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No not Zulu's. The finished tank from my DIY. So the cycling is finished now and the stock went in. I have planted it out with some spare stem plants, a little bit of MC and a stack of narrow leaf java fern. There is a bit of jungle Val down the flow end of the tank that had reached over 2m long in my inert sub community tank so it should get at least this long and flow from the left to the right. It all melted away when i first put it in but it is coming back now. First up the Palaemonetes Australis went in and i gave them a few hours to find some nice hiding spots. There was about 15-18 adults and 9 or so shrimpetes so hopefully enough for them to start breeding. Next was the Western Pygmy Perch with 6 adults and about 8-10 juvies going in. The have coloured back to a nice blush in a few hours so the move wasnt to traumatic.

1) How many IAL's should I use and how much will they affect the pH? As many as you want. There is no hard set rule on how many to use. They may or may not affect pH. 2) One of my LFS's suggested using peat moss but the product they had only lasts a month and I'd need to buy at least 6 boxes for it have any impact on the water given the size of the tank. Is there any product I can use to naturally lower pH? And if there is, where's the best place to buy it from? (Don't want to use chemicals bc it's bad for the shrimp and the phosphates would encourage algae growth.) RO/DI water or rain water. There's also alder cones. Anything that may naturally lower the pH (re: leaves, cones, peat) will also result in tea colored water or "black water". This would mean that it would be best to have at least one 55 gallon drum (208 liters) to store water in prior to doing water changes and either toss in a pump or an airstone to circulate the water, and toss in a bag of peat/cones/leaves to get the drum water to be the same as the tank water. 3) My RO water goes into a 1000 ltr water tank for when I need it for water changes. Is it worth dropping in IALs into the water tank (in a bag of some sort) to condition the water before use? If so, how many should I use and for how long? Have you tested the pH of the water after it's sat in this tank? Sometimes, allowing water to sit out overnight and aerating it can allow the pH to drop on it's own. If you were to try going the "black water" route, you would probably need a lot of leaves, cones and/or peat... 4) Any other suggestions? What is the GH, KH and TDS of the tank? What are those same parameters for the water going into the tank? (you mentioned RO - does it come out at 0 GH and KH? And low TDS?)

SKF Aquatics (Shrimp Keepers Forum) welcomes Chindy. Please feel free to browse around and get to know others. If you have any questions please don't hesitate to ask. View Member regards, skfadmin Thanks for the add started with some rcs about a month ago and am addicted. Went and bought 3 more tanks for Christmas and will be dividing 1 up for some different colours.and then probably the other 2 haha I'm glad to have this much combined knowledge at my fingertips and looking forward to going through the forums thanks again

Hi chindy and welcome to the addiction :-)

Hello @jarmface Welcome. What sort of stuff do you keep?

Yeah I should have included the picture of the back to begin with, No I am not running opposite cycles. Purely because I didn't think of it. @jayc that's genius ! I immediately realize its a good idea and why, I will implement it now ! Currently I have day/night cycles ( normal light during the day and deep blue at night ) but I will simply reverse the sump so that during the day it's Display tanks on day and sump on night and vice versa. Thanks for the idea :)

Awesome stuff dude, the mini pelia looks awesome & the pogo looks pretty sweet too, well done! :victorious: