Starting a new Shrimp Tank

[AndyPeh]

Day 4
Salutations my fellow Shrimple,

Si. The shrimps have not been sacrificed to the cycling gods as of yet. They seem totally unperturbed that this tank is only 4 days old. Super rad.

Another quick post today. Itchy hands went out to get a Odyssea T5HO Double Tube Light for the tank and it was serious overkill.

Think for this 2 guinea pigs it was like a halogen searchlight shone up on them. only took 5 seconds for the SS grade cull to squeeze itself under the rock. Will see if this is something I need to make adjustments to when the plants and driftwood go in.




Airstone to promote aerobic bacteria growth


Flash Bang Incoming!

So with the lights problem I now had to look for some nice plants to tie on a driftwood as shade for the shrimps.

I went on a little gathering of plants and spent quite some time staring so long and asking so many questions that the guy probably thought - "Omg this guy is probably asking a lot of questions and not getting any."

Well in my defense I never thought plants could be so expensive.

This range of plants called Bucephalandras are mainly wild harvested from Indonesia and due to over harvesting are being stretched close to disappearing from the wild entirely. Include that they are considerable slow growers you should be expecting to pay somewhere around USD$15 - $150 for 1 stalk of them (Yes 1 stalk! Not a branch of 3 - That is bloody 3 stalks)






Anubias White above is sold at USD$100 up per Stalk

So not to waste someone's time I made a purchase of

4 Bucephalandras
Artemis
Brownie Ghost
Baby Green Skeleton king
Lamandau Purple
If you remember am a sucker for gimmicks and what not and after staring for very long because they were more or less the same to me I went with the ones with the coolest names. Nice!

2 Echinodorus
Rataj
Verde
Echinodorus are beautiful leafy green plants and I my budget had allowed I would have gotten some of the bigger ones like this.


Echinodorus spIguaza from Argentina ('09) - SGD$150 up / Stalk

Maybe sometime later when I am setting my next tank I would get them.


I paid about SGD100+ for my plants and I will tie them tomorrow on my Drift Wood and the Montmorillonite stones. Post more pictures then!

[cherabin]

Wouldn't LED light be a better option as they don't heat up the tank water that much? On another note, I'm genuinely envious of shrimp hobbyist who are able to maintain plants in a shrimp tank with no fertilizing involved. My humble sakura shrimp tank is still plagued with BBA since eons back. Even with practising a siesta period of 3 hours light on, 3 hours light off and lastly, 3 hours light back on, I'm still unable to reduce BBA to a more tolerable level. Can shrimp experts like you brother Andy able to shed some light (pun intended, he he) on how to prevent BBA in a shrimp tank? Many many thanks

[AndyPeh]

Wouldn't LED light be a better option as they don't heat up the tank water that much? On another note, I'm genuinely envious of shrimp hobbyist who are able to maintain plants in a shrimp tank with no fertilizing involved. My humble sakura shrimp tank is still plagued with BBA since eons back. Even with practising a siesta period of 3 hours light on, 3 hours light off and lastly, 3 hours light back on, I'm still unable to reduce BBA to a more tolerable level. Can shrimp experts like you brother Andy able to shed some light (pun intended, he he) on how to prevent BBA in a shrimp tank? Many many thanks

Hi Cherabin,

First up you are right as much I hate to admit it you are right. Dammit lol. I went out to get myself some nice 2 feet LEDs from a nice bro.
Shout out to Bro UA nice meeting you and catching up hope to meet you again sometime soon.

Next I think there is not much to envious about for me haha maybe am lucky it has not happen to me yet (touch wood) but from my personal learning and experiences is that algae happens due to excess nutrients or excess light so in your case BBA could have happened due to an imbalance. Now you have set the timer for the lights to turn on only on intermittent periods of 3 hours each I think you just have to feed the shrimps a little less and toss in a few floating plants to absorb some of the excess nutrients that you might have and hopefully the BBA goes away.

One thing I have learnt on keeping shrimp tanks is that less is more. The more you tamper with the tank the more trouble you're going to get. If the presence of BBA has not caused your Sakura population to decline or if the opposite is true and that they are breeding well then the more you should leave them be.

Hope more senior bros can shed some of that light that I clearly have no spark for lol.

Would love to learn how treatment is done for BBA in shrimp tanks too.

[AndyPeh]

Day 5
Howdy Ho Folks,

Yesterday I spoke briefly about my plants shopping. So today I spent the whole morning tying the plants to the Drift Wood and the Montmorillonite rocks, but before we get to that I took the pH of the tank earlier and it is now currently at -



Think this is a really good pH for my shrimp housing.

Ok back to the plants I spend an arduous 2 hours tying a pathetic few plants and Mini Pelia to the DW, guess am not that good with plants tying yet, also I should have just used black thread.
Fishing lines are much tougher to tie.

Anyways I am really happy with how it looked in the end.
If not I honestly cbf'ed about re-tying. Oops haha.

After the placement of the DW, Montmorillonite Rocks , I planted the 2 Echinodorus which are deep rooted plants into the soil.


Frontal Shot of the Centerpiece

I dosed the the tank with 1.5mg of SMB, 20ml of B-Source, 20ml of FM100, 1g of BN7 and 1g of MN5.
Then waited for another hour or so for the slight turbidity to clear and...

I introduced some Hinomaru and Mosura CRS into the tank!

Hahaha Hope they do not give up on life and go be with the proverbial cycling god.

Here are some nice pictures of them.





More pictures can be found on my blog.

I think my Double Tube T5HO lights are way too bright, and am not very bright for not just sticking to my 1.5 Feet LEDs. Ended up I went out to buy another 2 feet LED. Will post more on that tomorrow.

And granted if the shimpies are still grazing / swimming / frolicking about I would post more pics of them along with some water para tests too.

Mucho gracias for checking out my blog once again. Post soon!

[josephogk]

for the setup so far. Anyway, with such sophisticated setup, never consider keep PRL/PBL ?

[cherabin]

Haha you know honestly till this day I haven't been good with photobucket. Will try that though. I use dropbox cause can just drag and drop all pictures from the home desktop and have it instantly on the cloud.

On the FrozenDucks comment I think I really need to say this. Good man! But not girls right? hahaha Like what bro felix said I felt stupid telling my colleague about the blog thing now the rest of the girls are asking how are my hei bi's (dried shrimps). Although they like the colours. Showed them some pics of Taiwan Bees that I dream to be able to keep and they all say very pretty. Then one said shrimps are cockroaches of the water lol.

Hi Cherabin,

First up you are right as much I hate to admit it you are right. Dammit lol. I went out to get myself some nice 2 feet LEDs from a nice bro.
Shout out to Bro UA nice meeting you and catching up hope to meet you again sometime soon.

Next I think there is not much to envious about for me haha maybe am lucky it has not happen to me yet (touch wood) but from my personal learning and experiences is that algae happens due to excess nutrients or excess light so in your case BBA could have happened due to an imbalance. Now you have set the timer for the lights to turn on only on intermittent periods of 3 hours each I think you just have to feed the shrimps a little less and toss in a few floating plants to absorb some of the excess nutrients that you might have and hopefully the BBA goes away.

One thing I have learnt on keeping shrimp tanks is that less is more. The more you tamper with the tank the more trouble you're going to get. If the presence of BBA has not caused your Sakura population to decline or if the opposite is true and that they are breeding well then the more you should leave them be.

Hope more senior bros can shed some of that light that I clearly have no spark for lol.

Would love to learn how treatment is done for BBA in shrimp tanks too.

Well said indeed. The BBA is growing only on equipment, namely the undergravel filter air pipe. I guess I'll live with that for the time being.

[AndyPeh]

Well said indeed. The BBA is growing only on equipment, namely the undergravel filter air pipe. I guess I'll live with that for the time being.

Haha take a pic am curious to see how they are in the tank! But am sure you will be able to live with it because I have seen seriously bad ones with like a whole plant (side of the leaves) covered in BBA and the tank actually is thriving.

[AndyPeh]

for the setup so far. Anyway, with such sophisticated setup, never consider keep PRL/PBL ?

Hey Joseph thank you! Umm... Challenge accepted! Haha honestly I was thinking of letting this group run a full course of getting berried and breed.
Once the offsprings survive past the 2 weeks benchmark with not too many issues on mortality I think it will be due time I move forward with the true test.

Stay tuned for the brutally honest assessment of the products when that happens.

Still contemplating on PRLs/PBLs or Shadow/Taiwan Bees think will need some support from here on which to go for, because as much as I love the quality I don't think I can afford the High Grade PRLs like Senior Soon Hong's or Alvin Chan's that cost like $150 - $200 a piece much less the few k kind.

Hope I can work out the sums for a bulk buy soon.

[AndyPeh]

Hey All,

Busy day at work again today and had to attend a colleagues wedding dinner.

For all those that we waiting for today's update. It is always better late than never right?

Yesterday I spoke about giving some parameters so here was the recording I just did.

TDS - 153 ppm
PH - 5.5
Ammonia NH3 / NH4+ I would say it is around 0.1 ppm
Nitrate NO3 seem to have gone up a little. About 15ppm.
KH -1, GH - 4

Shrimps looks like they are doing very well. Fed them some Lowkeys food.


It's mine. It's mine.


Mosura Crown


Whatcha looking at.

Made some additions and adjustments to the tank. Purchased a new light that I mentioned yesterday and added a sponge filter. Really wanted the better sponge filters from Japan but couldn't find it so had to settle for the XY China copy first (on the bright side, it is black).



Please find the rest of the images on the blog. - Shrimplelife.blogspot.sg

Nights all. Adios.

[alvinchan80]

Nice and neat tank set up...

Hope to see those shrimps of yours give birth to nice shrimplets to flood your tank soon and you can take on your 'challenge'.. lol..

Happy Shrimping~~

[nicholasliao]

Operation Test Water (Day 2.5)
Hi Guys I thought I was damn smart with the tongue in cheek quote lol, that did not lasted very long unfortunately.
Showed it to my colleague and I explained how it was funny - She just rolled her eyes. Oh well not everyone has a funny bone.

Ok so am pretty sure many of you already could have guessed what I am up to.
But remember (quoting WWE here) - 'This is entertainment but the hazrards are real. Please do not try this at home.
Unless you do not mind sleeping shrimps with big X's on their eyes.

That being said... It is a fresh drop of 2 well trained Commando Shrimps into unknown waters early this morning!

I know its a little early to be introducing life stock so and as much as I value lives, in the name of science and being a jackass I decided to see how they would do.





The water actually cleared up when I released them in the tank but I added these.



Mineral rock that says it also absorb heavy metal in water, caused the water to turn a little cloudy but I think that would clear by the time I get home.

Alright thank god for dropbox that has made this post possible.

Andy out! Laters.

Hi Bro, where can i get the mineral rocks? been wanting to get some of those for a long time to replace my solid rock in my tank.

how much will it cost

[AndyPeh]

Hi Bro, where can i get the mineral rocks? been wanting to get some of those for a long time to replace my solid rock in my tank.

how much will it cost

Hey Bro Nic you can find contact Aquarist Chamber on their FB just drop them a message cause I bought mine during aquarama.

Price wise got to check with them as I purchased a whole lot of stuff then, but if am not wrong I paid $30 for a big enough pack for my 2ft tank (200g).

[nicholasliao]

Thanks bro, I already have them on FB. Will check with alvin!

[AndyPeh]

Day 7
Today I was looking at some blogs and I came across some stunning pictures.

It was a love at first sight. I will most likely be getting some Hinomaru / Mosura WRs and KKs and the standard Shadow Bees in the next month or so. I know they will prove to be a challenge to keep and I pray when they arrive the conditions would be perfect for them to procreate.


Credit Aaron Li - Crimson Taiwan Shrimps


Credit alvinchan80 - 蝦毒之家

These are beautiful specimens and hope soon I will be able to post pictures of my own shrimps of these quality.

Meanwhile in a tank closer to me...





More picture on my blog. - A Shrimple Life - http://shrimplelife.blogspot.sg/

Hope you liked the pictures. I think my photography still has much room for improvement, but will do my best with what I can on my iPhone 4 first.

Take care and have a good night!

[AndyPeh]

Thanks bro, I already have them on FB. Will check with alvin!

Hey no worries Nic!

[AndyPeh]

Hi All,

Hope everyone is well and good!
It has not been so well in the now not so sunny island of Singapore.
We have been smoked like mosquitoes with the dense haze that defiles our once fresh air, no thank you to the selfish and environmentally unconscious people in our neighboring region.

You need to stop whatever you are doing now and start taking ownership of this situation.

Good riddance to you when the wind changes.


If you stare hard enough you will see the Singapore Art Science Museum

Back to the tank.
In so far the little once look to be doing rather well. (Wish I had gills no really. Que aquaman jokes am still good being Him or Namor at this point.)





More at A Shrimple Life

Alright that is all for now. Stay healthy peeps.

Those in Sg, stay and work from home if you can.
Not that I need excuses to be home shrimp gazing but this is viable lol.

[nicholasliao]

wah bro. i work near you. mbfc as well. LOL. paiseh side track. HAHAHAHA.

anyway your plants are tied to rock or mud rock?

[AndyPeh]

wah bro. i work near you. mbfc as well. LOL. paiseh side track. HAHAHAHA.

anyway your plants are tied to rock or mud rock?

Hey Nic. Haha no worries I think your office is close to my Girlfriends. not mine she is at Barclays. You? Am at SPH so way far from where you're at.

As for the plants they are tied to Montmorillonite Rocks

[AndyPeh]

Day 14
Hi All,

Sorry I have gone MIA for a couple of days.
Been swarmed with work and had to work throughout the weekend for a project.

Speaking of a new project I made a tiny tank for my girlfriend with a few plants I previously tied and set aside. If you can spot there is actually a CBS cull inside test the waters - The sacrificial shrimp .

If anyone has any ideas on how I can keep this tank sustainable since evaporation would be very high please share it with me. Would likely be going to get a glass or acrylic top cover but most likely have to get some hardier shrimps to keep in this tank. Opae Ula maybe?



Ok back to the main event.

I did a water change on Day 10 and here are some pictures to just show the drop in Nitrate.


Right: Aged Water - Left: Tank Water

Managed to bring down the Nitrate to 10 ppm. (Sorry forgot to take the picture will show one when I do it tomorrow.)
TDS for aged water is 73 ppm and the tank hovers around 155 ppm

I am quite concerned with water change and in preparation I added FM100 a natural fulvic mineral supplement to the aged water and did a 10% water change.
Thereafter I added 2g of water improvement bacteria (SMB) and 10ml of natural enzyme which improves beneficial bacteria activity into the tank itself.

Some pictures of the happy shrimps munching on the Lowkeys food I dropped in.





More pictures can be found on my blog.


Spotted this little guy nesting in a hatchery net. This guys get everywhere.

Oh also I got myself a new plant!
Remember I posted sometime back on my Day 4?
I made an order for one! And my own Echinodorus spIguaza from Argentina ('09) is here with a friend!



Post more on this beautiful plant tomorrow.
Till then good night and sleep tight! Don't let the seed shrimps bite.

Cheerios.

[joshuatang]

Hey Andy, Kudos to your very informative thread.

Subscribed!


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