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Gestaltgal

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  1. Gestaltgal
  2. Gestaltgal
    Updates: The light is finally balanced after we had an algae bloom. The shrimp went through a vorticella outbreak, which we corrected thanks to some great advice here! Everybody is finally happy, and we have had 4 egg hatchings at least. Our Pogostemon Stellatus Octopus has grown incredibly! I'm so happy with it. We have a group of guppies quarantining. I can't wait to add them.
  3. Gestaltgal
    This baby shrimp is less than half a grain of rice long!!
  4. Gestaltgal
    Just as an update, all shrimp have been bathed and look 100% better. We caught a couple that had some fuzz on their head, so we just salt bathed every shrimp we could get our net on. We're watching our tank cleaning (gravel vaccing every other day and watching the water column) for a while. I'm grateful for the help! Special update on the pictured shrimp which we named Zombie Queen: her eggs hatched very quickly after she was isolated; we bathed her and isolated her in a hang on tank container. She looked SIGNIFICANTLY better, and she molted the next day, looking squeaky clean. Now she zooms around the tank care free. About a quarter of her brood made it through the salt bath (the macro lens revealed some HEAVY DUTY PARASITES), so we're glad so many made it through!! THANK YOU!
  5. Gestaltgal
    I want to add some updates, and it has been a journey! We have a quarantine tank set up, cycled and ready for fish. We ordered some beautiful blue guppies online, only to have them arrive dead. The second round of shrimp we ordered made it fine in the same shipment. It looked like they had pecked each other to death (holes in each and every one). The online retailer was VERY kind and VERY professional and refunded us. Now, we don't have an LFS, so we then went to our local chain store and found a knowledgeable and professional fish manager, who happily helped us get 5 Mollies. We brought them home, drip acclimated them to the quarantine tank, and a week later, the biggest one had pecked the smallest to death (it happened over night?!). So, we returned the mollies (bully separate), and we opted for 4 male guppies because they didn't have any females to mix in. The guppies seem very happy. AND we have had a round of baby shrimp! We're very excited about it. We have added 2 more nerites (for a total of 3), and my favorite is still the zebra. Macro of Baby Shrimp Guppies Zari! My Favorite 🙂
  6. Gestaltgal
    That would be a relief. I can deal with parasites. Thank you! We have isolated her and lovingly named her "Zombie Queen". We'll be watching her for the next 5 days (she's due in 5-10ish days). If she stops functioning well, we'll dose her. I'm okay losing the eggs and saving the shrimp. She'll get berried again, after all.
  7. Gestaltgal

    Shrimp help?

    Gestaltgal posted a topic in Diseases

    This berried shrimp looks like a zombie! She's swimming just fine, eating just fine, and seems to be molting? Will she lose the eggs? Will she survive? Is there anything I can do? Tank parameters: 7.4 pH 0 ppm Ammonia 0 ppm Nitrites 0 ppm Nitrates 14 GH (drops from API test kit) 20 KH (drops from API test kit)
  8. Gestaltgal
    Gorgeous! What a lovely home for your pea puffer. I'm excited to see how it looks in a few weeks with even more plant growth.
  9. Gestaltgal
    When we planted PSO to help cycle our tank, we thought that it had died FOR SURE in the first week. But after about 2 weeks, it shot out roots like crazy before sending out new leaves or growing taller. I don't know if that is helpful, but that's our experience. In addition, PSO can float freely and still root/grow. We use it in our quarantine tank when we have newbies coming in by just tossing some cutting with 3-4 nodes into the tank. We also have VERY hard water with more than usual nutrients, so I'm not sure if this is apples to oranges.
  10. Gestaltgal
    It's nice to see the spread in the poll! It also confirms the wonderful experience we have on this forum 🙂
  11. Gestaltgal
    Glad you're here! I'm so glad to hear how much relief the hobby can give you. Welcome 🙂
  12. Gestaltgal
    @Jungle FanI've never seen one bloom before. Gorgeous! Thanks for sharing!
  13. Gestaltgal
    We have a berried shrimp! My sister called it a "blueberried" shrimp!😆
  14. Gestaltgal
    Every tank is different! I'm learning all of that, too. I also know that we get ammonia readings that are sometimes misleading because of our type of water (we're on a well), so get to know your water! It's going to be your best friend. With new tanks, I found these very helpful in the ammonia balancing hunt: The Truth About Dechlorinators and Why Your Ammonia Test Kit is Probably Lying to You!. Good luck!
  15. Gestaltgal
    Glad you're here!
  16. Gestaltgal
    I swear he posed for me:
  17. Gestaltgal
    @FishdudeThanks for asking these questions! I am really appreciating the thread. Everybody has such great information and ideas. 😊
  18. Gestaltgal
    I know the YouTube experience! Such friendly folks and amazing resources absolutely pulled me in. Live plants for the win! Glad to have you here!
  19. Gestaltgal
    @Martin Thanks for the compliments!! My partner and I loved doing the design. I traded out the stone that WAS leaking calcium and added the dragon stone instead, so the shrimp could have some nice hiding spaces while still not having major calcium issues. The gravel doesn't seem to be the issue (we went all experimental and compared cups of non-gravel water to gravel water after 48 hours on the counter). I appreciate the heads up on the PetSmart gravel!! I will for sure be saving up for the nicer substrate in the future if (and from what everyone is saying WHEN) we get another tank. 🙂
  20. Gestaltgal
    We had a crisis when we realized that the biggest rock in our scape was leaking calcium like nobody's business, creating HUGE swings in our pH. We also had to add co2 with our pressurized water system off-gassing most of our useful co2 for our plants! But everybody is back in the tank after a re-aquascaping and week of ph/gh/kh monitoring. They are sooooo stinkin' gorgeous! When brought them over, all of the shrimp piled on to our snail!! It was cute and disconcerting at the same time.
  21. Gestaltgal
    @Martin They are gorgeous! And they seem to really like hanging out in the open, so I've loved these shrimp.
  22. Gestaltgal
    I'm using RO. With well water, we have RO at the kitchen tap for drinking water. The co2 injection during the day with it off at night seems to be doing the trick, and I'm taking the pH 3x daily to get a feel for the fluctuations. As long as the pH doesn't fluctuate hugely, I'm hoping we found the trick.
  23. Gestaltgal
    I second @Biotope Biologist. I use a small python siphon to vacuum when I'm doing water changes, and it works just fine. I have some dwarf grass that is a little finicky, so I just press and hold gently on the area for a count of 2-3, and then pinch the hose to release any fine substrate while the particulate floats. Then I release the hose, and any particulate just comes right up.
  24. Gestaltgal
    Update: introduced co2 to help the plants, and ta da! pH is far more regulated (7.4 and holding). I think with such a high kh, the off-gassing is a problem. I'll be monitoring of the next week with regular checks before introducing any livestock!
  25. Gestaltgal
    @OceanTruth We went with some blue velvet Neocaridinas!
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