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Hi all I am Blazepelt and I live in Melbourne. I’m just getting into fishkepping and am starting a 10 gallon and 5 gallon tank. I know Crabby quite well and am excited to start a tank!

Liquid tests are generally much more accurate and are harder to mess up when testing. I know the test strips seem easier but there can be a whole bunch of factors that Change the final result. If you rest your test strip on a bench it can pick up water molecules on the bench and end up testing that. Liquid tests also last much longer. I personally use API and have never had any problems other than getting the tab off the box to open it.

Hi to everyone! Im new here and i hope i get to learn, grow, and spread my experience in the shrimpkeeping hobby through this website. I live in the Philippines and Im a lil bit experienced to shrimpkeeping and aquariums in general as I have had my tanks for only a little bit more than a year. I keep two 5gal tanks, one of which is my main tank and the other one is a cull tank. In the main tank I have red cherries and in the cull tank i have all the culls and a wild species of shrimp abundant in my locality of which i dont know the species, and a molly I saved from a relative of mine because they kept her in a jar. So i guess that would be it, i would hope to interact with all of you in the future

Well I have the 5 gallon now but it needs a little repair and the 10 gallon arrives tomorrow. A friend (Crabby) is keeping a guppy pair for me in his tank. Those are going in the 10 gallon with some green neon tetras. I don’t know what I’m putting in the 5 gal probably just guppy fry until I can sell them or maybe some shrimp and one or two rasboras. I’m going simple and hardy for the summer and in winter maybe I can get something a bit more special.

That would be the reason why you noticed a sudden drop in pH.

The natural process of the beneficial bacteria breaking down Ammonia into Nitrites and then Nitrates increases Hydrogen, which in turn influences the pH level of a tank. Ammonia is a compound of nitrogen and hydrogen with the formula NH3. So when Beneficial Bacteria "eats" up the Nitrogen (N), what are you left with? 3 molecules of Hydrogen (H3). And the more Hydrogen you have in the water, the lower your pH. If you are lax in water changes, ph will drop due to this cycling process where Nitrogen is constantly being removed. Tap water is also high in pH, as it contains chemicals and minerals that are designed to keep pH high (alkaline pH avoids corrosion of pipes and teeth). Only Salty Shrimp GH/KH+ will raise pH. Salty Shrimp GH+ does not increase pH. Which one do you have? So if you used tap water and SS GH/KH+ for your water change it would increase pH a lot more than just using one or the other.

I am about to start shrimp cycling a 10 gallon tank and have a friend with some media. Should I wait for the media or start now?

My OEBTs seem 100% fearless. I'm moving them to a different tank and they were so easy to net because they don't actually run AWAY from the net, they swim up to it and try to explore it. They also like to attack me if I try to do anything inside their tank. Is this a general OEBT or tiger thing?

Yeah, I'm loaning him some media and a sponge filter, as well as some canister filter 'mulm'. Doing the same for my new 5 gal too. Plus it's a cheap way to do a Christmas prezzie ?

Hi all does anyone have a quick fix for an aquarium leak? I recently picked up a free 5 gal tank and filled it up ready to start cycling. I then noticed a tiny puddle leaking out from one of the corners. Anyone got any ideas on a quick fix? I have to wait a while to get silicone so that’s not an option and it doesn’t have to be a high pressure solution because the tank is small. Thanks

I use yoga mats, found it works similarly.

Thanks I’ll purchase some styrofoam for future.

That's very sensible to keep it simple to start off in the hobby! Hope the new tank turns up tomorrow and in good condition? My oldest tank is a 30L with neon tetras, ember tetras (had endlers for a while) and red cherry shrimps. Is crabby going to help you 'cycle' the tanks with bacteria from his tanks etc? Simon

Hey all, I measured the tank parameters yesterday for my 29 gal community, and I was shocked when my pH read around 6.2. I don’t use a buffering substrate, and don’t use RO or rainwater, just dechlorinated tap. I can’t see why it might have dropped so quickly. For reference, it usually measures 6.6-6.8, so it’s a decent drop. My tap is neutral. Any ideas on why this would happen? Also, will salty shrimp bring the ph up a bit? I will dose a little bit anyway, but I’m hoping it’ll help the ph. Thanks in advance folks! Crabby

It's not that mature yet, about to hit 6 months. Yeah, umm, I didn't do any for a little while about a month ago, but the last 3 weeks I've been doing a 50% every week before this happened. So not too sure if that correlates.

So the combo of tap water and SS GH/KH+ will help maintain a stable pH for your tank. But you need to be regular with the water changes. Nature is not stopping with the Nitrogen cycle, so neither can you. It's probably one of the causes. The added ammonia load from more fish, caused more ammonia. More ammonia was broken down by the beneficial bacteria, leaving more ... Hydrogen! And remember, more Hydrogen means lower pH. In very mature tanks, it's sometimes a good idea to add a buffer. Like shell grit. The lower the pH gets (acidic) the more carbonates are released from the shell grit thus buffering the pH higher. I would only recommend this for very mature filters/tanks.

Thanks for the chemistry lesson jayc! Really, really helpful and interesting. I thought the problem might be started from high ammonia, because I added 4 new fish to the tank this week. I use SS Gh/KH+.

To follow up, today I did a 45% water change, and dosed about 6 g of salty shrimp, and now the params are back to normal. pH 6.8, GH 4 and KH 2. I underestimated the effect of salty shrimp (won’t do that again), and may have slightly shocked the inhabitants, but they all seem fine.

Great thanks.

Yeah, I’ll give u the media in a couple days. Go ahead and start the cycle now. It’s just a bit of a headstart.

You can start now, and when you get the mature media, it will boost the cycle process.

Welcome!!

Awesome post guys, @LaxLogic, I have been trying to find confirmation on the blindness of the orange eye shrimp in literature. Have you perhaps come across any literature that can shed more light on this for us? The most information that I could come across was that the blindness might be due to the complete lack of rhodopsin in the eyes, but I could not find any literature confirming this a hundred percent that it would result in no vision. I have been doing a few movement experiments outside my tanks and at the moment it looks like they have very poor vision, but not zero vision. I do also question the ethics of this as and would appreciate any scholarly information on this. @waffle, I have a whole new respect about the fearlessness of these shrimp and would attribute that to their aggression factor. I had 4 adult tigers shipped to me from a very reputable breeder. One female was very large. When the package arrived, there were only 3 tigers left: they managed to eat a Whole adult shrimp in 2 days! My large tiger female is so aggressive that she beats my ottos over the head when they come near food that she fancies...I feed her meat once a week just in case she tried to eat my cherries..