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15 Gallon Crypt Tank

2K views 12 replies 7 participants last post by  Qsilver7850 
#1 ·
I set up my tank a week or two ago, maybe longer, but I wanted to share. The only inhabitants so far are a bunch of MTS. It's a 15 gal, aquaclear 30, Tahitian moon sand, and stingray led light. I've made my own root tabs with osmocote plus fertilizer and gel caps.

For plants, so far I have mostly crypts: spiralis, retrospiralis, wendtii, parva. But there is a sword in there too, though the type escapes me. The retrospiralis is melting, but the others seem to be doing pretty well. I have some ammonia readings, nitrite readings, and nitrate. Waiting for it to cycle before adding anything of substance.

Although I did buy some ghost shrimp just to see how they did. They ended up killing two of my MTS, so they are now in my 5.5 gal betta tank. Those murderers!

I want to make it a shrimp tank, at least initially. I'm thinking some variety of RCS. I get excited sometimes though, so I may end up with some cories and endlers at some point.

I have a question about the second picture I attached. There's white, spider web type stuff growing on the sand. Is that mold? If so, should I worry about it, or will shrimp eat it when I invariably add them?
 

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#2 ·
Have you fed your MTS some snail food? It could be some leftovers the MTS had missed that's rotting. I'd just carefully remove it manually by siphoning it out into a bucket and dispose of it. I don't think it's potentially dangerous or anything. You could just leave it be if you like; probably will just go away in time.

Nice tank pic you got going, by the way.. it's only a matter of time until it fills up via runners and propagating.
 
#3 ·
I fed the MTS a shrimp pellet a few days ago, it was gone by morning. Lots of the plants are melting their leaves, which I hear is typical. The MTS are consuming the dead plant matter, I actually watched a larger one eat an entire leaf.

I took some readings this morning and I'm confused. Everything seems to be high. In fact, all parts of the nitrogen cycle are the highest they've ever been:
Ammonia: 1.0 ppm
Nitrite: 5.0 ppm
Nitrate: 80 ppm

Not sure what's going on in there. I guess it's good I have a reading for all three, but shouldn't my ammonia and nitrite be reducing?
 
#7 ·
I think you should yank the swords and stick with a crypt theme - you've already got a decent collection going! (I'm biased though, my main tank is exclusively crypts).

But those wendtii you've got in large bunches, I'd pull them and separate them out to fill in where the swords are/the sides of the tank - you've got a bunch and they'll fill in your tank in no time (and if you ever switch to high-tech they'll get massive). Just so you know spiralis/retrospiralis will get huge too - I had to get rid of spiralis from my 20g long as it was taking up a lot of visual space.

You can get beckettii and pontedifoleria real cheap too and I think they'd do fine in your setup.
 
#9 ·
I realized when I got my order of plants that maybe the swords were a little funny with a bunch of crypts, but I'm more of the mindset to just let them do their thing once they're planted. I'm not super into scaping and rescaping my tank. If the swords don't do well, oh well, I'll get rid of them. I'll have to look into those crypts though, Madsci.

I also inadvertently won a mat of flame on eBay, so I'll throw that in too when it gets here.

Most of the plants seem to be doing well. The crypts have lost leaves but new ones are growing. The parva doesn't look particularly good though, not sure what's going on with them. The leaves are lower, almost on the ground, and they're yellowing a bit. Not sure if that's normal.

benealing: thanks for the link, I'll have to look into that soon. Either my test kit is off or I shouldn't have a beer before testing my water.
 
#10 ·
The sword might just outgrow that tank. Crypts will typically lose leaves when you replant them or move them. That's to be expected. Whenever I move mine I make sure to give them a root tab (I use osmocote plus)

Tank looks like it's off to a good start. If you want to do neo shrimp I would avoid housing them with ghost shrimp they get bigger than the cherries and will out compete them for food. Plus ghosties can become aggressive towards smaller shrimp in my experience as they get larger.


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#12 ·
Plus ghosties can become aggressive towards smaller shrimp in my experience as they get larger.
I've seen videos of yellow cherry shrimp getting attacked and eaten by ghost shrimp. Really they were just the astronauts to test life in the tank. They've all died now, though whether this is from the Betta harassing them or my Betta tank cycling, I don't know.

Speaking of the Betta, I moved him over to this tank for the time being. I tested the water again, and the results are below. Hopefully moving towards being cycled/ready for shrimp!

Ammonia: 0/.25
Nitrtire: .5
Nitrate: 40

I'm guessing my plants are using the Nitrate, but I'm not sure why the bacteria turning Nitrite into Nitrate aren't doing a better job. Or maybe there's lots of ammonia from all the leaves melting? The wait continues.

Here's a picture. Looks like the spiralis are doing well, but the retrospiralis not as well. They're growing though, so everything is alive. The flame moss arrived and I believe some pond snails came with it, which is not a huge deal I guess. Stupid bargain moss. It's attached to a matte which I've buried at the edges to give it a little better look. Looks like the tropical wendtii is melting now, though it's taken a while. Also the white "fungus" is gone.
 

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