Minanoras adventures in fishkeeping

[Minanora]

Nerite snails....are... SO SLOW! Sheesus. I've watched them move maybe 3 inches in the last 24 hours. I think I need more of them with the volume of algae they have to eat. I added 1TBSP per 5G to the tank to help them out. No more upside down snails so there's that at least.

I'm going to add about 20 orange neocaridina shrimp this week. Hopefully they work a bit faster. And hopefully they don't get eaten by the swordtails. We'll see!

[Minanora]

Moving roughly 30 orange sakura shrimp culls into the 75 today! So I guess, orange shrimp and orange rili shrimp. 🙂 Acclimating them now! My husband made an observation - The ones on the left are facing left, the ones on the right are facing right. Weird.

[DaveO]

Good little warriors.

[Minanora]

The amano shrimp is very curious about the orange shrimp. The male came out and was climbing allll over some of the ones I released. It was very interesting to watch. Fish are curious about them, but so far they're okay. I have no idea how many I put in, but there are enough that if they aren't eaten by the fish I'll have MANY more in the next few months. They're already hitting the hair algae. Lets see how long it takes them to make a dent, or if they can make a dent at all. That swordtail baby cracks me up.

38 orange shrimp in. I have no idea where half of them went. Lol. It's a good sign that they'll survive.

[Minanora]

Oh one other fun thing. I was hoping that Shiva was done making babies. I've been watching her closely the last week. She was large, but not huge like before. I figured I should be careful and just put her in the breeder net just in case. So, I took the fry I had out (her last batch) and separated them out into their respective genders and put them in the fry grow-out. Then I put Shiva in the net. 2 hours later I went in to check on her. I look into the breeder, *Ploop* out pops a fry! "Oh wow, I guess I was right." Haha. She had about 22 babies. I hope that's the last of her stores but I doubt it. I'm starting to feel like she's going to have babies every month until I am done with vacations lol.

[Minanora]

The shrimp I put in the 75. I see a max of 6 at a time. I saw one corpse two days ago. Failed molt. But I've seen molts scattered around.

So far my attempts to help combat the hair algae with shrimp and snails is not a huge success. The snails have moved all of 1 inch in the last few days. I think the baby swordtails are bothering them too much.

I ordered my tank for my co2 project. I bought a diffuser. I'm still hashing out my regulator choice. I've decided to get a gla regulator but I'm not sure which one I want. It's the spendy part of the project so I want to be 100% happy with it.

I know I bought a new tank but my local airgas store fills tanks as well as does exchanges. So I will have my tank filled with beverage grade CO2. I do this with my beer gas as well.

I did get a fluval plant 3.0 for the 75. Though I was expecting to buy one later this year... I got it for a good price so I had to jump on it.

Before

After

And yeah I know all my moss is gone and there's lots of hair algae. Working on it. It's driving me crazy.

[Minanora]

Found a bunch of the orange shrimp in the 75.... They're living inside the intake sponge. I have no idea how I'm going to clean it with them living in there. Also I've dropped my feedings down to 1 time a day in the 75. So the swordtails and the guppies are eating the algae. Bright green poops! I dig it. They can keep eating algae. There's plenty of it.

[Minanora]

I've had the light off on the 75 for two days. Ironic since I just got a new light.

Anyway, I turned it on this evening for a few minutes to check on everyone. Saw many orange shrimp picking away at algae on various surfaces. I need to pull the snails and check on them. They have not moved. I fear for the worst. The light scared two otos. The amano shrimp are out now that there are orange shrimp. They like to hang out with them. I've seen 3 now!

[Jawjagrrl]

On 3/26/2022 at 12:13 PM, Minanora said:

So far my attempts to help combat the hair algae with shrimp and snails is not a huge success. The snails have moved all of 1 inch in the last few days. I think the baby swordtails are bothering them too much.

I always read that this is the case, but hasn't been true for me in any tank with both snails and shrimp. My most "clean" looking tank actually has no bladder snails or shrimp, just two nerites, go figure. The really heavy planted tank runs the same hours, same light, same tank, tons of snails and shrimp... always algae battles?

[Dark River Aquatics]

For whatever it’s worth I think your 75 looks awesome! I’m a sucker for having some algae on wood & rocks because it looks so natural & nice to my eye

IMO combating algae is all down to nutrient consumption, lighting, and water changes - I had a lot of hair algae in one of my low tech tanks recently and so far (about one month later) it’s doing a lot better. I manually removed as much algae as possible, did a heavy gravel vacuuming combined with several water changes equating to roughly 400% of the tank volume, raised the light by about 6”, capped over the aqua soil with some sand, and added a lot of fast growing stem plants. Kept to regular water changes and light nutrient dosing after each WC and so far it’s a lot better.

For whatever the advice is worth this is probably how I’d approach things with your 75, it’s by no means expert advice it’s just how I’d go about it

-get a good dual stage regulator as well as all the other necessary gear like a drop checker, a good diffuser, good water circulation for the co2 bubbles, etc. I have heard that GLA’s quality has dropped off recently which is unfortunate, fzone regulators are what I hear are the current good bets for the money

-before installing co2, do a heavy gravel vac to remove as much waste as possible and physically remove as much algae as you can, and remove any plants that look like they’re melting to reduce future organic breakdown

-run the light a 6hr photoperiod at first IMO, and probably not at full blast at first if the light is adjustable - maybe 60-80% to start with

-add co2 and dial it in achieve a 1pt ph drop. IMO it’s best to do this over the course of a few days, know your baseline ph and then start with a small amount of co2 and slowly increase it until you achieve a 1pt drop (drop checkers help too) after the co2 has been running for a few hours. Then coincide your light to turn on once the co2 has diffused enough to cause a 1pt drop. Doing this slowly and ramping up the co2 over the course of several days will allow the livestock to adjust easier and it’s better to have too little at first than to have way too much. My 75g has relatively hard water and the co2 runs for 4 hours before the lights switch on, and then turns off 1hr before the lights do for whatever that info is worth - your water chemistry and tank setup may mean your co2 diffusion schedule needs to be different 

-get as many plants as you can reasonably afford right off the bat and try to stuff the tank with new healthy plants. Make sure to have a decent number of hardy faster growing stems at the back, as they will soak excess nutrients from the water column and help to outcompete the algae for nutrients

-dose the water column with a good all in one fertilizer. I’ve used NA Thrive for years with excellent results, and have been testing with easy green and achieving good results with that too.

-do regular water changes of 50% every day or two (for the first few weeks; then slowly phase back), and then dose the liquid fertilizer at about 50% of the recommended dose after every WC. What this achieves is that you’re constantly removing algae spores & waste, and resetting the nutrient levels which is important IMO

-once the plants become established and start growing in, you will have to adjust the lighting & nutrients as necessary based on your observations of the tank, and likely increase them slowly over time. It can be tricky to learn the intricacies of getting lighting/fertilization correct in a high tech tank, but you got this and water changes & nutrient level resets are your friend in the meantime 

-don’t let the plants get too overgrown, trim & replant as necessary so they dont start to shade themselves/others out and shed too many leaves resulting in more organic breakdown

 

I hope that helps, there are many ways to achieve a balanced ecosystem but this is just my 2 cents on how I’d go about it. Critters that graze algae are certainly helpful but plants are the heavy lifters in preventing algae by outcompeting it. George Farmer’s advice of “plant heavily from the very beginning to give the plants the best chance at winning their war against algae” is good advice that had always served me well 🙂

Also, if you’re comfortable with it, I’d be happy to mail you some stem plants to add to the tank and we can discuss the particulars privately - I have a couple of species in mind that are absolute weeds and can easily ship you some 

Edited March 29, 2022 by Dark River Aquatics

[Minanora]

On 3/29/2022 at 4:12 PM, Dark River Aquatics said:

For whatever it’s worth I think your 75 looks awesome! I’m a sucker for having some algae on wood & rocks because it looks so natural & nice to my eye

IMO combating algae is all down to nutrient consumption, lighting, and water changes - I had a lot of hair algae in one of my low tech tanks recently and so far (about one month later) it’s doing a lot better. I manually removed as much algae as possible, did a heavy gravel vacuuming combined with several water changes equating to roughly 400% of the tank volume, raised the light by about 6”, capped over the aqua soil with some sand, and added a lot of fast growing stem plants. Kept to regular water changes and light nutrient dosing after each WC and so far it’s a lot better.

For whatever the advice is worth this is probably how I’d approach things with your 75, it’s by no means expert advice it’s just how I’d go about it

-get a good dual stage regulator as well as all the other necessary gear like a drop checker, a good diffuser, good water circulation for the co2 bubbles, etc. I have heard that GLA’s quality has dropped off recently which is unfortunate, fzone regulators are what I hear are the current good bets for the money

-before installing co2, do a heavy gravel vac to remove as much waste as possible and physically remove as much algae as you can, and remove any plants that look like they’re melting to reduce future organic breakdown

-run the light a 6hr photoperiod at first IMO, and probably not at full blast at first if the light is adjustable - maybe 60-80% to start with

-add co2 and dial it in achieve a 1pt ph drop. IMO it’s best to do this over the course of a few days, know your baseline ph and then start with a small amount of co2 and slowly increase it until you achieve a 1pt drop (drop checkers help too) after the co2 has been running for a few hours. Then coincide your light to turn on once the co2 has diffused enough to cause a 1pt drop. Doing this slowly and ramping up the co2 over the course of several days will allow the livestock to adjust easier and it’s better to have too little at first than to have way too much. My 75g has relatively hard water and the co2 runs for 4 hours before the lights switch on, and then turns off 1hr before the lights do for whatever that info is worth - your water chemistry and tank setup may mean your co2 diffusion schedule needs to be different 

-get as many plants as you can reasonably afford right off the bat and try to stuff the tank with new healthy plants. Make sure to have a decent number of hardy faster growing stems at the back, as they will soak excess nutrients from the water column and help to outcompete the algae for nutrients

-dose the water column with a good all in one fertilizer. I’ve used NA Thrive for years with excellent results, and have been testing with easy green and achieving good results with that too.

-do regular water changes of 50% every day or two (for the first few weeks; then slowly phase back), and then dose the liquid fertilizer at about 50% of the recommended dose after every WC. What this achieves is that you’re constantly removing algae spores & waste, and resetting the nutrient levels which is important IMO

-once the plants become established and start growing in, you will have to adjust the lighting & nutrients as necessary based on your observations of the tank, and likely increase them slowly over time. It can be tricky to learn the intricacies of getting lighting/fertilization correct in a high tech tank, but you got this and water changes & nutrient level resets are your friend in the meantime 

-don’t let the plants get too overgrown, trim & replant as necessary so they dont start to shade themselves/others out and shed too many leaves resulting in more organic breakdown

 

I hope that helps, there are many ways to achieve a balanced ecosystem but this is just my 2 cents on how I’d go about it. Critters that graze algae are certainly helpful but plants are the heavy lifters in preventing algae by outcompeting it. George Farmer’s advice of “plant heavily from the very beginning to give the plants the best chance at winning their war against algae” is good advice that had always served me well 🙂

Also, if you’re comfortable with it, I’d be happy to mail you some stem plants to add to the tank and we can discuss the particulars privately - I have a couple of species in mind that are absolute weeds and can easily ship you some 

This is an epic post of personal experience and guidance. Thank you very much for taking the time to write this up.

I turned the light back on in my 75 this evening. Lots of shrimp working on algae. I DO love some of the algae that is on the biggest piece of wood I have. It's just the wafting mess of extra long poopy stuff that is attached to most of the other things that is driving me mad max. That stuff is at a standstill for now. We'll see how it goes over the next few weeks.

I'm going with a GLA regulator. They have a lifetime warranty. The Fzone ones are only a year and are rated for a lower working pressure which makes me nervous. I mean, sure, there aren't that many moving parts but I would rather have that warranty that they stand behind for something that will be under pressure. I bought a single stage based on what Roy and I talked about a while ago. I may upgrade to a dual stage if it does dump but I doubt that it will since the temperature will be stable in the cabinet.

I plan to order a trunk of plants over the weekend. I'm picking them much more meticulously this time around. Going to be expensive regardless, but I'm ordering maybe 7 different types of plants this time. Instead of 12-15. I'm narrowing down my species list still. I would love to set up like 7 more tanks to scape with all the options there are! It's so hard to choose. My previous layout was great but I wasn't giving the tank enough ferts, and of course, no CO2. I'm hoping that this time around will be a more stable attempt.

[Dark River Aquatics]

I love my GLA reg, hopefully you find the same! What I’ve heard about their quality recently has just been anecdotal rumblings in some of the high tech tank Facebook groups I’m in so take it with a grain of salt, my regulator purchased back in 2018 is still going strong and hopefully you have a similar experience with yours! And the more plants the better IMO, especially with co2 and decent light + nutrients. Fast aggressive growing plants can help a lot with reducing algae 🙂 plus more plants is just more fun!

[Minanora]

Just placed the bulk of my plant order. A few are out of stock everywhere so I'll have to get them later. But I have A huge order coming in, hopefully this week. My regulator gets here on Thursday. I really hope I don't kill all of the plants. 😂 Some I had to get tissue cultures... I prefer tissue cultures but they're not ideal for this application. Hopefully they fill in and don't get outcompeted by algae.

Edited April 3, 2022 by Minanora
Autocorrect

[Minanora]

Okay. Today was the day! The 75 has been replanted! I thought it would take me like two hours. WRONG. My husband came home and I legit said "you're home early! What's the occasion?" He replied, "It's 5:30..." O.O'   Dude.... I stood over that tank for 6 HOURS!

So it got a black background, pulled out wads of hair algae and staghorn algae. Added 3 different types of java fern, some new rotala, star grass, more S. Repens, two different types of hair grass, Hygrophila pinnatifida, a new crypt species that I had to get as a tissue culture, and a new moss.

Before:

After:

 

After some melt I hope things start to fill in. I've got the CO2 tank filled and waiting for the regulator that comes tomorrow. I'll slowly start up the CO2. Not using a drop checker or anything fancy. Going to follow the advice from @Cory surrounding low and slow, and visual cues. Great advice from the members stream last week. Thank you again, Cory!

Did a 30% water change with the replanting. Putting that background on with the tank against the wall was a PITA. My arms were just barely long enough to squish out all the air bubbles. Can't be sure I got them all because of the mass of algae on the wall though. Lol! I always wondered why people used the razor blade scrapers and stuff. I get it now! The hair algae fills the magfloat like a ladies hair brush!

[Minanora]

A SIGHT TO BEHOLD! The otos have come out of hiding for some reason. Best day ever.

[Minanora]

I changed some stuff in my son's tank so I could add more plants. It looks sparse right now. But I hope that when it fills in it looks amazing. 

I let a mass of hair algae in the back corner below the PSO because the cories have been laying eggs in it.

My son loves his castle so that has to stay for now. He wants big rocks in there... "But with the castle". But the plants are more important. I may try to find a piece of wood to break up the space on the left and add more surface for plants since the majority of plants on the substrate are crypts. I may also pull those cranky dwarf swords that I left up front. I'm going to leave them for now though. I just fertilized this tank for the first time since the root tab incident.

[Minanora]

Also, here's an updated photo of the shrimp sanctuary! This was this morning. Eventually.... the water won't be cloudy! I'm beginning to think that it's being caused by the explosive population. Today I'm going to move about half of the population between the 75 and my sons 20G High. There's just too many shrimp in this tank, and there's more every few days at this point.

This morning I was looking at the rather large number of berried females and enjoying the growth of the new plants I added. The S. Repens was a stem from a tissue culture that I put in the 75 last Wednesday. Same with the Alternanthera Reineckii 'Mini' next to it. I also added two Crypt Petchii bits as well. I'm thinking those will need to be removed after a while. I think if they do well, they'll be out of scale compared to the rest of the plants. We'll see!

[Minanora]

Here's an updated photo of the so named "Chili Ruins"

They are getting along well with the shrimp and keep me company while I work and stare at CAD drawings all day. Having this little tank next to my monitor give my eyes a much needed break! I love all of my tanks but this one really helps me get through the day.

[xXInkedPhoenixX]

I'm with your son, I like the castle too, it stays!

[Guppysnail]

Throw my vote in for the castle too 😁. Everything looks terrific!  Shrimpapalooza 

[Minanora]

I sold 40 guppies today. CASH! Went to our LPS this time around. I really love our LPS, I mean, it's not super local, but it's only 12ish miles away. Seriously though. I'm glad they exist. It's so hard for these places to stay in business. Photos soon. I actually took photos of my odd bagging/transporting system. Lol

[Guppysnail]

Woohoo 🎉 cash is good 🤑

[Henry the fish keeper]

Yessss.

[Minanora]

My packing and shipping of Guppies today. I didn't do an overview shot like I thought I had... My mistake. But, I use a cooler that we got for Christmas a few years ago. I thought we'd never use it... I use it at least once a month.

My fish in the shop. Bitter sweet.

 

 

Edited April 15, 2022 by Minanora

[Minanora]

Waiting in the dentist office. Good time to think about fish stuff.

I added 48 more shrimp to the 75. Ehem, I added two itty bitty shrimp... The guppies decided they wanted to go into the specimen container while I was letting the shrimp out... The tiny shrimp were eaten before they even got out of the container. 🤦‍♀️😭 It was mildly comical. Shrimp.

One female shed in the container and then mated in there. Second time I've seen breeding in real time.

 

shrimp dogpile!