TDS per drop. I may well order some blue bolts towards the end of next week (the road to the house will be closed for a month from 3rd June so it is next week or wait another 6 weeks) and see how that goes. I plan to drip acclimate them overnight this time so as to not rush that as it shouldn't get cold indoors overnight anyway this time of year. This all depends on the tank parameters staying stable for the next week (aside from the mentioned TDS adjustments with the water changes), though the GH may drop a tiny bit with using just RO to reduce the TDS but that is fine, and even could be a bonus. I did manage to find some nice floating plant that I had before (good old ebay), and will try and get a photo of that at some point to attach, Azolla red I think it is called? Anyway, keeping my fingers crossed for now but all appears to be going well at this point! Snails seem to be doing well at least.
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