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Recently I posted a couple of photos on here I found on Instagram of someone’s tank with just Christmas Moss tied to Malaysian Driftwood in it with Red Cherry Shrimp, even though it was quite a simple looking set up and some would say boring I quite liked it and thought I’d give it a crack. Yesterday I went out and bought a AquaTopia Aura 20L, it’s nothing special but I didn’t want to spend big dollars on a tank at this stage that I was only going to put some Moss and Shrimp in, it’s nothing special or flash but it’ll do the job I’m looking to do though. So the AquaTopia Aura 20L is a glass tank with top opening compartments, light and filter, I bought the heater and substrate separate, the light is a AquaTopia 9 watt florescent, light switch on the right side of the tank with water proof housing, filter is a AquaTopia 100 internal filter with flow rate adjustment, heater is a AquaOne 25 watt glass heater which is now set to 24c and substrate I thought I’d just try some AquaTopia black pebbles at first, I went for dark coloured substrate as I’d like the Shrimp and Moss colour to really stand out, tank capacity is 25 litres and measurements are 36cm x 21cm x 31cm which I think is suitable for what I’m looking to achieve. What am I looking to achieve? Something very along the same lines of the photos I posted in another thread, a tank with just Moss growing healthily and a healthy colony of Shrimp living and breeding amongst it, a forest look I guess you could say. At this stage I’m not sure what Shrimp I’m going to keep in there, but I’d prefer something with bright stand out colour, so I’m thinking either the Yellow Cherry or Crystal Reds that I have, only problem is I only have male Crystal Reds so if I go with that I’ll need to invest on a handful of females, Moss wise I have decided to go with Peacock Moss as I think it will produce and display a nice natural forest growth look to it, I was thinking Christmas Moss but I think Peacock Moss will look great once filled out and grown, Moss will be tied to a decorative clay hollow log which can be used by the Shrimp as a shelter or breeding ground and is more than a decent size for them. Once I’ve received the Moss and everything is put together and I’m up and running I plan to keep a week by week photo log of the development of how the Moss and Shrimp are going, I’m interested to see at what rate the Moss will grow to be honest and how quickly/slowly it will take to thicken up and show the growth I’m aiming towards. Foods involved will be the Boss Aquaria range in which I use in a separate tank and am very impressed with, ie. Shrimp Crack, Shrimp Snow and will throw in a random treat now and then, will also be using from the Boss Aquaria range Shrimp Booster, Mineral Powder and Mineral Balls. Other additives to the tank will be AquaGreen’s Dinosaur Pee and Spit range, I again use this in my other tank and am more than pleased with the results. That’s all for now, stay tuned I guess, cheers.

As part of the preparation work for the next upgrade, I've been cleaning up bits and pieces around here. Before: Now:

I dropped by Aquarist Chamber to stock up on some goodies for myself and I thought the members here may enjoy some pictures. Please excuse the picture quality I only had my IPad. Entry lol Counter with some stock & shrimp tanks Shrimp pictures again sorry for the quality. I totally stuffed PRL pictures! Thanks to Alvin for allowing me to take these pictures. My iPad is about to die so ill load these and add more tomorrow. Lol I planned on staying for 30 mins but ended up shrimp staring for 4 hours, my wife thought I got kidnapped lol. Chatted to a local shrimpkeeper and got invited for lunch. Got some tips from Alvin himself too. Great day out. Hope your guys enjoy these pics as much as I do lol

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.

Yes, I've always loved the Reds from chocs......so much so I've crossed them with fire reds to selectively breed the depth of the red, and the illuminity of the Reds from chocs.... Gotcrabs, I suspect the Reds are the underlying genes from chocs, so they occasionally throw outs this variations...

thanks mate. hopefully the juvies eventually colour up to be more like this.

Another female berried (late December, 2014) (or still berried from November?) Juveniles still colouring up - sssssllllllllloooooooowwwwwwllllllllyyyyyyyyy

Berried females (Late November 2014)

I'll post my pictures in groups from different months so you can see how the juveniles are growing and colouring up. So here is November 2014

I really like the pure black and the brown tiger stripes. Less fussed on the reds and oranges which seem to be of a stress colouration anyway.

Did you have your glasses on Girl??? I could go harder here, but its a case of the pot calling the Kettle black. I Cant talk Bright side, you have a new breeding tank LOL Bob

Dont worry i just finished a 12 and a half hour shift and when i first read it i swear it said you were taking dumps LOL Dont forget someone to take a camera so we can see what we miss out on. Would love to see some photos of the trade tables :)

Hahaha, I knew it!

Oh Ineke, we are too similar at times. Congratulations on the bubs, at least if she was selected she must have been desirable! Great to hear they are breeding again!!

We would, Ineke!

pmsl! rofl! I don't mean to disappoint anyone but I wont be giving a talk about dumps!! I will be talking about sumps and rack setups. From the very small amount of knowledge I have. If you will be in Melbourne get along to it, it's always great to meet everyone. And if you're nice, I wont talk for too long!!!

No worries Jayc, He did open the cabinet and show me. Even explained how he set up the canister and what media he uses but I did not take pics. Next week when I pick My goodies ill ask him if I can take pics again.

Ok part 2 More shrimps Some plants and misc things I'll probably drop by again. If there is anything new I'll post it up. I'll also ask the hobbyist I met if I could post sound of the pictures of the PRL he has. They were amazing.

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.