Lake Inle Nano

This tank lives in my study which normally has the blackout blinds permanently drawn. Since I am in there all day every working day now I have decided to open the blinds in the day as it is gorgeous outside. No doubt it will mess up my light / algae balance - but should help restore my sanity . Its kind of weird looking through one tank into another.

I can confirm the shrimps know that its springtime. There are quite literally hundreds of shrimplets scooting around.

I had to look twice then, i thought you added some Albino cories to this tank. (Just pebbles)

Russjw said:

I had to look twice then, i thought you added some Albino cories to this tank. (Just pebbles)

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Yeah - I started out with visions of a very structured design like some of yours. I had a stream of pebbles running through it. But that turned into a muck magnet and with shrimp in the tank cleaning it was taking far too much time. So I removed most of the pebbles and scattered the rest. So its a lot more jungle than I planned, but at least it keeps itself clean

seangee said:

Yeah - I started out with visions of a very structured design like some of yours. I had a stream of pebbles running through it. But that turned into a muck magnet and with shrimp in the tank cleaning it was taking far too much time. So I removed most of the pebbles and scattered the rest. So its a lot more jungle than I planned, but at least it keeps itself clean

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It looks good man nice and natural and your shrimp certainly appreciate your frogbit roots.

Flippin eck. There really are hundreds. Hard to believe its only 8 months since shrimpageddon, and I have not bought any more. Also managed to get the occasional glimpse of an oto or two over the last few days. Since its gone all jungle I can never find them in this tank ...

Have you only got shrimp in this tank Sean?

Ive lost a few Oto's this week tried everything to get food to them but my barbs eat everything i put in.

Ive decided to move them to my l05ltr.

No this is the tank with the CPD. I hardly ever see the otos in here but I would have to tear the tank down to do a head count. When I do see them they look healthy (???). There are some really gnarled chunks of wood in there and they spend most of their time in the wood. I do chuck an algae wafer in every night just in case, which probably explains why this tank has so many MTS

They are much easier to find in the other tanks.

Bit of a re-org this afternoon. Trimmed the hygophilla down the right side down to about half height. Removed the crypt in the back right corner and planted hygrophilla cuttings in its place. That crypt was massive so I cut it right back and re-located into the community tank. The crypt from the front center got a trim and moved to the back of the tank - may tidy up the roots in a couple of days. I'm not sure there is enough space in this tank for it to stay in the long term. in any event having two heavy root feeders that close to each other was not ideal. This cleared the space in front of the driftwood. I also moved the wood a bit to give the sword a bit more space. Hopefully I'll see more of the otos now, they love spending time inside and under the wood. Today was the first time I saw them in weeks.

The shrimps are obviously quite accustomed to having no predators because they were running up and down my hands and arms the whole time . Both tanks in this room have developed a bit of BBA on the anubias because they are in my home office. I usually keep the blackout blinds permanently closed, but I have been working in there almost every day for the last 2 months and with the arrival of spring I have been opening the blinds. Not enough to cause a panic so I have reduced the tank lighting and should get it under control quickly.

Those crypt roots were well established and moving them obviously disturbed the substrate so i immediately did a 75% water change to be on the safe side.

For most of this week this tank has been at 30 degrees plus. You can see the shrimps and snails growing in front of your eyes - not to mention breeding like flies. Here are a few of them catching some late afternoon rays

Wish my ghost shrimp were like that,

And a few rare sightings. Usually I am lucky to find one and have often wondered if 6 in a 15G was too ambitious. I actually managed to spot all 6 at the same time. They look in good health and have grown a lot. I have had the lid off and may do a quick water change to try to drop the temp a bit. I suspect they are all out and about because its getting beyond their comfort zone. Also cranked the pump up to max because the CPDs are all in the top half so there may be an oxygenation concern

I picked up an extra air diffuser to try in my 55 gallon

Retired Viking said:

I picked up an extra air diffuser to try in my 55 gallon

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Those are the same ones I have in the community tank. Got them one year for summer but the cories like playing in the bubbles so much I run them all year now
Everything back to normal in this tank with the increased surface flow. Also managed to drop the temp a couple of degrees overnight.

seangee said:

Those are the same ones I have in the community tank. Got them one year for summer but the cories like playing in the bubbles so much I run them all year now
Everything back to normal in this tank with the increased surface flow. Also managed to drop the temp a couple of degrees overnight.

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That is good, I hope I have the same thing.

With all the excitement of the new tank I haven't been ignoring these little guys. I mentioned elsewhere that I have started feeding their algae wafers in a bowl. This is for several reasons:

1. They can find the food easier
2. I get to watch them eat
3. I can find the leftovers easier to remove them
4. It turns into a snail trap the minute the lights go out

No matter how careful you are with feeding once the temp starts rising in summer the MTS growth and reproduction rates explodes. The tank is above 27 degrees now so we are heading into peak season. I only collect and cull every 10-14 days but today will be that day