journal Aquaone AR-380

[BristledOne]

Hello again fellow shrimpers!

I've given myself an excuse to convert a tank from inert gravel over to using Cal Aqua's Black Earth Premium substrate, just the "normal" grain size. Basically trying out the substrate to decide whether to get Benibachi or this when I do a rack.

Tank::28L AquaOne AR-380 with stock lighting and filtration

Substrate:: Cal Aqua Lab's Black Earth Premium, Normal grain size

Substrate additives:: Benibachi's Beemax and mineral powders

Hardscaping & Ornaments:: Mopani wood, Easy-Aqua shrimp tubes

Plants currently used:: Asian Ambulia, HC, Java Fern, Skrillex Moss, Java Moss, Peacock Moss, some kind of sword, Others I dont know the names of due to LFS purchases

Planned snails:: MTS, Baby gold apple snails (when they grow up they'll be removed)

Planned shrimp: Blue Velvet project, breeding from Blue gene rili culls. Possibly caridinas of some form will be added in later once the tank has matured a bit more

So I actually scaped this tank about a week ago but I overdid it with the amount of substrate used, also admittedly wasn't too happy with the resulting layout. Unfortunately the amount of substrate caused the PH to stabalise at 5.2 which is just stupid

So I rolled up the proverbial sleeves and scooped out about a liter of substrate, did an 80% waterchange and also had a bit of a play-around with the planting and layout while I was in there + added the two shrimp tubes I recently purchased.

PH is currently sitting at 6.9, hopefully it wont drop past 6 once it's stabilized... *fingers crossed*

[BlueBolts]

Nice, if the PH drop <6, the tank is telling you it's wants TB's instead of cherries .

But seriously, if the PH drops again, I'd remove a tad more soil, and just leave one IAL. Unsure of the PH of your WC water, but if it's >7. Doing 80% WC will accelerate the exhaustion of the soils buffering capacity.

[Squiggle]

+1 Agree with BB, looking awesome though dude, good luck with it! :beer:

[BristledOne]

Thanks guys :)

Well I've been keeping an eye on the parameters and it seems to have stabilised at 5.8 which I'm ok with as my other tank is at 6.1 and going well.

Moved across a couple of MTS and Golden snail babies and the first shrimp :) I've decided I need to focus on quality before I get more varieties so I'm going to use some red rili blue gene culls to start to try to line breed towards a blue velvet bloodline. This way I also get to cull the rili tank to try to get them closer to breeding true.

Photo of shrimp in his new home, was drip acclimatized at 2lp/h for a one hour period. His currently zooming around looking for friends but sadly I dont think I have a female of similar pattern to put in with him just yet

Tank as it looks today

Next step is to find some more tank mates, I have a feeling that I might have an gender issue in my rili colony as most of my initial purchase turned out to be males.

[BristledOne]

Hey everyone,

Just noticed that my pictures didnt work on my last update, so I'll quickly repost them here

First male

Tank as per last update

Since the last update I've put in a second male (another cull from my rili tank) and a female. Sadly I'm a bit low on females in my rili colony so this one will probably go back after her first clutch get close to breeding age. I didn't take a picture of the female before putting her in as sadly I had no camera(phone) at the time. Happily I have a new phone, the camera on it seems to be a bit better than the last but I'm yet to test it out fully.

the second male to go in::

Tank update, pics taken yesterday::

And I'm happy to say, the female is berried!

Sadly she likes to hide, so this is the best photo I could manage. I selected her because she has a fairly nice blue but also that she gets white saddles which is a trait I'd like to carry across to my blue velvet line if I can manage it. It seems that her eggs are nearly white too which is a pleasant surprise, there is definitely a slight yellow tinge to them but again if I can manage to get this trait to carry across then I'd be very happy.

Thanks for reading :) (I never know how I'm supposed to end an update post lol)

[HJ V6]

nice shrimp mate looks like the tanks going pretty good

[BlueBolts]

Cool...all looking great. Noooice.

[jayc]

Sadly I'm a bit low on females in my rili colony so this one will probably go back after her first clutch get close to breeding age

Have you read my post on temps influencing the number of female or male shrimplets?

http://www.shrimpkeepersforum.com/forum/showthread.php/4559-Temperature-effects-on-Shrimp-eggs-hatching-amp-gender-of-shrimplets

In summary the cooler your tank is the more females you will hatch.

Admin need to sticky that thread, took me ages to find that post.

[BristledOne]

Thanks everyone

And Jay, you should ask someones temperature first before ;) lol. My issue is that I bought them from a buyer who mostly provided males in the pack...

Sadly the female has dropped most of her eggs, I had counted somewhere between 12-20 eggs on her before but today she's down to 2 :( Clumsy girl! I believe this was the first time she's held so hopefully the next clutch will go better

[ineke]

If you can't find more Rili females give me a pm. I have heaps of saddled females and could send some for the cost of postage and packing.

I don't know what it is about the Aqua AR 380 but my shrimp would breed like mad in that tank -any type of shrimp I put in there had a population explosion -hence the need for so many tanks -good luck with your breeding program:encouragement:

[jayc]

All I meant was ... if you wanted to have more females in the next batch of eggs from the small female population you have now ... just turn down the temps. If I gave the impression that I was implying that your temps were too high, then I'm sorry. :)

[OzShrimp]

Wow nice looking male i wish i had him! I tend to get more females then males and my males are not of a good quality.

I have just started catching all my top quality females and putting them in a breeding net until my MK-5 breeder box comes , and when i get back from my trip to Sydney i will have a blue male which is kindly being donated to me which will hopefully help my breeding

[BristledOne]

No, my apologies Jay that is useful information to have thankyou :) I might actually try running the tank at a lower temperature for a little bit and see if it gives me the desired result

I've honestly been a bit snippy recently, stuffed my back a bit and the pain has been making me a bit short tempered.

Inke, that's such a kind offer! Thankyou! I might just have to take you up on that

I had some RCS in this tank previously before switching the substrate and I agree that they seemed to love the tank! they almost bred too well/often. I've done my best to keep the filter material just how it was prior so hopefully I didn't loose too much of the bacteria from the recent PH drop.

[ineke]

No problems anytime just let me know.

Oz if you end up keeping your Rilis I extend the same offer to you I can send a few nice males and females to help you along I didn't realise you were keeping the Rilis or I would have offered before. As always I can post pictures to show the shrimp before I send them. :)

http://i1293.photobucket.com/albums/b583/ineke24/CSC_0242_zps03c2260a.jpg' alt='CSC_0242_zps03c2260a.jpg'>

Here are a few of the saddled girls in my breeding colony

[OzShrimp]

No problems anytime just let me know.

Oz if you end up keeping your Rilis I extend the same offer to you I can send a few nice males and females to help you along I didn't realise you were keeping the Rilis or I would have offered before. As always I can post pictures to show the shrimp before I send them. :)

Yeah due to my remoteness and just general issues living in the middle of nowhere i decided to just keep the shrimp i have and once i move in two years i will invest in some different ones. :) 2OfUS is going to give me a blue male when i am down his way which will hopefully help out my stock. I got about 5 really good girls and maybe 1-2 half decent boys and alot of culls lol

[ineke]

No problem the offer is there if you decide you want some new blood.