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60g moss and shrimp tank (56k warning)

7K views 36 replies 13 participants last post by  carlstreeter 
#1 ·
It seems like the thing to do when starting a new tank is to start a journal.

Since I actually have a vision for how I want this one to look, and what I want it to be, I thought I'd give this a shot. Previous tanks have mostly been hodgepodge affairs. There's a method to the madness this time.

The vision is to create something that isn't too busy, and mostly use texture, rather than color to create interest. My main tank has a ton of colorful plants. Here, I'm trying to stick with only green. Let's see how long that lasts. :)

I also want this to be a lower maintenance tank. So, no CO2.

So, the vision is to use a manzanita hardscape. Currently, I'm not planning any rocks. I'll probably also introduce some small pieces of malaysian driftwood as plant/moss anchors where needed.

For flora, I will use mostly moss attached to the wood, likely adding in some anubias, and various green stems. Especially to start. We'll see what stays long term. I'm also going to try an HC carpet. I've never had carpeting plants before, so we'll see how it goes, and if I actually like it.

The idea is to use multiple different types of moss and have the different textures create the interest. We'll see how that works out.

For fauna, I want to also keep the colors simple. Snowball shrimp inspired the tank, so they obviously get in. I'm also thinking of perhaps some wild-type tiger shrimp (more subtle coloration than CRS or Blue tigers). For fish, a similar palette, and they obviously have to be shrimp compatible. At this point, I'm thinking silver hatchets. And perhaps some of the more simple colored tetras. Bleeding heart maybe? Suggestions in this area are definitely welcome, but I'm somewhat limited by local supply. I'm not willing to have fish shipped in, since I'll already be having shrimp shipped in.

That covers the concept. Next, the equipment list.
 
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#27 ·
Like in at an angle? (60 degrees ish maybe?)

I don't think they'd be stable that way, regardless of how much I tried to bury them in the sand. Plus, the one on the far right has its base in the absolute front corner of the tank. It would hide stuff if I tried it. And it's L shaped, so I can't really move it back, either. You can see the base in the early pics. It's kind of hidden by the anubias at this point.

But I see what you're saying--that would be kind of cool. At some point I may go digging back through my box of wood.
 
#30 ·
I guess by starting this journal, I committed to writing about both the successes and the failures. At this point, mostly the latter.

The driftwood continues to leach a ton of tannins, making the water pretty brown within a week.

The HC totally melted. Either it wasn't so healthy after it had to live in a bucket for a couple of weeks while I got everything set up, or the inert substrate and lack of CO2 dd it in.

Significant portions of the moss have died off, including the "mystery" moss (I'm starting to think peacock), and the weeping moss. The mystery moss, at least, has started to come back a little.

There's hair algae everywhere. What's left of the weeping moss is a mess, and I had to toss out the riccia, because it was so infested.

And, all of my snowball shrimp are dead. No idea why, or how, but none come out for dinner, so I'm assuming that they aren't in there.

All of that said, I guess it isn't all bad. The pennywort is growing, which is good. At least I can't kill that weed. Some of the other stems are showing minor signs of life, so that's encouraging, too. Some of the other moss is doing OK. And other than one silver hatchet (who I suspect hit the glass tops at high speed), I haven't lost any fish. So that's good.

My plans at this point (in order) are:

- Cut down the light. I've already done that by turning off one of the bulbs. Since the HC is dead, I don't see any point in trying to keep it high. Hopefully that will help the hair algae problem (at least keep it from getting worse).

- Cut down ferts (same story as above)

- Add some floaters. I tried to get some frogbit, but the USPS managed to deliver an empty box. Both sides were destroyed, and the contents were gone. I'll try again, though.

- Wait out the driftwood. It's hard to get too worried about the rest until I have more stable and reliable water chemistry. At this point, I guess I just wait until it's done. It seems that the larger pieces I have in there just want to keep going and going...

- Reassess moss situation. Hopefully I don't lose any species, and I can just trim back the brown and algae filled parts.

- Work on the hair algae. No clue what I'll be doing there, but until I get the driftwood to stop leeching tannins, and the (all of the) moss to start growing, this is a lower priority, though it pains me to say that.

- Rethink the foreground. Without pulling out the substrate, and either mineralizing it, or adding some fluorite, HC may be out. I might try marsilea quadrifolia next. That seems to be the most successful in low tech tanks.

- Try to introduce some shrimp. Once I have the tannin situation under control, I figure I can pull in a few male cherries (I don't want females, since I want to be able to get them all out at some point, to introduce snowballs). Once the tannins are settled, the chemistry will be pretty similar to my cherry tank, so that should be good. In the meantime, I'll be trying to set up another shrimp only tank for snowballs, and tigers, so that hopefully I don't lose all of one type of shrimp again. While that was an expensive oops, I'm sure I'll do worse. The heater in my high tech failing on this weekend (and getting the temp up to 95 before I saw the dead fish, and caught it) was probably about equally expensive.

Once I have shrimp in there, and established, I may add some of the additional fish that I want. At this point, I'm not in a hurry.

It's hard to be patient, but at this point, I'm not sure what else I can do. Comments on my plan are most welcome.
 
#31 ·
You should water test your tank just to make sure nothing else is wrong. Purigen works well with your tannins issue, that's what i'm using. could you take some up close shots of your weeping moss? l ordered some for my 48g project and l wanted to get a glimpse of how yours looks like. l hope you get your hair algae problem under control. Usually when you start off the tank you want to regulate the light according to how densely planted your tank is. l got a feeling it started due to excessive light since you said "I've started with a fairly short photo period. I forget if it was 8.5 or 9 hours" Usually you crank it up to that many hours when it's up and running for a while and your plants have grown in. What l do is throw in some floaters just in the meantime so they use up the extra nutrients and then when the tank has matured take them out. When l start my tanks up l leave the photo-period at around 5 to 6 hours and then gradually increase it when i notice my plants growing faster. l don't dose fertz as well due to the same reasons. Anyways hope that helps and can't wait for more pictures of the tank in the meantime you're doing good in the water changes.
 
#32 ·
I haven't tested my water because I'm not sure what it would tell me that I don't know. (pH lower than tap, other things about the same). Though, I suppose getting some data and verifying wouldn't be the worst idea in the world.

I can take some closeups of my weeping moss, but it's enough to make you weep. :) Half of it is brown/dead, and half of it is infested with hair algae. I don't know that there's anything to see. I'm hoping it's salvageable. Time will tell. If I actually get it growing, I'll definitely post pics, because it will be cool.

I'd guess that most of my algae problems stem from excessive light, too. I was trying to grow HC, but now that that's all gone, I've cut down the light intensity. The period is about what I'm using on my other low tech tank (similar 2 tube t5 light), without much algae problem there, so that's where I started. But you're right--it may still be too much.

I tried to go the floater route. I started with riccia, which got to be a goopy algae mess. I've not seen that before, but I tossed it, since it seemed to be doing more harm than good. Then I tried to get some frogbit, and the postal service decided that they wanted it more than I did. :) At some point, I'm sure I'll find some. Hopefully that will help.

Also, after writing out the previous message, I might work on the algae a little sooner. I may pull some SAEs from my other tank over--they should love it. I may also move over some cherries to use as "canaries", to see if amanos might be OK here. I need to get the tank shrimp friendly at some point anyway. I also have some excel coming.

Hopefully between the SAEs, some potential amanos, and excel, I can get the algae under control to some degree.
 
#33 ·
Apparently, things aren't *so* bad. The SAEs and light reduction made pretty quick work of the hair algae. There's a little left, but not much.

I think the weeping moss is officially all dead. Ditto the diandra. Ditto the blyxa (well, mostly. There's one blyxa bit that isn't quite dead yet). Most of the other things seem to be at least holding their own.

I also found some interesting things yesterday when doing a water change. The shrimp, which I thought were all dead, don't seem to be. I found 2 snowballs and three cherries. If I could only remember how many cherries I put there. It was 3 or 4. I'm hoping it was 3, since they'll cross-breed with the snowballs.

I also found a juvie lamp-eye tetra. That's pretty cool for me, since I've never had egg-layers breed for me before. So, even if it was an accident, I'll take it.
 
#35 ·
I've read that overdosing excel works on hair algae, but I haven't tried it myself. I bought some excel to try it out, but the SAEs took care of 90% of it before the excel came.

I actually got a tiny bit of xmas moss in my last shrimp deal, so I think I'm OK for now.

I'll get some update photos pretty soon, though it really isn't a whole lot different.
 
#37 ·
As long as I'm posting pics, here's the 10 gallon "holding tank" I put together for the snowball and tiger shrimp to develop a larger population in a fish free environment.

After a week, I already have 2 berried snowballs. I also seem to have mostly females, which is cool. If things work out well, the snowball population may explode.

I've only had the tigers a couple of days. So far, I've only been able to ID 1 or 2 females, and I'm not even 100% sure on those. Hopefully they just haven't developed saddles yet.



 
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