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damn near got in the tank to give it mouth to mouth, just in case. hahaha

Well I finally got to put together my new tank set-up this weekend after floods and work have prevented me doing so for six weeks. It was probably a good thing though as Bob has noted that zebs are susceptible to disease from other shrimp and the tank has housed RCS in the past. Hopefully having the tank bare for that time has helped to kill off any disease/parasites. My aims with this tank are to: - keep and breed zebra shrimp - use a hamburg mattenfilter for the first time - provide a realistic biotope aquaria inspired by Bobs video of the zebras at Tully Gorge and other pics he has posted. http://www.shrimpkeepersforum.com/forum/showthread.php/1511-Zebra-shrimp-in-the-wild-Video Specifications for the tank are: Size: 32 (L) x 12 (H) x 12 (W) inches 81 x 30 x 30 cm Filter: Air driven Hamburg Mattenfilter Circulation: Air driven Heater: None Lights: LED spotlight (1 or 2 10W, haven't decided yet). So heres what I started with: I've placed the tank low on my rack in my fishroom next to my CRS tank which remains at 21-25 C throughout the year. I purchased Poret filter foam for the hamburg mattenfilter from a New Zealand supplier. Its 5cm thick, 33*33cm wide/high and is 30ppi. The Poret filter foam fits in perfectly into the tank so I didn't need to glue it in place. Next thing I did was to make the pipes for the air uplifts. There are two uplifts in the photo above but pnly one is used to draw water through the foam. The reason for this is because the hamburg mattenfilter functions best with low flow rates (2-3 tank exchanges per hour through the filter is recommended). However zebra shrimp enjoy a bit more flow than this uplift will provide so I added another purely for circulation. The circulation pipe looks like this: I cut a series of slots at one end for water intake. As you can see from this pic, the water is drawn from and returned to the main part of the tank without passing through the filter mat. The rock is just to hold the pipe in place. the uplift tube for the filter looks likes this: Note the plastic modular airstone. I didn't glue the pipes, only press fit for ease of access for cleaning. The uplifts behind the filter mat. Also note the pipe at the base of the filter mat. This keeps the filter mat from moving back against the glass. Now came the aquascaping. First some gravel to cover the intake. I was able to find some rocks with similar texture and colour to that in Bobs zebra video. I placed the larger rocks on a layer of river sand to protect the tank. More rocks and a solitary piece of driftwood jammed amongst the stones. I purposely left some space under some of the rocks to form shelters for the shrimp. Next was smaller rocks (forgot to take pic) and then I rinsed river sand in between the stones. Also washed a couple of handfuls of dark river sand (collected with the larger rocks)in amongst the stones at the front of the tank as the river sand I used was light in colour and contrasted badly with the main rocks. Little bit of clouding was syphoned out as new water was added. Top view Top view of the tank when filled. I left one lid on the tank to avoid losing extra water through splashing. Final step was adding some leaves and twigs collected from a rainforest stream. The leaves were carefully checked for hitchhikers to ensure I don't end up with snails or dragonfly larvae in the tank. I wiped down the tank and added a florescent light so I could take pics to give you a better idea of what the tank looks like. I'll be adding one or two LED spotlights to encourage algae growth so ignore the pink hue of the florescent. The water is still a little cloudy too as this was not long after it had been filled. I'll be posting good pics once I have the LED spotlights set up. I'll also cycle the tank using the fishless cycling method as I suspect anything I put in there will be very difficult to get out without pulling the tank apart! I'm hoping to make the biotope more authentic by obtaining submerse plants from Tully Gorge. Enjoy.

Ohhnoo UG arrggghhhh. I found it in my community tank a few weeks ago it's such a pain. I didn't know I had it till I saw an fb post about it and had unknowingly infected all the plants I had set aside for my shrimp tank. Luckily I found out before I planted the shrimp tank and spent days making sure I got every tiny bit. I've just finished removing most of it from the rest of the plants & moss I had in the com tank, (I took them all out), but I still need to go through them again to make sure I got it all before I put them back into the tank. Silly thing was, the day before I knew I had it, I saw a fb post from a guy nearby that had a bucket full of it from his tank. I keep hundreds of cp's that need to be kept in big water trays and they get heaps of bugs and mozzie wrigglers in them, plus I love carnivorous plants but have no aquatic ones. So I asked if I could have it to put in the water trays to see if it would help keep mozzie numbers down, with out knowing I already had it lol. I did score about 25 crypts & too many small java ferns to count from his bucket full and the trays with the ug have a lot less bugs in them.

little buggers are more addictive than chocolate. I'm already trying to work out where I can set up another tank. I was lucky with this tank as it was already aged. It was my spawning tank and fry tank for my bettas.

If you guys are anything like me, i just detest the site of those bloody Nematodes. So will be keeping a close eye on the progress of my killing machines.

Yeah it's Subwassertang, sorry I missed this last night, work has been crazy lately. I can send you some more with the foods if you want.

Here is some further information on the treatment of these rotten little S---S. After buying some Internal Parasite Clear and treating as per label for four treatments, it has only just bought some limited control of nematodes. So i was researching on some of the overseas forums in relation to using some type of fish for control and eradication, i found using Boraras (chilli rasbora) would be effective. This made me think, i had never had nematodes before in any of my tanks but i always had either Aust or PNG rainbows or Psuedomugi Gertrudae in my tanks and never seen a sign of nematodes. Fortunately i had some Gertrudae in an outside tank so i caught a few and put them in with the pests, after 20min to settle in they were actively devouring the nematodes as soon as one would show itself. It would seem i may have found my answer to eradicating these pests without the use of any chemical control. I have kept these fish with RCS before and did not experience any major losses of shrimp but the tank was well planted and with plenty of hidey holes. I will keep check on proceedings for next few days and let you all know on further results, but so far i am impressed.

There will be no plants other than some moss that will be glued to small areas on the rocks. If you look at Bobs video, there are no plants except for the moss and algae, and this is what I'm trying to emulate. Essentially what you see will be how it will stay.