[Chris.]

I don't have my RCS yet, but they will soon be here from epicfish. I can't wait!

Here are a few pics of the 10gallon I just took. For now I only have my bully, Molly in there with several plants.

This is a "goldfish crackers" plant that I pulled from my yard, along with the cave that I made for the shrimp to hide in; at least until the plants fill in.

To the left of the cracker plant is another from my yard. In the back-center is another small plant from my yard that has leaves shaped like hearts. We'll see how these plants do submersed. Money wort plantlet on the edge of the front. E. Tennellus pink just above it and another piece of e. tenn. just above that algae wafer. (Apparently the molly doesn't like the wafers so much.) Java Fern is tied to the artificial rock.

And the Amazon sword with the bully taking a glamor shot.

Hopefully my shrimp will be here soon to give some more life to this tank! Gonna hook up a diy co2 reactor soon to encourage plant growth. Lighting is done by two 15W spiral CF bulbs rated at 6500K for 10 hours a day. Trying to keep the water temp around 80 degrees. Substrate is Flourite Black. I'm in the process of moving my 20 gallon tank from my girlfriend's house (the reason I set up the 10 g). Used about 6 gallons of water from the 20 gallon along with a filter I had running on a 5 gallon to get it cycled quicker. Everything is stable. I also used the substrate from the 5 gallon, so that had plenty of bacteria in it for the new tank. I will eventually set the 5 back up as an isolation/hospital tank. Let me know what ya think! I'll be updating this thread as my tank changes! Hopefully within a couple days there will be 6 amano shrimp and 20 RCS in there!

 

[Chris.]

the molly may go back into my 20 gallon but a couple of my guppies will have to go in the 10g if he does. You think he will snack on the shrimp? I've never seen him be aggressive towards anything but that one guppy. What plants would you recommend for the tank? I can get some java moss relatively easy, and there is a tiny bit of singapore moss in there...hoping it grows a lot soon.

 

[Chris.]

Well, thanks to your advice I took some more echinodorus tenellus and some moneywort from my 20g and put it in here. Also removed the terrestrial plants. I also just purchased some e. vesuvius and Najas sp 'Roraima'. Really hoping the najas grows quickly. I just fed them in these new pics. I'll take more pics when the grass grows.

 

[Chris.]

Is it okay to use some aquarium salt in a tank with shrimp and snails in it? My nitrites were a little high yesterday so I did a 25% water change and put 1 Tbsp salt in there...should I do a 50% now to get most of that salt out?

 

[Chris.]

How do you tell exoskeletons from dead shrimp??? Just found like 5 clearish shrimp. a couple of them were torn in half so I'm assuming those were just from molting of a couple. Is there a definite way to tell if one is dead or if it is just old "skin"? All of them were in the little shrimp cave I made for them to hide in.

 

[Chris.]

Thank you. Yea i'm used to finding dead ghost shrimp. these are the first rcs I've ever had. When they die, do the bodies turn pinkish like ghost shrimp?

I'm getting some good growth from my money wort and the e. tenellus. Some of the leaves are even turning red on them.

 

[Chris.]

I stopped adding salt and even cut the back of the filter to remove the carbon from the filter media since I did a little reasearch and stumbled onto a bit of info that carbon removes the nutrients your plants need to thrive. They have been doing a little bit better since then as well.

 

[Chris.]

thank you, I just wish I had a good way to clean the algae off of it. Using a coarse pad just leaves blue stuff all over it. I see guppies peck at it a lot though. Mainly the juvenile ones. This tank is still a WIP. I just got my 20 gallon moved in from my girlfriends house and rescaped it. Waiting for the parameters to stabilize again so I can put my fish back in it. They are ALL in this 10 gallon right now. Talk about crowded!

 

[Chris.]

thats an idea, I may try. The tank looks a little different now. Not ready for full pics of it though. Here are a couple pics of the shrimp. Their color has really come in!

 

[Chris.]

the algae is almost completely off of the multi colored rock now. I guess shrimp, an IMS, a two otos did some work on it! Plus a little excel dosing. lol

 

[Chris.]

here's a little update on the shrimp tank. Water finally cleared up and I put a toms rapid filter on there in conjunction with the other hob to keep the ground clean. Also got my pressurized CO2 up and running for both tanks!!! I'm stoked about that!

here is a crappy macro of my berried rcs

apparently my neons don't like bloodworms anymore but the rcs are taking to them!

And my co2 setup. Using an industrial single stage regulator, that I modified to work with paintball. The blue manifold is an old vaccum manifold I had from when I turbocharged my honda. It came in handy when I need to go down a size in hose from the regulator to the gang valves.

 

[Chris.]

so, I was looking in my shrimp tank today and I notice this LITTLE guy. He must be a neon tetra fry. He's in a tank with my shrimp, juvenile guppies, and neons. He's the only one I can find for now.

 

[Chris.]

I would say that too, but there has never been an adult guppy in this tank...Time will tell though. I've never seen a neon fry. I was hoping these guys would breed eventually. I only have one female in the bunch...lol

So my fabco needle valves came in yesterday. One of them screwed all the way down and now it wont adjust at all. the knob just turns, but doesn't open or close the valve. Are there any remedies for this before I contact aqua botanic?

 

[Chris.]

the Nv seems to have fixed itself...maybe cause I got it wet to check for leaks from the nipples?? the other one worked fine though after I did that. Oh well.

Now I have my paintball co2 tank split between my 20g and my 10g shrimp tank. No more leaks either after battling with it for about 3 tanks worth!

 

[Chris.]

small update: The e. tenellus is really starting to fill in since I got pressurized co2 on it. Here are a few of my reddest shrimp. Recently I had a berried(very red) and another very red shrimp die for no apparent reason. One of these three shrimp is berried now though. w00t!

And some of the new inhabitants.

 

[Chris.]

Okay, all of the guppies have been removed so I can take them to my LFS. I have no need for 15 female guppies that ll look alike, lol! They are constanly putting out fry! even after being isolated from the males. It's driving me crazy, lol.

Somehow 3 of my neons all died at the same time so I'm down to four of those guys. All other inhabitants seem fine and my water tested out fine as well. I discovered them during a water change yesterday, otherwise I would have never found them(hidden under leaves and stuff). Here are some new pics.

The tenellus is filling pretty quickly!

 

[Chris.]

oh and the black dot in front of the filter intake, is a baby Thiara Winteri on the glass. It's only about 1mm wide.

 

[Chris.]

Found a second baby snail yesterday also! I'm excited to see them breeding! the more the merrier(the less algae scrubbing I have to do), lol! Here is a pic of one of 3 amano shrimp in this tank.

 

[Chris.]

Heres a littel update. I came home after lights out, to plant some newly acquired ludwigia and a couple others into my 20g, and I put some of the Ariculata in the 10g as well. I used a clamp on light for lighting to do this so I wouldnt shock the fish or plants too much. Well, after looking around for a minute, I noticed a bunch of new TW snail babies! Also found my first 'litter' of RCS babies!! I'm very happy about that! I've been waiting for these guys to have babies for a few months now. Here is a pic of a berried rcs and one of the babies near by.

And something quite strange. I found a red worm poking around under the substrate! This is the best picture I could get of it. It looks just like a frozen blood worm, but it's alive! I think there is another on also, unless this thing is about an inch long...