nabokovfan87

If it was a 20G I would have some sort of a selection and a pro/con for the filter. Given that it's a 10G, it's very difficult depending on stocking to feel like you have enough room. I like the sponge filters for that application, preferable 2x the nano size (one on each side), but depending on what you decide I had a lot of issues getting the sponge to mechanically filter the water. This is just my experience. Hopefully others can chime in who have a lot more experience with the 10G format. @TeeJay @Chick-In-Of-TheSea @Cinnebuns help us out! If you were opting for a HoB I think something like aqueon is probably perfect because it's a very small filter. The tetra is very similar, but the pump is on the outside of the tank. The marineland penguin pro gives you a few more features, but is likely too much flow for that size of a tank.

@Guppysnail Little Grace is doing good. She got some brine, no clue if she ate any, but her and the corydoras were having a powwow this morning. She only tolerates certain ones to lay with her and it's the situation potentially of making sure they only rest in certain spots that she doesn't like to use. The smaller they are, the more tolerant she is. She has the bird mindset of "it's time to leave the nest little one." 😂 The usual shyness.... And then she darts. I gave her a little time to sit and relax. Found a wonderful amano who was fighting the army of BBA. (So annoying that photo is blurry! I was messing with iso) More darting.... and again.... You can see her anal fins there, When I tried to view the corydoras buddies she decided to get a bit more "in the shot" for me 😂 And then the swordtails wanted in. Blurry from camera moving and iso again. 😞 Another blurry shot of the Corydoras fry napping with her. This is the other side of the tank. A group of the fry that are just cruising on the suface and resting right at the flow output of the spraybar. the ones facing left are in the calm spot on the underside of the rock. The ones facing right are swimming right into the flow and breathing in fresh oxygenated water.

She's doing ok I swear! She is always eyeballing me and saying good morning. She is a very observant fish hobbyist keeper. 😂 I'll spend some time with her this morning and try to snag some better shots.

Nope. I've gone from a 10 to a 29G. From a 29G to a 75G and I've gone from a 75G to a 5G bucket. Adding more water, more dilution for waste is a good thing in my view.

Mine is pretty old. I still use it. I'm talking close to 8 or so years old? I can try to find a date on the bottle. I would say is loses some effectiveness because that just what chemicals do that are stored in plastic bottles over time, but it shouldn't cause any issues and should work for the most part.

How much water and how often? For me, this is one of the most misunderstood things I see from anyone keeping shrimp. Dilution is a shrimps friend. From the start of keeping shrimp there are a plethora of videos and resources from breeders that specify what is "the correct way" and what is "the only way" to care for them. I don't want this to come off as a rant, but this is something where my own technique is based on my experience with amanos and mapped onto keeping neo shrimp. @Chick-In-Of-TheSea has neo shrimp and has ran into major issues with water change methods. So there is definitely a bit of "be the shrimp" mantra that we need to absolutely consider. In my view, from everything I have seen, there are 3-4 main methods we as hobbyist are told to keep our shrimp. I can pretty much guarantee to you that half of them are wrong, the question is which half. (Controversial statement a little bit, but let me break down exactly why I say that) A. Toss shrimp into a tank and don't do any water changes for months. The mindset that shrimp are one of the easiest things to care for and you just add water and you're done. (Some people don't even do top offs!!!!) B. Low and slow method. Very small amount of water changed and that water is added very slowly back into the tank as to reduce any shock to the shrimp themselves. This is the mindset of the shrimp being very sensitive and delicate and shifts in water parameters will cause major deaths. (This is closely tied to A in some aspects for some people) C. The MST method. First of note is that care for Caridina is not the same as care for Neo shrimp, but it is extremely similar in method and practice. This is the method I would say is used by a plethora of breeders. 25% water changes every week. Drip the water back in or simply match your temps and then go ahead and make sure water is prepped according to a strict method using remineralizers. There will be a variation in something like GH and KH due to how the water is mixed, but ultimately it's very slight and water is made from RO and it's very consistent. D. Community tank method. Add shrimp to your fish tank and see what works. Very loose concepts for care for the species and the shrimp adapt to whatever your own personal methods are. Only the strong survive and the rest simply are food as a result of darwinism. When I started my journey with neo shrimp, my goal was to try to understand what they live with in nature. Rivers and streams. Sometimes it's a slow moving pool and sometimes it's a torrent of water. If we look back at the situations above we can see where all of these different situations makes sense in nature. In my eye B and C are the "correct" methods for keeping shrimp. I prefer to simply recommend that people use MST (Marks shrimp tanks) method and care guides because he has some of the easiest to understand and technically sound practices. In the same token, especially by US breeders, there are plenty that do the exact same things. His method of adding water is unique and something I didn't see elsewhere. He recommends a limit of 25-30% water changes and he does mention that using RO makes your life easier because you simply don't have to worry about the changes in the tap water. The idea being to remove seasonal issues from the water company (or groundwater) as a potential for contamination in your tanks. Ah.... So we are back full circle to some logic behind the reasonable concept that shrimp are a sensitive species! So we can surmise that shrimp, dwarf aquarium shrimp, are sensitive to things like contaminants and swings in water chemistry. In nature they might have a high volume of water being changed, but that water is ultimately very consistent or very diluted! So something like a community tank might not be exactly optimal because of excessive nitrates, predation, stress molting, and other things. This is something I have personally witnessed where adding a single corydoras fry led to the shrimp changing their eating behavior and ultimately not eating as they normally would. They had to try to get food and run to hide and eat it away from the fish. The fish went to the feeding dish and booped the shrimp out of it. Unintentional, but sometimes fish don't realize they just pushed their nose into a bunch of things and have that "get into my belly" mindset for food. I won't share or explain my own technique for water changes with my shrimp, as it is an experiment of sorts and not something where I think that everyone will have success. I will share a few notes that I have learned and that hopefully will help, especially when it comes to baby shrimp care. 1. Powdered foods is a must for baby shrimp to make sure they get food a little easier. You can also expand this to just having a good food that they can pick and dart away with. Something mobile like a very fine pellet. Shrimp do prefer to graze, so they will literally sit there and eat rather than run with it. 2. Adding water slowly can be viewed two ways. Water in = water out and you just need to add good oxygenated water.... Or.... Keep to whatever the routine is, but slowly add in water for the sake of acclimating them over a few hours with any swings. I won't say any of these techniques is wrong. Oxygen is a shrimps friend! The main tip I use for my own is that I use something to physically slow down the water from rushing into the tank and breaking the shrimp as I add the water back in. This could be a piece of bubble wrap, your own technique of pouring slowly, Styrofoam, a drip using an airline valve, or a float valve. The main thing for me is a bit of a gentle touch with the water, within reason. Some people add water back in a scoop at a time just because that's what they have as a tool to do so. There's a million methods. 3. Water in should generally be water out. This simply means that you should be changing water enough to avoid old tank syndrome. Don't let things build up and don't ignore the tank entirely because when you do have those water changes, that shock will either cause stress molts and death after a few days or it will cause some severe issues with acclimation and instant death in some shrimp. 4. Keep a clean setup. Always wash your hands (I do it with 2-3 rinses) before you put hands in the tank. Residue chemicals and things on your body from the human world might have triggers for stress molts on the shrimp. The vast majority of the time you won't have any issues, but that one time you do the common technique to remove a contamination is to do water changes. That might not be the easiest thing to do if you're trying to reduce stress. Especially when it's drip by drip. It's just something to keep in mind and have a very intentional technique. On YouTube there are a lot of different methods and best practices. I can simply say that I've done a lot of research and to go follow what Mark does, but I don't know if that is beneficial or not. In my view, my own practice it's been helpful, but that is just my own experience talking. There is flip aquatics, marks shrimp tanks, mark Shelley, shrimp mania, tiny menagerie, LRB aquatics, and a ton of other resources for shrimp information. Whichever one makes sense for you personally is going to be the resource you want to follow. What I will recommend is to follow that method exactly and not to just mix up your own technique based on the video that YouTube sent you that morning. Consistency is key with shrimp. Get them used to a method, do that method. They will do just fine for you.

Just looks like mulm (organic waste) on plastic plants. It could also be bacteria growing.

Whenever you get it is fine. The main thing if you're seeing stress signs is to do a water change. If you're having well water issues and that is causing stress then you'd want to take other steps.

Both GH seems ok. Blue is definitely creeping too high eventually, but it should be ok right now. The reds should be ok. 120 is about right on the Lowest you want to see it. 6 degrees is the bottom, 7-9 being a bit safer. This is why TDS is extremely dangerous to rely on for shrimp. If the species needs "soft water" it is usually referring to a specific KH and GH range, not simply a TDS. More often than not it's tied to PH/KH for fish. For shrimp through, PH matters a little bit less.... It still matters.... But having a good GH for them keeps them from having issues. I have a TDS pen, I don't use it. I couldn't even tell you what the "right value" is. The ONLY use a TDS pen has for me is if I am specifically mixing water for water changes. I know the starting TDS, I know the range/target TDS based on the buffer I am using, and I know that the buffer has the right ratio because it is specifically designed for shrimp water preparation. Hopefully that helps.

Ohko / dragon stone. Lava rock or seiryu stone is also gread. Seiryu will add some hardness though. Phosphate at 1 is quite fine. Plants need that. Happy to help, let's get all of our shrimp colonies thriving!!!

Awesome to hear @Cz1989

I mean... just go back to the first page on your journal... It's been a fun one! 🙂 She's the best. Rams are the best.

Yep....! Sometimes stuff just happens. If you run into issues, here is the secret ^^. Gotta love that sound effect in the beginning 😂

😞 such a pesky thing. Maybe stick a fork in it to weight it down and it'll be easier for snoopy to pick at?

I would love to see an updated version, but he goes through a ton of species and how to trigger every single one.

Clearly move the food dish @Chick-In-Of-TheSea. The table is in the wrong spot...... 😂

This is the most recent video I have on my tank. It's short, but hopefully easy to see how / how much air I am pushing. Most of my tanks I push a lot of air. They manage to handle it and enjoy it. It's mostly just due to the species I keep, colder water species, corydoras and river type of species that like a lot of movement, oxygenation. Given your temp is at 77 (mine is 72-74 right now) you definitely will benefit from turning the air up just a tad if you wish. The tank in the video has 2 sponges, pretty good flow, and just because the airpump is a bit too strong I added a third drop for an airstone to release any excess pressure. The ziss air stones are nice because you can adjust the bubble size! I'm not saying you need that much air, but just as an example of one tank, shrimp can handle it! Both of those are used for shrimp keeping yes. I don't use the salty shrimp stuff, but there are a ton of people that do, including other members on this forum. Mark's Shrimp Tank's uses it as well. 🙂 The males definitely like to dart around don't they! Females are generally grazing a lot for me. If you're seeing stress movements, that is one particular behavior that is indicative of a water quality issue. They would essentially be twitching and look like they are trying to escape and get out of the tank. If you just see them swimming around, very normal! You can see some of mine doing that in the video about too. Typically it would be the female that passes after doing the deed, but ultimately, any shrimp that molts has a chance of passing just from the stress and being very vulnerable at that stage.

what size tank? (my apologies if you've already specified). As far as the PH issue. Test KH and GH and then report those back. PH is tied to the KH, so you have to consider those two hardness parameters unfortunately. I don't think it is too high to move them at all or anything, but it would be best to verify the parameters with a liquid test kit.

I'm very sorry about the angels, that's very tragic. 😞 I hope the one recovers fully for you. Angels can be so aggressive it's crazy. It's like flicking a switch sometimes.

Parameters all look perfect. I assume no heater, room temp? Same question as above, temp? Kh looks ok, especially with the PH at 7. If you're seeing a ton of organics, that's when I'd be concerned about the KH and the ph crashing on you. Ultimately getting that KH up slightly will be fine, but I don't think either tank really needs any sort of a KH or GH booster. If you're doing RO top offs and stuff, over time I can see that KH drooping a little bit, that would be my only concern! No, your GH is fine and you're feeding calcium based foods. All of those things check out. Check the shrimp for common shrimp diseases and just keep an eye out for that aspect of care. Cloudy shrimp, fuzzy patches of fungus, parasites, etc. That could be at play here. It's just something to keep in mind when you have a death. Sometimes shrimp pass and it could be as simple as they didn't get to the feeding dish or there was a slight stress trigger. Check all the basics and go from there. Parameters look perfect to me. I would focus on monitoring, methods, and stability. The tanks look great! In terms of the only adjustment I personally would encourage, I would like to see you add 1-2 airstones per tank if possible. That is something that the shrimp will appreciate and the added oxygen will be good for them long term. I do see some air in the back middle section, so if you've already got air going, awesome! 🙂 My second thing is just a simple nudge and encouragement. Next time you're at the pet stop grab yourself some anubias nana. It's not a very complicated or difficult plant to care for. You wedge it into a section where the wood and rock meet and it will give the baby shrimp a plant as well as the females a place to go for molting. The artificial plants look great! I do think anubias is one of the best plants to start with, especially anubias nana, available everywhere. You potentially won't need any fancy lighting needs, you may not even need to dose in anything to the tank given your setups. It's a great place to start if that's something you'd like to do. (sidenote, the floating plants look great too. It's always funny to me when it get so hard to tell what plants are real vs. artificial at first. I do a lot of squinting trying to make sense of what I'm looking at on certain ones. 😂) I really like your setups. Just keep things consistent and make notes of what you're seeing. Maybe start a journal and we can follow along with your progress? Zero water is a pretty nice water filter system!

I hope there is a calendar somewhere with a little pleco sticker for the days you saw the clowns! 😂 Why are they such awesome fish that just love to be elusive!!! I'm going to go have to go look for mine now.... one moment...... So I found them! But i was staring at the shadow under the wood and it didn't look like she was there until I got the light and she adjusted herself a little bit. Luigi had her nose peeking out of the sand cave she has under the wood and she's doing awesome today 🙂

.........alright. So there's a few big questions here. 1. What is the substrate, I assume it's all new and new tank, lots of excess leeching nutrients in the water? 2. What method did you use to black out the tank? Some methods aren't a pure "blackout". If that tank is near a window, if you're not using a solid blackout material, there still could've been light going through. 3. During the blackout, was there any stagnant water causing issues? I have seen some methods where people turn off filtration and everything, that should always be running! seachem also sells phosguard. Carbon should help too I would think, but carbon is the essential of "magic" when it comes to trying to understand what it removes for me! Have you done a deep siphon cleaning on the substrate?

Yeah, I totally understand that. 😕 I'm sorry for all the added stress and effort you're having to go through. Get better little shrimps.

It makes sense. My plants go through it all with me. Especially when you're talking a densely planted tank (not just moss or hardscape). I feel like it does too much damage to remove everything. Great information though and very likely a good idea. There's a lot of "simple" plants that can be very sensitive due to the cell structure.

Exactly! Something like that seems to have really helped me out. Easy GH+ will be something soon I bet.