Greenfinger2
Member
Hi Aquatoon, Awesome video
Congratulations on the baby shrimp 
Congratulations on the baby shrimp 
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Aquatoon
- Thread starter X3NiTH
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Lindy
Member
Fantastic video!
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X3NiTH
Member
- Joined
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Thanks everyone!
It's a pity that I found this shrimp floating in the fissidens minus legs this evening, with a few mostly blue eggs still in her swimmerets, I fished the eggs out with some tweezers and had a closer look, couldn't see any movement so they don't look viable. I put them back in the tank loose just in case (not set up to get the filtration they need on them properly to ensure survival, but I know this can be done as my father did this successfully with Lobster Eggs about 30 years ago which is magnitude harder to achieve as they are competitively cannibalistic straight out the egg).
No idea what happened other than I fed some powdered Biozyme before lights out and come this morning the sponge filter had clogged. It's a pain, I feed powdered food to prevent polluting the water and it clogs the filter, causing a bloom by morning polluting the water, if I try and feed solid Ebi Dama it gets ignored, they love eating nymphaea aquatica bananas but that would get expensive. It's a fine line between starvation and pollution once the population gets big enough in physical stature they can devour things very quickly, but they're damned fussy at doing it.
Breeding becomes very fraught when the tank is like this, I lost the last of Moyas hybrid females the other day (all the others were wiped out when I changed over the substrate in the Anubia walled tank, that's now got the Emperor Tetras in it and a few remaining crystals that frustratingly showed eggs the day after I put the Emperors in to attempt to get them breeding away from the greedy glowlight tetras, pH in that tank is down at 4.5), she was much smaller than the others but a beautiful toritishell colour with iridescent pink spots on her carapace an absolute beauty, she must have matured as I had noticed eggs through a split over her saddle so I knew she was due to moult, when she did it was an utter frenzy she must have been overwhelmed to exhaustion and some opportunistic shrimp decided on having a meal instead of breeding, found her under the catappa bark, I was so gutted I stamped my feet in frustration.
Moya and Geronimos gene line is still going although being interbred (which may go some way to explain deaths if they have weakened immune systems), a month or so ago 5 females all matured at the same time (5 months from birth to maturity), all had viable eggs but not seeing large numbers of young though, I missed those hatching as I was away on holiday, I'm hoping they're all hiding. Learning lots, though at times the frustrations of losing shrimp really gets me down. There's still Ostracods and Cyclopia swimming about the tank in decent numbers so the water quality should be okay with regards to pathogens, managing to keep the TDS around 180 and the pH in this tank is around 6.5 (there's some Fluval shrimp substrate in there which doesn't freak out when you use RO with it unlike the JBL stuff), I never see Planaria on the glass but I can't discount them not being there although there are plenty of other worms feeding in the substrate that appear to have the mouthparts for a non-carnivorous diet, tiny leeches on the other hand I do see coiling themselves through the water column.
Growing shrimp populations just means more excreta into the substrate (and into the sponge filter) so the substrate population just gets larger, careful siphoning from under the substrate helps to alleviate this somewhat but I can only do this in the non planted black sand section, so I think I'm going to try fabricate some form of Plenum that I can clean of debris next time I redo the tank, not sure I'll filter it this way I just need to be able to clear it more easily, obviously a much bigger tank than 10L would reduce a lot of issues but I just don't have the space for it.
Just gotta keep on keeping on!
It's a pity that I found this shrimp floating in the fissidens minus legs this evening, with a few mostly blue eggs still in her swimmerets, I fished the eggs out with some tweezers and had a closer look, couldn't see any movement so they don't look viable. I put them back in the tank loose just in case (not set up to get the filtration they need on them properly to ensure survival, but I know this can be done as my father did this successfully with Lobster Eggs about 30 years ago which is magnitude harder to achieve as they are competitively cannibalistic straight out the egg).
No idea what happened other than I fed some powdered Biozyme before lights out and come this morning the sponge filter had clogged. It's a pain, I feed powdered food to prevent polluting the water and it clogs the filter, causing a bloom by morning polluting the water, if I try and feed solid Ebi Dama it gets ignored, they love eating nymphaea aquatica bananas but that would get expensive. It's a fine line between starvation and pollution once the population gets big enough in physical stature they can devour things very quickly, but they're damned fussy at doing it.
Breeding becomes very fraught when the tank is like this, I lost the last of Moyas hybrid females the other day (all the others were wiped out when I changed over the substrate in the Anubia walled tank, that's now got the Emperor Tetras in it and a few remaining crystals that frustratingly showed eggs the day after I put the Emperors in to attempt to get them breeding away from the greedy glowlight tetras, pH in that tank is down at 4.5), she was much smaller than the others but a beautiful toritishell colour with iridescent pink spots on her carapace an absolute beauty, she must have matured as I had noticed eggs through a split over her saddle so I knew she was due to moult, when she did it was an utter frenzy she must have been overwhelmed to exhaustion and some opportunistic shrimp decided on having a meal instead of breeding, found her under the catappa bark, I was so gutted I stamped my feet in frustration.
Moya and Geronimos gene line is still going although being interbred (which may go some way to explain deaths if they have weakened immune systems), a month or so ago 5 females all matured at the same time (5 months from birth to maturity), all had viable eggs but not seeing large numbers of young though, I missed those hatching as I was away on holiday, I'm hoping they're all hiding. Learning lots, though at times the frustrations of losing shrimp really gets me down. There's still Ostracods and Cyclopia swimming about the tank in decent numbers so the water quality should be okay with regards to pathogens, managing to keep the TDS around 180 and the pH in this tank is around 6.5 (there's some Fluval shrimp substrate in there which doesn't freak out when you use RO with it unlike the JBL stuff), I never see Planaria on the glass but I can't discount them not being there although there are plenty of other worms feeding in the substrate that appear to have the mouthparts for a non-carnivorous diet, tiny leeches on the other hand I do see coiling themselves through the water column.
Growing shrimp populations just means more excreta into the substrate (and into the sponge filter) so the substrate population just gets larger, careful siphoning from under the substrate helps to alleviate this somewhat but I can only do this in the non planted black sand section, so I think I'm going to try fabricate some form of Plenum that I can clean of debris next time I redo the tank, not sure I'll filter it this way I just need to be able to clear it more easily, obviously a much bigger tank than 10L would reduce a lot of issues but I just don't have the space for it.
Just gotta keep on keeping on!
Greenfinger2
Member
Hi Sorry to hear of the shrimp loss Please keep up this fantastic thread I for one am learning so much from your ups and downs. With you all the way
As you said Just gotta keep on going.
Please keep up this fantastic thread I for one am learning so much from your ups and downs. With you all the way As you said Just gotta keep on going.
Lindy
Member
You could try feeding a shrimp food called snowflake. It doesn't pollute the water and i aways have it in my tanks. I use feeding dishes now, some have an acrylic pipe to guide food into them or i use a bit of plumbers pipe to make sure the food goes in. It means that i can feed powdered food such as spirulina or genchem biomax baby food without it going all over the tank/ into the filter.
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X3NiTH
Member
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- 1,647
Thanks Greenfinger2, perpetual work in progress, as many ups as there is downs, getting better at it though!
I've done all these things you've mentioned Lindy but not with the greatest of success, I'll need to try the Snowflake though as it appears that it stays intact and doesn't appear to pollute from what I've read. I've tried loads of things but the shrimp are so busy grazing the entire tank that when food goes in they don't notice it to begin with and when they do they pass over it and go somewhere else and don't stop to eat (looking at you Ebi Dama) but then later I'll notice later one or two eating it, snails and cherry shrimp are on it like a shot but the crystals not really interested, eventually everything gets bored of the taste including the snails and if you leave it in too long it sprouts fungus, it looks intact but if you try and fish it out with tweezers it disintegrates, I know that you're only supposed to put this food in for only a few hours then remove but it wouldn't have enough visitors to consider it eaten, I would prefer to see an initial frenzy over the food when its first introduced, kind of like how successful Tescos Finest Pork Fillet was seconds after introducing it into the tank.
That's more like it, cant leave it in too long though or it will pollute, this single piece of food instigated maturation in all of Moyas first generation, the escapee from the Anubia walled tank on the shelf above was the first to berry.
The button mushroom goes down very well (Shitakes disintegrate faster), it's an excellent source of Chitin, again can't leave it in too long or it pollutes (just about everything does). A week or so after introducing this Chitin source (and a second sliver of fillet) all the first generation females were berried, six in total, four CBS, one CRS and the hybrid above, because these are hungry shrimp and I've been feeding them well they have grown very large, large enough to support a significant clutch of eggs.
Looks like there's still space at the back to fit a larger clutch! Although on thinking about this maybe larger clutches have more issues with egg viability with the crowding decreasing the mothers ability to successfully keep all the eggs clean and well aerated?
Courgette goes down well also but it disintegrates quickly once it's set upon and the outer skin goes (snails especially like it as do ostracods which is a good way to fish them out if you have too many), to stop the mushroom and the courgette floating I make up a shish kebab with a piece of each (courgette ends work better than slices) using a bamboo skewer that I then jam into a hole in the bogwood to keep it upright, this also makes it easier to fish them out when it's time, preferably before the courgette disintegrates, mushroom holds together longer.
Of the prepared foods Genchems White Pellet gets readily eaten by the crystals but it disintegrates very quickly to a powder once it's grazed upon and falls into the substrate feeding the fauna down there. This feed disintegration was the issue that caused me to have to swap out the substrate in the Anubia tank and precipitated me eventually losing all the Hybrids, yes all off them, totally gut wrenching, I rescued the king kongs but they died next day, combination of being weakened by a mildly polluted system and a substrate that was very aggressive in sucking the minerals out the carefully re-mineralised RO/DI water causing moulting issues (the ones that survive and breeding in the other tank had already been removed from the tank as I was conducting a photoshoot with them and they went into the other tank when I was finished). If I put the white pellet in a feeding dish the shrimp will be on it (won't stay there) and carry away a parcel out of the tray to somewhere else in the tank where it will still end up in the substrate but somewhere up the back of the tank amongst the plants where I can't get to without disturbing the substrate (there's Tropica Soil under a Fluval Shrimp Stratum cap which with all the grazing activity now sits above the cap and the slightest disturbance up there instantly clouds the tank).
The Powder food (Genchem Biozyme and Aminovita-P) is supposed to be dosed to the tank surface and allowed to settle around the tank except if I turn off the air to the sponge filter to prevent it swallowing it then there is no surface movement and the powder will form a surface film and resist sinking, I'd put it in a tray but then it just gets ignored (no idea why the shrimp don't like the tray, I bought it specially for them the ungrateful little blighters), if wetted first into a solution with tank water and introduced via a pipette works better but the sponge filter will still have some of it eventually (it's also probably sucking up some of the Tropica soil when it's disturbed helping to clog things more), I could say I should starve the shrimp a bit more so they have no choice but to eventually eat from the tray but they appear more willing to eat each other first and leave the snails to the tray, maybe it's the snails they hate and they can't handle the snail trail mucus once they're on the food, I've pondered that thought before, I'll ponder it further as I don't see definitive evidence for that.
From what I'm learning Crystal Shrimp like a varied diet (Cherries very much like the chum), fresh food especially, prepared food not so much once they're used to fresh (think they liked the Banana lotus too much as they devoured it in its entirety, bananas, stems runners and leaves, the whole shebang, not forgetting the one they had before they ate the last one). They will still bore of foods if you feed the same things over and over again, put something new in the tank and they're all over it initially, feed it again next time and it gets ignored (the shish kebab went this way if I fed it twice in a row). Shrimp also like to eat takeaway if they can, any morsel they can carry individually and they're off with it, even if there's plenty available (in a tray) they will still fight over the speck one shrimp managed to carry away, although I don't think they can hear me shouting at them to get their own piece, ah well I suppose it helps me though with dealing with frustration of it all.
I've done all these things you've mentioned Lindy but not with the greatest of success, I'll need to try the Snowflake though as it appears that it stays intact and doesn't appear to pollute from what I've read. I've tried loads of things but the shrimp are so busy grazing the entire tank that when food goes in they don't notice it to begin with and when they do they pass over it and go somewhere else and don't stop to eat (looking at you Ebi Dama) but then later I'll notice later one or two eating it, snails and cherry shrimp are on it like a shot but the crystals not really interested, eventually everything gets bored of the taste including the snails and if you leave it in too long it sprouts fungus, it looks intact but if you try and fish it out with tweezers it disintegrates, I know that you're only supposed to put this food in for only a few hours then remove but it wouldn't have enough visitors to consider it eaten, I would prefer to see an initial frenzy over the food when its first introduced, kind of like how successful Tescos Finest Pork Fillet was seconds after introducing it into the tank.
That's more like it, cant leave it in too long though or it will pollute, this single piece of food instigated maturation in all of Moyas first generation, the escapee from the Anubia walled tank on the shelf above was the first to berry.
The button mushroom goes down very well (Shitakes disintegrate faster), it's an excellent source of Chitin, again can't leave it in too long or it pollutes (just about everything does). A week or so after introducing this Chitin source (and a second sliver of fillet) all the first generation females were berried, six in total, four CBS, one CRS and the hybrid above, because these are hungry shrimp and I've been feeding them well they have grown very large, large enough to support a significant clutch of eggs.
Looks like there's still space at the back to fit a larger clutch! Although on thinking about this maybe larger clutches have more issues with egg viability with the crowding decreasing the mothers ability to successfully keep all the eggs clean and well aerated?
Courgette goes down well also but it disintegrates quickly once it's set upon and the outer skin goes (snails especially like it as do ostracods which is a good way to fish them out if you have too many), to stop the mushroom and the courgette floating I make up a shish kebab with a piece of each (courgette ends work better than slices) using a bamboo skewer that I then jam into a hole in the bogwood to keep it upright, this also makes it easier to fish them out when it's time, preferably before the courgette disintegrates, mushroom holds together longer.
Of the prepared foods Genchems White Pellet gets readily eaten by the crystals but it disintegrates very quickly to a powder once it's grazed upon and falls into the substrate feeding the fauna down there. This feed disintegration was the issue that caused me to have to swap out the substrate in the Anubia tank and precipitated me eventually losing all the Hybrids, yes all off them, totally gut wrenching, I rescued the king kongs but they died next day, combination of being weakened by a mildly polluted system and a substrate that was very aggressive in sucking the minerals out the carefully re-mineralised RO/DI water causing moulting issues (the ones that survive and breeding in the other tank had already been removed from the tank as I was conducting a photoshoot with them and they went into the other tank when I was finished). If I put the white pellet in a feeding dish the shrimp will be on it (won't stay there) and carry away a parcel out of the tray to somewhere else in the tank where it will still end up in the substrate but somewhere up the back of the tank amongst the plants where I can't get to without disturbing the substrate (there's Tropica Soil under a Fluval Shrimp Stratum cap which with all the grazing activity now sits above the cap and the slightest disturbance up there instantly clouds the tank).
The Powder food (Genchem Biozyme and Aminovita-P) is supposed to be dosed to the tank surface and allowed to settle around the tank except if I turn off the air to the sponge filter to prevent it swallowing it then there is no surface movement and the powder will form a surface film and resist sinking, I'd put it in a tray but then it just gets ignored (no idea why the shrimp don't like the tray, I bought it specially for them the ungrateful little blighters), if wetted first into a solution with tank water and introduced via a pipette works better but the sponge filter will still have some of it eventually (it's also probably sucking up some of the Tropica soil when it's disturbed helping to clog things more), I could say I should starve the shrimp a bit more so they have no choice but to eventually eat from the tray but they appear more willing to eat each other first and leave the snails to the tray, maybe it's the snails they hate and they can't handle the snail trail mucus once they're on the food, I've pondered that thought before, I'll ponder it further as I don't see definitive evidence for that.
From what I'm learning Crystal Shrimp like a varied diet (Cherries very much like the chum), fresh food especially, prepared food not so much once they're used to fresh (think they liked the Banana lotus too much as they devoured it in its entirety, bananas, stems runners and leaves, the whole shebang, not forgetting the one they had before they ate the last one). They will still bore of foods if you feed the same things over and over again, put something new in the tank and they're all over it initially, feed it again next time and it gets ignored (the shish kebab went this way if I fed it twice in a row). Shrimp also like to eat takeaway if they can, any morsel they can carry individually and they're off with it, even if there's plenty available (in a tray) they will still fight over the speck one shrimp managed to carry away, although I don't think they can hear me shouting at them to get their own piece, ah well I suppose it helps me though with dealing with frustration of it all.
Edvet
Member
Newbie question: did you try nettle leaves?
Lindy
Member
Snowflake doesn't pollute. It is always in my tanks. My shrimp will ignore all the other fancy foods that you've mentioned and others too, they always go to the snowflake.
Lindy
Member
I can't recommend the little acrylic feeding dishes highly enough. Stops food disappearing into the substrate and using the feeding tube i can use fine powder food such as spirulina or ZM fry food, which they love, without it going everywhere.
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X3NiTH
Member
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Yeah I've tried nettles a few times, first time it was devoured (blanched in hot water first), second time ignored (not blanched), every other time after this it's been a so so experience (blanched), mind you it has been a while since I last used it so might try put some in later on as there's currently a healthy supply growing in the garden, my main gripe with nettles is that they need to be weighted down or they float and also the tissues are very soft and they disintegrate very readily over a day or two usually before its all eaten and get spread around the tank (or sheds weight and floats to the surface), mind you this is probably the mildest form of pollution than say using and leaving in a protein based food.
I've tested quite few fresh foods on them, being Omnivorous its made me wonder if they go around looking to eat specific items to stock up on certain elements that may be lacking from a diet from a single food source, they get bored of stuff because it's lacking things they need, this is why I tried out using a button mushroom to supply them with a rich fresh source of Chitin that doesn't come from higher polluting sources that are also rich in protein such as brine shrimp, which was fed the other day and that appeared to go down well (very small amount), but if that doesn't get eaten it will pollute as they go everywhere around the tank, I wasn't counting on them being caught and eaten alive by the shrimp but once they had expired the carcass would be free to eat off the substrate, again why I fed a very small amount.
I'll need to get some and give it a go.
The feeding tray with attached tube looks ideal, I'm pretty sure I've said somewhere else on here that something like that would be handy, the glass feeding trays are on the heavy side (if using long handled tweezers from the edge to lift you only need to mess this up once and uneaten food ends up everywhere) so it makes it kind of difficult to get out the tank without putting your hand in, I modded mine with a pipe ring sucker pushed onto the feeding surface with a long cable tie attached around the ring so I an fish it out, though this reduces the available feeding area a little and doesn't look so good if left in the tank.
LfcFan1977
New Member
- Joined
- 1 Jan 2015
- Messages
- 17
What about attaching a syphon tube to the top of the feeding tube (or sliding it inside) to suck up anything that is left over? no need to remove the tray.
Also, instead of feeding one type of food, why not mix different things together? Make up a mix and store it in the fridge. When we eat out, we don't all order the same meal
Also, instead of feeding one type of food, why not mix different things together? Make up a mix and store it in the fridge. When we eat out, we don't all order the same meal
Greenfinger2
Member
Hi X3NiTH, Any Updates
Rob Dahl
Member
I have not been feeding my neon red rillis in my new 22 gal. long tank until the other day. Have seen some young, but not any fry. Will start feeding AZOO Max Breed once again and see if the population begins to increase.
X3NiTH
Member
- Joined
- 13 Apr 2014
- Messages
- 1,647
There's been lots of changes mostly in response to catastrophe, just had no enthusiasm to take pictures and share the progress. Watching a tank go from thriving to meltdown after rinsing and reusing the Fluval Stratum in the main tank was heart wrenching, the unipac substrate (supposed neutral) that went into replace it also shoved out KH until it reached 9, this was after me deciding to change routine to add some KH to bring it up to 4 (knowing that it depletes in a system that doesn't add any except at water change). The extra KH decision was to get more precise readings from the pH controller rather than just get used to it working in an imprecise range due to low conductivity, (climbing KH gives you no warning in the absence of fish when your drop checker is Yellow that CO₂ is through the roof and climbing in tandem with KH).
The stem plants and crypts just couldn't cope with the changing conditions, the buce didn't do much as they were in a state of decline anyway at this point (the tank gut was to concentrate on helping the Buce thrive). Any plants that survived this (apart from the Buce as they came from there to get a good cleaning from BBA build up, they were now glued to bogwood and immovable) went into the shrimp tank which was getting more light than the main tank after I turned the lights down (from 55% in 200% down to 20% of 200%, gone from using 35% and 20% on both emitters loops using ND1500 tile to one emitter loop and 20%) the light drop in the main tank came day before I tested KH and found it close to 12+.
Crypts rescued into the shrimp tank are thriving again (took a while to recover), S.Repens although recovered is in a state of suspended animation due to the low light, D.Diandra growing better than I saw it in the main tank under CO₂ and EI. The shrimp tank gets no added ferts, maybe a drop of trace once or twice a month, all other ferts are produced by the ever increasing amounts of cherry shrimp and ever decreasing numbers of CRS (no idea as to cause of loss of the entirety of my hybrid Crystals, I have 4 left in the tank and they are all CRS tiger toothed markings, all the CBS are gone, think it was an introduced pathogen that has wiped them out (started in the Anubia walled tank and continued once CBS offspring and CRS offspring were transferred to the other shrimp tank), got one Crystal breeding cycle in that tank then they just went one after the other, Rilli and Cherry shrimp continued to multiply healthily along with the snails, to where ive just added a Dwarf Puffer as I am sick of picking 50+ snails out a week. Thought there might be a water quality issue but the tank thrives with Cyclopia and Ostracods. Thought it may be a Planarian issue but turned out not to be the case, I have zero worms in the substrate after two healthy doses of Fenbendazole (I think I underdosed first time) Crystal deaths didn't abate, the 4 left I think are the strongest Genetically (one is an original offspring of my first brood, the other three were the last cycle bred in the shrimp tank, all hybrids wiped out. The tank is sponge filtered, water column wobbles more than it flows. Fissidens on the mesh in the shrimp tank is still growing but not at the rate it did when under CO₂. Anubias saved from walled tank have been free floated in the shrimp tank along with C.Balansae and a bunch of Lilaeopsis, the Alternanthera that was stem tops cut from my windowsill box grow in the shrimp tank, it's very reddy brown, nice growth still living.
Can't get anything to thrive in the main tank except for a couple of Motleyana Buce, some Java Fern and the Monoselenium that is growing on my Bogwood (quadrupled in size and then some, even emerged growth was taken and submerged and that's still thriving). Some Fissidens I chucked in there all shredded up and squished into the Bogwood is sprouting up in a few places.
The Buces are suffering (growing, melting, growing and meting again) and I don't know what to do to turn things around, it partly coincided with a 50% wipeout of the Anubias in the walled tank (partly due to declining light levels from emerged leaf growth), roots going brown and mushy, but they were already suffering decaying stems before they were transferred to the Anubia walled tank just before I did the main tank gut, it was around the same time I noticed a smattering of very tiny nematodes on the glass in a cluster, there was no substrate in this tank at that time due to me clearing out everything after the hybrids crystal shrimp were dying like flies, tried to rescue them by transferring remaining hybrids to other shrimp tank, they survived for one more round of breeding and then they just disappeared one by one. All the fish that were in the main tank ended up in the Walled tank before the main tank was gutted, the walled tank was repurposed to try and get the emperors to breed without the glow lights present, the male emperor just bullied the female to the point I thought she was not going to make it as he wouldn't let her feed when I added food, just chased her back behind the Anubias, putting the glowlights in there with the emperors just gave the male some other fish to play the territory game with. Catastrophic Anubia melt coincided with the extra bioload (there was a larger bio load in there when it was just shrimp).
All the fish ended up in the tank I was going to use for the Buddha mask I made which I noted in a post previously above and they remain there today.
Tank gut (done because BBA was getting out of hand), the Buces were placed into the shrimp tank, same parameters as the main tank, nearly, just no CO₂ and no EI, light much lower, needed a way for them to be picked clean, can't just go removing affected leaves or none will be left.
I had to kill the BBA with fire first before the shrimps would touch it, not really fire just a squirt of H₂O₂.
Here's the tank empty waiting for it to be rescaped.
Here's it all back in the tank, Buces glued to Bogwood, Fluval Stratum rinsed of fine silted debris.
Here's the shrimp tank and the main tank side by side shot to show apparent brightness after gut.
Replanted the S.Repens tops, Anubia on the left of the Bogwood not looking too good.
Here's a top down view.
Here's the extent of the Monoselenium attached to my Bogwood at the time the KH was climbing, Anubia looks sickly, the flowering Buces were bought from MA and I think are Motleyana variety, they look pretty now but will be a different story in a week or two.
The Dropchecker was this colour.
This is the last pic of the tank taken as the lights were on the ramp down so it's really high ISO and very noisy, quite happy they way the look of the Buce Rescue tank turned out, shame it all went to s***.
Here's what the Anubia walled tank looked like, with the fish in it, would have just been the Emperors but as I said the Male couldn't handle being in a relationship and hassled the female near to death (her fins were bitten ragged). Looks nice but the tips of the lower leaves are browning (not really seen in pic), despite me giving ferts, the lower leaves and roots (in the lower shaded portions of the tank) are about to go full blown Autumnal.
This is what the growth above the waterline looks like in this tank.
I constructed this to allow above waterline growth but keep the humidity up in the tank, see the liverwort growing up the side of the wall, this is the same plant as what is attached to my Bogwood in the main tank, except it's growing out of water. Gutter guard and cable ties do come in handy, the black walls are made of HobbyCraft FabFoam pieces, the black splodges on the corner stabilising brackets are Sugru to allow a grippy fit for some Perspex that sits on top keeping moisture in, there is a slight gap when it's on to allow some evaporation.
Group shot before calamity!
It's at this point I'm suspecting that things are not well with the tank, there are two dropcheckers in the tank, should have near yellow but it's not, it's green, this tells me I'm not getting enough CO₂ into the tank (haven't checked the KH yet, no reason to suspect it's anything but wonky CO₂ but really what's happening is that the KH is rising and my injection rate isn't keeping up).
You'll note that I've got a small atomiser in tank and I'm keeping an eye on the lower Dropchecker, you may also have noticed that my inlet configuration has changed from the O-Jet to having a spray bar stuck on the end, I've changed from using the pH controller to off gassing with air to controlling the CO₂ solenoid directly (before CO₂ was on for the whole injection period, solenoid only tripped twice in 24hrs, it's now working at an increased rate at one to two injection periods per hour).
So I went investigating in the cabinet and discover the Inline in this state!
You can see in the next pic that I've discovered the source of my issues and my attempt to rectify it.
Say goodbye to the Hyperactive substrate! Hello glass bottom!
You'll also note that the Anubia has completely removed itself from the Bogwood and has left the tank (I just sucked up the debris).
In the next pic, which is taken a while after suffering with a glass bottom and the Bucephalandras still not recovering (light is still down at 20% using only one emitter ring on the TMC 1500ND), I thought maybe too much light is being reflected around like a mirror box so I put in some Unipac Gravel mixed with some Dennerle black shrimp sand, read it was all supposed to be neutral but the Unipac isn't, I'll not find this out until later when I decide to do a water change after 8 weeks of reduced ferts (suspecting ferts doing in the Buce), there are signs of new growth after the leaves had stopped melting (haven't shown Buce melt yet because by the time it came after discovering the above issues I was well fed up)
This next picture is very recent, look at the devestation wrought on the Buce on the front Bogwood in comparison to after it had all been planted up. Java Fern looks great though, the Motleyana Buces are recovering enough that one decided to flower, the others just keeping putting out new growth only for it to melt.
Note the DIY surface skimmer in the background made out of PVC pipe and a Nano aquarium pump inverted and cable tied together with half a Marigold glove, looks like crap but it's working, I did this because surface scum was an issue changing from the lily outlet and 24/7 airstone to a spraybar, like not just a little problem but a really bad one, last thing you want with having KH and CO₂ climbing is for it to be trapped under a crust preventing it leaving and preventing O₂ coming in from the atmosphere).
Can you see the growth in the non-CO₂ non EI shrimp tank after 4 months, no algae in there (except one tiny tuft of BBA on the sponge filter except it's verdant green and not the usual black type I have everywhere else).
In this pic you can clearly see the Buces are suffering, the algae covered leaves cannot be removed as each plant has one of them and this keeps the plant going when the new growth melts, grows, melts, grows and melts again, the one on the left has just melted after recovering nicely for a while.
At this point I've changed out my ferts to all in one after discovering a dosing pump failure (or I forgot to turn it back on after suspecting nitrates were my Buce issues and then forgetting I had done so, depression will do that to a person). Anyway the Buce new growth all promptly melted the day after I put the Macro back on, the Micro was already running at a reduced dose (1/5 EI). Totally frustrating!
But look at the Monoselenium, look where it's at now!
The Motleyana recovered and flowered!
This is what a stem of Didiplis Diandra did when it was taken from the shrimp tank and put in the main tank to see what a soft stem would do in the main tank under the current conditions.
The above growth is after one week, in gravel at 1/5 EI and under a 1500ND tile set to 70% (one emitter set, which is still brighter than it's ever been). That's gravel growth, it's just erupted at the roots. What did it do up top?
Split in two is what it did and within one day, it's also going red which is what I've never been able to do before. It's staying green and single stemmed in the shrimp tank, see here behind Thomas the Tank Engine (he is just a little puffer after all!).
He's going to have to get fat on Cyclopia and Ostrocods before he can fit a snail in his gob, he's not interested in the eggs on the glass and he's about half the size of the largest shrimp in the tank so he better keep on his toes and not let them mug him! Shrimp fry are going to have to get good at hiding out in the mosses!
There you go, that's the update, probably forgot to mention loads of other things but so much has happened it's all a bit of a blur.
Enjoy the post!
The stem plants and crypts just couldn't cope with the changing conditions, the buce didn't do much as they were in a state of decline anyway at this point (the tank gut was to concentrate on helping the Buce thrive). Any plants that survived this (apart from the Buce as they came from there to get a good cleaning from BBA build up, they were now glued to bogwood and immovable) went into the shrimp tank which was getting more light than the main tank after I turned the lights down (from 55% in 200% down to 20% of 200%, gone from using 35% and 20% on both emitters loops using ND1500 tile to one emitter loop and 20%) the light drop in the main tank came day before I tested KH and found it close to 12+.
Crypts rescued into the shrimp tank are thriving again (took a while to recover), S.Repens although recovered is in a state of suspended animation due to the low light, D.Diandra growing better than I saw it in the main tank under CO₂ and EI. The shrimp tank gets no added ferts, maybe a drop of trace once or twice a month, all other ferts are produced by the ever increasing amounts of cherry shrimp and ever decreasing numbers of CRS (no idea as to cause of loss of the entirety of my hybrid Crystals, I have 4 left in the tank and they are all CRS tiger toothed markings, all the CBS are gone, think it was an introduced pathogen that has wiped them out (started in the Anubia walled tank and continued once CBS offspring and CRS offspring were transferred to the other shrimp tank), got one Crystal breeding cycle in that tank then they just went one after the other, Rilli and Cherry shrimp continued to multiply healthily along with the snails, to where ive just added a Dwarf Puffer as I am sick of picking 50+ snails out a week. Thought there might be a water quality issue but the tank thrives with Cyclopia and Ostracods. Thought it may be a Planarian issue but turned out not to be the case, I have zero worms in the substrate after two healthy doses of Fenbendazole (I think I underdosed first time) Crystal deaths didn't abate, the 4 left I think are the strongest Genetically (one is an original offspring of my first brood, the other three were the last cycle bred in the shrimp tank, all hybrids wiped out. The tank is sponge filtered, water column wobbles more than it flows. Fissidens on the mesh in the shrimp tank is still growing but not at the rate it did when under CO₂. Anubias saved from walled tank have been free floated in the shrimp tank along with C.Balansae and a bunch of Lilaeopsis, the Alternanthera that was stem tops cut from my windowsill box grow in the shrimp tank, it's very reddy brown, nice growth still living.
Can't get anything to thrive in the main tank except for a couple of Motleyana Buce, some Java Fern and the Monoselenium that is growing on my Bogwood (quadrupled in size and then some, even emerged growth was taken and submerged and that's still thriving). Some Fissidens I chucked in there all shredded up and squished into the Bogwood is sprouting up in a few places.
The Buces are suffering (growing, melting, growing and meting again) and I don't know what to do to turn things around, it partly coincided with a 50% wipeout of the Anubias in the walled tank (partly due to declining light levels from emerged leaf growth), roots going brown and mushy, but they were already suffering decaying stems before they were transferred to the Anubia walled tank just before I did the main tank gut, it was around the same time I noticed a smattering of very tiny nematodes on the glass in a cluster, there was no substrate in this tank at that time due to me clearing out everything after the hybrids crystal shrimp were dying like flies, tried to rescue them by transferring remaining hybrids to other shrimp tank, they survived for one more round of breeding and then they just disappeared one by one. All the fish that were in the main tank ended up in the Walled tank before the main tank was gutted, the walled tank was repurposed to try and get the emperors to breed without the glow lights present, the male emperor just bullied the female to the point I thought she was not going to make it as he wouldn't let her feed when I added food, just chased her back behind the Anubias, putting the glowlights in there with the emperors just gave the male some other fish to play the territory game with. Catastrophic Anubia melt coincided with the extra bioload (there was a larger bio load in there when it was just shrimp).
All the fish ended up in the tank I was going to use for the Buddha mask I made which I noted in a post previously above and they remain there today.
Tank gut (done because BBA was getting out of hand), the Buces were placed into the shrimp tank, same parameters as the main tank, nearly, just no CO₂ and no EI, light much lower, needed a way for them to be picked clean, can't just go removing affected leaves or none will be left.
I had to kill the BBA with fire first before the shrimps would touch it, not really fire just a squirt of H₂O₂.
Here's the tank empty waiting for it to be rescaped.
Here's it all back in the tank, Buces glued to Bogwood, Fluval Stratum rinsed of fine silted debris.
Here's the shrimp tank and the main tank side by side shot to show apparent brightness after gut.
Replanted the S.Repens tops, Anubia on the left of the Bogwood not looking too good.
Here's a top down view.
Here's the extent of the Monoselenium attached to my Bogwood at the time the KH was climbing, Anubia looks sickly, the flowering Buces were bought from MA and I think are Motleyana variety, they look pretty now but will be a different story in a week or two.
The Dropchecker was this colour.
This is the last pic of the tank taken as the lights were on the ramp down so it's really high ISO and very noisy, quite happy they way the look of the Buce Rescue tank turned out, shame it all went to s***.
Here's what the Anubia walled tank looked like, with the fish in it, would have just been the Emperors but as I said the Male couldn't handle being in a relationship and hassled the female near to death (her fins were bitten ragged). Looks nice but the tips of the lower leaves are browning (not really seen in pic), despite me giving ferts, the lower leaves and roots (in the lower shaded portions of the tank) are about to go full blown Autumnal.
This is what the growth above the waterline looks like in this tank.
I constructed this to allow above waterline growth but keep the humidity up in the tank, see the liverwort growing up the side of the wall, this is the same plant as what is attached to my Bogwood in the main tank, except it's growing out of water. Gutter guard and cable ties do come in handy, the black walls are made of HobbyCraft FabFoam pieces, the black splodges on the corner stabilising brackets are Sugru to allow a grippy fit for some Perspex that sits on top keeping moisture in, there is a slight gap when it's on to allow some evaporation.
Group shot before calamity!
It's at this point I'm suspecting that things are not well with the tank, there are two dropcheckers in the tank, should have near yellow but it's not, it's green, this tells me I'm not getting enough CO₂ into the tank (haven't checked the KH yet, no reason to suspect it's anything but wonky CO₂ but really what's happening is that the KH is rising and my injection rate isn't keeping up).
You'll note that I've got a small atomiser in tank and I'm keeping an eye on the lower Dropchecker, you may also have noticed that my inlet configuration has changed from the O-Jet to having a spray bar stuck on the end, I've changed from using the pH controller to off gassing with air to controlling the CO₂ solenoid directly (before CO₂ was on for the whole injection period, solenoid only tripped twice in 24hrs, it's now working at an increased rate at one to two injection periods per hour).
So I went investigating in the cabinet and discover the Inline in this state!
You can see in the next pic that I've discovered the source of my issues and my attempt to rectify it.
Say goodbye to the Hyperactive substrate! Hello glass bottom!
You'll also note that the Anubia has completely removed itself from the Bogwood and has left the tank (I just sucked up the debris).
In the next pic, which is taken a while after suffering with a glass bottom and the Bucephalandras still not recovering (light is still down at 20% using only one emitter ring on the TMC 1500ND), I thought maybe too much light is being reflected around like a mirror box so I put in some Unipac Gravel mixed with some Dennerle black shrimp sand, read it was all supposed to be neutral but the Unipac isn't, I'll not find this out until later when I decide to do a water change after 8 weeks of reduced ferts (suspecting ferts doing in the Buce), there are signs of new growth after the leaves had stopped melting (haven't shown Buce melt yet because by the time it came after discovering the above issues I was well fed up)
This next picture is very recent, look at the devestation wrought on the Buce on the front Bogwood in comparison to after it had all been planted up. Java Fern looks great though, the Motleyana Buces are recovering enough that one decided to flower, the others just keeping putting out new growth only for it to melt.
Note the DIY surface skimmer in the background made out of PVC pipe and a Nano aquarium pump inverted and cable tied together with half a Marigold glove, looks like crap but it's working, I did this because surface scum was an issue changing from the lily outlet and 24/7 airstone to a spraybar, like not just a little problem but a really bad one, last thing you want with having KH and CO₂ climbing is for it to be trapped under a crust preventing it leaving and preventing O₂ coming in from the atmosphere).
Can you see the growth in the non-CO₂ non EI shrimp tank after 4 months, no algae in there (except one tiny tuft of BBA on the sponge filter except it's verdant green and not the usual black type I have everywhere else).
In this pic you can clearly see the Buces are suffering, the algae covered leaves cannot be removed as each plant has one of them and this keeps the plant going when the new growth melts, grows, melts, grows and melts again, the one on the left has just melted after recovering nicely for a while.
At this point I've changed out my ferts to all in one after discovering a dosing pump failure (or I forgot to turn it back on after suspecting nitrates were my Buce issues and then forgetting I had done so, depression will do that to a person). Anyway the Buce new growth all promptly melted the day after I put the Macro back on, the Micro was already running at a reduced dose (1/5 EI). Totally frustrating!
But look at the Monoselenium, look where it's at now!
The Motleyana recovered and flowered!
This is what a stem of Didiplis Diandra did when it was taken from the shrimp tank and put in the main tank to see what a soft stem would do in the main tank under the current conditions.
The above growth is after one week, in gravel at 1/5 EI and under a 1500ND tile set to 70% (one emitter set, which is still brighter than it's ever been). That's gravel growth, it's just erupted at the roots. What did it do up top?
Split in two is what it did and within one day, it's also going red which is what I've never been able to do before. It's staying green and single stemmed in the shrimp tank, see here behind Thomas the Tank Engine (he is just a little puffer after all!).
He's going to have to get fat on Cyclopia and Ostrocods before he can fit a snail in his gob, he's not interested in the eggs on the glass and he's about half the size of the largest shrimp in the tank so he better keep on his toes and not let them mug him! Shrimp fry are going to have to get good at hiding out in the mosses!
There you go, that's the update, probably forgot to mention loads of other things but so much has happened it's all a bit of a blur.
Enjoy the post!
Rob Dahl
Member
What a thorough update and valuable contribution. Thanks so much. I am learning important lessons about what not to do which, many times, I consider even more important than what to do.
X3NiTH
Member
- Joined
- 13 Apr 2014
- Messages
- 1,647
hypnogogia
Member
Things always happen in the tanks when you sit down to eat a hot dinner!
What a superb video!
