HELP !!!! Amano shrimp eating plants

[O'Neil]

Quick update, I've Increased the lighting and started dosing early but in very small amounts, Co2 is at sitting at a nice lime green colour.

Will increase the frequency of water changes a bit and see how things go, it may recover so fingers crossed and I'll post updates in my journal.

 

[Ady34]

Hi there mate,
Maybe increasing the lighting isn't the best idea until the plant has settled. If it is failing and dropping leaves this is most likely a co2 issue which more light will just exaggerate. Id reduce the lighting back down and look at co2 and distribution.....maybe if you feel that flow is good to the plant, try tweaking co2 up a little and monitor the shrimp for any stress symptoms.
Do you mean increased the lighting intensity or lighting duration?...either way I'd wait for the plant to show good health before increasing either, but especially don't increase intensity
Cheerio,
Ady.

 

[O'Neil]

Hey Ady i've increased the lighting intensity as i'm not sure i had enough to begin with.
Ideally i want the absolute minimum light i can get away with.
I did however reduce the photoperiod from 6 hours to 5.5 hours, do you think this was a wise decision?
The co2 is also as high as i dare go, i will follow your advice tho and take another look at circulation, perhaps remove the spray bar.
Quite new to keeping shrimp tho, so not really sure what to look for, they seem happy tho.

 

[Ady34]

Hey Ady i've increased the lighting intensity as i'm not sure i had enough to begin with.
Ideally i want the absolute minimum light i can get away with.
I did however reduce the photoperiod from 6 hours to 5.5 hours, do you think this was a wise decision?
The co2 is also as high as i dare go, i will follow your advice tho and take another look at circulation, perhaps remove the spray bar.
Quite new to keeping shrimp tho, so not really sure what to look for, they seem happy tho.

Hi,
the spraybar solution is probably the best in all honesty. Im guessing its on the rear glass facing forwards to the front pane and is full length there or there abouts? From your journal i can see its a 1400lph filter, so even with a little loss it should be good for a 98l tank, and should provide unobstructed flow to the alterathera plant in the centre.
Lighting though, i think what your saying from looking between the journal and here is that you have doubled lighting from originally 24w to 48w currently? Is this t5 lighting with reflectors, height adjustable or fixed?
personally if you cant raise the lighting unit i would revert back to the 1x 24w with a reflector (if its a t5) if possible and keep the 6 hr photoperiod. if they are not t5 you could run the two without reflectors, or perhaps position the reflectors slightly on the underside of the bulbs to deflect light away and reduce lighting intensity slightly.
Its unlikely to be too little light, it could be transition, but until you see healthy growth i would aire on the side of caution with regards the lighting.....how are the rest of the plants doing?

with regards the shrimp, the first signs of stress will be to stop constantly feeding with their little claws, then they may begin swimming irratically around the tank and if its really bad change colour....anything unusual really.

 

[O'Neil]

The standard spray bar is 't quite long enough to span the full length of the tank, although that is what i was wanting to do at the start. I have it on the left hand side of the tank facing to the right and only very slightly pointing upwards to the surface to minimise gas exchange.

Thats right mate i have doubled the t5 lighting to 48w as the "medium difficulty" tropica plants are growing but have not gone crazy like the low light plants these have more than tripled in size over the last week. The T5s do have small reflectors that claim 20% more light and the height is fixed.

The shrimp are constantly feeding and their colouration is brighter than they were in store and i thought they were pretty good then.

I have had the drop checkers all over the tank at different heights on different days to ensure lime green in all areas and it's possible there may still be flat spots.

 

[O'Neil]

Followed Your advice Ady and reverted back to the single T5 and original photoperiod, will wait and see what happens.

I will also be paying attention to flow in the tank and think of ways to improve it, in the meantime I have started dosing easy carbo according to the bottle instructions and will keep on top of water changes.

I'll also be watching the shrimp more closely.

Thanks Ady