Beastije
Fish Addict
I bet someone ran some experiments like that but i can't find it. Does anyone have any experience with running a no clean shrimp tank? Maybe not even water change, just adding water to compensate for loss.
I have 40l which has been running for 6 months, the soil (black sand of sorts) is 2 years old or so has a good algae grow, biofilm and detritus from plant leaves.
It has mts so the soil should be well cared for, it has normal bladder snails so they should be able to pick up excess detritus and afaik shrimp eat snail poop so they sort of recycle.
Plant wise it is not so good yet, i have 4 sort of dying/doing marginally good ludwigia (not enough light to support it), java fern, bunch of riccia, large anubias which has new leaves constantly, Cryptocoryne and some limnobium that is dying out and showing the tank does not have enough nutrients to support it.
What if I took out three of the ludwigia and replaced them with egeria, took out the limnobium to not take out the nutrients too fast.
I don't plant to feed the shrimp just yet, and when I noticed the signs of hunger i plan to drop in a biofilm covered leave.
The anubias shedding leaves once in a while should provide material for decomp and sort of fertilize the other plants, adding new water should bring some nutrients too and as the tank houses only shrimp, now even in low numbers, the waste production in theory should not be high.
What do you think? Of course at some point it may either fail with even small ammonia spike which would be deadly or some event will require water change.
I have 40l which has been running for 6 months, the soil (black sand of sorts) is 2 years old or so has a good algae grow, biofilm and detritus from plant leaves.
It has mts so the soil should be well cared for, it has normal bladder snails so they should be able to pick up excess detritus and afaik shrimp eat snail poop so they sort of recycle.
Plant wise it is not so good yet, i have 4 sort of dying/doing marginally good ludwigia (not enough light to support it), java fern, bunch of riccia, large anubias which has new leaves constantly, Cryptocoryne and some limnobium that is dying out and showing the tank does not have enough nutrients to support it.
What if I took out three of the ludwigia and replaced them with egeria, took out the limnobium to not take out the nutrients too fast.
I don't plant to feed the shrimp just yet, and when I noticed the signs of hunger i plan to drop in a biofilm covered leave.
The anubias shedding leaves once in a while should provide material for decomp and sort of fertilize the other plants, adding new water should bring some nutrients too and as the tank houses only shrimp, now even in low numbers, the waste production in theory should not be high.
What do you think? Of course at some point it may either fail with even small ammonia spike which would be deadly or some event will require water change.