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Shrimp Trio

Kalum

Member
Joined
8 Jan 2018
Messages
1,090
Location
Scotland
Since i'm going to be setting up a small shrimp only tank (RCS selective breeding) anyway, i thought i'd have a bit of fun with it and i've decided to get an Aqua One Trio Tank, it's only a 32L but it will allow me to alter small things in each of the 3 bays and see how the plants react. Plus i'll get to play about with different setups and see what the shrimp like best

Ferts will be EI salts and i'm in 2 minds about using a small daily dose of excel or not, no gas on this one though. Obviously as all 3 bays are linked and it has a very generous filter housing running the length of it then they will all share the same water parameters. The one variant will more than likely be flow between bays 1 and 3 but i've heard about a spray bar mod so that would solve that

Carpeting plants have been my nemesis so far with my main tank (MC & HC) but it's still early stages. Just out of curiosity I want to try the same carpeting plant in each of the 3 bays but with varying substrate. Just to see what affect there is and if it actually matter or not

Thoughts are:

Bay 1 - Sand only substrate with rock garden
Bay 2 - Sand only substrate with root tabs and driftwood
Bay 3 - ADA Aqua soil or similar with cholla wood

Will try a different moss in each as well

Any suggestions welcome
 
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Finally got an Aqua One trio tank courtesy of Aqua360 from here on Thursday night so it was set up and one bay temporarily planted so I could move all shrimp in to this tank from the small nano cube they were in, acclimated over the course of today and old water transfered to hopefully make it a bit easier on them, filter seeded with media from the smaller tank as well

Current bay will be set up properly and other bays set up over the coming weeks as I start to break down my current main tank.once this is done and my parameters are stable then I'll be introducing another 10-15 fire red cherries

Current parameters
Temp - 24deg
PH - 7.2
KH - 2
GH - 8 (bit high but had moulting issues with a few die off at 6 and they seem to have a bit better luck at 8 recently)
TDS - 152
Conductivity - 290
Ammonia - 0
Nitrite - 0
Nitrate - 0-5

20180217_215124-1008x756.jpg
 
Looks like an interesting project. Curious to see where you go with it.

Have you had to do any shrimp protection mods to the tank?
 
It will definitely evolve as I go and it's just a bit of fun and trying to learn about a few things along the way from my own experience rather than just reading about it

At present no, there's a dense blue filter pad behind the outflow on the back left which stops them escaping into the rear sump area but the holes between the bays are fairly big and smaller shrimp will be able to move between them at present, weirdly they don't seem to be venturing from the one bay though

For the selective breeding side of it I'll need to do something about that so will try to get some black plastic mesh of some sort to block it but still allow flow, stainless steel mesh is the more readily available option but it would look a bit garish
 
Looking good Kalum :) great idea project wise also, lots of flexibility with these tanks, should turn out really well, the massive filtration on these tanks is ridiculously good lol
 
Been looking for one of these myself, you have a link to where you bought it and for how much? I'd been keeping an eye on ebay / gumtree...
 
Bought it 2nd hand from one of the guys on here, they come up now and again but I was close to just buying new as you can pick them up for around £110
 
Wee update, planted out the other 2 bays at the end of last week and added 2 montmorillonite stones to help with moulting issues

Got another few cherries on Saturday so was up to 18 in total including 2 babies that were included by mistake. Shrimp seemed to settle in well after being drip acclimated over 4 hours

Have had mixed fortunes since Saturday, 1 dead Sunday, 1 dead Monday, 3 dead today. But I have also noticed I've got a berried female (definitely not berried when I got them).

TDS was sitting around 170 and 8 dGH when introduced on sat, today it had crept up to around 195 TDS and 9 dGH so changed 30% water to bring it back down and added 2g calcium sulphate dihydrate to bring it to 7 dGH

The berried female has thrown me a bit as I was gutted to find 3 dead when the rest seem really active, if anyone spots anything a bit off then let me know

PH is around 7.3, 0 ammonia and nitrite and nitrate was around 20ppm but now down to 10ppm after water change
 
Berried shrimp is acting pretty odd today, hyper and swimming round the outside of the tank in circles, all other shrimp are acting as normal

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Considering taking the 2 dividers out and resetting just one in the middle to make 2 larger bays :brb:
 
So..... 2 more shrimp deaths today

PH - 7.2
GH - 9 (can't seem to find a good balance as had deaths at everything between 4 and 9)
Ammonia - 0
Nitrite - 0
Nitrate - 10
TDS - 187

Did a water change 3 days ago so am reluctant to do another but might just do 10% to bring the GH down a bit as that' t only thing I can think is causing the deaths
 
So this is what happens when you're snowed in....

Dividers removed to help with flow for the short term as I think it was affecting water quality in each bay, not bothered about selective breeding and more about just keeping them alive the now, will replace with a more open single divider to make 2 bigger bays with better flow down the line

20180302_141757-1008x756.jpg
 
Hi
looking good mate.Maybe needs more time to mature.
It was wise to remove the deviders.I run a betta duo tank.Couldn't keep shrimp alive in it with the deviders in place.Every waterchange the substrate near the deviders were stirred and all sorts of much made its way into water column.Also too much waste buils up when devided.Try to fit a small spray bar for better circulation and mind the volumes of the waterchanges as in such small tank parameters shift drasticly if U not careful.
Great little tanks since removing the deviders no problem with it.
Regards Konsa
 
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Hi
looking good mate.Maybe needs more time to mature.
It was wise to remove the deviders.I run a betta duo tank.Couldn't keep shrimp alive in it with the deviders in place.Every waterchange the substrate near the deviders were stirred and all sorts of much made its way into water column.Also too much waste buils up when devided.Try to fit a small spray bar for better circulation and mind the volumes of the waterchanges as in such small tank parameters shift drasticly if U not careful.
Great little tanks since removing the deviders no problem with it.
Regards Konsa

Yeh more than likely, it was seeded with media from another tank but the tank itself is only 2 weeks old so is still bedding in and has went through a good few changes which won't be helping, will be left alone to mature now anyway

Yeh the first bay would be clean with the end bay being pretty dirty but I've had deaths in all 3 bays, great wee tank but divider and outlet design is a bit poor, plan is to put a DIY fine mesh divider in and like you say use a spray bar, also thinking about using a Superfish aqua flow 200 filter with no media instead of the standard pump

Glad yours has been doing much better since removing the dividers, gives me hope....
 
Hi
The pump in the tank is good enough imo. What else U can do is remove the provided pads with carbon and whatever balls they are and move the coarse sponge there while putting small fine filter floss pad(cut to size of the chamber over the sponge on the intake of the sump which will block shrimps getting in there and keep the muck out of the coarse sponges and buomedia if U have some.U just need to replace it weekly 1hour after waterchange when it picks all bits U stirred up in water column
This way the filter will not need touching foe ages (havent touched mine more than year and all is clean in it).
Will post U a pic when I have chance later
Regards Konsa
 
It's currently set up with a medium thin sponge over the inlet with a coarse sponge in the next chamber and then a bag of bio media in the next chamber (1 empty and heater then filter in the next 2), not much movement back there so def want to try something to have slow but steady movement through the sump
 
5 days and no shrimp deaths so fingers crossed and hope I don't speak too soon

Berried shrimp is getting big, looks like she's struggling to hold her weight up and is more lethargic and hiding half of the time but still constantly grazing
20180307_231600-756x1008.jpg
 
I'd advise not changing water too quickly, it can promote excess moulting and death that way. Patience also, it took my bloody mary shrimp a few months, but when I broke down my trio I must have pulled at least 50 shrimp out. I did one water change a week (50%) with no additives in terms of minerals, I did however add liquid ferts and tapsafe

final trio.jpg
 
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