plan to setup first full shrimp tank

[FishMad]

Hello! I am planning to set up a full shrimp tank to keep CRS (grade A and up) and would like to get some opinions on my planned set up, so please feel free to comment! (:

Tank: boyu MT 50 nano aquarium (82 litres)

Lighting: 2× beamswork led 200

Filtration: pre filter (eheim mech), Eheim pro 3 350 (eheim pro substrate, volcanic rocks, fine filtration sponge, purigen), UV steriliser (11W), artica chiller 1/10

Soil: Gex shimp and plant soil (red pack)

Rocks: seiryu stones, kurokinryu stones

Plants: mini haigrass, flame moss, taiwan moss, xmas moss (all the moss tied to mesh and laid on top of soil) marimo balls.

Equipment: boyu temp and ph monitor, tds meter, need to have gh and kh test kit??

Shimp products: borneo wild bee ball or benbachi ball, mosura- tonic pro, bt9, mineral plus, ph down, tds up, borneo wild- barley straw
Please advise me more on what shrimp products to get! Its my fist time doing up a crs tank, please help! Thanks!

[xuan87]

Your total equipment and products are a bit of an overkill. Some comments:

You can get the gh and kh test kits or not, it's up to you. CRS have been proven to thrive in a wide range of gh and kh, the most important thing is to make sure that THEY DON'T FLUCTUATE.

Get a nitrate test kit. That is the only test kit I use regularly to determine when to do water change.

Shrimp products: I probably won't get the wild bee ball or benbachi ball, they seem expensive to me with little effect. I won't get the ph down, tds up until I need it. I got brandless barley straw before and in the end I decided not to use it as it's super messy. What do you hope to achieve with the barley straw? No comment on the tonic pro, bt9 or mineral plus. You can make do with or without it.

I will recommend two more products: Mosura old sea mud, for you to lay down under your soil so that it can slowly release minerals into the water. I also used borneowild's bactercrystal but since your tank is lightly planted, you can skip this.

Foodwise, just make sure you have a food that has high veggie content, one that has high protein content, and a supplement that provides nutrients like calcium.

[Arron]

Hi I'm wondering, how do we get nitrate level of 0 or even close to 0? Our tap water already has ard 10ppm of nitrate. I tested twice to be sure

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[xuan87]

Hi I'm wondering, how do we get nitrate level of 0 or even close to 0? Our tap water already has ard 10ppm of nitrate. I tested twice to be sure

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Easiest way is with plants. You can either plant them in your tanks (or have the floating kind) or in your aging water container. While your water ages, your floating plants remove the nitrate! Most effective way is to have an algae scrubber but that takes more work.

Anyway 10 ppm of nitrate is ok. Optimal is under 40ppm, but I can still get berried shrimps at 40-50ppm. It's only if you kan chiong and do frequent water change to try to bring down nitrate levels that you'll see your berried shrimps lose eggs and shrimps dying.

If nothing is wrong, don't fix it.

[ZacNg]

Hi, from what I read online, it seems that the seiryu stones will increase GH of the water so you might want to take note of that. People have tried vinegar test or you could just swap it with another stone.

[FabianLee]

I would only recommend getting the necessary test kits to make sure your water perimeters are fine or cycled, as stated you are looking for anything A and above. Purpose is to make sure it is good to go to put those cute little expensive reddish white things in.

Your setup is near similar to mine, i don't have much problem with mine, u should be good to go .

As for nitrates plants do help, but if it is really really high, the best way is to do water change, like what xuan87 said "kan chiong" always leads to death, frequent large amount of water change will not benefit your livestock as perimeters might or will change and those sensitive little things really hates it.

[Pobbi]

frogbits are great to destroy nitrates!