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A mate and I just returned from East Gippsland after a couple of days running around hunting various things. As is normal for us we left Melbourne about 10pm thursday and drove until about 4am - that way we maximise our time out there and don't spend a potentially good day sitting in the car. We had a few objectives for the trip and as normal only fulfilled some of those. Our primary goal to check the last possible location in Victoria for a generally NSW Utricularia species (uniflora) had to be aborted for the second time, this time due to track closures and an approaching severe thunderstorm. The site is so remote it's no wonder that nobody gets out there. Next time we'll need a chainsaw in the car to get through. BTW I intend to bore you all with this non-aquarium stuff before moving on. Deal with it! A secondary goal was to photograph an orchid species in the same general area, which we did achieve: Dipodium variegatum, near Mallacoota Another secondary goal was to see a couple of tree frog species in the rainforest pockets out there. Litora citropa (Blue Mountains Tree Frog) is known from Victoria these days but we couldn't find any adult frogs, a shame as neither of us has seen this species in the wild. Litoria nudidigita was the other target and we found them in abundance. I have seen these before when they were still called L. phyllochroa but my mate had never seen them. Hunting frogs around rivers at night is not something I carry my camera for, so fortunately we also found one during the day: Litoria nudidigita, near Cann River We saw some interesting things walking around the rainforests. Unfortunately it was very dark and I discovered the tripod mount had fallen off my camera somewhere (doh), so the shots are all handheld and pretty average. For the flowers below (and frog above) I was standing on tip toes and just couldn't set the focal plane where I wanted. Asclepiad species (something like a Hoya) another nice tiny flower Thurra river tributary - typical sandy bottom and tannic water Forest floor We bumped into a young German bloke traveling alone and for his benefit I grabbed a nice male Water Dragon for him to photograph. That made his day, so a minute later my mate saw a White-lipped snake and I grabbed it too as it raced off the path. As I picked it up I saw the Tiger stripes on it and realised the mistake. We all got an uneasy laugh out of that but I think the young tourist will remember that walk for some time. Sorry but my hands were too full to get photos. Something I've only seen a couple of times before is the larvae of a butterfly - Jalmenus evagoras, the Imperial Blue Hairstreak, with its attendant ants. In the same way that terrestrial orchids fascinate me because of their reliance on a symbiotic relationship with mycorrhizal fungus, the butterfly family Lycaenidae (blues) fascinate me due to their symbiotic relationships with ants. The ants protect the caterpillars and pupae and are rewarded with a sugary secretion from the butterfly larvae. Nature is wonderful. At another site I was able to photograph a pretty amazing dragonfly, despite having the wrong lens on the camera. Eventually he allowed me to sneak close enough to get this heavily cropped pic: I'll wind up "part 1" here because of time constraints and prepare myself for part 2, which will mainly cover mosses, shrimp and their habitats.

Personally, if only getting 5, I'll go 2m 3f. If getting 10, I'll go 3m 7f.

Hahahaha know that feeling!

No worries, mate. Stability is fine. But.... One problem with the bacteria in the Stability is that they create a lot of thick biofilm. Not a bad thing, just that it annoys me when my tank glass gets blurry and it tends to allow algae to stick. Pardon me, I am very OCD. LOL!!! I doubt the Prime will totally detox ammonia; tried before and does not really work. Instead, the aerobic bacteria in Stability will consume the ammonia quite rapidly. Once you perform large water change (Sometime Oto may not like it. You have to premix the water 24 hours beforehand) and added Purigen, the ammonium level will decline rapidly. Cycling is usually easy and not complicated. However, there are many methods circulating around and tends to confuse people. Not saying they don't work, but most of them are for general aquarium and not targeting on shrimp tank or planted tank. I think up till now, there is no real article that talks about how to cycle a shrimp tank in a controlled manner.

Prime will give you false ammonium reading. It has chemical to alleviate ammonium level, which supposed to increase cycling efficiency. However, this does not work. I had tested that bacteria will fix ammonia and not ammonium. "I didn't think that was enough to get a cycle going so I added some ammonia to bring the level up to about 2ppm." <--- This is a bad idea. The ADA AS will slowly leech ammonium and will not have large spike. Adding ammonia will have a large spike and will kill anything in the tank, which includes bacteria. Next if you are using ADA AS, don't add anymore ammonia, just use alkaline water to leech the ammonia out faster. ;) If you are using inert substrate, you could use ammonium sulphate or ammonia and dose to maximum 1ppm. "I planned to add purigen once my tank cycled. I was afraid if I added it before that it would slow down the cycle." <--- The most effective technique is to have gradual ammonium/ ammonia releases into the water. Hence, having 0.5ppm and below ammonium level constantly is better than 2ppm spike. Too much ammonia and nitrite will kill everything in your tank, including your plant. By the way, cycling a tank is not just about ammonia and nitrite. These are the two parameters have been talking by everyone is because they are measurable easily. Hence, all the aquarium products are hyping on them. There are much more complicated stuffs happening during cycling stage. For example, protein-fixing bacteria, sugar-fixing bacteria and plankton will also need to colonise to maintain the environment. One good way to seed some of these microbes is to use a pipette and stick into your community tank's substrate at about 1 to 2cm deep and suck out the water. Dose the water into your new tank. A healthy substrate will contain concoction of all the beneficial microbes that no product in the market has. Do this once a week until your tank is fully cycled. :)

Yeah.... BBA is tough. But the worst is spirogyra. At least BBA does not look bad if you leave it alone. It turns pink colour when it is in acidic water (below ph 6.0) and can be pleasing sometime. For new tank that is using ADA AS, spirogyra is a big concern. It will appear when there is ammonia spike under high lighting condition. Since you had lowered the lighting, it should not appear. The "brown fungus" might be diatom coating the fungus. If diatom appears, it is sign of your tank is slowly cycling. This opposed to your testing that the tank is not cycling. The high ammonium may got to do with the ADA AS and also any kind of anti-chlorine or slime coat you are adding. Are you adding any of these sort of product? To remove the ammonium effectively and safely, put in a couple packs of Purigen into your filter. You will see it drops significantly within 24 hours. Purigen will prevent massive ammonium and nitrite spike. Here are a few more good sign to show your tank is cycling: Appearance of critters, such as cyclop and white round worm. Your plant is growing and the leaf stopped melting. Any green algae is growing, such as GSA and GDA.

Hey mate, Those are not algae. It looks like fungi to me. What driftwood are those? Driftwood that are not aged will grow fungus. Fungus is good, it provides food source to plankton, shrimp and otocinclus.

So cool i really need to get "THE TANK CHAIR" and go for treks like this

Always good to get a couple/few males, don't want them to get worn out!! jc12's suggested numbers above look good to me!! Enjoy!!

Where are you getting them? I'd be very surprised if you got to choose. Females are usually more prized than males. You'll find more males for sale as a result. But if you are able to pick, then pick more females.

Only issue is with this heat, I can never see the shrimps due to condensation. Haha.

Hi mate Looking good :) Just be sure not to tie the moss down thick as it will then die

just over 12 months since this happened and it's just happened again. Little to no breeding over the past year and now with the cold snap I've got a berried female again. Really no clue as to why the breeding just stops for so long.

I tried to get some pics of the otos. Below are the two best shots I got. They weren't very cooperative. While trying to get a shot of the otos, the largest snail I have seen in the tank by far showed itself. It is a ramshorn, right? Before tonight, this is the biggest snail I have seen in the tank.

I have 6 at the moment with 3 of them berried for the first time. Mine come from Snow white Mischlings that have Bluebolt father. I picked out the 6 and keep them in by themselves so it will be sibling to sibling breeding -the first lot should be due anytime now- will let you know how they go..

Very excited to find a berried female. lots and lots of shrimp watching ahead.

Hi guys, the reason people in love with buces not because of their emersed form. It is because of their submerged leaves colour :) Also all the emersed leaves will melt in matter of time for sure. One of my submerged growing up nicely. (Along with green emersed leaves) - big diffirent http://instagram.com/p/xnpIHQpsmb/

I've found swapping from emersed to submersed or vice versa always affects the colour of the leaves of my buce. Its hard to be sure on the ID of most buce. A lot of variants seem to look very similar, but have vastly different names. Hopefully the science will catch up soon and we'll be able to work out what species we actually have. My guess is there will be far fewer species than the number of trade names in the hobby.

Especially when the person your working with doesnt speak english and doesnt back you up

Just offering encouragement @kizshrimp. I've seen pictures of these red Paratya over the years but never seen one in the flesh.