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Howdy all ive been able to access any part of the forum. did the whole forum go private recently? currently keeping Caridina and have the bug bad. so expect to see more from me.

Hi team! Another (dumb) question.. I live about 3 hrs drive (south) from the Tropic of Capricorn. Temps in Bundaberg might get down to 5 degrees a couple of times a year. Do I need a heater for cherry shrimp, maybe a school of celestial danios or chilli rasboras and a group of otoclinus catfish? I have read (seems like) heaps of horror stories of heaters getting stuck on and killing everything in people's tanks!! Also have gone to great effort to clean the look of the tank so it would have to be an in line external heater! 1) is it necessary? 2) is it safe and reliable? 3) will my wife kill me? (for the extra unbudgeted expense!!)

I'm in Melbourne, and I have to use heaters in my tanks. Never had any issues, but I find them necessary as the temperature in the house gets down to 15 degrees celsius at night, with ducted heating keeping it from going lower. I have tropical fish though, who can't handle temps lower than 19. You might get away without a heater in Bundaberg though, not sure. If you think it'll be fine without, then probably best to not use a heater if you can help it. In terms of a chiller, I made it through last summer without any problems, and didn't need a chiller. Had some 40+ days. So definitely not something you'll have to worry about for a while. Hope that helps. Crabby?

Those white worms? Nematodes. These round worms probably hitched a ride in on plants, soil, or water from another tank. Mostly harmless. Fish will eat them up.

It will look nicer as well without a heater so if you can get by without one as JacC states there isn't much point taking any risks - I have had a couple stick on, one wipedout the caridina shrimp, the other wiped out neon tetras (not the ember tetras though bizarrely) but the red cherry shrimp were ok in that tank! As JayC also states you have a while to consider some form of cooler, but you also may not need one (so revisit that later down the line) if you have air conditioning in the house. As above my cherry shrimp survived water to 32 degrees so they are tough little critters. Simon

Welcome. The forum is mostly unlocked for viewing to everyone. But paying member have extra capabilities, that everyone should check out. It helps the keep the forum running.

Nice one! Thanks for that;)

It's such a minor part of my DIY mix, that you can completely leave it out. To be honest, it makes no difference if you are concerned about the copper. Copper is toxic to shrimp at about 0.4 ppm. I don't know what that translates to in %. I know Dave from Aquagreen, he is very knowledgeable when it comes to anything Aquarium. He is probably right. And 3% might not be enough to be harmful in that one product by itself. However, the issue is that chelated copper can be present in other things ... food, other ferts, dechlorinators, tap water, etc... and it all adds up. Avoid it if you can to give you a bigger buffer. Leave it out. You don't need to add a micronutrient mix if you are not completely happy with it. It can always be added later, when you find a product you are happy with. Besides, it is only needed in micro amounts, hence the name. You want to be more critical about the "Macro" ingredients, the ones that name up the bulk of the DIY mix. Unfortunately yes. I bought the calcium sulphate off Aquagreen many years ago, and I still can't use it, because its a pain to dissolve. I gave you a link to CaSO4 above from Keg King. Try that. You can replace CaSO4 with Calcium Carbonate if you want to make a mix for Neo Caridina. This will give you the equivalent of Salty Shrimp GH/KH+.

1) not for Shrimps, Celestial Pearl Danios and Chilli Rasboras, nor the Oto. They all like it at 22DegC, the Oto is okay at 22degC, but not colder than that. 2) How long is a piece of string? Nothing is safe. But you can add additional measures for more fail safe. Like add a Temp sensor power plug point. 3) I dunno. Hopefully not. We just concluded you don't need a heater. But can you maintain low 22-24 degC temps? Even in summer? We don't really need heaters in Australia for Shrimp, maybe if you live in Tassie and keep the shrimps outside. Our issue is keeping the little buggers cool enough in summer. Chillers are more expensive than heaters! But you got 6 months to work on that. ?

Thanks guys- Rocks are volcanic some sort of grey basalt or granite. I am soaking them for the next Week or so and changing water every other day so will do some testing. Blue dream cherry shrimp or fire/bloody mary is the current thinking on shrimp choice.