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I have spotted 5 larger crabs, about 2.5cm from legs to legs, pretty big for a thailand spider crab, had 23 at first, gave 3 away, only seen 5, could be more in the hiding. They don't touch the shrimps, my shrimps climb all over them some times. buy they do eat the shrimps if dead.

So. A few things. The original mama is berried AGAIN!? and, after 7 hours of dripping...

Beautiful shrimps and nice to see one of the crabs as well! Hope the new cooler is working well and you can finally just enjoy the tank! Simon

They look great! 7 hours sounds intense, but it’s for the good of the shrimp. Keep us updated!

Not yet, i'm waiting for the hose a clamp to come through, the problem with my previous chiller is the tubing keeps coming off, that how my shrimps died, so I ordered some better tubing and clamps and other accessories, hopefully I should get them with 1 week.

Great news that the new shrimp have arrived and you have a berried shrimp as well I don't think I have ever had 100% new shrimp survive beyond the first 2 weeks so don't panic if you do see the odd dead one. Usually 3 of 4 (75-80%) survive beyond the 2 weeks in my experience, no matter how careful you are. If you expect this and they all survive then that is a bonus................ They look a nice mixture in the picture! Simon

Suspected so. They were in the same tank, but Gerald was a pretty fast fish. I mean, there’s a chance, but he didn’t look 100% the previous day anyway.

Yeah, have you hooked up the chiller yet?

It might grow back, just leave it. Was Gerald and the Apistos in the same tank? Breeding apitos can kill anything that strays too close. And if the victim can't swim fast to run away, they get pummeled. LoL, Durrr. You tell em! Sigh, I just shake my head at that guys response.

My tank is weird... So! Some good news, and some bad news. Bad news first, cuz I gotta get it out. My crypts have all totally melted. Just in the first 3-4 days, they’re practically gone. Just roots and a couple of tiny leaves. My lace fern has done the same, but I think it just died... not sure why, but not a big deal. Will add photos later. Second bit of bad news is that I lost my male endler, Gerald. I don’t understand what happened, as everyone else is doin great, but I saw him one afternoon just staying in one spot in the top left corner of the back, by the heater, and he didn’t look to excited, so I fed some food back for him to see if he would eat. He ate, and I thought it couldn’t be that bad as there were no obvious visible signs of disease, he wasn’t gasping, and wasn’t visibly bloated. The next morning I had just finished feeding when I saw him lying on the bottom of the tank, in a bed of melted crypts, unmoving. He was straight beneath where he had been the previous day, except now Gerald was dead. Again, he didn’t look diseased or anything, just was lying dead on his side. I then removed him and buried beside my one dead shrimp’s grave outside my window. Am going to check the parameters this arvo when I have time. Any ideas on what else it could be? Anyhoo, everyone else is doing very well, and the good news is that I believe my Apistogramma Nijsseni pair are breeding! I have no idea why, as they have just experienced a very stressful change in params (that from my recent research should have probably killed them!). I may have accidentally caused it by adding an extra cave and increasing the temps to their breeding temperature. I’m still not totally sure, but I’ve been seeing courtship for a while, and two days ago they were doing some crazy aggressive mating-ey stuff. Yesterday I saw that my female was staying in one place along my driftwood, and she hasn’t moved from there since. She looks to be doing very well, still quite active, and has chased a few fish away from her spot. I noticed that there is a deep divot where she is guarding that she goes inside maybe once every two minutes. I can’t see in the hole, have tried everything, but assume from her behaviour that she is guarding eggs. Either way, we’ll know in a few days. I’m a little worried about their chances of survival though (the babies, I mean), in a community tank. I also have no tiny live foods, the best I can do is super fine flakes or pellets. Is hatching baby brine shrimp easy? If so I could try that I guess. Final thing is that when I got my refund for my bad gravel, I ended up in a long phone call with the guy, who was trying to give me advice. It was veeeeery frustrating, as he keeps saltwater and african cichlids. As such, he said the gravel was great for his tanks, and should be fine for mine. Hmm. Maybe that’s cuz your fish require a really high level of hardness?! He also said that plants are the worst thing you can put in a tank, that I need to get rid of them ASAP, and that they are the sole reason that algae exists. In addition to that, he said my oversized external canister filter wasn’t enough for my tank, that I needed a ‘biological filter’, and that’s why my killies died. It was a great convo. Sorry, just needed to express my frustration with the guy to people who get it. Thanks for reading this long post, as usual any help is greatly appreciated. Cheers guys! (And gals and peeps who are neither) Thanks Simon, forgot to respond to this. I think I’ll leave it as is. Keep it natural.