Blyxa Island

[Newman]

I bought one amano shrimp today for this tank. hopefully will help keep my plants cleaner!

[Newman]

The aubertii floated up yesterday so i had to pin it down again.

lost one of my larger crystal shrimp today. most likely because of the substrate disturbance mentioned earlier

After this aubertii finally roots, i am not getting any more plants for this tank so hopefully i will never have to disturb the substrate again and cause tragic shrimp deaths.

[FisheriesOmen]

Originally Posted by Newman

The aubertii floated up yesterday so i had to pin it down again.

lost one of my larger crystal shrimp today. most likely because of the substrate disturbance mentioned earlier

After this aubertii finally roots, i am not getting any more plants for this tank so hopefully i will never have to disturb the substrate again and cause tragic shrimp deaths.

I know how you feel. . . that's why I tore down the shrimp bowl.

[Newman]

was the bowl prone to substrate disturbances?

My stupid blyxa aubertii has been floating up for the past few days and it really started to frustrate me so I tied it down to my fissidens DW. hopefully over the course of the next month it will grow enough roots into the substrate to attach itself (assuming it wont float up again )
What i did find was that it had already grown some very nice roots in a short period of time, so i am confident that it survived shipping and will be able to take to my tank. it even grew a few new leaves.

As far as shrimp go i think i finally have a berried high grade chocolate, but it's very difficult to tell because of all the black color. i can't see the eggs at all.

Since this tank is designed by me to house crystal shrimp, I am not abandoning the idea yet and will try to buy a few mischling shrimp in the near future (when they become available). who knows, maybe I'll be able to see a taiwan bee shrimp in the next year or so. i have never seen one in real life before :P I bet they are amazing though.

[FisheriesOmen]

Ya. . . pulled out a massive plant of StarGrass and it brought the rest of the substrate with it.

But I'm starting a new 10g Thread and I'm excited to do a tank right and will be my first time using actual substrate which means no more of that PITA soil.

Might have to get some Chocolate Shrimp from you once your colony gets established

[Newman]

I'd gladly sell you some chocolates then

And that's too bad about the bowl. looks like i lucked out because i never touched my rooted plants. i guess substrate disturbance is extremely serious.
has you new thread been made yet?

[FisheriesOmen]

Originally Posted by Newman

I'd gladly sell you some chocolates then

And that's too bad about the bowl. looks like i lucked out because i never touched my rooted plants. i guess substrate disturbance is extremely serious.
has you new thread been made yet?

Ya.

My problem was I didn't have the plants I wanted. I will probably use it still since I use it for plants too.

Probably a a good couple of months till I'll be wanting chocolates. Wanna get my Blue Velvet colony going first and then I can either put them in a different tank or just sell them off to afford the chocolates.

[Newman]

chocolates are normally very expensive for Neos, but if you want, I could sell you some of my lower grade stock for very cheap. it will probably take those few months for mine to get going too.

[Newman]

[Newman]

So I like to keep track of my tank's parameters each week. Here are this week's results:

pH - 6.5
Temperature - 72-73F
GH - 6dGH
KH - 0dKH
TDS - 257ppm
Ammonia - 0ppm
Nitrite - 0ppm
Nitrate - 5-10ppm

[Newman]

It has come to my attention that i do not want my shrimp to be in that high a TDS.
So over the course of the next two days i will be doing water changes with distilled water and remineralizing the tank to get somewhere around 150TDS and 6dGH.
whether that is possible, i will let you know.

[Newman]

did two 5 gal water changes then remineralized until 160TDS. TDS now is 171 and keeps going up on its own.... hopefully I made it to 5dGH at least and the TDS starts going down soon.

another benefit of the WC is that it likely cut my low nitrates even lower.

In shrimp news - another low grade female chocolate is berried now. and the high grade choco is no longer berried. probably dropped.

[@marko@]

the shrimp look really cool, especially those high grade CRS, but they are just so much trouble. measuring TDS, constant WCs, need to keep nitrates low, i wouldnt have the motivation. my hats off to you and all the other shrimpers out there.

[Newman]

Yes, but lets hope they wont be too much trouble in the future haha. i am getting some mischling shrimp next week. those should be easier to keep/breed.
The only time i have encountered issues with my SSS so far is when i plant the aquarium. it absolutely cannot be done because upsetting the substrate messes up the fragile shrimp.
luckily i dont have to plant anything new, so i shouldn't lose any more shrimp.

[Newman]

TDS is 169ppm and GH is 5dGH. good enough!