DjangoAqua

@navy-tank I would do so. I did not do it and I regret it, haha. Considering I won't clean it for another 6 months, I will have to use some sort of plastic sheet block it off so substrate doesn't slide into the back area. Good luck with the install! Not too hard. Cycled mine in about a week with starter bacteria. I have a pretty low stock tank so ammonia is pretty much non-existent. However, with increased shrimp population, I have no doubts the filter will still be more than enough to handle the upkeep.

That's a great thought @Schuyler. I am going to add a Seiryuu stone (I don't really carry anything kH heavy for my caridinas) and see if it helps.

Hi everyone, A quick breakdown on the specs/methods of tank: 15 gallon tank w/ UGF box made for 15 gal tanks "Freshwater" from local aquarium supply store used (~0 TDS and around 7.2pH) Water sits at around 6.9pH. Following Shrimp Manias cycling method (natural with addition of BacterAE) with estimated 10-12 week cycling time. Hygger light with 10 hour 100% on period ADA Amazonia Ver 2 substrate Some summary/timeline to the tank: Started about > 90 days ago early October. Some very slight biofilm/algae growth in the first 30 days but quickly dissipated. Had a very stinky smelly phase for a week 3 weeks in. Ammonia hit >5ppm late October due to substrate and after several water changes, brought down to 1ppm early December. If ammonia was an issue, cycling time has only been about 30-40 days. Absolutely no changes to nitrites/nitrates. Mid-December added SeaChem Stability but did not affect water parameters. Not exactly certain where to go from here except a hard reset by changing out substrate and full water change. Trying to avoid this as it will require tons of water changes to bring the ammonia down again due to the substrate. Any help appreciated!

Hi @navy-tank, Here's a 1 day video link (not sure why it expires so quickly). I can re-upload to Youtube as needed. https://streamable.com/2yelhe Filter works great despite being almost completely surrounded by stem plants (planted pretty bushy). It's been 6 months since setup and I see no signs of the sponge needing to be cleaned. In terms of being great at its job, as mentioned in my earlier posts, the tank is an abomination of attempting to be a jack of all trades. Despite the filter working great, it's an eyesore for being a planted tank and I've had an extremely low success rate with babies despite it being design around having food available to babies (1 extreme blue bolt baby surviving out of 5-6 pregnancy cycles. This may be due to high gH due to fertilization). Perhaps with a less cluttered or non-planted specific tank, the filter would do much better. Feel free to ask any other questions. 🙂

Bumping this one. Re-mineralizing the water with 10% weekly water changes and fertilizing leaves my TDS at around 200 tds with a GH of 7-8. Caridinas technically need 120-140 tds and a lower at GH of 4-5. A bit concerned here. One pregnant shrimp yielded no babies (also the drop checker liquid dropped into the 9.3 gal) and I have another 3 pregnant shrimp at around 1-3 weeks of conception.

Hello everyone, I have a 9.3gal planted caridina (about 12 shrimp and 3 berried) tank, re-mineralized to ~120-140 tds, with 20% water changes every 2 weeks that I recently started implementing 2HR Aquarist APT Zero into. I started using this about 2 weeks ago after hitting a green hair algae problem where plants started losing color but now after daily ferts, are thriving happily. However, with the addition of ferts, naturally the TDS of the tank is reaching around 190ppm. This is where my concern comes in. 2HR Aquarist suggests a 40% water change weekly and I'm a bit afraid of an accumulation of minerals. I've been told this doesn't matter as long as the base water change water is shrimp re-mineralized to ~120ppm as that's the "important" shrimp minerals but it still concerns me to see such a high number for a generally sensitive shrimp. Does anyone have any experience with daily fertilizing with caridinas? I have a feeling I should just dose 50-70% of the recommended weekly dosage to find balance as it seems like I have to choose between thriving shrimp (more important to me) and a planted tank.

Hi Matty, Thanks for taking the time to respond to my somewhat convoluted post after it started to reach the depths of the forum. I was not happy with the PVC pipe aesthetically and performance wise and mostly because the pearling really only occurred on the plants closer to diffuser. Along with this, I'd have to really blast the BPS to get a green drop checker or > 1.0 pH drop. I decided to experiment by removing the PVC + airstone all together and replacing it with a combination of water pump behind the corner filter, inline atomizer, and a lily pipe (the upgrade costing about $75 all together). With this and about 1-2 bps, I am able to get the 1.0 pH drop and a green drop checker with a much stronger flow (adjustable as needed), the fine most of co2 per at the atomizer, and plants throughout the tank pearling (with the carpet showing the best improvement). I have a lone rotala behind a rock in the far corner opposite to the lily pipe and it is now pearling even while almost basically hidden. I keep the benefits of a corner filter for the shrimp, a somewhat improved aesthetic, and now a fully pearling tank. I'm sure you can picture how this looks but I'd be happy to upload a video.

The two major questions with 1 minor question are: Does anyone know how important it is to have their co2 diffuser have some sort of flow crossing it? I've seen several tanks on big YouTube channels simply have the bubbles flow straight up and their drop checker seems to be green. I assume the height of the tank, diffuser, and bps all matter in this case. Do co2 bubbles need to make contact with plants in anyway or must the water be rich with carbonic acid? Does anyone have any experience with efficiently implementing co2 in a corner matten filter tank? I have a 10g tank, about 12" high, with a corner mattenfilter, and using the aquario neo co2 diffuser (comes with the diy co2 kit). I've tried to make it a master of none tank where I have caridinas I'd like to breed, a corner matten filter for the benefit of the shrimp, aquascaped, and becoming more and more planted. The two cases I've tried: I have the flow towards the diffuser (almost at the bottom of the tank) on the opposite end of the tank. This creates a very apparent sprite water effect but does get the bubbles "rolling" which I assume is higher efficiency as more dissolves in water before it hits the surface. My bps is I assume fairly high as with >1bps will turn the drop checker green. Also, the plants near the diffuser obviously have a ton of bubbles and I believe this is co2 getting stuck to the plants. With this, I assume the plants in the back of the tank do not benefit as the co2 bubbles seem to be stuck on the nearby plants. I have put the diffuser within the PVC pipe for the matten filter to hope for a makeshift atomizer or at least hoping there is enough volatility of movement with the air stone bubbles + co2 bubbles to dissolve them. I've tried this with diffuser both below and above the airstone. My bps is definitely >1bps but I avoid the sprite water effect. The drop checker does take an hour or two longer to go green and pearling seems to be more apparent throughout the tank. Overall, I think this is a pretty lengthy way of asking, am I crazy for putting the diffuser near other plants and should I place the co2 diffuser away from plants so co2 can't get stuck to them? Perhaps another diffuser that can produce finer bubbles can be used. Hoping for any insight or just an open discussion on this.

Hi Nabokov and Gardenman, This completely solved my issue. I was feeding a pure tube into the PVC because the airstone didn't seem to affect flow rate. Now, with the airstone, overnight, no more film. Bubbles and some poppage, but no more film. Thank you so much!

Hello everyone, I am fairly new to the aquarium scene and just 2 months ago, added a 2nd tank (9.3gal) for a more stable environment for my caridina shrimp. I decided to be a bit ambitious and add a corner matten filter as I love my shrimp and have read this is a great medium between creating a nicer overall design and a place to baby shrimp to snack and not get sucked in. However, after cycling, I notice I will still get white bacteria film on top. Of course my next thought would be surface skimmer but... this takes away from filtering of the matten filter (unless pointing directly at the corner filter?), design of the tank, and shrimp can get stuck inside the skimmer. I also have Co2 and want to avoid the hindering of gaseous exchange. I am wondering if anyone else had a solution for getting rid of this bacteria in a somewhat automated manner. I can use a paper towel every now and then sure... or even hydrogen peroxide from what I've seen, but perhaps there's already a solution out there? Perhaps the skimmer is just a small price to pay for a healthier environment. I'd love to hear anyone's experience with this. A little corner filter action and amount of surface stuff: https://streamable.com/huqg0t