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I covered up the plants and turned the house heater on the give the clay a chance fully expand, form up and set a little- without letting it dry. Now to add the substrate :) I pushed the first few cups of AS firm into the clay, then Filled to about the halfway point, leaving enough room to add another layer after a nice sprinkling of mironekuton and proper cal bento. It's time to get planting- A few more mosses on the wood. The front the rocks with my smallest buce varieties, then some of the sand to get an idea of height for planting etc. The main rock and more, only a couple left to go. Done- well all the gluing anyway, very sore back and way past my bedtime lol. So behind the centre of the wood Is going to be a red lotus and a C. Balansae, then I'm not sure about the back, Thinking finish it off with either Bolbitus, Green Amazon swords, or both just tangling through each other like a wild mess, Indecisive lol. Starting to look like one of my best scapes to date if you ask me.

Hi jayc I used just tap water to start my cycle and for each water change for the first 3 weeks then for the next 2 weeks I have used RO remineralised with the Bee Shrimp Mineral GH+, I will do a partial water change using treated tap water and go back to remineralised RO when adjusting after cycle has finished. Thanks everyone for your advice. Hi ineke, thanks for the info I will be sure to acclimatise them real slow when I get them, and I will buy a tds. meter and check that and temp before transferring them to the tank thank you for your help and advise it is much appreciated Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

No probs mate. Just looking out for ya. That last pic above ... you can virtually see the gaps between the glass and the table. Better get some foam under there, just sayin. I'll keep quiet and observe ? You know what you are doing. I'm interested to see what substrate you will go with.

? starting to look much better now. Another option to prevent the aquasoil moving is to use foam under the rocks. Push the rocks into the foam to fill the gaps under the rocks ... preventing soil from sliding under and moving through. Then fill soil/substrate as per normal. Talking about foam ... I hope you are going to use some under the tank ... or risk cracking the tank once it is filled. No table is 100% flat. The pressure and weight of those rocks + water will eventually find the weakest spot. Oh, and don't use regular white aquarium foam. They look uggglllllyy. This looks much better ... https://www.bunnings.com.au/polytuf-50-x-50cm-solid-black-foam-mats-4-pack_p4490382

I think a lot of people get caught up in trying to keep their pets (shrimp/fish) in the perfect WP. While trying to keep them in water that is similar to their natural habitat is good and can yield some great results we have to keep in mind that most of the common breeds have been in aquariums for many generations and are therefor more accustomed to living, breeding and being happy in a wide range of water. Although i only keep RCS and Palamonties Australis which are the hardiest of all i can give a very good example of this. The RCS are in an indoor show tank at a constant 21 deg, winter rain water is added and that can bring down all the WP (not temp) to TDS 78, KH >1 GH <2 And a PH that slowly rises between WC to 7.2. In summer the tank only gets tap water and at it's worst it was TDS 750, KH <4 GH <7 and PH 7.8. Shrimp were happy, breeding, swimming and a doing their shrimp thing. The WA glassies and RCS are also in my outside tank and pond. Same thing. Tap water in summer and rain in winter but with the Temp going from extremes of 28 deg to 8 deg. They dont like the 28 deg but still lived and there are a stack of shrimpetes before it got to cold. The harsh reality is if you have 10 shrimp is your tank, 8 die but 2 spawn. 95% of the new shrimp will do really well in your water parameters. They have adjusted to what your water contains. Leave the perfect WP until you start going exotics or are looking for maximum yield in a breeding situation.

My breeder has like 50 tanks all with soil and bees or tigers etc, I thought I'd double check with him, he says crs prefer kh 2-4, and I would listen to him over you zoidberg. 0kh is just silly, I chimed in cause I'm keeping this species in the afore mentioned tap water, what about you? Saying in such an indefinite manner the gh is too low to keep either species in our tap water is like saying You can't keep shrimp in RO without remineralising- yeah obviously. I think your starting to confuse the op with stuff like this. On a side note I was looking at it yesterday and I wouldn't use seachem gh+ it's all chloride based, including actual salt (sodium chloride) potassium chloride calcium chloride magnesium chloride- ????wtf? sodium chloride-????wtf? I don't see how you can't understand that you should buffer the water and remineralise BEFORE adding it to the tank, that way there is no extra bicarbonates so it makes NO difference zoidberg. If there's the right amount of bicarbonates the fulvic and Humic acids in the aquasoil doesn't need to neautralise them if you want to get technical about it, so yeah in short NO you don't need RO to keep crs with our tap water, TONS of people also keep and breed them in Aquascapes with seiryu etc and high kh. The mironekuton webites pics are literally crs climbing over a mironekuton stone which raises kh, ph and gh so.. My breeder also said "if it works for you do it" so yeah if it works for you do it, and this works well for him, me and many other breeders. My babies are cranking along and loving life. Loving their boss aquaria baby powder :)

22degC is good for shrimp but turn it up while cycling when there are no shrimp/fish in the tank now. The warmer temps will help speed up the cycling. Turn it back down to 22C after the tank is cycled. Salty Shrimp GH+ is always going to be handy when you need to adjust TDS and GH. So a small container will be useful.

Nothing to worry about. GH, KH and pH dropping during cycling is all part of the cycling process. pH should be falling as well. But you might not be detecting it accurately enough using colour test kits. Get a pH meter pen. That and the TDS pen are the two best investments (in terms of aquarium tools) you can make in this hobby. Unfortunately that is one of the characteristics of ADA amazonia substrate ... it takes a long time to cycle. You have not provided one of the more important water parameters for cycling yet ... temperature. Bacteria love the warmer temps. They multiply faster. What is your temp in the tank? Crank it up to 28degC while cycling, then reduce it to suit your shrimps after the cycling is done.

This is where the bacteria will "self" regulate based on the conditions of the tank. When ammonia is low they will die off and thus reduce the amount of bacteria needed to process the waste. When nitrogenous waste increase, they multiply to increase their capacity to process more waste. So this process of dying off and multiplying regulates their numbers to deal with the changing conditions. Likewise, when KH and pH are low, the nitrogenous waste become less toxic, and the bacteria become more dormant as the pH drops. And the bacteria become more active as pH increases, where ammonia is more toxic at higher alkaline levels. See how nature works? Plenty of products that raise GH but not KH or pH. Calcium Sulphate & Magnesium sulphate are the minerals. -> I have a DIY post in the Water Parameters section to make your own remineraliser, if you feel like making your own. Zoidburg has already mentioned a few commercial brands that make the same thing. Salty shrimp GH+ is the most readily available in Aus.

I think the big rock on the far left is out of place. Can we see the tank with it removed entirely? And the little rock on the left moved into place where the big rock was before being removed? That way you would have more of a triangle.

DO NOT bust up that lava rock. It looks amazing. If you have seen my tanks then you know i'm not a scapers toe nail but IMO the rock on the left needs to be turned 180deg so it kind of flows left to right and is in balance with the big rock on the right. It looks like it is leaning against the glass so this may be easier said than done. Love your work @Zebra.