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Neo 1 (I think) Neo 2

I had a kiddies birthday party playing cricket at the park this weekend so didn't get much done. Still I managed to pick up the 2' tanks and made it to Bunnings to buy the paint for the rack. Still waiting on the 4' tank to be made for the bottom tier. Apologies for the photos as it was pretty late at night but I couldn't resist myself. Haha. I just have to see if they all fit on the rack as planned. Very happy. A closer look at the shrimp tank that I hope to house CRS, BB, KK/Panda and RR/WR for selective breeding. Dry fitted the low profile bulkheads to make sure they fit in the drilled holes and that the tee joint fits within the confines of the rack. This is how they look. I'll be sure to use plumbing tape generously to ensure there'll be no leaks when I do the final install. I am quite happy with how they all came together so far. Just need to try get off work early enough so I could paint the rack in the evenings.

I've been working pretty hard on a feed formulation the recently and one point that perhaps seems counter-intuitive to many shrimpers or aquarists in general is that the Phosphorus level in the food needs to equal or exceed the Calcium level. Some of our most popular fresh leaves, for example, have very limited P contents with very high Ca contents. The Ca uptake is then restricted due to a lack of available P. The same approach is slowly filtering into human health supplements via Vitamin D / Calcium supplements that also contain Vitamin K and Phosphorus. Your bones contain more P than Ca. There are several well-known (and undoubtedly more as yet unknown) mineral and nutritional ratios that should be observed in crustacean feeds and sadly very few of the feeds on the market seem to observe these recommendations. It appears as though they are formulated primarily to have an attractive ingredients list. I will continue posting on this nutrition topic as I get time.

Great looking build! I have 2 little racks using those low profile bulkheads, save the day don't they..

How is this even possible? Day 1 evening just before I put in some moss: Day 3 In the morning All the typus replaced by a single black cherry, meta cube still sealed. I've managed to round 6 back up and will see if it happens again. Might have a gap in my cube?

Thats a great sign @larry, and it will usually occur after a water change. IMO I would still be feeding high calcium greens and definitely cut back a bit on feeding. The other issues from over feeding will be added pressure on the bio-system but will also cause issues such as planaria, I just saw that JC has put up an excellent thread about Calcium and magnesium. Might be worth a read. I hope things settle quickly for you.

Have you got the teleport inhibitor turned on? Maybe needs new batteries?

Subscribed!

Might be a new specie: Caridina Typus Houdinitus

My 'allocated' footprint in the lounge for the rack only allows a maximum depth of 450mm. In order to maximise tank size/volume, I would have to drill and sump from the side instead of the back of the tanks. The first challenge was to find low profile bulkheads to fit within the confines of the 45mm thick frame so I can keep all plumbing enclosed. Since I will be insulating the tanks with 20mm foam and allowing another 10mm clearance, I need to find a bulkhead and tee fitting that does not exceed 75mm long. The bulkheads commonly used for tanks are like this which is too big once you add on a tee fitting to allow to drain to sump. However, Bunnings sell another type of bulkhead that looks like this. Coupled with a 25mm barbed x 20mm BSP male threaded tee like this, I get a 20mm bulkhead with a 25mm outlet to sump and all this measures around 65mm. The female thread on the bulkhead also allows me to fit a stainless steel strainer to prevent fish/shrimps from taking a holiday in the sump. All images were shamelessly copied from the internet. All credit goes to the original owners of these images.

Welcome to the forum @joshwillis55 You will often see shrimp having a munch on the growth of plants, the other main reason you see alot of mosses in peoples shrimp tanks is because they are low light and maintainence as alot of plant fertilizers and additives can be no good for your shrimp. You will be fine mixing the shrimp i have never heard of them killing the others. Something to bare in mind however is that cherry shrimp are prolific breeders and you can expect 1 female to have between 15-30 shrimplets each batch. They then therefor tend to out compete the shrimp for food and can sometimes effect shrimplet survival rate. Are shrimp caves worth investing in? A better question would be are they a necessity in which case no they arent. Depending on what they are made of they could host beneficial bacteria but not that effective. Or they are good at attaching mosses or plants to. When your shrimp breed your females will generally hide from the males once they moult so another benefit. In terms of your hang on filter you will need to buy a inlet guard for the intake because your smaller shrimp will get sucked in to the intake. Not sure what your fish keeping experience is but filters in general arent that much different. The better the filtration the more stable the tank will be meaning less deaths. If you have plans to keep CRS and CBS in future (these will interbreed ruining quality) you will want to consider investing a reverse osmosis unit as they are more finnicky in terms of water perimeters and not as hardy as cherry shrimp. There are lots of topics on here discussing R/O water and what not. There is quiet a variety of shrimp foods available on the market or you can try your hand at making your own. There is a thread on the forum which a member has shared how to do so. In the long run yes you want to be using shrimp specific foods or blanching healthy foods they like (there is a thread on the forum in food for this to be looked at further). The reason you want food for shrimp as the things such as they protein content and calcium for example can impact on the shrimps health and affect things such as moulting (shedding their shell) which could detrimentally cause failed moults, shell harding and deformations to the shrimp itself along with death. Dont worry about asking questions there is a great community of members here to help you. Also a giant wealth of knowledge throughout the forum as you may have found already