[Rain Water issues]

On 9/11/2022 at 11:29 PM, gardenman said:

That small of a tank with that many plants actively growing, and having been established as long as it is, would make me think that something else is going on. Overfeeding would be one option. Shrimp don't produce a lot of waste. They're tiny little things. If the water going in isn't the issue, then my suspicion is that something else is going on. Maybe something died under one of the rocks and is decaying? Maybe uneaten food has accumulated. You have CO2 and actively growing plants. I'm guessing you're also fertilizing the plants. Maybe the fertilizer is adding ammonia? Ammonium nitrate is a very common fertilizer especially in the DIY plant tabs. If you've got ammonia in your water, you've got plant food there for the plants. They should strip the ammonia out pretty quickly. I wouldn't add any additional fertilizer for a bit and see if the problem doesn't resolve. It could be that ammonia is somehow leaching from the gravel or rocks in some manner. (More likely the gravel.) Shrimp require very little in the way of biofiltration to remove their wastes. You're not keeping koi or huge cichlids. Shrimp are tiny little things that don't produce a ton of waste. You shouldn't be seeing ammonia levels at all keeping shrimp in a planted tank that's been established for a while.

I recently did pull out some elodia that smelled funky. I changed from the little tube I used to a zip tie and sucker.

[Rain Water issues]

On 9/11/2022 at 11:35 AM, Biotope Biologist said:

Have you tested the rainwater? It may not be a rainwater issue and could be a crashed cycle.

 

How big of water changes do you do and what’s your schedule?

 

The other thing I’m noticing is your ceramic rings are not brown. They should be brown after 8 months. Are you cleaning them? If you do rinse mulm off them you should only use tank water as tap or rainwater could harm or kill your bacteria 

tank is yellow on ammonia and slightly has nitrates. (10000gal rain water tank) the noodles were fluro white when i put them in there like a lightish brown now and no only rinse in tank water when i do a water change(once a week usually but sometimes half way in week to depending one if anything is high, i can only do about 25% water change with the shrimp i tried a 50% one time alot died ( i always slow feed the water back in from a big jug i have through airline tube so they dont get a shock special last 2-3 months on winter in Australia.

On 9/11/2022 at 12:06 PM, face said:

what's your ph and kh? and is there any nitrite?

there is nitrite around 0 - 0.25 (the colour is hard to tell sometimes), ph is around 6.6 6.8ish I only have the master test kit so i dont have the kh kit

[My 10 Gallon Journal]

On 8/28/2022 at 6:54 AM, A3M0N said:

My vallisneria isn't looking the best. It's still alive, and has already creeped and started two more plants, but none of it is a tall and green as it was. I turned my light brightness up a bit, but then I saw an uptick in hair algae. 

So as of now my light is at half power, both white and blue lights, and running for eight hours per day. It was at 10 hours. 

Also, more for fun and I like to make things than for any other reason, and to see if it would help my plants, I made a very small diy co2 system. It's made from two 16oz soda bottles, air tubing, and an air stone. It probably won't run very long, but I just wanted to see if it would work and it does. I may upgrade to that gallon bottle next if it makes a big difference. 

I still need to change the water this week. I'll do that this evening probably. 

i like the zip ties idea to hold the diy co2 as a solid single unit 🙂

[What’s the easiest type of stone to create good hardscapes]

I would say it depends on how picky you are about the perfect look. Personally i just toss it in move it slightly then walk away get a coffee etc then walk back in if I dont like it after time away i change it and keep doing that till i like it. but lava rock(red and black) and seiryu stone are solid picks. dragon stone i think works better in larger tank, as in nano tanks i feels like the gap/holes in the stone are to outer scale

[Rain Water issues]

So i have had a shrimp tank for about about 8 months in a 21l(roughly 5.5gal) tank after a lot of rain awhile ago i'm in a endless cycle of ammonia spiking a bit really light green and nitrates hitting into the red 40ppm area. but it gets a little higher i do a little water change comes back abit my biological is obviously converting the ammonia etc maybe its not fast enough of enough media i have sponge and a layer of bio noodles. (i have been lightly dosing with extra prime to keep the ammonia/nitrate locked)