Jump to content

wot_fan's 1st shrimp tank


wot_fan

Recommended Posts

Yeah I will be suprised if they didnt thrive.

 

I got rili's just after I got my CRS haha although I got 20+ compared to 10 CRS. Now I got a stupid amount of rili's and 20 CRS :S. probably should cull 40 or so rili's but now sure what to do with them.

 

enjoying the updates. Cant wait for the shrimp pics.

Having too many shrimp and needing to cull a bunch is a problem I look forward to :D.

 

I picked up some Stability at lunch and dosed the tank.  Hopefully it will kick start my tank's cycle.

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Yeah I will be suprised if they didnt thrive.

 

I got rili's just after I got my CRS haha although I got 20+ compared to 10 CRS. Now I got a stupid amount of rili's and 20 CRS :S. probably should cull 40 or so rili's but now sure what to do with them.

 

enjoying the updates. Cant wait for the shrimp pics.

 

Sell them if their good quality, or cull them, sell them to a LFS for store credit, or donate to someone plenty of options :)

Having too many shrimp and needing to cull a bunch is a problem I look forward to :D.

 

I picked up some Stability at lunch and dosed the tank.  Hopefully it will kick start my tank's cycle.

Keep us updated should help you a bit

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Sell them if their good quality, or cull them, sell them to a LFS for store credit, or donate to someone plenty of options :)

 

 

lol I wouldnt sell my culls they are so bad. I was thinking of giving them away if anyone would want them haha.

 

sorry for going off subject. What is the most humane way of "culling" a cull?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

sorry for going off subject. What is the most humane way of "culling" a cull?

Bring em to mine for cichlid food thats where all my bad ones go and i keep the decent culls to get someone else started on thier shrimp journey lol

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I would think putting them in an ice bath or cold water in the fridge for 30 mins to an 1 hr ( puts them to sleep ) and then either slicing in between the eyes or crushing there heads as quick as possible.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I used clove oil to euthanise sick fish in the past as recommended by rspca. but feeding them to something bigger and continuing the circle of life maybe best :-)

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I've seen matt moron at a salmon farm and they dope up the females with clove oil and extract the eggs.

+ 1 on the circle of life...if one of mine dies the others usually eat it still kicking . As a species I think we have a pretty distorted view on the life cycle of the planet.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Day 25-28 (1/22-1/25)

The tank has been setup for 4 weeks and there still is no sign that it has started cycling.  On Day 25, I started adding Seachem Stability.  I am dosing every 12 hours.  According to user comments I have read as well as the manufacturer, you can’t overdose Stability.  I don’t mind wasting some if it gets my cycle going a little faster.  In addition to the Stability, yesterday I added some ceramic filter media from my community tank to both AquaClears.

 

The algae has continued to expand at an alarming rate.  It looks like it may have choked out some of my moss.  In an attempt to get it under control, last night I dosed the tank with Seachem Prime and added a couple of Otocinclus.  I will continue to dose with Prime until the tank finishes cycling (if that ever happens).  

 

If the algae continues to expand, the only thing l can think of to do is daily WCs.  If I do 80% WCs for a week maybe all the extra nutrients will be leached out of the AS.

 

As always, I appreciate any comments and/or advice.

 

JPEG_image_60596_C943075_2.jpg

JPEG_image_9_E31424923_A7_1.jpg

 

Day_28.jpg

Day_28b.jpg

Day_28c.jpg

Day_28d.jpg

Day_28e.jpg

Day_28f.jpg

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Your tank is looking great!

Really like your chart and graph.

I think you have done the right thing introducing the otos. It's quite possible that your tank may have cycled as much as it can with out a bioload. You should see a rise in nitrate now you have something in there.

Looking forward to your updates and pics as the tank matures.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Your tank is looking great!

Really like your chart and graph.

I think you have done the right thing introducing the otos. It's quite possible that your tank may have cycled as much as it can with out a bioload. You should see a rise in nitrate now you have something in there.

Looking forward to your updates and pics as the tank matures.

Thanks Inverted.  

 

The chart and graph are generated by the iOS app I use to track my tank as well as remind me of maintenance.  It isn't perfect, but it does most things I need it to do.  It is called Aquarimate.  If anyone knows of a better app, please let me know.

 

I hope your are right about the otos.  They don't seem very happy in their new tank.  They are swimming the glass most of the time like they are looking for a way out.  I know that Seachem Prime makes the ammonia in the tank non-toxic, but I wonder if it is still stressing the otos.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I tried to get some pics of the otos.  Below are the two best shots I got.  They weren't very cooperative.

Day_28_Extra_4.jpg

Day_28_Extra_3.jpg

While trying to get a shot of the otos, the largest snail I have seen in the tank by far showed itself.  It is a ramshorn, right?

Day_28_Extra_1.jpg

Before tonight, this is the biggest snail I have seen in the tank.

Day_28_Extra_2.jpg

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Day 25-28 (1/22-1/25)

The tank has been setup for 4 weeks and there still is no sign that it has started cycling.  On Day 25, I started adding Seachem Stability.  I am dosing every 12 hours.  According to user comments I have read as well as the manufacturer, you can’t overdose Stability.  I don’t mind wasting some if it gets my cycle going a little faster.  In addition to the Stability, yesterday I added some ceramic filter media from my community tank to both AquaClears.

 

The algae has continued to expand at an alarming rate.  It looks like it may have choked out some of my moss.  In an attempt to get it under control, last night I dosed the tank with Seachem Prime and added a couple of Otocinclus.  I will continue to dose with Prime until the tank finishes cycling (if that ever happens).  

 

If the algae continues to expand, the only thing l can think of to do is daily WCs.  If I do 80% WCs for a week maybe all the extra nutrients will be leached out of the AS.

 

As always, I appreciate any comments and/or advice.

 

JPEG_image_60596_C943075_2.jpg

JPEG_image_9_E31424923_A7_1.jpg

 

Day_28.jpg

Day_28b.jpg

Day_28c.jpg

Day_28d.jpg

Day_28e.jpg

Day_28f.jpg

 

Your picture is way too small to see the algae. What type of algae are you getting?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Your picture is way too small to see the algae. What type of algae are you getting?

I am not sure.  It is fuzzy like BBA but in my experience BBA forms more clumps than this algae.  

 

Here is a picture of a branch that has been covered by the algae.  Below the image is a thumbnail.  If you click on it, it should open the image in a new window.  If you then click on the new image it should bring up a full resolution (2692x1793) version of the picture. 

Algae2.jpg

Algae_FS_1.jpg

In the picture below you can see the algae at the base of the moss.

Algae1.jpg

Algae_FS_2.jpg

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hey mate,

 

Those are not algae. It looks like fungi to me.

 

What driftwood are those? Driftwood that are not aged will grow fungus. Fungus is good, it provides food source to plankton, shrimp and otocinclus.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hey mate,

 

Those are not algae. It looks like fungi to me.

 

What driftwood are those? Driftwood that are not aged will grow fungus. Fungus is good, it provides food source to plankton, shrimp and otocinclus.

Thanks Shrimpy Daddy!!  I am so glad to hear that it is not algae.  I had BBA in my community tank and it was a nightmare to get rid of.

 

The driftwood is Spider Wood that I purchased from my LFS.  It was clean when I put it in the tank.  Shortly afterward the white stuff (fungus?) started to appear on it.  The brown fungus showed up later.  The smaller stuff is Cholla wood.  

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Yeah.... BBA is tough. But the worst is spirogyra. At least BBA does not look bad if you leave it alone. It turns pink colour when it is in acidic water (below ph 6.0) and can be pleasing sometime.

 

For new tank that is using ADA AS, spirogyra is a big concern. It will appear when there is ammonia spike under high lighting condition. Since you had lowered the lighting, it should not appear.

 

The "brown fungus" might be diatom coating the fungus. If diatom appears, it is sign of your tank is slowly cycling. This opposed to your testing that the tank is not cycling. The high ammonium may got to do with the ADA AS and also any kind of anti-chlorine or slime coat you are adding. Are you adding any of these sort of product?

 

To remove the ammonium effectively and safely, put in a couple packs of Purigen into your filter. You will see it drops significantly within 24 hours. Purigen will prevent massive ammonium and nitrite spike.

 

Here are a few more good sign to show your tank is cycling:

  1. Appearance of critters, such as cyclop and white round worm.
  2. Your plant is growing and the leaf stopped melting.
  3. Any green algae is growing, such as GSA and GDA.
  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

 

The "brown fungus" might be diatom coating the fungus. If diatom appears, it is sign of your tank is slowly cycling. This opposed to your testing that the tank is not cycling. The high ammonium may got to do with the ADA AS and also any kind of anti-chlorine or slime coat you are adding. Are you adding any of these sort of product?

 

To remove the ammonium effectively and safely, put in a couple packs of Purigen into your filter. You will see it drops significantly within 24 hours. Purigen will prevent massive ammonium and nitrite spike.

 

Here are a few more good sign to show your tank is cycling:

  1. Appearance of critters, such as cyclop and white round worm.
  2. Your plant is growing and the leaf stopped melting.
  3. Any green algae is growing, such as GSA and GDA.

 

Before I added the Otos, I was not using any water conditioners on the RO water except Salty Shrimp GH+.  I started adding Seachem Prime when I added the Otos to detoxify the ammonia in the tank.  I don't think Prime adds a slime coat, but I will check.

 

After the first week of daily water changes, the ADA AS was only bringing the ammonia level to 0.25ppm. I didn't think that was enough to get a cycle going so I added some ammonia to bring the level up to about 2ppm.  The ammonia brand I am using was recommended by several people online and I used it to cycle another tank so I am fairly confident it doesn't have any additives.

 

I planned to add purigen once my tank cycled.  I was afraid if I added it before that it would slow down the cycle.  If that is not the case, I will pick some up and put it in the tank tonight.

 

Thanks again for all your help.  I was starting to get a little discourage with my tank not cycling and being taken over by "algae".  I'll keep an eye out for the positive signs you listed.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Prime will give you false ammonium reading. It has chemical to alleviate ammonium level, which supposed to increase cycling efficiency. However, this does not work. I had tested that bacteria will fix ammonia and not ammonium.

 

"I didn't think that was enough to get a cycle going so I added some ammonia to bring the level up to about 2ppm." <--- This is a bad idea. The ADA AS will slowly leech ammonium and will not have large spike. Adding ammonia will have a large spike and will kill anything in the tank, which includes bacteria. Next if you are using ADA AS, don't add anymore ammonia, just use alkaline water to leech the ammonia out faster. ;) If you are using inert substrate, you could use ammonium sulphate or ammonia and dose to maximum 1ppm. 

 

"I planned to add purigen once my tank cycled.  I was afraid if I added it before that it would slow down the cycle." <--- The most effective technique is to have gradual ammonium/ ammonia releases into the water. Hence, having 0.5ppm and below ammonium level constantly is better than 2ppm spike. Too much ammonia and nitrite will kill everything in your tank, including your plant.

 

By the way, cycling a tank is not just about ammonia and nitrite. These are the two parameters have been talking by everyone is because they are measurable easily. Hence, all the aquarium products are hyping on them. There are much more complicated stuffs happening during cycling stage. For example, protein-fixing bacteria, sugar-fixing bacteria and plankton will also need to colonise to maintain the environment. One good way to seed some of these microbes is to use a pipette and stick into your community tank's substrate at about 1 to 2cm deep and suck out the water. Dose the water into your new tank. A healthy substrate will contain concoction of all the beneficial microbes that no product in the market has. Do this once a week until your tank is fully cycled. :)

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Thanks once again Shrimpy Daddy.  I will do a WC tonight to reduce the ammonia level.  I will add some purigen at that time. I will also stop adding ammonia and let the ADA AS and the Otos take care of adding ammonia to the tank.

 

For the last few days, I have been dosing with Seachem Stability.  Should I continue?

 

Based on your comment, I will stop using Prime to detoxify the ammonia.  Will the Otos be able to survive?

 

Thank you for the education.  I had no idea there was so much involved in cycling a tank. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

No worries, mate.

 

Stability is fine. But.... One problem with the bacteria in the Stability is that they create a lot of thick biofilm. Not a bad thing, just that it annoys me when my tank glass gets blurry and it tends to allow algae to stick. Pardon me, I am very OCD. LOL!!!

 

I doubt the Prime will totally detox ammonia; tried before and does not really work. Instead, the aerobic bacteria in Stability will consume the ammonia quite rapidly. Once you perform large water change (Sometime Oto may not like it. You have to premix the water 24 hours beforehand) and added Purigen, the ammonium level will decline rapidly.

 

Cycling is usually easy and not complicated. However, there are many methods circulating around and tends to confuse people. Not saying they don't work, but most of them are for general aquarium and not targeting on shrimp tank or planted tank. I think up till now, there is no real article that talks about how to cycle a shrimp tank in a controlled manner.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I have a bin next to the tank that is connected to my RO filter.  It has been filled since my last WC several days ago but I haven't added SS GH+ yet.  I'll add the GH+ and do a WC in 24 hours.  Out of curiosity, why is it important to premix the water 24 hours in advance?

 

Thanks again for spending so much time helping and teaching me.  I am sure a lot people will benefit from this thread because of your comments.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

When salts just dissolved in the water, they are very reactive/ aggressive and could kill. Only are all the ions are in equilibrium, then they will be gentle to livestock.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

When salts just dissolved in the water, they are very reactive/ aggressive and could kill. Only are all the ions are in equilibrium, then they will be gentle to livestock.

Thanks, I didn't know that.  I have been mixing right before refilling the tank after a WC.  Could this have killed my ammonia eating bacteria?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now

  • Join Our Community!

    Register today, ask questions and share your shrimp and fish tank experiences with us!

  • Must Read SKF Articles

  • Posts

    • 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!
    • GtWalker97
      Hi SKF!   So I bought some PRL (or at least they were sold as such. These claims are dubious in Australia as people don't know much about the genetics, nor do they care as long as they can make a quick buck). After 8 generations of breeding true, I'm having around 1 in 200 throw a much darker red. They almost look like Red Shadows, but I don't know too much about those types of hybrid. Can anyone help with ID'ing the gene?   TIA (First 2 pics are the weird throws, second photo is their siblings and the last photo is the parents)
×
×
  • Create New...