shabash
Fish Fanatic
Hello all,
I would appreciate any help and constructive criticism is welcome as it’s been years since I left the hobby. We successfully kept marine and freshwater tanks many years ago(last tank kept was about 10 years ago) but since then so much has changed, and there’s so much information now, that I thought it best to ask as I’m still early into my start up. My was intention is to keep blue velvet neocaridina shrimp in my old 7 gallon bow front nano tank with possibly 3 neon tetra. This was previously used for dwarf seahorses which I kept for about four years until an outbreak of hydroids killed most of my stock and the heartbreak of that was too much for me so I decided to leave the hobby. My husband however did have a 29g marine coral tank and 55g with lion fish until 2012. So while we are not exactly novices, theres so much more information now than then that I wanted to start this using a fishless cycle as opposed to the old method With fish which always felt cruel to me. So we dug out the 7g and cleaned it thoroughly. It had been stored clean but just to be safe I used hot water and white vinegar on the tank and a Rena hob filter(Removed the cartridge filter and replaced this with sponges and added a bag of biomedia instead of the biostars to add even more surface area) as well as the light which is a halogen 12k. I will not be using a heater but I do have several handy. My house is kept at 69f in winter and 72 during warm climate and we are in Georgia, USA. I’ve purchased a new sponge filter in addition. I’ve used contrasoil as my substrate and it’s planted with hornwort, swords, cardinalis, wisteria and Anubius. I’ve also added an Indian almond leaf and Malaysian driftwood. I purchased sand added a nerite snail and the pet store gave me a handful (6) tiny mystery snails, they called pests. I added a pinch of flake food and have been monitoring my water. So here’s my issue/question. My tap water is very soft and I’ve not seen any ammonia levels at all. Do I need to add food everyday until I can see ammonia? And since my water is already soft from the source, should I eventually start with the more sensitive caridina shrimp instead of the heartier neoCaridina?
Tank parameters : ammonia=0, nitrite=0, nitrate=0, ph=6,gh=30, kh=0 temp 68f
Tap parameters: same for all except ph=6.5
Thank you in advance and sorry for the long post
I would appreciate any help and constructive criticism is welcome as it’s been years since I left the hobby. We successfully kept marine and freshwater tanks many years ago(last tank kept was about 10 years ago) but since then so much has changed, and there’s so much information now, that I thought it best to ask as I’m still early into my start up. My was intention is to keep blue velvet neocaridina shrimp in my old 7 gallon bow front nano tank with possibly 3 neon tetra. This was previously used for dwarf seahorses which I kept for about four years until an outbreak of hydroids killed most of my stock and the heartbreak of that was too much for me so I decided to leave the hobby. My husband however did have a 29g marine coral tank and 55g with lion fish until 2012. So while we are not exactly novices, theres so much more information now than then that I wanted to start this using a fishless cycle as opposed to the old method With fish which always felt cruel to me. So we dug out the 7g and cleaned it thoroughly. It had been stored clean but just to be safe I used hot water and white vinegar on the tank and a Rena hob filter(Removed the cartridge filter and replaced this with sponges and added a bag of biomedia instead of the biostars to add even more surface area) as well as the light which is a halogen 12k. I will not be using a heater but I do have several handy. My house is kept at 69f in winter and 72 during warm climate and we are in Georgia, USA. I’ve purchased a new sponge filter in addition. I’ve used contrasoil as my substrate and it’s planted with hornwort, swords, cardinalis, wisteria and Anubius. I’ve also added an Indian almond leaf and Malaysian driftwood. I purchased sand added a nerite snail and the pet store gave me a handful (6) tiny mystery snails, they called pests. I added a pinch of flake food and have been monitoring my water. So here’s my issue/question. My tap water is very soft and I’ve not seen any ammonia levels at all. Do I need to add food everyday until I can see ammonia? And since my water is already soft from the source, should I eventually start with the more sensitive caridina shrimp instead of the heartier neoCaridina?
Tank parameters : ammonia=0, nitrite=0, nitrate=0, ph=6,gh=30, kh=0 temp 68f
Tap parameters: same for all except ph=6.5
Thank you in advance and sorry for the long post