Hello,
I've been in the hobby for a while, I quit shortly after experiencing horrible issues with health of my fish. I mainly kept some livebearers, which are known for having issues.
I started out again, I wanted to make it one of these "Walstad" tanks. I took down my old tank, smelly af, which was so filthy. I had to accelerate my work as I found a baby cherry shrimp. Did I say 'baby'? He was adult! Just not enough actual food for him to eat so he grew smaller in size to adapt to food amount. I assume at least.
I set my current tank up, no filter, just a heater and few plants that I specifically got just to set the shrimp up. I didn't acclimate him, he seemed okay. After few days I couldn't find him anymore, then I found him dead. I put it down as a shock due to environment change, and not being acclimatised.
After a bit I got some amano shrimps, ordered off an eBay seller. For some reason they died, so I got some off a store but these died a while later as well. They refused food, they stayed only by the surface. They only would move more only after I changed water, which I was changing like crazy. In the end I put it all down as lack of a filter and dissolved oxygen, which seems more correct. More correct as I did not have such issues later.
There were two left, one died molting. Another one wasn't molting, couldn't molt. My friend told me to put in cuttle fish in to raise calcium, even if I have hard water. This worked miracles, the shrimp survived and molted. She was acting like a healthy shrimp, so while later I went down to the shop to get few more amanos.
Later down the line I went to get my betta, and pool noodles (kuhli loaches!) since I wanted them for like forever. And more amanos.
I also then got more plants as my before plants had a massive meltover. I don't have any photos of it sadly, but it looked horrible and is why on the photos my amazon sword looks unhappy.
New plants filled the tank up, some days later I had another massive meltover which was due to water lettuce. I threw the lettuce out.
This is how the tank looked with new plants in:
Betta (never had a name) was happy, and so were the noodles:
Before that I got a few otos off an eBay seller, only one was alive. He then lived for a while before he passed attached to the air line.
I got 5 at the shop, they lived for a bit and had thin bellies (were underfed, at the shop of course). Only one of them left, and he's still with me.
He's such a wonderful lil' weirdo, I see him rarely. He just does his own thing.
This is how the tank roughly looked in it's first weeks:
On the photo it looks totally different from what it was on day 1, I lost some plants and had to get more to get them replaced.
This is how the tank looks like now:
This photo is taken after the guplet and shrimp tragedy.
I still need to reattach the moss ledge (moss may stall and wither away), and to trim the crazy vallis. That thing grew to water surface in two days.
Really am sorry for the essay, just wanted to put everything down for myself. You don't have to read all of it, but it'll always be very appreciated
Time lines may not be exactly accurate, really sorry for that. I don't have great time perception, but events are accurate.
I've been in the hobby for a while, I quit shortly after experiencing horrible issues with health of my fish. I mainly kept some livebearers, which are known for having issues.
I started out again, I wanted to make it one of these "Walstad" tanks. I took down my old tank, smelly af, which was so filthy. I had to accelerate my work as I found a baby cherry shrimp. Did I say 'baby'? He was adult! Just not enough actual food for him to eat so he grew smaller in size to adapt to food amount. I assume at least.
I set my current tank up, no filter, just a heater and few plants that I specifically got just to set the shrimp up. I didn't acclimate him, he seemed okay. After few days I couldn't find him anymore, then I found him dead. I put it down as a shock due to environment change, and not being acclimatised.
After a bit I got some amano shrimps, ordered off an eBay seller. For some reason they died, so I got some off a store but these died a while later as well. They refused food, they stayed only by the surface. They only would move more only after I changed water, which I was changing like crazy. In the end I put it all down as lack of a filter and dissolved oxygen, which seems more correct. More correct as I did not have such issues later.
There were two left, one died molting. Another one wasn't molting, couldn't molt. My friend told me to put in cuttle fish in to raise calcium, even if I have hard water. This worked miracles, the shrimp survived and molted. She was acting like a healthy shrimp, so while later I went down to the shop to get few more amanos.
Later down the line I went to get my betta, and pool noodles (kuhli loaches!) since I wanted them for like forever. And more amanos.
I also then got more plants as my before plants had a massive meltover. I don't have any photos of it sadly, but it looked horrible and is why on the photos my amazon sword looks unhappy.
New plants filled the tank up, some days later I had another massive meltover which was due to water lettuce. I threw the lettuce out.
This is how the tank looked with new plants in:
Betta (never had a name) was happy, and so were the noodles:
Before that I got a few otos off an eBay seller, only one was alive. He then lived for a while before he passed attached to the air line.
I got 5 at the shop, they lived for a bit and had thin bellies (were underfed, at the shop of course). Only one of them left, and he's still with me.
He's such a wonderful lil' weirdo, I see him rarely. He just does his own thing.
This is how the tank roughly looked in it's first weeks:
On the photo it looks totally different from what it was on day 1, I lost some plants and had to get more to get them replaced.
This is how the tank looks like now:
This photo is taken after the guplet and shrimp tragedy.
I still need to reattach the moss ledge (moss may stall and wither away), and to trim the crazy vallis. That thing grew to water surface in two days.
Really am sorry for the essay, just wanted to put everything down for myself. You don't have to read all of it, but it'll always be very appreciated
Time lines may not be exactly accurate, really sorry for that. I don't have great time perception, but events are accurate.
Where did you get that red plant from if you don’t mind me asking? I’ve been looking for that type of plant for months
