CRS Tank Journal (Warning - Picture Heavy) UPDATE: Babies!!

[Craig]

Well I want to breed some Crystal Red Shrimp for the sake of owning them and also for my other planted aquariums so I'm setting up a new tank in preparation for them and only them. I'm pretty excited! If you have some CRS you want to sell let me know, I'm looking for A - SSS grade depending on price but it will be a few weeks before the tank is ready for them. Just shoot me a PM.

I just set it up on the Thursday the 9th. Right now I have it planted with some

Limnophila aromatica (which I purchased from Jdinh04, Thanks!)
Micro sword
Glossostigma (I already see some growth in just 2 days!)
And a red lotus I completely forgot the name of, doh'

I am going to add some crypts around the piece of driftwood between it and the Micro sword. That way I will hopefully get a nice tier look going steadily downward from the LA to the Glosso.

So what I need is some input guys. Does this seem like a great place for CRS? I read up on CRS online and I want some second opinions. I also read that they can't handle the PH swing from the CO2. Is that true?

Specs:

• Tank 20L

• CO2 at 3-4bps

• x2 6700k T5 bulbs and x1 colormax (pink) t5 bulb

• Black Flourite (I'm going to get some more. I underestimated how much I would need.)

• 30gal ZooMed canister filter(actually a really good quiet filter, I was surprised)

• Temp is 78F

• Hardness is about a 6

• PH is between 6.4 and 7 depending if the CO2 is on or not.

• Micro and Macro(minimal for now) fertz

• I think that's it

[Craig]

Here is a shot of the Glosso up close as of today. I swear some of those leaves are new!

[DANIELSON]

Your CRS would love you if you covered the wood with a moss of some type i have christmas/ java in my shrimp tank and i swear they live on it.

[Craig]

I added some Crypts to the tank. I think I'm done planting now, just going to wait for it to fill in.


Hopefully that Lily will grow out from hiding. Right now its directly behind the big crypt.



Just a closer shot of the plants on the left.

[switcharoo]

looking good man, im watching to see your growth with the glosso

[beedee]

nice start, cant wait to see it progress.

[chad320]

Yeah, I cant wait to see the glosso carpet fill in!

[Craig]

Thanks, I'm really hoping I have enough light for the glosso to grow out horizontally. Right now its still rooting so its hard for me to tell.

[snausage]

Looking good so far. You're going to have to get your temp around 75 or lower if you want the crs to thrive. I've also read that they don't do too well when you dose high levels of potassium.

[Craig]

Hmm 75F is going to be difficult to reach we keep the house at 78F so it really won't go lower than that. In the winter it wont be a problem though, maybe I'll just have to do seasonal breeding.

Also the Potassium is only being dosed in with the micro fertilizer mix. I'm using Brightwell's stuff and having a lot of luck with it.

[Craig]

So the glosso has finally taken root and started livening up. I'm hoping any day now it will start sending out runners and spreading like it's known to do.




Glosso pearling




I got some algae forming though. I'm hoping that will go away once the plants get established and out compete it.




The rest of the plants are doing well too. Compared to the picture in the first post. That ugly, scraggly one in the back in this picture is a plant that I'm trying to rejuvenate.

[snausage]

Is the tank a 20 g long? I don't think you mentioned the tank size anywhere in the post.

I've also set up a crs tank recently (2nd try; 1st batch died back in early may when I was away for 4-5 days and the tank temp went over 80). So, I hope i don't sound pedantic in any of these posts because I'm admittedly not an expert on raising crs. I'm just very eager to actually read a thread like this prior to its completion.

The member on this forum to contact for purchasing crs is greenisgood (PM her for price listings). She sells great stuff and her packing/communication is excellent; the price is right too. She may be a bit skittish about shipping to FLA though.

The 6.4-7 ph swing is ostensibly fine, but in what time frame will the ph rise to 7? If this happens very rapidly, it would probably cause some deaths (I've never had a pressurized co2 system).

You may want to lay off the micros due to the fairly high copper content the solutions contain (I've only used seachem trace, which I would never dose into a crs tank). I remember Tom Barr posting about a crs tank he was keeping and dosing via EI, but I haven't read anything since.

BTW, I think having that red lotus lilly is a really good idea. Your chance of success with the crs may be greatly improved if you add more greedy, fast growing plants to the tank, since they'll quickly metabolize the nutrients you'll be dosing.

[DANIELSON]

What did you use to black out the back glass of the tank i want to do that with mine but cant think of how to do it? Also where did you get your filter? that looks like exactly what i need for my 20G long tank.

[Craig]

Yes the tank is a 20L.

I plan on reducing the amount of CO2 in the tank once the shrimp are introduced so the ph swing will be much smaller. Right now I just want to accelerate the growth and get it ready for the CRS asap. Also I'm trying to resist the algae that is known to show up in new tanks.

The fertilizer I'm using is Brightwell FlorinMulti and it has very very small trace amounts of copper and I've been using in a RCS tank for almost a year now and the shrimp are swarming the place so It seems to be safe. I'm going to pick up a copper test on the safe side anyways and check it before I introduce the shrimp.

The filter I have listed in the title, it's made by ZooMed . It's meant for tutles but it runs very quite and efficiently. The only problem I have with it is I think it could use a little more flow in the tank. I won mine in an raffle but the price tag is a little high, $60 at Petco.


The black backing is just a aquarium background I bought at petco. Some people spray paint the back of thier tank but that vastly reduces the amount of light that reaches the bottom of the tank. James Fatheree is an aquarium author from down here in Florida and did a really detailed study showing how the paint absorbs the light hitting the back of the glass where as having that pocket of air between the background and the glass allows the light to bounce off the glass and back into the tank.

[Craig]

New update from the 24th. Plants are all growing great, even that scraggly one in the back I planted to try and rejuvenate. The glosso is sending out runners everywhere and the only real problem is the algae that's encroaching around the tank. The glosso is holding it off but the algae is still managing to grow on the flourite around it and most of the other plants.


I'm amazed at how much the gloso has grown looking back at the old pictures. And it seems to be accelerating still!





Close up of a runner.



The Limnophila Aromatica is doing great. I have about 5 or six new stems branching off from the originals, plus the originals have almost doubled in height.



The ugly one in the back has new red shoots coming off it. hooray for recovery.