Challenges for a New 2ft Tank

[meepokman]

Hi,

I have the following persistent challenges for a 2 month old 2ft tank:

1. Slight green water
2. Slight hair algae growth on the glass walls
3. Loose monte carlo leaves daily

I'm wondering if there's any suggestions to combat all the issues.



Tank specs:

• 2 ft tank
• Up-Aqua Pro Z lights (60cm) Photo period (6hrs + 2hrs)
• ADA Amazonia (powder)
• 0.5 bps CO2
• Air pump
• Sicce Whale 200 (700L/hr)
• Hailea 150a Chiller (1/10 HP)

Water Specs:

• 24 degree celcius
• NH3 - 0ppm
• NO2 - 0ppm
• NO3 - 5ppm
• GH - 5 dKH
• KH - 1 dKH

Fertilizing regime:

• 5ml of Excel daily (to try combat the hair algae and green water)
• 5ml of Trace twice weekly
• 5ml of NPK once weekly
• A few drops of iron weekly

Flora & Fauna:

• 10 golden yellow backs
• 9 CRS
• Monte Carlo carpet
• 2 bacopa mini

** I'm currently into day 1.5 of total black out. It seems that the thin hair algae has reduced but the water remains with a light green tinge.

I'm concerned that I keep seeing loose leaves at both the filter intake mesh and floating on the surface. It's like loosing hair everyday.


Any suggestions on the cause and how to combat them?
Are they related?

[Dscheng]

Seem like your MC is growing well. Green spot algae on the wall, you have to scrub it by using the razor blade for aquarium type. Then do a WC, keep dosing excel. Can try algaexit too. Oh yeah, add some Oto and nerite snail, they are very hardworking and effective. But your tank seem like ok to me, not a big issue on algae.

I saw your Co2 drop checker is blue colour? 0.5bps is not enough? Try 1bps, no problem for your shrimp, they can take it... well at least for mine haha.

[meepokman]

Yes, it blue because I've stopped my co2 because of the blackout. I presume I would end up gassing my livestock if my plants are not photosynthesizing. The light was switched on for the photo.

You don't find the water "green"?

The MC are growing well but I keep finding loose leaves

[skytan]

Haven't trade the razor blade thing before, will it be hard to handle and accidentally scratch the glass?

[Dscheng]

Haven't trade the razor blade thing before, will it be hard to handle and accidentally scratch the glass?

I am using Ista 3 in 1 maintenance scrubber. U see the picture A, it is a razor blade. Very effectively against spotted green algae. I tried it many time, no issue of scratching the fish tank. But your water tank must be glass, not acrylic plastic.

[Shadow]

the loose leaf is happen after or before you did blackout? It is normal if happen after or during black out.

[meepokman]

Loose leaf happens not during blackout.

[meepokman]

It happens even before blackout. What is it a sign of? Lack of light?

[Shadow]

could be just shedding emerge leaf.

[Urban Aquaria]

Doesn't look like green water from the photos, maybe you find that the tank water looks green because your glass got green algae film on it? Perhaps scoop out a cup of the tank water and compare its color with another cup of normal tap water, see if there is really a noticeable difference in color.

Yeah, manually using an algae scraper to scrape away algae on glass is a regular maintenance routine for everyone. All tanks will have algae on glass, the difference between setups is how quickly it forms up, if you only need to scrap it every few weeks, then normal, but if its every few days then you have to look into any tank imbalance issues.

[Urban Aquaria]

I'm concerned that I keep seeing loose leaves at both the filter intake mesh and floating on the surface. It's like loosing hair everyday.

All plants will shed older leaves as they grow... part of the reason why you constantly see it on the intake is because you are using a fine mesh intake guard, the mesh is fine enough to prevent shrimplets from entering, but it also doesn't allow the leaves to be sucked into the filter too (which the intake is supposed to do), so they basically just clog up the guard.

Thats one of the reasons why i don't use intake guards anymore, much neater. I just let the shrimplets swim into the intake and live in the canister filter for a while (they are safer and grow faster in there anyways, ample food + no predators). During every filter maintenance, i just scoop out the whole lot of grown up shrimps and return them back to the tank.

[Dscheng]

The pro has spoken !

[ZIr]

All plants will shed older leaves as they grow... part of the reason why you constantly see it on the intake is because you are using a fine mesh intake guard, the mesh is fine enough to prevent shrimplets from entering, but it also doesn't allow the leaves to be sucked into the filter too (which the intake is supposed to do), so they basically just clog up the guard.

Thats one of the reasons why i don't use intake guards anymore, much neater. I just let the shrimplets swim into the intake and live in the canister filter for a while (they are safer and grow faster in there anyways, ample food + no predators). During every filter maintenance, i just scoop out the whole lot of grown up shrimps and return them back to the tank.

Wow I learn something new everyday..serious the shrimps grow in your canister filter? What type of shrimps?

Anyway my initial experience with monte carlo is similar.. they sheds leaves quite constantly. After first trim, you get even bigger shock, they shed leaves worse than a Persian cat sheds their fur all over the house and they whole carpet looks like <expletive>. About a month later beautiful 1 inch carpet again but leaves still shedding. In the end I tore whole carpet up and followed what UA did for Tropica 1.2.3 mini hairgrass.

[shaohao85]

Good thread, am doing up a 2 ft crs tank too. Now am considering maybe not to use monte carlo carpet for the foreground if they keep dropping leaves.
i will be using lily pipes and glass inlet instead, can shrimplets get suck in?

Do you measure your Co2 in tank? Will excessive Co2 affect the shrimp's health?

[Urban Aquaria]

Wow I learn something new everyday..serious the shrimps grow in your canister filter? What type of shrimps?

I keep a mix of RCS, CRS, malayan and also sulawesi shrimps in my various tanks. Will always see their shrimplets living in the canister filter.

Only thing to make sure of is that there is a well-fitted fine white filter wool pad as the last filtration layer, that will create a safety barrier for the shrimps living in the canister filter.

In canister filters that i've not cleaned for many months, i sometimes even find berried shrimps in there... those are the ones that entered as shrimplets, grew up and then started reproducing in the canister filter too.

i will be using lily pipes and glass inlet instead, can shrimplets get suck in?

As long as the intake pipe slots are 1mm or larger, shrimplets that swim near will get sucked in.

The key to minimize it is to choose glass intake pipes with the thinnest intake slots (ie. many thin intake slots, rather than few but larger intake slots), that will ensure that only newborn shrimplets get sucked in, not juvenile shrimps... otherwise you may find most of your shrimp population living inside the canister filter instead.

[meepokman]

Dear all,

my tank has been progressing well. However, I noticed a few issues
(1) my golden back shrimps are not getting pregnant as frequent,
(2) the juvenile golden back shrimps are growing at a very much slower rate than the same aged CRS,
(3) higher casualty rate for my golden back shrimps.

I've noticed these for a few months and didn't take it seriously as the tank was designed for ideal CRS perimeter.
Last weekend, my hands itchy and went to test the water perimeters:

Water Specs:

• 25 degree celcius
• NH3 - 0ppm
• NO2 - 0ppm
• NO3 - 2ppm
• GH - 7 dKH
• KH - 0 dKH
• PH < 6.4
• TDS - 180

I was shocked that the pH was so low and KH was almost non-existent.

What can I do to raise pH & KH without raising TDS too much?
Adding Sodium Bicarbonate? Crushed coral?


Tank specs:

• 2 ft tank
• Up-Aqua Pro Z lights (60cm) Photo period (6hrs)
• ADA Amazonia (powder)
• 1.0 bps CO2
• Sicce Whale 200 (700L/hr)
• Hailea 150a Chiller (1/10 HP)

Fertilizing regime:

• 5ml of Trace weekly
• 5ml of NPK once weekly
• A few drops of iron weekly

Flora & Fauna:

• 6 + 4 golden yellow backs
• 6 + 8 CRS
• Monte Carlo carpet
• Hairgrass
• Bacopa mini

[Dscheng]

http://www.discobee.com/blogs/news/1...ter-parameters

You can see the above link for idea water parameter for difference shrimp, your water parameter look pretty good to me. Except your GH is 7, best is to go below 6. But it doesn't really matter, since your reading is 7 and almost there. I see your PH reading is good too, in fact exotic shrimp like acidic water.

As for the casualty for juvenile golden back shrimps, it really depend on luck and your stability of your water parameter. Try not to WC too much, usually juvenile shrimp are very very sensitive to the parameter changes. Increase your adult shrimp and your chances to breed shrimp is higher. Good luck to you.

[Urban Aquaria]

KH of 0 and lower pH is normal for tanks with ADA Amazonia aquasoil, the soil itself is buffering the KH and pH. As your tank matures, the accumulation of organic waste and bacterial activity also contribute to further lowering pH too. The pH results also depend on what time you test it, if its during Co2 injection or at night then the pH will naturally be lower too.

For such tank setups, its best not to add stuff to try and raise KH and pH, whats more important is stable parameters. Your livestock would have already been acclimated to those conditions over time so don't do any sudden changes to it.

As for your yellow/golden back shrimps, it could be the ratio of male to females happen to be lower for their group (hence the breeding rate is lower), or some of them are older so you tend to see more deaths amongst the group. I guess in a tank with such small populations of shrimps, the overall rate of population growth tends to be slower too. If you had 50-60 shrimps in the tank at the start, the population growth would be much faster.

Thats being said, lower temps generally slow down breeding and growth in most livestock, that probably affects the yellow golden shrimps abit more as they are neocaridinia (since they don't necessarily require such cooler temps)... on the otherhand, the CRS could be doing better due to the colder temperature being optimal for them, so that might explain the difference.

[meepokman]

Thanks for the responses.

Yes, I suspect the lower temp and lower pH is slowing down the neocaridinia growth. I may consider getting them out to a non-chilled tank.

I've a question about CRS, but don't want to start another thread.

I've have Mosura and SSS grade CRS in my tank. The off springs from these 1st gen shrimps are varied - from S to SS.
I also have several all white CRS which I suspect is Golden CRS.

If I want to work towards breeding SSS or Mosura, should I keep the golden CRS in the same tank or isolate them?

[bettarism]

6 hours of lights enough for your plants? I'm running on 8 hours and there are lots of hair alage, staghorn and BBA.
Have tested my water parameters and here's the result:

Temperature: 26
PH: 6
NItrite: 0
Nitrate: 20ppm
Co2: 1bps