Bitten By The Shrimp...

[Cyanite]

Hi all

Whne I was a kid used to have an aquarium with guppies and really enjoyed them. Now, some 25-30 years later, my living room needed a decor change and through many deliberations i decided to get myself an aquarium again.
Initially meant as an ornament, but as I have read up on the topic (a lot, i dont like to things half hearted) I am intriqued about the whole proces, from knowing the nitrogen cycle, to types of fish, shrimp, plants and other living things in the water.

I have invested in a fluval edge 46liter/12 gallon Aquarium. Aesthetically it appealed the most to me, and it is my desire to combine my newfound interest with just that.

I fully intend to take good care of things and the "no fish was harmed in the making and maintaining" is important to me now.

What I plan for the tank is as follows (advice given would be accepted joyously!)

Fine sand bottom, few hardy plants not requiring CO2 addition.
Livestock: 10 Rasboras Brigittae for the top level, 10 green neons for the bottom level of tank, a pair of pygmy gouramis, a Atyopsis Gabonensis male giant blue shrimp for the bottom (made a cave for him) and finally the algae cleaning snails i have forgotten the name of.

Some advice is much needed on the cycling though, and I turn to you in here, as I have read a lot on the forums anonymously, but thought I'd reveal myself now.

Along with the edge came some nutrafin products, namely cycle and acqua plus. In the first go, i managed to mess up a bit by leaving the water stale for 1½ days in the acquarium 273's full after setting up with plants and the dosages before realising I had to fill up to full and have the pump running.
Well I did these things, and exactly a week after, the LFS tested the water and reported sky high nitrite ratings and said that it was a "do-over".

I did, not knowing enough and did a violent substrate (light fine sand) cleansing (water is near crystal clear, even if substrate is agitated), replanted/decorated and added the two products from nutrafin and have now poured in the 3rd and final dose.

Admittedly, I am not overly confident in my LFS after asking me to do everything over just because I had high nitrite levels, so:

Having acquired the JBL combi test kit and a JBL ammonium test kit (all drop tests) I did a reading today. PH is fairly high between 8 and 8.5 (am told its normal levels in my city), ammonium was very low, near undetectable, nitrite was at 0.05 ppm, nitrate at 5 ppm.

I am wondering if I am good to put in a few fish now, or if the bottled bacteria has worked at all. Maybe the first week actually built a bacteria culture in the biofilter that is helping the "new" cycling along?

If I need to provide more information to the above do not hesitate to ask for it. I'd really like to know your thoughts on this.

Here is a photo: http/imageshack.us/photo/my-images/844/aquarium2012first.gif/

 

[fluttermoth]

The best thing to do to ensure the safety of your future fish is to get yourself a bottle of household cleaning ammonia solution (it's pretty easy to get and we can advise you if you tell us roughly where you are ) and do a proper fishless cycle.

Unless you add ammonia to the tank somehow, you won't know if you're cycled or not.

I'm afraid you're going to have to rethink your stocking plans; that is way too many fish for a 12g tank, especially as stocking levels are determined very much by surface area, of which the Edge tanks have very little.

The Cameroon shrimp isn't going to be suitable either, I'm afraid; it gets too big and needs quite specialist care, being a filter feeder. There are a lot of other freshwater shrimps you could have though.

 

[JohnDyer]

You are probably a bit over stocked with 22 fish in a 12 gallon aquarium, even if they are all small fish.
I think the general opinion here is that bacteria-in-a-bottle type things don't usually work, although there are exceptions. I don't know about cycle specifically, it might work and it might not.
Did you dose ammonia?

 

[Cyanite]

I do aggree on the overstocking. I actually thought it was too much, when suggested.

The guy that said it could be pulled off was an aquarium keeper at Tivoli in Denmark. His reasoning was, that the rasboras and the green neons wouldnt be in eachothers way so to speak, since one is bottom/mid level and the other is high.

I would be sad to not bet the cameroon shrimp, though. I havent seemed to come across anyone before you who mentioned they were difficult or needed special care. If that is the case I'll naturally reconsider.

I have not attempted to add any ammonium to the tank yet. I have only done what instructions in the leaflet suggested.

Mybe i should give that a go and see what happens.

Thanks for your advice so far, and if you or anyone else has more to add, dont hesitate!

 

[Man of fish]

Ammonium is not harmful to fish, ammonia and nitrIte is very harmful.

 

[Essjay]

Instructions that come with tanks don't usually mention how to do a fishless cycle properly. They just tell you to use a bottle of bacteria (the nutrafin cycle in this case) only very few of them actually work. There is a guide on fishless cycle in the beginner's resource centre http/www.fishforums.net/index.php?/topic/113861-fishless-cycling/ It tells you all you need to know, the things that the tank instructions and the shop won't tell you.

 

[silenthawk2x3]

If you are still considering shrimp read up on cherry shrimp and ghost shrimp. They are very easy to care for and some of the more hardy shrimps available. I have had great luck with both! They do best with something small like neons that don't eat them plus you can so a species tank and get a real feel for the natural behavior of the fish. I would suggest eight or ten neons and around ten cherry shrimps!

 

[Cyanite]

I am still considering shrimp, and I still havent decided against the Atyopsis Gabonensis. I have managed to talk to quite a few people I know is knowledgable (proprietors of Commercial fishtanks, trained people etc.) and all them agreed that it wouldn't be harmfull at all for it. Mind you, that I gave all full specs on the tank.

I do think I have reconsidered on the stock, though.

Beginning to fall in love with betta splendens. While the temper is not the same with each individual, and a little minus that the tapwater here after treatment is quite hard, it should be doable to have the betta (gunning for a crowntail atm, but dependant on what is available, and a small shoal of green neons, 10 to 12.

I have not added ammonia to the tank as of yet, since I thought i would give the nutrafin cycle a testing period.

latest testing showed low ammonia( 0,2 ppm) high nitrite (0,6) and low nitrate (below 1, but higher than nothing).

Now since the nitrite is high, I suppose I do not need to do more than wait for the nitrates to show and at some point see the nitrite go down.

 

[Essjay]

For fishless cycling, nitrite at 0.6 is not high. High in fishless terms is off the top of the scale. However, 0.6 is high when you have fish in the tank.

Even if your ammonia and nitrite drop to zero just using nutrafin cycle, you won't know how many bacteria have grown. If there are only a few and you add fish, you'll most likely find yourself coping with levels of ammonia and later nitrite that rocket, and daily water changes to keep the fish alive. Once the readings drop to zero, it is well worth adding ammonia, somewhere around 3 to 5ppm, to check if the filter can cope with that amount before you get fish. If that drops to zero ammonia and zero nitrite within 12 hours of adding it, good. If one or both don't drop then at least you won't have any fish to come to harm and you can carry on with a fishless cycle using ammonia rather than nutrfin cycle till the filter is ready for fish.

 

[Em29]

You are not testing the filter by adding Nutrifin Cycle..that is only putting some bacteria into the tank ( many people have used this on here including myself and it has proved useless tbh). You need to be adding an ammonia source in order for the bacteria to grow to process the ammonia. As you haven't added an ammonia source you are not cycling your filter at all. You filter needs to be able to process 2-3ppm of ammonia within 12 hours and Nitrite needs to also be zero before any fish can be added.
This can be time consuming...my filter took 7 weeks to cycle.

Homebase sell Ammonia cheaply. Check out the begginners section on fishless cycling.

 

[willowstwin]

I'm very confused on the gallon front... do we go imperial or us?

As for shrimp, cherries are a good choice, they're easy to keep, easy to breed (and if you have them in a tank with fish, your numbers won't get too high ). They also come in a wonderful variety of colours - red, yellow, green, blue. HOWEVER, be very careful not to mix the same species: for example, if you mix 2 colours of cherries, they WILL interbreed and produce (what some people call ugly) miscoloured offspring, so you won't have the seperate colours anymore. Also, you need to look at species in the sense of Neocaridina and Caridina. You can mix Neos and Cars, without any cross breeding, but if you mix the same, then the above cross breeding will happen.

Just to try and make sense of shrimp compatibility, try THIS COMPATIBILITY CHART as it will help you know which shrimp will be fine together. I personally love amanos and red cherries together, as you get the wonderful vibrance of the cherries, with the HUGE amanos (plus, amanos don't breed in a fresh water tank )

If you're using sand, why not go for a small school of corydoras (pygmy corys are ADORABLE!!) and your Rasboras brigittae (which I'm jealous of you having, I can't get them in my LFS). Plus you could have a drawf gourami too.

But cycling is the MAIN priority. You also shouldn't have plants in while you cycle.

Keep us all posted on how you're doing and what you decide to do (and pictures are good too )

 

[Essjay]

In fishkeeping it's usually American gallons. So 1 gallon = 3.8 litres, or the other way round, 10 litres = 2.6 US gallons.

For tank additives (dechlorinator, medication etc) I always use litres so that I can't use the wrong kind of gallon.




Some bottled bacteria products contain ammonia - is nutrafin cycle one of them? Though even if it is, there won't be much ammonia in there. Maybe enough to get the results Cyanite is getting but not nearly enough to cycle a filter with.