BKK Money Pit *Mystery Deaths*

[Betta Maniac]

Tank is finally showing Nitrates! FINALLY!!! Ammonia is still very high and Nitrites are holding steady at the lowest level. Hopefully it will finish its cycle soon.

[Betta Maniac]

In other news, I made a DIY peat filter for my CBS tank with the worn out Amazonia (that appears to now be buffering the pH up). In 24hrs the pH has dropped one level on the scale. Hoping for another level or two ...

[Betta Maniac]

This tank continues to be the bizarre land of microfauna. It's got all kinds of stuff I don't see in any of my other tanks (nematodes, and small specs that appear to be seed shrimp and cyclops from what I can tell). Today I found fish fry! Eggs must have been on the plants. Caught them all and transferred them to the community tank.

[pandamonium]

Fish eggs? That's crazy! I hope they didn't come off of my plants. None of my fish are breeding as far as I know haha

[Betta Maniac]

Could have come off the moss I moved from my community tank. Hard to say. But with the tank full of nitirtes still, I'm amazed they survived!

[Newman]

HHing fish? awesome

[Betta Maniac]

Yes, volunteer fish. Moved them to the community tank.

Here's an updated pic of the tank as of today. Still showing lowest level of ammonia and nitrite, so not quite cycled yet. Soon. Soon. Thinking about removing the micro chain sword in favor of more moss squares.

[SpecGrrl]

it looks cool!

[Betta Maniac]

Thanks! It's coming along. I think I want a LOT more moss though. I have several more squares in the community tank I can move over, and a big ball of fissidens should be arriving any day. So there might be a bit of a rescape over the weekend.

[shrimpnmoss]

Looking good Betta. When you rescape you might want to consider taking out some of the wood and making it more open. I'd go with about 1/2 to 1/3 of the wood that's currently in there.

A couple of reasons and lessons I've learned over the years building shrimp tanks.

1) With that much wood there are too many places for your shrimps to hide. If someone dies you might not spot him and the dead shrimp will foul your water. Shrimps also like to die in deep dark corners.

2) With too much wood or leaves there will be too much wood decay eventually. Resulting in high Nitrates over time. So I only keep minimal wood in my tanks now. One or two pieces that's it.

That's my 2 cents, but it's your tank.

[Betta Maniac]

Originally Posted by shrimpnmoss

Looking good Betta. When you rescape you might want to consider taking out some of the wood and making it more open. I'd go with about 1/2 to 1/3 of the wood that's currently in there.

Well, it's two pieces, so I could easily do that. Thanks for the tip. I didn't even think about it that way. I was trying to provide grazing surface. I've got more java fern coming too, so I think this may be a big rescape. Luckily it's still cycling and there are no shrimp in there yet, so I can muck about unitl I get it right.

I figure I'll need to start over about once every 12-18 months, so the second piece of wood can just be put aside until then.

[Betta Maniac]

OMG! One of my little BKK is berried!!! They're still sooooo small though. I mean, yeah, she's one of the two biggest of them, but still. I didn't know a shrimp that small could berry.

[rodcuda]

Sweet!!

[Newman]

Nice.
I would put moss on the DW and cover it, and leave the chain sword to carpet the substrate.

[Betta Maniac]

I think I'm going to take half the wood out, add more fissidens to the piece I keep, and add a few more squares of moss to the floor of the tank. Chain sword may get moved into the CBS tank ... not sure.