SKF welcomes Michael Petro to our community

[skfadmin]

Hello Michael Petro, Welcome to Shrimp Keepers Forum. Please feel free to browse around and get to know others. If you have any questions please don't hesitate to ask. regards, skfadmin

[jayc]

Hello Michael,

welcome to SKF.

[Michael Petro]

Thanks for the welcome.

 

My name is Mike and I am an Aquarium Addict.......

 

I hail from Martinsville VA in the US.

 

I came to this forum because I saw a lot of high end quality information posted here.

 

Thanks for having me.

 

Mike

[jayc]

 

I came to this forum because I saw a lot of high end quality information posted here.

 

 

 

You betcha Mike.

And we have fun while sharing the info too.

[Michael Petro]

A little bit about me.

 

I have been keeping large AFrican Cichlid tanks for about 30 years. Have also done the the hight-tech planted community tank, Arrowannas, Oscars, Snakeheads, and other genres over the years. My main calling has always been the Africans though.

 

One thing about Africans is that they tend to have a high bioload, and they will usually shred any plants that are introduced. Consequently I was having nitrate problems and algae problems, even with regular water changes.

 

This is my 150 gal tank, the rocks are about the size of soccer balls.

 

So I started thinking about nitrate reactors, refugiums, veggie filters, aquaponics, etc to handle the nitrate problem. After reading a bunch I settled on doing a refugium. The typical algae refugium in a wet/dry sump didnt grab me because it held little interest to the eye.  I settled on a vaggie filter of sorts. A 29 gal tank heavily planted and tied into the same wet/dry as my big tank. I then added some RCS for interest.

 

 

Then I got the shrimp bug........

Which is what lead me here.

[Michael Petro]

BTW, the refugium worked! My nitrates are now nice and low, and algae in the main display tank is managable.

 

As for the shrimp, I started with a colony of RCS. Then I added a colony of green Babaulti, a few vampire shrimp, and a handful of Thai micro crabs.

 

My initial tank shown above had no substrate, just a few river rocks in the forefront. I am get ready to add a mixture of black Eco-Complete and Flourite Sand. The main reason I am adding substrate is for the formation of more bio-film. The hornwort and water-sprite I selected for their nitrate removal capacity dont really need the substrate. Would love any suggestions on how to add the substrate to an established tank without over stressing the inhabitants. I hear that the Flourite clouds badly at first.

 

Would also love to hear about how to culture more bio-film. Right now I will take the occasional piece of rock or driftwood out of the main cichlid tank and put it in for the shrimp. They swarm it more greedily than they do the Paradigm Omnivore that I add, which tells me that I dont have much natural bio-film left in the refugium. I have about 100 shrimp in the tank and I suspect they outpace the formation of natual bio-film.

 

BTW, here is my current filtration system, except that I have now removed the carbon:

 

[jayc]

Hi Mike,

Nice setup.

The only way to culture more biofilm is to add more bacteria.

Bacterial additives will help.

A hundred shrimp in a 29G will always need supplement to their feeding.

Biofilm alone won't be enough.

Feed specialized shrimp food so they get enough food, not just biofilm.

[Michael Petro]

I have been feeding them every other day with a rotation of high end fish foods, but I suspect the shrimplets are not getting enough, they seem to dwindle in number, and/or hide in the bushs real well.

 

I am thinking about making some homemade food similar to what I make for my cichlids.

 

Spirulina ~10%

raw peas ~40%

raw shrimp ~40%

astaxanthin ~5%

garlic ~1%

paprika ~1%

in an agar-agar gel base

Pour into mini ice cube trays then freeze once set.

 

I figure I will cut way back on the raw shrimp, to maybe 20% and make it up with spirulina.

 

Your thoughts?

 

However, a post about spirulina and egg white dried onto rocks caught my attention, am wondering if that ever played out any further.

[jayc]

How are your shrimp doing healthwise?

I ask because the water parameters for Africans are completely the opposite of what a Red Cherry Shrimp would thrive in.

 

As for the the food mix you listed ... it looks good. I would cut back on the raw prawns as well.

See my post titled "New food type for shrimp" in the Food & Nutrition section.

Forget the peas, find chlorella powder instead.

 

Spirulina ~40%
Chlorella ~40%
raw shrimp ~10%
astaxanthin ~5%
garlic ~1%
paprika ~1%
in an agar-agar gel base

 

That would be my suggestion.

If you can find Bee Pollen, add that too.

This mix above with bee pollen will be a shrimp superfood.

 

But don't make too much at a time, that you can't feed in 2 weeks.

Edited February 26, 2015 by jayc

[Michael Petro]

Everything is a balance, and I am still trying to find that right balance, but I have learned to do things slowly, fast corrections only made things worse.The shrimp seem to be doing fine now, at least as far as my limited experience can tell me. The tank is about 6 months old, but was started with cycled media from the big tank, plus it shares the huge well established wet/dry. I had mystery death at first, 1 or 2 a day for a while, but that cleared up with better husbandry on the big tank, automated lighting on the shrimp tank, and more reasonable (less) feeding of the cichlids. I have several berried females, and have had several succdesful batches of fry. 

 

I adapted the africans to my tap water ph of 7.4, amonia/nitrites are 0, GH 180 ppm, KH is 80 ppm, and TDS ranges from 150-250.

 

I am using TDS as the trigger to do a water change. When TDS hits 200-225 I will do a 25% change, works out to every 5-8 days. I am considering an automated 3-4% daily change.

 

Really, unless I have misunderstood something, the only parameter that is outside RCS/Babaulti is the high GH.

 

Am I missing something?

 

 

Thanks for the food ideas, will try that. Already ordered the Chlorella based on your post somewhere else on here. Bee Polen I am sure I can find. How much bee polen, I read somewhere that too much encourages bugs.

[jayc]

I adapted the africans to my tap water ph of 7.4, amonia/nitrites are 0, GH 180 ppm, KH is 80 ppm, and TDS ranges from 150-250.

 

I am using TDS as the trigger to do a water change. When TDS hits 200-225 I will do a 25% change, works out to every 5-8 days. I am considering an automated 3-4% daily change.

 

Really, unless I have misunderstood something, the only parameter that is outside RCS/Babaulti is the high GH.

 

Am I missing something?

 

 

Thanks for the food ideas, will try that. Already ordered the Chlorella based on your post somewhere else on here. Bee Polen I am sure I can find. How much bee polen, I read somewhere that too much encourages bugs.

 

Nope, you're not missing anything. Good to see your water parameters are rather mild for Africans.

Yes, GH is high. Which "could" lead to hardnening of shells and eggs. 

All those rocks aren't helping. It's probably contributing to your GH.

In the long term, I think the Cherry shrimps will suffer. If you had softwater fish like Amazonians, it would have been fine.

 

 

How much bee pollen? I used teaspoons as a measure in my post. But you could make it 10%, and reduce Spirulina and chlorella down to 35% each.

 

The beauty about using the agar base is that it food is all locked in. No pollution.

Loose bee pollen or any other food for that matter will fall between the cracks of the substrate and might encourage bugs. But not if it's locked away in the agar.

[newbreed]

Welcome Mike. And thanks for sharing this amazing setup! Brilliant!

[Squiggle]

Welcome to the forum, hope you have as much fun here as we do!