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We can't all be Aquaman, but we can try [Aquariums]
Leli
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Anyone else here into fishkeeping and/or aquascaping? I've been really enjoying it. I started with a 10gal, but because I ended up moving across the country, I sold it.
I have a new tank now, and it's a 29 gal. I recently let it grow too much, and essentially destroyed my tank trying to trim and pull it all out, but this is what it looked like before I neglected it.
I'm currently in the process of regrowth after trimming everything down to nothing.
I wanna see your tanks, and talk about liquid fertilizers.
I have a new tank now, and it's a 29 gal. I recently let it grow too much, and essentially destroyed my tank trying to trim and pull it all out, but this is what it looked like before I neglected it.
I'm currently in the process of regrowth after trimming everything down to nothing.
I wanna see your tanks, and talk about liquid fertilizers.
+2
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Probably related to whatever problem in there that killed all my shrimp, which I've given up on ever figuring out.
As for your shrimp, are they Neocaridina or caridina? Or something else? Neos are much easier to keep than caridina, IMO. Neos thrive in pretty much any circumstance, so if they all died off there's something definitely wrong with your parameters. Shrimp are particularly sensitive to copper, so did you dose with anything like Flourish Iron?
Medakas are cute! You could also do neon tetras, glowlight tetras, green neon tetras, chili rasboras, ember tetras, pygmy corydoras.... hmm there are a lot more that can go in a 10!
Uh....huh I totally missed that this is just CO2 and not fertilizer. That's....something to fix.
I have gravel substrate, which is pretty ok I guess. I almost went with sand and I kind of regret I didn't.
I had neos, and yeah that's exactly what I had read about them. I tested absolutely everything I could get a test kit for. Everything kept reporting back as fine. My best theory was that they weren't getting enough calcium, and I ended up putting cuttlebone into the tank. Sadly I was down to two by that point, and they died a few days later. The snails in there love it though. I kind of think that perhaps the snails were simply outcompeting the shrimp for food.
Did you cycle your tank before putting them in?
I went through about three attempts at shrimp, and while they would age into maturity they never attempted to lay eggs. This implies something is wrong with the water, or their food supply, as they won't try to reproduce if they're stressed. And that's where I started months worth of testing and tweaking water parameters to try to figure out what was wrong. Meanwhile, the snails matured, started laying entirely too many eggs, and while I started with 4 snails I now have 22.
The neons haven't fared super great--they also aren't trying to spawn but I hear that something's up with neon populations these days and they're often not as healthy as they should be.
The biggest concern is historically copper. You want trace amounts because it's like, used in their blood system, but too much causes stuff to go haywire. Used to be a much bigger issue with water additive products and foods, but most are fairly shrimp safe these days.
Depending on where you're from, your home supply might have too much, just from the main source itself or leaching from pipes. Do you use distilled/RO water for your tank?
Vexxingly, on the opposite end, changing stuff too much/too often can also lead to over stressing them.
Third, is predation. Even "safe" community fish will occasionally go after shrimp. Fish will take a meal where it comes, if they're hungry. If you've got a healthy snail population to help buffer clean up, a little extra feeding can help with this, so there are some left over scraps to graze on through the day.
The other thing with the lack of breeding, females of most shrimp species are dymporphic, so be sure that you have some in general. A lot of places will cull any obvious females from sale so they can keep breeding more. So a lot don't get through to the sales floor unless they are very, very young still.
Add on to this females won't breed until after a molt, and won't breed every molt. Basically the eggs from between the new and old shell layers, and when the old is shed, the female does the whole pheromone thing to induce breeding to fertilize the eggs.
It's annoying and frustrating, but I wouldn't feel the need to tinker too much until you have a larger confirmed female molting several times without seeing breeding behavior from the males (basically the equivalent of shrimp zoomies).
Jk
I know nothing about aquariums but they are fun to look at
Shrimp talk!
Regarding copper: I had heard of it being a problem, so I started to investigate. Unfortunately my municipal water department does not test for copper in their annual quality testing, and I was unable to get a good answer on whether or not copper pipes connect to my house. The house itself uses pvc piping, but of course that's irrelevant if copper is leaching into the water before it hits the house. I ended up switching to RO as I performed water changes, and I also got some copper absorption material and put that into my canister filter. Now that the shrimp are all dead, I do a 50/50 RO and treated tap water mix when I do changes.
Speaking of water changes, I also had learned that they are not tolerant of big changes to the environment. I did weekly small water changes of 10% of the tank. (It's a 30 gallon.)
Regarding predation, best I can tell this was not a factor. The shrimp tended to grow into adulthood, though some didn't always make it.
I also had a good mix of males and females. They can be difficult to sex until they get a bit older, but at the peak I had six males and four females.
Overall what I mainly noticed happening was the "white ring of death," which is a molting problem. This and other factors continue to point to something with the water being wrong. My last best guess was that they weren't getting enough calcium, or that the water was too soft. I added a big chunk of cuttlebone, but it was too late and the last couple of shrimp died within a couple of days.
After the holiday season is done I might try again. Just don't want to get more and then throw them into a tank that historically is just going to slowly kill them.
Most municipalities use black iron or pvc if that helps!
Molting issues definitely sounds like calcium. Were they locally bred or imported to a fish store? And not just throwing them into a bad situation is a good call.
Shrimp Tank
The river
The main tank
I do water changes like....once a month?
Do you use distilled water for this (since what evaporates would obviously leave minerals, etc. behind)? None of the information I've found distinguishes between water changes and water replacement.
Edit: Ah I never did answer what was in the River tank. That one Is Celestial Pearl Dainos, Endler Live Bearers, and Hillstream Loach
Also broke my airstone while embedding the root tabs, so whenever it stops snowing I guess I'll need to venture out to the pet store to get a replacement. I am maybe going to try stocking shrimp again to see if they fare better in my, hopefully, better tank.
do it, the Osaka Aquarium rules
I love how the central tank is so massive it starts getting dark and harder to see across the further down you go because you can't see the surface easily anymore
Stills don't do it justice obviously
Look at these two goobers
The only thing that didn't thrill me was that I'd gotten really used to Japanese politeness and the place was absolutely packed with pushy, obnoxious, selfish tourists.
The Ripley's Aquarium is okay, although a tad expensive for its size, but it also has a tunnel tank which lets you really get a good look at the sawfish.
I went to Shedd's as a kid and really want to go back as an adult. I loved my wax sculpture of the dolphins.
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How's your tank???