journal Morgan's Journal

[Morgan]

So today's been pretty exciting. I've been setting up and cycling my tank, and finally today my shrimp came home.

 

I wanted to do a divided 2 foot tank with sump at the back and a Matten filter system. It took some fiddling but I got there in the end. I used dark grey transparent perspex sheets to divide the front of the tank in half, and then divide off the sump. Two large square holes approx 20cm x 20cm were cut into the sump divider, one for each side. I siliconed a fine mesh screen over these. It's Stainless Steel 60 mesh with a nominal aperture of .26mm. I wasn't sure how small the native larvae are, so I went for something very fine. There's a sheet of 45ppi Porex foam in front of these, forming a background for the front of the tank.

 

Working out the airlift pipes for each side wasn't too difficult once I got a more powerful airpump, the one I had just didn't have enough power to run two airlifts at the same time. I'm using the Fluval Q2 airpump, which may even be overkill but it can certainly run both pipes without an issue. I used 20mm pipe, drilled a hole for the airline to thread through and popped in an airstone. An elbow at the top and I predrilled the holes for the pipes to run through the perspex divider from the sump. I wanted the outlet pipes to be shrimp-proof so I put some generic flyscreen over them so that the shrimp can't go wandering. I've heard a lot about how adventurous DRNs can be.

 

Some generous application of mesh at the top of the dividers to make up the difference in height between the perspex and the lids, and it was ready to go.

 

Meanwhile I'd had some driftwood sitting in tanks, one with fissidens and one with mini pellia, letting them get established a bit. The fissidens was actually done with DSM for a fortnight by my partner while I was out of town then filled with water. A couple of anubias nana tied on there too. The upshot being that by the time I got some substrate and other plants into the tank, I hoped the driftwood would be well established. The fissidens was well attached, but the pellia wasn't, I had to tie it down. Both became covered in algae within a day of moving to the tank, so I guess that was getting established too.

 

Here it is:

 

 

I brought home a sponge filter that had been in my partner's tank for a while (he lets me co-own that tank and add things to it as well), let it run through a cycle and finally it was ready for the shrimp.

Edited December 16, 2014 by Morgan

[Morgan]

Several weeks ago my partner and I put in an order with Aquagreen for some DAS and DRNs. We also picked up some Blue Eyes for his tank that are gorgeous. Because my tank wasn't ready, my shrimp went into his 'fry' tank, which is actually a tank for Mr Shoggoth, the mystery snail. Shoggoth was getting harassed by the danios in the main tank so he got his own space which he seems pretty happy with.

 

Today I went over and we pulled out the furniture in that tank and I transferred them into buckets for the trip home, which was thankfully very short. Everything I've read about DRNs being jumpers is true. Three DRN made desperate bids for freedom during transfer and had to be rescued. I hope that didn't traumatise them too much and they're ok, although one now seems to have a bubble stuck in his carapace.

 

Aren't DRNs supercute? Even though they are the least shy, they seem to be the hardest to photograph, they do tend to move a lot.

 

 

 

I can already see that the DAS are extremely under rated. They're gorgeous, variable in colour and pattern, and eat like demons. There was a diatom issue in my partner's main tank, and the DAS he put in there loved it. There was also a strange flat black algae, (definitely not BBA, maybe a variant of green spot algae?), growing on his anubias. It wouldn't rub or scrape off the leaf at all, yet the DAS have almost eliminated it.

 

Here's some of the DAS, showing the variation in patterns in just a handful of them.

 

 

 

Some nice black stripes along the sides of this one.

 

 

 

Love the white spots all over this one.

 

 

 

Terrible colour balance for this photo because it was sitting just under the lights, but it shows some nice black striping with white spots.

 

 

 

 

Finally there was a surprise as well. One night spotted something in the tank and my first thought was 'Red Cherry', but it couldn't be because we don't have any cherries at all. Then I realised it must be a Chameleon, it scuttled out of sight before I could show my partner. Today when we pulled all the furniture out of the fry tank to net out the shrimp we discovered that there were two Chameleons in there, so they came home with me too. They were a dark brown today, but tonight I found one under the driftwood and it was looking red. These guys seem to be incredibly shy and hard to spot.

 

Terrible photo, but it was the best I could do trying to aim a penlight and a camera at the same time.

 

 

I'd like to give a shout out to Aquagreen. As I've read many times, Dave was great to deal with, simple and easy to order and everyone arrived happy and healthy, quickly and in great packaging.  Actually many of the shrimp were berried, but dropped while still in my partner's tank. In fact I'm very tempted to put in another order to double my number of DRNs and DAS, and maybe grab a couple more Chameleons while I'm at it.

Edited December 16, 2014 by Morgan

[fishmosy]

Thanks for sharing. Looking forward to your updates.

[Squiggle]

Wow dude, awesome journal & I'm definitely looking forward to updates too!

[Morgan]

Thanks guys, I'm looking forward to seeing how the plants develop and whether the shrimp can clean up the mess on the driftwood for me.

[jayc]

Nicely written journal.

Good ratio of text to pictures.

[Morgan]

You wouldn't think much would have happened in a week, but the DAS have been hard at work on the mini pellia, which was covered in algae.

 

This shot is from a week ago, the day the DAS were put in.

 

 

This is what it looks like a week later, same lighting etc.

 

 

Close up of the clean pellia.

 

 

One of my DAS posing.

 

 

Managed to get a couple of shots of the Chameleon.

 

 

The same one on a different day.

 

 

An unexpected inhabitant in the sump. We vacuumed a bunch of mulm off the filter in my partner's tank and dumped it in the sump to kickstart the cycle. It must have come in then and apparently it's finding enough to eat back there.

 

Edited December 23, 2014 by Morgan

[Disciple]

WOW that's a huge difference

 

They must be having the time of their lives feasting at the moment.

[newbreed]

Early Christmas feast for the DAS.

What a great write up. And your pictures are great.

Looking forward to updates also!!

[NoGi]

Great thread. Dave is pretty good with the DAS and DRS. I grabbed some along with some native snails a while back from him.

[Morgan]

Thanks guys, and the DAS sure are thriving on the abundance of food too. They've grown in just the last week, huge girls!

 

What kind of snails did you get NoGi? I was looking at the Waterhouse, thinking they might be nice to pick up when they're available again.

[Squiggle]

Nice pics dude, definitely getting some awesome results!

[Morgan]

So there's been a few new arrivals in the tank over the last month. I got more DAS and DRN from aquagreen, so I have 20-30 of each now. DRN are in the left side, DAS in the right. I also got some carbon culls from Squiggle, which are absolutely gorgeous. I'm hoping to develop a blue line from those. They are in with the DAS.

 

 

 

 

 

Check out the size difference between the cherries and the DAS. The cherries are still juvies but they've already grown since I got them.

 

 

 

I've found that the younger/smaller DAS have creamy yellow/green eggs, while the older ones have dark brown/green eggs.

 

 

The fissidens is coming along nicely in the DRN side, and I have lots of berried girls from the last shipment, and more to come I hope now that I have males. It turned out I'd left all the male DRN and DAS from the last group in my partner's tank, I thought I had some males, but they were actually juvenile females.

 

 

 

 

A couple of the original DRN and DAS have become huge, they're over 3.5cm, close to 4. I couldn't get a good shot of any of the 'Big Momma' DAS, but I did get one of the DRN with a juvie next to it.

 

 

Some of the DRN larvae seem to be surviving and growing. The largest of the larvae are about 2mm and there are quite a few. Fingers crossed they survive to adulthood.

 

 

 

[fishmosy]

Some really nice shots there.

[Morgan]

I've heard that DRNs will sometimes eat plants, and it's certainly true. They lower themselves onto the edge and chew it away. So far they've shown a preference for my mini reineckii and crypts of all kinds. One of my crypt parva's only had one leaf left by the time I moved it. Ludwigia tornado, ludwigis natans and anubias are all untouched.

 

See how they're chewing on the edge of the leaf?

 

 

This leaf is half gone:

 

 

Using the same technique on a piece of pea:

 

 

Just a couple of shots to show the size difference between the DAS and the Carbons:

 

 

Edited February 12, 2015 by Morgan

[Morgan]

There's been some babies popping up in the tank, and I'm please that some of them are DRN. There's a few juvies cruising around now, obviously not as many as you would expect from cherries, but I'm happy some are growing up. I'm putting it down to leaf litter and powdered food. I've never managed to spot shrimplets that are in between large larvae and juvie size, but I'm guessing that they're probably hanging out under the driftwood.

 

Here's a shot of a juvie on a leaf, with an adult in the background.

 

 

I acquired some yellow cherries, most of which are in a tank at my partner's place keeping Mr Shoggoth company. I grabbed a couple of the females for the DRN side, one of whom was berried. Got a few nice shrimplets from her.

 

Shrimplet:

 

 

Adult:

 

 

The carbon/blue cherries in the DAS side are producing shrimplets too.

 

 

The driftwood I started a couple of months ago is coming along very nicely. The early photos in this thread show that they were pretty sparse back then, but they've filled in beautifully.

 

This is the fissidens:

 

 

This is the pellia:

 

 

The more demanding plants haven't been happy at all under my Worx light, but it's fine for moss, pellia, anubias, crypts and buce. I've now got some crypts along the front of the DAS tank, another piece of driftwood with some pearl moss tied on and just starting, and two pieces of buce which have put out a new leaf each since they arrived. It's getting a little crowded on that side in terms of plants, but the DRN on the other side can't be trusted with nice plants. They've even chewed a little on the anubias when new leaves come in.

 

Edited March 19, 2015 by Morgan

[fishmosy]

Nicely done mate. The DRN chewing on the leaves may indicate something is missing from their diet. Do you feed kale leaves or something similiar (vegetable)? I suspect they might stop this behaviour if given an alternative food source that is easier to get.

[fishmosy]

Also forgot to say that the leaf the DRN is chewing on is one of the oldest leaves of that plant (being at the base). It may be that leaf is on its way out (dieing) and the DRN got to it before it had fully browned. I recently left a anubias nana petite out of water for a bit too long. My CRS started picking at the old leaves as soon as it when back in the tank, but the leaves didn't turn brown until a few days later. The CRS didn't touch the new shoots and leaves and have always ignored the anubias when its leaves are in good health. Something to consider.

[buck]

So you wouldn’t rate the worx light to highly? How do you find it as just a light, is it bright enough in your opinion?

 

 

the tanks look really good the mini pillia is going great   and your shrimo look great too!

[Morgan]

I did wonder about that Fishmosy, so I started giving them kale every day about a month ago. They're still doing it, although less than before. Hard to tell how much of that is the kale and how much is because I've removed about 2/3 of them to my partner's tank. Now that I know they're breeding I'm starting to select which ones I want to try line breeding.

 

When they chew the anubias, it's always on the newest leaf, I suspect that the older ones are too tough for them. When I had crypt parva in there they ate every stem they could reach back to the substrate, little buggers!

 

The Worx is fine for the low light plants, in fact the crypts are going like mad, but the stem plants I have are a bit fussier and they're looking pretty dismal. It might be because my 2 foot tank is a bit taller than standard, so it's having trouble penetrating.

 

I'd say it's definitely bright, but it does seem a little cold. Reds are a bit washed out looking. I prefer a slightly warmer tone so the shrimp look prettier. I've got an Up Aqua Pro U Planted on order, and I'll trial that for a few weeks. I may end up using both, with the Worx on for just a few hours in the middle of the day for a boost.

[buck]

sweet as keep us posted on how you find the up aqua  :)

[Morgan]

It's too soon to tell whether the Up Aqua Pro U will make a difference to the stem plants, but I have to say the colour looks far better than the Worx. The Worx is just a bit too cool, but the Up Aqua is warmer and makes the tank look prettier. I'll post some photos after I finish rescaping. I'm feeling slightly resentful toward my DRN because I can't trust them with the crypts and the buces, which I have to keep in the right side with the DAS.

 

I've decided that I want more types of moss in the tank, and the current driftwood is slightly too large to fit more pieces in. So I'm dry starting new ones. I'm using my Worx light above a spare small tank, with glad wrap over the top, regular misting and a few mils of water in the bottom to keep the wood saturated. Last time it worked well that way even without the light so I'm hoping this will go even faster.

 

This one has pearl moss and buce. The buce was sold to me as green wave, which I hadn't heard of before.

 

 

 

This one has mini fissidens and anubia nana. The original piece of driftwood with fissidens had enough to harvest for this and a mesh plate.

 

 

This one has mini pellia and two more buces, unnamed. The second buce is tiny, in the bottom right corner of the shot.

 

 

 

The little buce is near the left side.

 

 

One of my DRN juvies, one of only two that have the traits I'm selecting for. The rest are headed for my partner's tank.

 

 

DRN adult showing the traits I'm trying to select for, two straight lines of evenly spaces gold dots along the outside of the tail with a red dot at the end, a row of gold dots along the side. I couldn't decide which photo I liked best, so you get a few shots. :)

 

 

 

 

Edited April 21, 2015 by Morgan

[GotCrabs]

Nice write up and pics, well done.

 

I've got DAS and Chameleons, so cool, especially the Chameleons, thinking of grabbing some DRN and Blue Eyes as well from Dave at AquaGreen, just did a rescape of my tank and unfortunately lost my only berried female, devo.

[fishmosy]

Nice setup mate. I really like the driftwood, moss and buces.

[Morgan]

Thanks guys. I've gone a bit buce mad lately, totally fallen in love with them and the new scape will be based around room for the crypts, buces and of course lots of moss. I should have some photos of it all in a couple of weeks.