7.5g Cube -- Iwagumish. New pics, Feb 13.

[larcat]

Hi. This was a "normal" planted tank for a long time, with 6 CPDs, my Pygmies, and shrimp. We set up a 55g crypt tank, so I pulled my wendti and rescaped. All the scraggly-looking hairgrass was grown submersed, so it should bounce back quick. The HC showed up as a 4-leaf mushy fragment like 5 months ago, so I nursed it back to health. Isn't really a part of the tank, but I keep it around

The slopes are heavily planted with DHG, just like the "plain" at the bottom. Underneath the "hill" is a mediabag full or ceramic media I had laying around to support the whole thing. Max hill height is about 5.5 inches. Slopes are kept in place with buried plasticard.

Sorry my pictures are horrible.

Specs:

TANK: 7.5 G Mr. Aqua cube.
LIGHTS: 2 x Finnex 13w PFC, 11 hour photo period split morning/evening.
SUBSTRATE: Fluval stratum with Vermicompost.
FILTRATION: AC 30.
HEATER: Hydor 15 w mini in the filter.
CO2: Diy through an Aquatic Magic nano-diffuser.
FERTS: Occasionally dose leaf zone or fish emulsion. Rarely.
SCAPE: Lace rock.
FLORA: DHG and HC.
FAUNA: Blue Pearls, Malawas, Amanos.

Pics, Feb 13, '12

Full tank.




Sneaky shrimp.



Original Pics, Feb 3, '12:

[ChadRamsey]

very nice. i love the mounding effect.

good luck

[Kworker]

i digg it. yes i do

[GDP]

Looks good, I like it. A nice simple scape.

[larcat]

Originally Posted by GDP

Looks good, I like it. A nice simple scape.

Thanks, that was the idea.

I looked at LOTS of Iwagumis. The ones I liked were all either extremely complex but looked deceptively simple, or really simple but did one thing well (single rock set ups, that sort of thing.) This was supposed to highlight the 30-40 degree paths between the rocks, and the grass that will grow in there.

I'm just to aesthetically inept to do the complex ones

[larcat]

One other note: conspicuous lack of a heater in a hob set up is because the hydor mini is in the aqua clear.

[EnigmaticGuppy92]

iwagumi never appealed to me but thanks to this its beginning to nice job

[larcat]

Hey, thanks, I really appreciate it Hopefully it looks good after it grows in!

Originally Posted by EnigmaticGuppy92

iwagumi never appealed to me but thanks to this its beginning to nice job

[larcat]

Happy news! This tank has been set up for one week with the rescape. Shrimp were all in the old scape as well.

No females were berried when I rescaped.

I've got 2 berried now, both blue pearls, and one saddled Hopefully more babies will survive now with no predators!

Any suggestions on how to decrease mortality?

[GDP]

Only tips I have for your setup would be watch yout co2 count and realize shrimp need lots of o2 to thrive. Especially true for babies. Also babies need lots of biofilm (Aged tank) to get high survival rates. Either that or a baby shrimp food.

[akm]

Originally Posted by GDP

Only tips I have for your setup would be watch yout co2 count and realize shrimp need lots of o2 to thrive. Especially true for babies. Also babies need lots of biofilm (Aged tank) to get high survival rates. Either that or a baby shrimp food.

The substrate is really well aged, tank has been set up for just under a year and I had about half an inch of vermicompost in there that is full of all kinda of bacteria. Will having rescaped messed up the bacterial colonies that much?

I may try the baby fish food thing. I'm 99% sure that my CPDs were eating most of my baby shrimplets in the old setup. The babies I did find/have now were all found in my filter after I didn't have a prefilter on for about a week. That makes me think that when they were being kept in the tank they were being munched.

Do you think DIY CO2 is pumping enough CO2 to harm shrimplets O2 wise?

Thanks for the advise!

[larcat]

Ack. Sorry. Above post was actually me. My fiance's account was still logged into this computer

[gowfan05]

does your pygmy cory's nibble at the shrimp??? I was debating on adding some to my CRS tank, but worried they would nibble on them or the babies... oh and BEAUTIFUL TANK! I'm tempted to make a tank like yours some time soon

[larcat]

I have never seen them mess with the shrimp at all. One of the reasons I kept them while I moved the CPDs was that everyone seems to agree that they are 100% shrimp safe.

Now, that said, I have never seen them with super micro babies, so maybe that is different.

I'll find out soon!

Thanks for the kind words about the tank

Originally Posted by gowfan05

does your pygmy cory's nibble at the shrimp??? I was debating on adding some to my CRS tank, but worried they would nibble on them or the babies... oh and BEAUTIFUL TANK! I'm tempted to make a tank like yours some time soon

[larcat]

Just a brief note/changes to the tank.

The pygmies were in here before when it was heavily planted with stems, crypts and E. Tellenus. They seemed happy enough, but I never saw them.

They were pretty visably stessed for the last week+ in the iwagumi setup, I think because they had no cover. If I watched them from the doorway, sometimes I would see schooling and messing about, but when ever I was sitting at my desk they would flip out and try and hide in a corner.

I have removed them and put them in our 55, and now we are seeing all sorts of schooling and much more relaxed behaviors from them.

I'm pretty sure these were wild-caught, and I'm thinking maybe tank-raised would work better in a nano-iwagumi setup. It is a pity because they school very neatly, and are just amazingly fun little fish and, importantly, don't predate shrimp. But if anyone is considering wild-caught ones in a nano without lots of cover, I would probably decide on something else.

Added a second 2L to my CO2 system last night, and will be adding a drop checker today. The 1 bottle setup was pushing almost nothing, and the shrimp don't seem to be reacting badly. Crossing my fingers.