Small Planted Setup

MaloK said:

Well there wasn't supposed to have any updates on this thread for a little while...

But tragedy stroked again

A foot fan near, fell on it's side and broke the tank. I used some gorilla tape to prevent the tank from getting empty too fast and ran to my LFS to get a new one ASAP.

I trowed new substrate in the tank added water moved all the plants and decor.

Now I'm trying to catch the remaining shrimps in what is left of the water in the old tank. with food and a ladle.

It's a complete catastrophe...

View attachment 346243View attachment 346244

Click to expand...

OMG. That is terrible. So sorry for you.

I hope the shrimp are doing ok . I’ve never had this happen before but It seems you acted very quickly which is the best thing you can go in this scenario. Hoping everything goes ok in the new tank

That was not pleasant at all. Nope...

But I'm still sooooooooo lucky, while the side of the tank cracked in 3 vertical pieces it still held together, and didn't explode... The nightmare of all hobbyist: Picking your stock on the floor across the room...

Even more lucky that the closest LFS had exactly what I need in stock.

Most of the shrimps are back in the tank now and I took the time to give a good clean to the hardware, the only thing I didn't do is rinse any media.

Using a ladle and food worked very well, most of the shrimps where caught in 3 scoops.

Guess where I was this morning when the lights came on !!!

Good surprise, The shrimps are scouting the tank like kids in an attraction park. They look like they're enjoying them selves and are fooling around... What a relief...

It took me 3 hours netting the remaining babies from the crashed tank yesterday...

But, I've got, all of them !!!

I simplified the scape a little and went with a much thinner substrate layer, it's going to leave more vertical space for the plants and be easier to maintain. This is probably the most thorough cleanup I ever made by force

The only draw back is, That I must admit that the Aqueon Tanks looks like they been assembled by toddlers. While the joints are good and wont have problems... The finish and regularity is ridiculous. And some what of a sore in the eyes. I put the best looking side forward, but... It's not that better, loll.

But as long as watertightness is not theoretical, I will live with that.

For posterity.

An aftermath picture.



I took it wide enough so you can zoom on the... Sili... Shrimps...

I’m glad you managed to save it, it looks good!

I had supper at 11pm and went to sleep at 2 am and was forced to step up like a rocket 3 times from foot cramps during the "night"...

Besides that !!! it's all good.

The days following the rebuild where tough.

The general digestive trails of the shrimps where empty and the poor things where wandering the tank like the desert. Even the nerites where on complete food panic mode.

Against good judgement, I overfed the tank, added a lot more botanicals and blown the place with bacter AE... Until everyone poops ! And ammonia rises. I caught it exactly when I expected it . The nitrate level was also rising fast. I dosed the tank with my favorite bacteria booster. And next morning there was 0 ammo, 0 nitrite, 5-10 nitrate. I did a 25% water change and added a good dose of liquid carbon dioxide to try to recover some of the denitrifying bacteria that could be left and also help the plants at the same time.

The substrate replacement, even seeded with the old one really changed the biological processing of the tank. And at the moment has lost nearly all it's nitrate processing capability. I'm faced to the fact that slow plants are not great player in that field.

I replaced my clump of filter wool for a little piece of fine sponge. If it does similar results it will be a little less crap in the garbage and easier to clean.

The shrimps are absolutely unaware of the pending doom upon them. And are tripping around the tank having fun and bothering the adults into hiding... loll... There is a lots of teens in there and a couple more interesting ones came out... There is new black rilis and blue mutts in addition of the brown and green. I now have 9 different models.

Even with all the positive points that I can retrieve from the experience... I wouldn't suggest anyone to smash an aquarium glass, anytime soon

Well another shot... Nearly all the biggest, sweetest, most beautiful shrimps... Died.

What a surprise. This is the third ELE event occurring in less than a year. I'm getting used to it.

Since then they the remaining hundred or so explored the tank like it was completely "new". No pun intended. I overfed them a little and when back to normal all are looking great atm !

Now for at least 4-5 days I have nitrate slowly going down. I never reached more than 10 ppm nitrate and maintained ammonia under 0.25 the whole time... Whatever... The nitrite crew is a lot sturdier and kept things at 0 all the way.

Thing looks like they are settling down... Once again. The shrimp are in hiding and crap is swirling in the water.

I can really see them only if I draw them out of their hides with"smelly food" And I try to keep that at a minimum.

Because... They are resilient little critters. To get an idea of their size: The food pellet hanging is 7 mm.

Well after my first week without being forced to change water every 2 days. And brought back nitrate to 0... With some help.

The shrimps are back to normal... Not really, everything seems slower... But they are looking happy fooling around and playing. I mean the ones that made the transfer are looking great, are active. I try to have the colony with a digestive trail that is not too shameful without blowing my nitrogen quota. But they seems a lot calmer than before.

I fed them a little more localized and they where not looking in panic like before, that's good.

When you see plants leaves spinning around in the water, you know that they're munching. My anubias are really there to hold shrimps and food so I can see them, I Purposely grow algae on the leaves to have babies early in the morning there, and be able to drop a little baby food on them without the bigger ones noticing too fast.

That kind of uses wears a plant a little faster than it should. But it insures a great baby survival rate.

Then the adults are off and hungry too. They are just a little lazy in the morning. The older they are the lazier.

But they eat on another level and need "to their scale" at least something that is like a basket ball size to humans per day in food. Waste included. The problems is it draws every other shrimps in the hood to the BBQ and trows a lot of crap in the bottom. loll.

That's a lot of nitrogen coming from everywhere... In a 5 gallons. I'm starting to be convinced that kind of tank can only support a very low number of real adults that would be able to make it trough.

But still, for all the tears poured since a year...

Super shrimps are popping all around. Blue ones, never seen since 5 months ?? and Rili's Black Red and Blue with purple stripes, the bloody Mary are gaining in with a splice of Rili and Red's. There is also some orange Rili and a lot of deeper than original oranges.

The green and brown Mutts young's turned lighter, but... The browns are copper alike now and the green are turning fluorescent.

None the less, in current water conditions. While the orange are still kings... Reds are in for breakthrough.

But... The current establishing King is orange...

I beginning to be a little better at establishing gender... And... There no queen in the shrimp realm.

Only a Big Muscular Douche Bag King

Things been settling in beautifully.

The water has been preserving it's goodness. GH and KH are spoocha !!! There is no accumulation of any undesired chemical byproducts. Nitrate is undetectable. For some reason my PH is still a little high, but is in range and KH shows great possible resistance to swings, with a very low ppm of anything else... Happiness... I tell you.

After months of surveillance at the tannin's level criteria, they are less than necessary in an healthy cherry shrimp tank. Even more, they are not welcome at all.

It's very difficult to obtain reliable information on the "real" cherry shrimp natural habitat without a lot's of contradiction. I was able to make Gemini loose it's marbles on this. loll. And everything points to a "Wide range" But I know where they live is not.

But The shrimps I have are negatively affected by tannin and what they want is all the biofilm these creates after releasing tannin's.

So I'm soaking and rinsing. And running carbon if it gets any coloration. But they love the biofilm... And the sparkling clear water at the same time.

They are vivacious, quick and alert. they can move up to 50 mph backward in 6 inches of space while still controlling direction. they literally vanish in front of your eyes.

Every time I feed them, the number that are able to catch something before it reaches the bottom is ridiculous. They are extremely aware of their environment for the means they have.

Overall seem excellent, good colors, thick carapace, reduced molting, no rings, getting big.

Somehow water chemistry seems to have changed everything, the next months will testify.

But they are a trill to watch... I starve them a little on purpose. Just to see them acting when plenty fall from the sky.

Their playfulness and energy is indeed overwhelming ! They are all truly beautiful and gracious.

Everything is looking so good at the moment that I think I'm going to bring another tank online soon.

I need to constantly feed them because everything is cleaned out. there is not a square inch of biofilm total in that tank. All the wood are munched to the bone. Cholla looks like consumable and wearing thin. Oak wood is much appreciated and is literally consumed, but not the leaves, loll. Almond leaves are a big favorite and both nerite makes sure that they don't last much. If I stop too long feeding them they start to munch on the plants and some prohibited stuff starts to swirl around in the tank...

In the morning there is not a shrimp in view... I try to make them come out in steps. with 2-4 small feeding over 2-3 hours periods...

When it starts... It starts. They are flocking from everywhere... MG, there are... too much... If I put all these digestive tracks en to end. It could reach the moon.

I have a small dish that I installed on top of the sponge filter to try to contain the mess they make, But If I don't spread food all around the tank before filling it, It turn into a zombie apocalyptic scene.

Once diverted by an initial or two spread feeding. I put a SL of Omega One shrimp pellets in there. It's about a basketball size in proportions to a cherry shrimp. And the party begins... Mini shrimps trying to drag that off the dish to adults getting theirs stolen while swimming away... And try not to make a nitrate spike.

But the playfulness becomes off chart. As soon as the perceived level of plentiness reach a certain level. It's all a bunch of kids on a playground. You just cant see all of what is happening at the same time.

These things are nuts.

Ok, I need to keep some kind of structure, But I get pulled by the moment most exciting side.

I haven't witness a single dead shrimp in a good lapse, But that is still not an heavy weight argument taking into account that the whole tank is an hiding place. And I have difficulty rescinding current flow of babies. And never seen shrimps appear out of thin water... Thick shrimps. But they are there They just won't show off.

The pumpkins are still leading, But they produced multiple kind of "funky' rili shrimp that are jelly blue with an orange spot each side of the thorax. And Blueish babies swimming all around. Some are black, some jelly Blue and Mutts that are blue striped... The Reds are looming everywhere and pushing a wonderful range of Bloody jade to purple pinks. Passing by Red and orange striped mutts too. And all the Red Rili are turning red jelly blue. Giving their touch on every level. The older jades are still there in sufficient number to be a threat to the Rili's. But they can push back.

A huge Black male showed out just enough to be noticed.... I jumped out of my seat to see that, and the thing hasn't resurfaced since. And other beefy things are popping around when I put... Too much food.

I fed these guys 4 times a day all they can eat until... I fed them again.

And after more than a week gross close observation of digestive tracks still shows a good proportion of starving shrimps. But the ones that are not starving, are full, poop trail. Now I have to consider a % of these as part of the food chain, can't feed more without chemistry problems at the moment.

This brings the topic to the next point: Water chemistry. With all the Filtering power available and tweaking made. Some have a lot more than 60 days undisputed or nearly not (shtf). But I'm still unsatisfied with the performance of my intake sponge.

It's too short 3 inches tall and it clogs in days. I admit my sponge is old and shrimps are starting to stick too much, So ordered a couple spare pieces and going to hack a 8 inch tall sponge intake, SlowFlow™ on my 8.5 tall tank.

At this point a quarter of the tank is already dedicated to filtration anyway. I'm gonna bring it to the water level I keep.

Should be an Ez hack, I bought everything new and setup should not suffer too much from the initial switch since it's used as mechanical filtration and rinsed under cold tap water every time.

From my current observation... Long term projection... A single cherry shrimp needs a gallon of water alone.

I say that kind of thing, because I have 1 shrimp alone in a 5 gallons, she belongs to another log, But... She is calm and fat. And also on the abandoned tank list.

Shrimps are doing very well, This morning the light opened up to a display of dancing males over all the place, a little more observation and I found who they are looking for, She's big enough to choose her mate and rejects all the smaller males, loll.

I got a couple pieces of cuttlebone and I added a small one, You can see shrimp using all their force to much on it. Do these ever finish by sinking or they always float like a cork ?

The material has arrived for the new intake, If my calculation are good. it should sit on the substrate and go up nearly to the water line.



I'm not really happy with the sponges, they are far from coarse, Not really like those pictured So I ordered something else.

It seem to be difficult to find real coarse sponge intake covers... Why are they always loose?.. Why so high ppi?..

Ah! Yeah, you need to replace a lot more often...

I ordered 2 Aquaclear 70 COARSE sponges, in case of another deception, I'm simply going to make my own.

The new intake sponges came in yesterday, they are a little bigger than the others but at last the grit is very coarse and you can see a lot of light trough them. I glued them together and It wasn't easy to install but I found a way.

It's sitting on the bottom and goes to up to 1 inch under the water line Water flow restored. I removed my old sorry 3 days rinses intake cover.

Compared to one of the new sponges;
and I stacked 3.



That produced an epic biofilm and seed shrimps tempest, All the cherries came out to lurk what's going on. They are going to love this mod, they are already all over it, it gives them a lot more feeding surface and will probably help me save a little food once algae starts to grow on it. I want green spots all over it.
Nonetheless. A good occasion to see how they are doing. I feed that tank to it's maximum nitrogen elimination capability and maintaining a nitrate level of 5-10 ppm.

Some shrimps really have a higher IQ than other... Whatever this can mean. Some are always full and other are simply struggling... I try to use distinguishable subject, but it's crazy in there. Loll.

On the Alien side, some really special shrimps are roaming and getting big. There's a Black Rili with white stripe and bright white eyes. it's creepy and really aggressive it steals food from others instead of foraging, there are also other kinda dark blue mutts that act the same but they are more blue jelly, with a black tail, they push much larger shrimps out of their way. I also have a dotted batch they are translucent with only an orange dot on each sides of the thorax. I have seen inverted red Rili too, but they are rare. The mosquitos rank grows... We have Brown, Red and Blue now, the jades are holding in... But still the pumpkins are ruling they are swimming everywhere they are looking so comfortable and are the first on everything.

My next move will be to rinse the AC main basket sponge, that brings me back to Jul 31, 2024 since It moved somehow and the compartiment wasn't touched at least 2-3 months earlyer. I expect this setup to be able to run 6 months between maintenence at least, with a great water flow.

Positively thinking "If not forever."

I'm reaching 200 cubic inches (3 litres) of filtration media volume for a 5 gallon tank. lollllll.