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Trying to scrape the front glass, and as soon as I put the blade in the water a bunch of shrimp swam to it and started eating. Excuse me mr/mrs, but I’ve got work to do, please graze on the other glasses where I’ve left plenty of algae for you :)

Day 81: The Rotala have started growing toward the front of the tank and drooped at the top to remain submerged in water, giving it a veiled look. I had to trim some off because it was taking over all the swim space at the front. The Chili Rasboras finally started getting more fully red, I switched to feeding them the Aquarium Coop Magic Nano Feed, they are fantastic! The flow from the canister filter is still going great, will probably have its first full clean up in the next few weeks.

Day 57: 12 Chili Rasboras were added since the last update, and the stemmed plants have really filled up the back of the tank. Monte carlo is starting to carpet along the front, the anubias are growing large and the java ferns have started sprouting smaller plants. I’m not sure if the rasboras have impacted the colony size of the shrimp, but they are such peaceful fish and never bother the shrimp that I can see (adult or juvenile). So far the tank has not had large water changes, mostly just topping off and replacing a bit of the water lost from evaporation. No algae growth anywhere except on the sides of the glass and I can see the shrimp always grazing on them. There are also now emersed growth from the Ludwigia Repens, some of them started growing out of the water and I’m leaving it in for mow because I’m interested in seeing how the leaves will look. Overall this tank has been doing wonderful, never had algae issues, easy to clean and overall just very pleasant to have in my office space!

Hello! I keep the sides of my tank unscraped to keep the algae for the baby shrimp to eat. Today I noticed quite a few tiny little crawlers, I thought they were tiny shrimplets first, but I think these are copepods? They are harmless right? Just wanted to check with the others who are more knowledgeable in this area. I plan to add chili rasbora pretty soon once my neocaridina population gets bigger, so hopefully the numbers will dwindle.

44 days in, and the tinkering has not stopped 🙂 Although I focus on making just very minor changes each time. Newly added: Aquario Neo Flow - added a surface skimmer with their inline CO2 diffuser directly to the outflow of my lily pipe. I had to mod a little bit to get the extensions to fit on my own stainless steel lily pipes: I took a small cutout of my 12mm hose and connected the two pieces, they fit like a glove! Stocking - still just shrimp for now, the babies are growing larger and more small ones are appearing. The plants are doing well and my carpeting plants are finally starting to spread out. It took about a month for the catappa leaves to breakdown that the shrimp can eat, so that took a while longer than I expected. No algae anywhere in the tank, I think the lean fertilization method really works! I left the algae on the side glass for the shrimp to feast on though. My next update should include fish, I’m looking to get the chili rasbora to get even more of the red pop in the tank!

Thanks for sharing! J enjoyed reading about your tanks and the inhabitants. The glow in the dark setup was very interesting, looks almost like real jellyfish in there 🙂

Day 38 - Upgraded the light to the Chihiros WRGB Slim, and man what a difference it makes to the entire look of the tank! The shrimp are just super red, even the babies are all deep red instead of clear orange. The colour of the plants pop more too. I have the setting at 50% brightness and it’s more than adequate lighting. I will be keeping an eye over the next few days to see if I get algae growth and will adjust. Am looking forward to see if adding the 1 hour ramp up and down time to the lighting period will make a difference.

Yeah I let the tank run for about 2 1/2 weeks before the ammonia stopped leaching in the water. I had a bit of hair algae growth but that quickly went away. I did daily water changes the first week, then every other day for the next week, and I thought that worked well. I’m sure your tank will turn out great! Enjoy! Thank you so much! The babies are just growing everywhere, it’s so exciting! I’m still learning but I’m loving this tank so far 🙂

I realized that I originally posted in General Discussions and didn’t know about this topic section. This is where I think would be best to keep up with my nano tank journal, and I’m glad to have a space to share this. I started my second tank 29 days ago, with the intent for it to be a nano tank with shrimps and fish. I will link to the other post as to not repeat everything in detail, but so far the tank has been doing amazing. I put in 11 Bloody Mary Neocaridina shrimp 11 days ago, and since then, they have thrived and are spawning a lot! I got a macro lens that attaches to my phone, so I can take pictures of the tiny little critters without needing to zoom. I am pretty happy with the results so far. I will share the pictures of my tanks over time, plus the shrimp now. Afterwards, I plan to add chili rasbora once there is large enough of a shrimp colony.

I’ve had my 40 gallon breeder for almost 4 years and at one point my spiderwood got black beard algae on it and I never bothered taking them out. When I got mollies in the tank recently I saw they were actually eating them so I was happy just leaving them alone. But then about a week ago I saw fresh new patches in the midst of the old black beard algae, and they almost look like moss! Wondering if it’s because the mollies ate the old ones and new ones simply grew back longer and more green. It actually looks kind of nice, but the question remains: Is this just new black beard algae growth? Or looks like something else? 🙂

Week 3 update: some time in week 2, about 10-14 days after the tank was set up, I started getting hair algae in the tank. I cleaned up what I could, and started doing lean fertilizing. (Currently dosing only potassium and micro minerals) On day 18 my tank tested 0 ppm for ammonia and nitrite, so I went ahead and got 11 Bloody Mary Neocaridina shrimp to the tank. The shrimp seems to be perfectly fine with the canister filter, and adjusted well! This morning (day 23) I saw a molted exo shell, and found a baby shrimp swimming around already! I also added a catappa leave for it to breakdown and provide more food for the shrimp, but so far they have been happy munching away on the biofilm around the tank. I plan to keep the tank shrimp only for now until the population booms. Then I will be adding chili rasboras to finish the tank. Nano tanks are more enjoyable than I thought! I used some macro lens attachment for my phone to capture some pictures of the shrimp. It has made a big difference in the quality of the photos I can take on my phone and has made this an even more fun experience.

Oh! I never knew about these snails! Thanks for the info! I guess I must have gotten a hitchhiker because I’ve never seen them in my tank before! I’ve got a bunch of snails in my tanks so I’m not bothered but I was secretly hoping I managed to breed Nerite snails without any effort lol

A few weeks ago I bought 4 Nerite snails from ACO. My understanding was that Nerite snails need brackish waters to breed so I was not expecting it when I noticed a small snail on my glass that looked like a juvenile, but I can’t be sure. It’s a lot faster than the adults, but has a shell on the back that seems to match the patterns of the adult Nerite snail. I attached some pictures, hopefully it’s a juvenile Nerite and not some weird snail invader that I don’t know about 🙂

A small update: it’s been almost 2 weeks since I set up the tank, and I saw a single Planaria crawling on the glass! So I quickly took it out and put in a dose of No Planaria. Luckily there is still no live stock yet and I don’t plan on putting in snails so hopefully I’m good. I also switched out my hang on back filter for a nano canister filter, and it has already made a huge difference in my opinion. Super happy with the filter! also did my first trimming of the Rotala H’Ra today, they were already way longer than the tank and was bent everywhere, so I trimmed and replanted. The Ludwigia will be trimmed next, and it’s nice to see the red come out even though I am not using high lighting! Will keep updating this post as my journey with this nano tank continues!

I watch MD Tanks and Green Aqua, they both have different styles. Green Aqua almost exclusively uses Aquasoil, while MD Tanks uses a lot of pond soil and gravel mix and then cap with sand. It’s unfortunate because the brand he uses only is available in Europe. He also pretty much does fish-in cycle right away, my guess is capping the soil allows the ammonia levels to be manageable although I’m always too worried to try that myself 🙂 I just started my second tank using Aquasoil, and they leech a lot of ammonia so it takes a while to cycle, I think I am still 3 weeks away from putting in my shrimp and fish. Although that gives me time to keep planning for how I want to finish the tank and make adjustments 🙂