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LOL!!! Guys... It's no secret. Just that I got many of my friends off UGF, and immediately they observed the following results: Adult shrimp stop dying. Increased of baby survival rate. Improve of colouration Given said that, UGF is not totally bad. It is more of how you use and maintain it. If you are a hardworking young bloke (I'm the opposite) that has muscle, strength and energy to revamp the tank every 6 to 8, UGF could be an option. In in real world, even young bloke can be layback too. Hence, without proper maintenance regime and care, UGF will create more problem than help. ;) Just a little story about UGF (I posted this in an US forum before). In the initial stage of shrimp keeping period, Japanese and German dominated the expert world. German usually practice simplicity and leverage HMF frequently. Japanese is in the camp of over filtration by cascading multiple canister filter in series. Sometime down the road, some Japanese company created the idea of reduce the canister filter count (from maybe 3 to 2/ 1) and leverage the substrate as filter. If I don't remember wrong, it was Shirakura started to have UGF friendly substrate. This feature of the substrate also differentiate themselves from ADA AS. Years down the road, the Taiwanese started to buy Japanese Bee shrimp from Japan (initially they had a hard time obtaining them and the Japanese forbid them to resell the offspring by using their name). The Taiwanese started to replicate the practice of the Japanese breeder and tried to breed the JRB. At this point of time, JRB is very valued and highly sought off. In Asia (mostly HK and Taiwan), JRB are called as PRL in their local language. From then till now, you all know what is the current condition of PRL vs the real JRB. During the course of the development of Taiwanese shrimp market, they started to creates products to market against other countries. These products are tagged with a special breeding tactics of their own (I will not mention what are they and most of you know in the heart will know). But there is a major problem. These products and tactics of shrimp breeding are not engineered, instead they are kind of they tried it and it does or does not work kind of things. As such, these tactics may work for some and may not for others. When I started shrimp keeping initially, I tried out every tactics, methods and claims. All of them either failed miserably or disaster happened with no way to fix. Since I have both engineering and chemical background, I started to study the shrimps and differentiate the facts and myths. Ultimately, I am able to find out what is easily workable and what is not. One advise I have for everyone is: whenever someone recommending something to you, ask them the scientific rationale behind it. If the person does not know why or tells you that it works for him for years, be wary of it. For an instance, ask yourself how many things you heard about shrimp keeping and you practiced it, but you still don't achieve the same result as most people claimed? This is part of the reason why, I never tell someone something will 100% work. What I had been doing is to ask that person to take out one of the tanks and follow my entire solution. This includes sending him/ her all the required stuffs to practice my solution. After that, I let the person gauge the result himself/ herself within 2 weeks. Which is a "let result speaks itself" method. Not really showing a lot of pictures and making bold claims without substantial evidences or data. There is another phoney claims, usually from shrimp/ product sellers: "The shrimp just changed water condition, their colour will fade. The offspring will look better." Shrimp does drop colour when change of water condition, but it will recover after it moult within 2 to 3 weeks (depending on shrimp's age). If after 2/ 3 weeks it still look bad, it is either the shrimp has bad gene or the new product you bought is bad. Hence if someone claimed this, just walk away. Hope these information is useful for you guys. Read it at your own discretion. ;)

If your lighting intensity is too high, reducing the lighting period will not help at all. If your lighting is adjustable, reduce the intensity. Or else, hang/ place it much higher. Diatom bloom is normal for any aquasoil. All aquasoil will leech a massive of organics and silicate during the first month, which are the main fuel for diatom. To combat this effectively and naturally, here are my recommendation: Reduce light intensity like I mentioned above. Perform 80% WC every week. There is no test kit to available to test specifically for organics. Hence it is easier to do 80% WC every week. Given said that, if you have ORP Probe or silica test kit, you could measure for H+ ion (decrease of pH and increase of oxidation potential) and/ or silica increment. When AS releases organic substances to the water, it will increase the H+ ion and silica level too. Add otocinclus to keep the diatom constantly checked. Diatom is their top favourite food, they will wipe all out within a few days.

Hahaha, yeah I thought you might say that NB

Hi wot fan, I've found subwassertang to be a bit sensitive to H202. Perhaps you've hit it a bit hard. You definitely don't need ferts or excel to grow it beautifully. I think it will just outgrow any algae covering it once the tank has settled. If your temp is still up perhaps it doesn't like that, I don't know. Either way it will get it together again eventually. I think Wisteria, other Hygros or any other vigorous plant is a great idea and will help keep the algae at bay. The brown is likely diatoms but same same. I'm a fan of Ceratopteris (we call them water sprite and lace fern here in oz) as floating plants for bulk nutrient uptake, everyone loves frogbits it seems, Hydrocotyle leucocephala and Cardamine lyrata are good too, all floating. Essentially what grows fast will do the trick. For me that's never Hygro difformis unfortunately. In my current bee shrimp system I had the lights down at about 6-8hrs when it was new because I was getting BGA problems otherwise. Had to run water sprite to suck the nutrients out. Now it's back up at 10 where I like it and everything is going fine, no water sprite anymore either...

Mine is tied to a piece of DW with a very thin fishing line. It grows very dense as in when you pat it, it is like a dense iceberg lettuce. This is with medium to high light with CO2 and liquid ferts. I had a small clump tied to a rock and placed in a vase with bamboos which sits on the dining room table with lighting otherthan room light at times and that did not grow at all. It just remained the same size after 6 months. I have now taken it out and placed between two plastic mesh guards and weighed down with a river pebble in the middle and placed in my tank. Will see how it goes. On a side note, I was regularly selling clumps of mine when the lighting wasn't as high and it was not as dense. I figure that the Subwassertang needs light but not huge amounts of it. You can see the round ball in the middle of my tank Pic showing the main bunch and the one in the mesh:

ANY informed information is invaluable to us -especially from someone like Shrimp Daddy. Also friendly debate and constructive criticism helps us all learn and keeps us motivated to do better. The day we think we know it all is a sad day . It is great to have knowledgeable members who are willing to share their knowledge. At the end of the day this helps us all make up our own minds on which direction we take but it is always our decision and not every thing works for everybody. Happy shrimping guys!

I am also getting confused about all the different methods. I was thinking I would stick all the methods up on a dart board and throw a few darts then go with the ones I hit haha. haha there are no secrets being kept. I have shared all my set up ideas. The questioned I pmed shrimp daddy was not shrimp related. you guys aren't missing out.

I wouldn't recommend putting mineral balls in your mouth!! But loved the South Park movie and chefs songs!! Fave character is Tweak, caffeine addict like me!! Back to the balls. I have only used benibachi until now but have just grabbed some of Jays balls to put into my new setups!! Lol

Ooh ooh. I have bad eyes too!! Not slow either! :)

I'm also using carbon filtered tapwater and/or rainwater through about the same 2-stage system as Daydream describes, with no problems at all. Nice to know I'm not the only one. Not really a fan of RO. I do appreciate the function of Bentonite powders and balls but haven't found any need for them so far. I have shrimp on inert gravel or on shrimp sand but haven't had the balls to put Taiwan bees with shellgrit. In fact, I was sure it would be a problem. Daydream, you sure do have balls man. What do you grow at the nursery? BTW love South Park, s18 has been great, love the McFarlane shows too. Hope this thread stays on track from now though.

The issue with using sponge filters over your filter intake is it will clog up a lot quicker so if your not aware of it then it will greatly restrict your canisters flow rate. Then your going to have to be putting your hands in your tank alot more to remove it and clean it leaving it the intake open in the process. Personally i would recommend going for the SS Mesh cover you wont regret it, i used to do the sponge method and would never go back for the above reason.

did someone say lego moive