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Two more crack addicts to add to the list - Chameleons and Typus. They were straight into the snow too.

Cheers guys, fronties and shrimp are my passions

The best I've been able to achieve so far, slowly getting there

Cultivating Instant Beneficial Bacteria How to make instant beneficial bacteria for your aquatic tanks. Didn't know where to put this, it could go in Health & Care, or Water Parameters. I have added it in Water Parameters since we talk about bacteria and cycling in this subforum. It can be used in aquariums for shrimp, fish, koi pond that beneficial bacteria needs to be introduced instantly. Cycle new tanks within days, rather than weeks. With a slight modification of the ingredients, you can create one for Marine tanks. So, I have a surplus of Mosura BT-9 that I don't know what to do with. I do not want to throw it away. So remembering my DIY days of activating yeast and fermenting sugar to turn it into CO2, I thought I'd activate the bacteria in BT-9 and turn it into a DIY Instant Beneficial Bacteria tonic with added minerals. I locked myself up in my "mad scientist lab" and ran some trials. My real journey into creating this really began in 2013 when I completed my review of the Azoo Max Bio Ball here - http://shrimpkeepersforum.com/forum/index.php/topic/4631-azoo-max-bio-ball-review/ After reading up on the use of probiotic cultures containing Bacillius spp being used in the commercial aquaculture industry. Using retail products like BT-9 is much safer than playing around with pure bacillus probiotics, since it is at much lower levels. Those that dabbled in DIY CO2 or home brew beer can probably see where this is going already, but for those that didn't play with DIY CO2 or Beer this is what you need. Ingredients: 1) Mosura BT-9, 8gm or roughly 1/2 teaspoon 2) Sugar or Raw Sugar, 30gm or roughly 2 tablespoons 3) A plastic bottle, (I used a 600ml Tupperware plastic bottle- plastic is thicker). 4) Kettle for boiling water 5) Tongs for handling things in boiling water 6) Pyrex mixing jug. 7) Measuring utensils / syringe 8) Optional - Prodibio Trace Preparation: a) Boil some water. The preference is to use Reverse Osmosis water. Alternatives are distilled or demineralised water. Boiling the water removes any harmful bacteria or micro organisms. Tap water contains chlorine or chloramines, so avoid, if possible. If you have no other alternative, treat the tap water first to remove chlorine/chloramines, at least a day prior to starting. Tank water already contains some bacteria, and I don't want it influencing the outcomes. So I avoided tank water. b) Sterilise the bottle with the boiling water (Be careful if you use those thin plastic water bottles, it will melt). Sterilise a pyrex mixing jug <-- It's got measurements on the jug. Sterilise the tongs. Sterilise the bottle cap with the boiling water. c) Pour about 200ml of boiling water into the pyrex mixing jug. Add 30gm of the sugar into the pyrex mixing jug. Mix the Sugar until it dissolves. You'll have roughly 400ml in the mixing jug. Transfer the mixture into your cleaned & sterilised bottle. d) Leave the Sugar solution to cool to room temperature (still warmish but not boiling hot). e) When the Sugar solution has cooled, add 8gm (~1/2 teaspoon) of Mosura BT-9 into the solution. f) Place the top on your bottle, being careful to handle it with the sterilised tongs. g) Tighten the cap and shake, to help dissolve any remaining sugar and mix the BT-9 in. h) Leave the bottle in a warm dark place for 2 weeks (in summer); or for 4 weeks in winter (bacteria is slower at multiplying in the cold). Swelling of bottle should take place and is completely normal. This is a sign of the bacteria activating and consuming the sugar. A word of warning: the gases released stink, so if the household is sensitive to foul smells, release it outside. This fermentation time is required to let the bacteria multiply, and to consume the sugar. Just like in DIY CO2 production. i) Invert the bottle twice every 2 or 3 days to mix the culture. If the bottle is building up pressure (hard when pressed), release the pressure by opening the lid slight before inverting the bottle to give it a gentle mixing. Again, no need to shake it violently. We just don't want pockets of sugar in the bottle. Note: if you use a glass bottle, you will just need to release the pressure build up every 2-3 days, cause you won't get any indication of pressure build up in a glass bottle. Sorry, no pictures this time. There was nothing exciting to see. The end product is just a dark brown colour soup similar to black water extract but with good bacteria. Dosage: <I have adjusted dosage amounts, as the first suggestion might have been too aggressive> New tank: Use syringe to measure 3ml per 10 litres of tank water At weekly water changes: Use 1.5ml per 10 litres of water Non water change dosage: Use 1ml per 10 litres of water For larger batches, you can scale up the ingredients to suit your required bottle size. Observations: In winter, the prepared bottle can be stored for up to 6 to 7 months. In summer, the bottle can be stored for up to 3 to 4 months. As an option, you can add a vial of Prodibio Trace into the bottle to make it even more potent. Trace contains all the microelements needed for aquarium life - amino acids, enzymes, natural vitamins. Store in a dark, cool place like in your tank cabinet, and avoid extreme heat or cold to let the bacteria last longer. Make smaller batches at a time and ensure you use it up within the period mentioned above. This is not a product you want to be keeping for too long on the shelves. This will be a good test to see if the bacteria additive product contains beneficial bacteria or not. If the bottle doesn't bloat and ferment, then there is no bacterium in the product. In fact, if the mix does not ferment and release gases, then DON'T use it. As it clearly does not have bacteria in it and you are just going to add a sugary mix into the tank. Sterilising the equipment and bottle minimises harmful bacterial pathogens being introduced, and affecting the potency of your Instant Beneficial Bacteria cultivation. Please note the extra precautions in sterilising. Turn off UV sterilisers or Ozone generators for 2days after dosing. I have noticed shrimp being more active, and the tank never looked so healthy. The shrimps have long stringy poos, which means a healthy gut system. The tank walls have developed a blurry haze of biofilm, which means more food for new born shrimps, and hopefully greater survival rates. Use it while transporting fish or shrimp, with a few drops in the bag. Use it on new tanks - prepare it in advance of setting up new tanks. Let me know how long it took you to cycle a new tank (I'm interested to know). Just turn the heater up and add this. Or use it on old tanks to boost your filter's bacteria. Cost: Well for me virtually nothing, cause I used ingredients already lying around. Alternative products: These are untested, but you could replace BT-9 with Borneo Wild Enlive, ADA Bacter, ATM COLONY Freshwater, Prodibio Bio Digest, or any quality bacteria additive. I'm working on version 2 which uses ATM Colony and Inner Health Probiotics powder ($20-$25) where the latter contains nothing but Lactobacillus and Bifidobacterium lactis. Which are great for the shrimps internal gut flora. Since BT-9 doesn't list what bacteria it contains, we will have to assume it's various spp of Bacillus. So by using ATM Colony instead, which claims contents of "true nitrifying bacteria" where it contains "real Nitrosomonas and Nitrobacter bacteria" and with the added Bacillus from Inner Health probiotics powder, I will have nitrifying bacteria plus bacillus flora in one. But that's another article. Best By date & Storage: Depending on where you store it (cool dark place), I would suggest not keeping it for longer than 3 months. No specific reason, just a precaution.

Big Update Time, So after months of planning and siliconing, and gathering funds, I have finally got the tank in my sons room, and filled it with soil and begin cycling I have gone with ADA Amazonia with a base of Elos (the Elos was very kindly given to me so I definitely didn't want to waste it), It was a toss up for main soil between ADA and Benibachi. After hours of research on the net I decided to go with ADA, the 2 main reasons are; 1) Many breeders use and recommend this especially from countries such as Malaysia, Taiwan and Japan and the US and Canada. 2) I could get it delivered to my door for $45 per 9Lt bag. Which I think was the most cost effective way of getting high quality soil. For the holes in the glass dividers I have covered with super fine mesh, also kindly donated, that I have attached with silicone. I was going to use foam but after reading many reports here about babies getting through and blocking easily the mesh was the best option I hope. I have used iPhone 5s to take pics so apologise. I did discover that if you record a video you can take pictures that are much better quality . Here is the first pic of the tank in my lads room. I gave it one more water test before soil went in. Next is the tank with soil (excuse the mess around it.) Now it is time to fill!! When I first saw the muck I was worried! Filled and murky Filled and murky with blue only LED (sons night light) So this was done on Wednesday night. I left it alone for a few days with 2 cycled Sponge filters and 1 non cycled filter. By friday the Ammonia had risen to about 5ppm. Saturday i Began working on converting my Fluval 405 into a 4 outlet system and a single intake. This was not an easy task as the fluvial hosing is 16mm and 99% of irrigation parts are either 19mm or 13mm. I decided to go with 13mm as I can easily put 13mm hose inside 16mm if I wish to enlarge the pipe again to attach the many spray bars and other outlet pieces I own (Years of fish keeping Junk I have collected). I took a bit of consideration with this as it can put the filter impeller under quite a bit of extra pressure when you reduce pipe diameter, But I figured it was easies to go back to the 16mm than down from 19-16 with the parts I could get. And I also think that with 4 separate outlets there is nowhere near as much pressure on the filter anyway. Here is a pic of the filter contraption that was created. I have attached taps to each outlet for flow control and If I ever need to Isolate any sections. Which would be a nightmare as I would need to remove the mesh screen and add some sort of bulkhead/plug thing to the drilled holes. I ran this all day and night on Saturday to ensure everything flows well and water levels stay fairly even between all partitioned sections and of course no leaks in any joins. Luckily it all went according to plan, even when I blocked up divider holes water flow went over the top of the dividers and didn't flood out of the tank. I was worried about this as It was a little higher than I had planned. Sunday I did a 100% W/C as the ammonia was between 5and 10 ppm. Adelaide water is also extremely high in PH, KH and GH so I also didn't want the soil working to hard in reducing these water Parameters, So I joined together about 10m of airline tubing and connected it to my RO and slowly refilled the tank, I began fill it at 7:30am and turned off the RO at 8pm, this filled about 3/4 of the tank, The rest I topped with Tap water. Today (Monday) the ammonia is about 2 ppm and a slight nitrite reading. I haven't taken Nitrate yet. So Sunday evening I began moss tying. I have been growing a few types of moss wildly in the 3 tanks I have shrimp in at the moment. I plan on having 1type of moss per tank division. I have Peacock, flame and a nice unknown (not Java) type that I picked up at a LFS, they had just got it in and they didn't remember what it was!! I will be trying to get an ID on it when I can get a decent shot of it. As this is my sons tank, he really wanted me to use one of the 1/2 coconut shells I used to use for my L No's. So I have tied flame moss to it as I think this will look quite cool on the shell. I have tied the unknown to a piece of Pear wood I cut and have been drying since early last summer. Peacock moss was tied to an old nice looking piece of driftwood I have had for 14years or so and also to another piece of pear branch. There is also a tank with some ragged looking flame moss that has had no scource of direct light for some months that has been in a breeder box. Here is a shot 1 day after the major water change with the new moss creations. Peacock moss section with a tiny bit of Hygrophilia (I think, won on a FB guess the number comp) Unknown Moss, I also have the heater a 300w Jager and the filter inlet here. I have siliconed the mesh intake to the intake pie I have spares of both if this doesn't work. and a close up Now for the flaming coconut!! I also have 2 very tiny portions of US fissidens at the front. These are trial pieces. And I don't want to remove to much from the shrimp tanks I have running yet. I know this is a long update but it was long overdue. Love to hear peoples thoughts on the setup so far and any questions. I will be updating more soon!!

Week 16 Fast-forward just a little! Overview My wife and I just returned from a 5 week holiday; we left for Europe just when the tank was springing to life; every single female was berried and some where even starting to drop. I was a little unsure of what we would return to as the tank will not be maintained at all during this time. So we did the best we could and just glad-wrapped the top to reduce evaporation as much as possible. Lights were left on the timer and the shrimp were given a double feed of snowflake. During the last few days of our voyage, the anxiety of seeing what will be waiting for us got real bad! My dreams alternated between the worst and best case scenario... surely my wife could pick up on this but I played it cool and reassured her they'd be fine! You must always have patience and optimism :) So what was waiting for us at home... Hahahaha Ugly tuffs of BBA had spread it's self so generously across 50% of our driftwood. That's the only damage! Filter hoses were dirty and clogged but there was still flow... unsure of to what is getting in there as there is a sponge cover on the lily pipe inlet. More importantly, we could see the tank full of life. Not 1, but 2 generations of mischlings/taiwans crawling around in there (females must have dropped, re-berried and dropped a second time). The females were also all currently berried as well for the 3rd time! Fauna ∞ Juvie Mischlings, Taiwans (KK + RR and Panda variants) We have a few KK's that are completely black... even the tail which is usually white is not visible! 9 x Female Mischlings 1 x Female Panda 1 x Male KK (Single stripe) Hardscape Introduced more lava rock to not only fill out the scape, but also increase beneficial bacteria. Plants Mini Pellia Becoming very branchy and pulling away from the driftwood in some areas too. Will have to consider tying it down eventually. Crypt Parva (Tissue Culture) Settled in and is now looking very healthy! Will have to introduce more in the empty gaps. Buce Beautiful beautiful plant... We've been able to split most of the clumps into two now and replant them. Next? At this stage we are wondering if we have too many females? We are moving all the 0.5 - 1.0 cm mischlings to a breeder box and selling them; this means the main tank doesn't feel overcrowded. We are letting the Taiwans grow to a sexable size and thinking to move all the males on. Should we keep all the females and replace all the mischlings with them so we are left with Taiwans and TBM's? We also have a stunning Spotted Mosura coming :)

Rofl. After drawing up a few pics and seeing how tall it'll be, I've decided to build a 3 tier 4ft+ rack with 2x2ft divided tanks on two tiers and a cupboard on the bottom to hide everything instead.

That is really cool man. I cant wait to follow in your footsteps. Good work!

Update time, they are coming along nicely. Cheers mick

I assume all Paratya from Canberra should be able to be bred in full freshwater easier as we are quite far from the coast. There were red ones in Lake Burley Griffin and Ginninderra Lake.

Some new pics of the reds. Cheers mick