Fishmosy's Chameleon tank

[Disciple]

Very nice man.

[maddog_12]

Excellent setup and colours on your shrimp mate. Thanks for sharing.

I find it interesting that you are using RO and benibachi salts. What are your water parameters?

 

Cheers , i'm just wanting some more moss and ground covers now lol

 

my water parameters are :

Ph:6.8

GH: 8 (8 drops on the test)

KH: 5 (5 drops on the test)

Nitrate: 0

tds: usually around 330ppm after the salts  (tap water is 560pm and it climbs to 750ppm after a week )

 

oh and water temp is 25, going to bring it up slowly to 27.

Edited March 17, 2015 by maddog_12

[fishmosy]

I'm wondering now what my parameters are sitting at. I'm waiting impatiently on my new tds pen to arrive but I should dig out the test kit to check. I assume thats benibachi soil you are using for the substrate?

[maddog_12]

I'm wondering now what my parameters are sitting at. I'm waiting impatiently on my new tds pen to arrive but I should dig out the test kit to check. I assume thats benibachi soil you are using for the substrate?

 

Be interesting on what your water parameters are . Ummm i'm not sure , i got the tank second hand but the substrate was already in the tank but never used . its meant to keep the ph around 6.5

 

When i got the shrimp from dave, the water in the bag had a tds of 250ppm

[fishmosy]

Sounds like it is a dedicated shrimp soil then.

[maddog_12]

what was  your wp  results ?

 

I added some more plants today and these Chameleons are amazing , some went onto the new plants and changed to a clear color and when they moved  to the front of the tank  back to a black color. Plus one became berried tonight :)

[fishmosy]

Haven't been able to measure yet. Away from home. Hopefully monday, will post up when done.

[fishmosy]

Water parameters are:

Before water change

TDS: 164

KH: 20 ppm

GH: 60 ppm

pH: Approx. 6.8

Nitrate: < 5 mg per L

After water change approx. 15% of tank, tap water with small pinch Benibachi salty minerals to boost GH

TDS: 168

KH: 20ppm

GH: 80ppm

pH: approx. 7.0

Nitrate: < 5.0 mg per L

[fishmosy]

After comparing our wp, I'm tempted to massively increase my GH to see if it brings on better colouration. Yours is double mine (essentially 8 drops vs. 4 drops).

[maddog_12]

After comparing our wp, I'm tempted to massively increase my GH to see if it brings on better colouration. Yours is double mine (essentially 8 drops vs. 4 drops).

 

Hopefully they started changing color.

I just started feeding mine zucchini about two weeks ago . They go crazy over it lol .  Now i have 7 berried females

[fishmosy]

I haven't changed anything yet. Mine are constantly berried and dropping shrimplets at the water parameters listed above.

I always make sure they have available dry leaves (either IAL or mulberry) which they consume 2-3 large leaves every 1-2 weeks and I feed daily with Boss Aquarias crack or snow, or the Benibachi shrimp pellets, and occasionally a kale leaf. I've fed zucchini in the past as a once off but the snails tended to get to it first. I might try pumpkin or carrots, something with a bit of carotenoids to boost colour.

[Grubs]

Interesting discussion on water params and colour.  I have boosted the hardness of mine (that are rather colourless) and didnt get a result.  So now have added some pond "gunge" which I think is begining to pay dividends and I see some nice tiger striped ones, but none of the lovely deep red/brown ones - lots of clear ones though.  Apart from the gunge they get a diverse diet of mulberry, IAL, algae wafers, zucchini, nettle leaves.. so its really hard to imagine they are deficient in something.  They breed like rabbits (like shrimp actually!) but are just not intensely coloured.  They are however <12 months old as ~ I had a little peroxide accident last year that toppled all the big shrimp. *facepalm*.  I do think multi-year old shrimp are a lot deeper coloured and more opaque.  I see that with my DAS and red noses too.

Edited March 31, 2015 by Grubs

[fishmosy]

i'm also considering boosting hardness because I have a bunch of snails in the same aquarium, which are growing at a rate of knots. Snail shells are made from carbonates, so hardness is reduced as the snails calcify (i.e. Grow their shell).

I haven't had mine long enough to see fully grown mature adults, although they are breeding. Maybe I'm just impatient and chameleons are like a fine whiskey - better with age.

[maddog_12]

So have they become darker ? . I put some in another tank with black gravel and they have become very dark colors, plus a lot of babies too :)

[fishmosy]

I've been slowly bringing my TDS up towards 200 by adding benibachi shrimp salts during water change. My tap water is 91 TDS. Haven't really noticed a difference so far. I'm planning on adding more black rock to darken up the substrate, hopefully that will help.

If that doesn't produce some impressive results I'll move some of my shrimp into another tank with black benibachi soil, some green plants and high TDS to see if that produces the desired result.

[maddog_12]

yeah i think its the substrate thats causing the light colors . heres a pic of my new tank , i couldnt get the proper substrate but its black gravel . it has the same wp as the big tank

 

 

[fishmosy]

Nice. What are the red/orange things?

[maddog_12]

Nice. What are the red/orange things?

 

thats just biohome ultimate when i was cycling the tank , it was seeded from another filter . i havent taken it out yet, the baby shrimps like hiding in it

[Grubs]

 

chameleon blue-P50.jpg

 

 

Has this guy stayed blue?

 

FWIW I'm definately seeing darker colours in my Chameleons since adding a fair number of euc leaves, bark and misc other leaves sourced from my pond. All seem mottled/tiger striped - no solid reds/brown..or blue!

[fishmosy]

I'm not sure. I still have blue individuals but my shrimp have gotten darker since I added some black rocks on the base and boosted the TDS towards 200. Will post pics/video soon.

[fishmosy]

Heres some pictures of the shrimp before I changed water parameters and added some black rocks. Sorry theres some bad pics amongst them.

 

[fishmosy]

 

Edited June 1, 2015 by fishmosy

[OzShrimp]

cool photos does that snail have teeth cause god damn its scary lookin lol

[fishmosy]

I'll have to get permission from the author of the paper that describes a snail to show you a picture of what their teeth actually look like. Yes the teeth are scary! 

[maddog_12]

I have noticed in one tank that all the babies and some adults are lighter in color like yours fishmosy . But in my big tank with the fish , they are darker in color and the babies are showing the stripes already . So i'm starting to think if there is no predators around they stay a lighter color . If there is predators around they go darker to match the substrate.