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One of my females

Update for this tank: I entered the tank in the AGA aquascaping competition, biotope category in September. The results have just been released. I finished with a top ten position. http://showcase.aquatic-gardeners.org/2015/show457.html I'll upload some more pictures and a full write-up on how I'm keeping this tank shortly.

Long time no post Been quite busy and been absent for a while. My bad! I realized I did not post photos of the custom tanks that I got made for the room. These are 4 900by400by28 tanks divided into 6. Each section is sealed, essentially a separate tank. These are my fry tanks. I have found they work great for me. Here is the tanks in use I also got 3 3foot tanks and a 55long tank made. These tanks have been very useful in raising large number of fish.

Number #457 and #502 solves the riddle of why I blanked out two of the tanks http://showcase.aquatic-gardeners.org/2015/index1.html

Ive moved my tanks around a little to open up the front area and while i was moving stuff around found my 3 lady blue bolts chilling out faning there berries! I knew atleast one was berried a few weeks ago but and i found the anouther not long after but now all three of them are up the duff it wont be long untill i have a swarm baby blues

So now the Aquatic Gardeners Association 2015 Aquascaping competition results have been released, I can provide a full update on this tank. As you might have guessed, I entered a reworked version of this tank into the AGA biotope category. Unfortunately I didn't place with this tank but I did get top 10 with my zebra tank. http://showcase.aquatic-gardeners.org/2015/show502.html To make my entry for the AGA comp, I started from scratch with a reworked layout. specifically I wanted to give the layout more height, slope and depth. I emptied the tank and started by adding a thick layer of river sand towards the back of the tank. over that, I added a mix of benibachi soli and crushed volcanic rock (basalt) which I bought in bags from Bunnings and crushed by hand using a sledge hammer. Then I added some large pieces of basalt to hold the sand in place, particularly as I added snails to the tanks.

Here is a video of my little shrimp room. Still work in progress, i have added 3 more tanks since then, fingers crossed i will have 2 full racks up and running by the end of the year.... Hope you enjoy

Barney Springs is a pretty special place Ever since I first visited Barney Springs I've wanted to do a biotope tank. Here are a few shots and a video of the shrimp from Barney Springs. I believe they could be the same species as Caridina sp. 'Malanda' but time will tell. Here is a shot of the tank as I set it up when I got the shrimp home. I actually brought the red rocks back with me from Cairns. Extra 15kg of luggage! Anyway the layout of the tank has been changed since then and is under constant tweaking. I'll post a full build of the tank once I'm happy with its layout. Also I'm swapping the filter from a Fluval 106 to an Eden 511 because the Fluval is just too powerful for the tank. I have to have the pipes closed at least 60% to stop the shrimp being blown around. Here are some shots of the shrimp a couple of days after they were first added to the tank. You'll notice some of the shrimp seem to have a disease - their bodies are white indicating tissue necrosis. This was probably related to stress during transport. I culled a couple of the worst ones but the others came good after a week or so. A handful of losses out of the 50 or so that I packed is not bad. The shrimp like Boss Aquaria's Snow Here is a video of them chowing down

So they don't cross breed? I have 4 white gloves but not breeding at all. Hope they aren't all male [emoji20] Can't afford anymore atm.

I added a few tanks to my little set using different types of filter, i m quiet impressed by how fast the ugf managed to clear the water.

Well done mate, that's awesome!

Here is a coupe of shots that didn't make the final cut

Gotta show this as this is my new favorite snail. The mini golden from Barney Springs. It only gets to a maximum of 5mm across the shell, They are like a mini Notopala (e.g. the native waterhouse snail). Their shell can also be black too. I'll post up some more shots of these guys later. So cool. Here is the shot from the AGA aquascaping competition showing one in comparison to Stenomelania denisoniensis, a snail of about 2-3cm in length

The majority of these are still too young to breed but I have noticed 1 or 2 baby's in the tank, which I'm really happy about. I have another 2 tanks setup that are maturing, 2 x 30litre cubes so I can try some selective breeding. I'd like to try and breed a tank of red and clear banded opae ula. Not sure if I can post brands but it's a well known one and is made up of: Ingredients: Kelp, insect proteins, dandelion, stinging nettles, spinach, mulberry leaves, chlorella, montmorillonite, Moringa oleifera, rosemary, mannan-oligosaccharides, ß-glucans, flower pollen, turmeric, cinnamonAnalytical constituents: 23.1% crude protein, 6.2% crude fat, 9.2% crude fibre, 17.3% crude ash

After acclimating, the shrimp went back in. And here is the tank after the water cleared.

Thanks mate. Thought the Barney Springs might have ranked a bit higher but the judge's comment on the immaturity of the moss suggests the tank should have had more time to mature and is probably correct. In fact it looks a lot better today than when I entered it into the competition. Will post pics shortly. Continuing from above.... The rest of the tank I filled in with the benibachi and basalt combination, sloping down from back to front. Next I added the red algae covered stones from Barneys, starting with the largest and working my way down until the smallest rocks about 1 cubic cm in size. Also added some tiny shards of quartz as this was mixed amongst the basalt at Barneys Then I filled the tank slowly to avoid disturbing the substrate Added the filter back onto the tank (at this time I was running a Fluval 106, but have since swapped to another filter) The airline at the front was used to acclimate the shrimp to the new water in the tank. Added a couple of fig leaves collected from Barney. The snails went straight in, no acclimation necessary.

There was zero ammonia when i put in a bag of bep into already cycled tank. If there was ammonia it would have been very minimal because my test kit didnt pick it up. All the stock in the tank stayed alive. +1 for bep, good product imo

I'll chuck up pictures when I have time :)

Well done on the Tully River Zebra tank - top 10.

I have 5 and they are doing really well.I am in the process of setting up another tank for them using Black Onyx and Bluestone.

looks like my tank already cycle it's my 2nd time using amazonia, and i still don't understand how the ammonia reduced so fast to 0(from 5ppm), the tank really not giving any hint at all when it's gonna cycled i won't bother checking the nitrate LOL must be high time to water change the tank to reduce the nitrate

They don't require any feeding by the keeper at all, but i feed mine to aid a good diet to promote breeding. They will eat algae and biofilm and can go months without food but they wont breed :) edit: i feed them on a high quality shirmp pellet but they also like pure spirulina powder They are also only 1cm on average in size fully grown so you can keep them in a very high density and they are very social shrimp and always hang out together. They also swim around in the open space all over the tank alot so they make use of the whole tank and not just the substrate. This 67litre tank would home 1000 easily but as they only breed a few times a year they are very slow reproducers.

Few old pics

WOO This looks awesome! Repping the 'berra pride here :D looking forward to updates :)

Some pictures taken over the last week. The shrimp are showing more red and blue colouration now. they also enjoy Benibachi kale tablets