29 gallon Shrimp and Snail Tank

[nabokovfan87]

On 8/11/2023 at 1:01 PM, RoyaleButterfly said:

How would I know if I set up the planaria trap that it would get any attacking my Mystery snail? Any ideas?

There's a lot of videos on how to do it.

 

As far as the snail, I'm really not sure.

[RoyaleButterfly]

I opted to go for the no planaria and my shrimp have stopped dying and my mystery snail has been way more active! Tomorrow is water change day and I would say about 15% has evaporated. I am thinking of removing some of the decor and readjusting the bottom with the plants then re-adding the decor. I am not sure if I should but I really want to make the decor more to my liking. (yes I have been watching aquascape videos) 

Thank you @nabokovfan87 for all your help so far! I will let you know tomorrow or Saturday what the water parameters are for my tank. IF the GH is still too high I am going to add the water softener pillow.

[nabokovfan87]

On 8/17/2023 at 9:34 AM, RoyaleButterfly said:

Tomorrow is water change day and I would say about 15% has evaporated.

It must be hot there!  20L and 29G tanks are a bit funky when it comes to the lids for them.  I have had to basically "make" my own using the manufactured lids and ordering a custom rear trim.  If you have a local glass shop or want to make a lid that would help keep some of the evap in the tank.  Given that it's a shrimp tank, just atmospheric contamination, it would be a good idea as well to help protect from contamination. 

The out of the box, pre-made aqueon versatop lids is what I have on my tank and there is a 1/4-3/8" gap on the front of the tank which I just cover with a hand towel.  It's kind of silly that the lids aren't designed for the tank in question, but it's just an aqueon issue/thing that seems to have progressed through just about every lid you can buy for the tank apart from one custom measured and made for the tank.

Hopefully that helps!

[RoyaleButterfly]

Update! I added a lid and did my normal 30% water change and the GH lowered down to 10 all on its own. All the other parameters are the same but the GH is now in the correct "area" and hopefully I will start seeing babies! The only "issue" I have is scuds. no matter how many I remove there are still some in there. They don't seem to bother my shrimp and they don't even try to eat the shrimp food which is what I read they would do. So now I don't know if I should leave them or keep trying to remove them. 

[Guppysnail]

@RoyaleButterfly the problem I have with scuds and shrimp is them outcompeting the babies for food not the food I feed. Babies stay put to stay safe until they grow a bit bigger.  I use powder foods to feed them so it reaches all the nooks and crannies babies hide. 
My scuds reproduce faster than my shrimp. Once they are numerous they eat all the stuff in the nooks and crannies so my babies do not thrive but my adults are fine. 
I suggest to just keep removing the bulk so they dont become too numerous. It’s what I do in tanks I have both and it seems to do ok though I dont have the Shrimp population increases in those tanks I do in ones that have no scuds. 

[RoyaleButterfly]

@Guppysnail Thank you! I found some scud traps that I am looking at trying. have you had luck with those?

[Guppysnail]

On 9/7/2023 at 11:24 AM, RoyaleButterfly said:

@Guppysnail Thank you! I found some scud traps that I am looking at trying. have you had luck with those?

I’ve never tried them. 

[RoyaleButterfly]

@Guppysnail It looks like if you take a container you can cut tiny holes into the lid put some kind of veggie in the container and the scuds are supposed to go for it then you remove the container with the water in it so the scuds don't escape and then you can toss it or "feed it to the chickens" lol that's what the video I watched did. My water really loves being green from the red root floaters which have not been red at all. are very green taking over the top of my tank lol I throw so much of it away every week.
@nabokovfan87 I am tagging you here in case you don't see my update on the GH!

[Guppysnail]

On 9/7/2023 at 11:39 AM, RoyaleButterfly said:

@Guppysnail It looks like if you take a container you can cut tiny holes into the lid put some kind of veggie in the container and the scuds are supposed to go for it then you remove the container with the water in it so the scuds don't escape and then you can toss it or "feed it to the chickens" lol that's what the video I watched did. My water really loves being green from the red root floaters which have not been red at all. are very green taking over the top of my tank lol I throw so much of it away every week.
@nabokovfan87 I am tagging you here in case you don't see my update on the GH!

The problem with that is the same issue as snail traps. 1-You will get as many shrimplettes as scuds 2- if there is adequate food and the scuds are not hungry not many will be attracted. The same way they are not coming to the shrimp food pile. 
Try it. I hope you have success. I just bet them as I see them and feed them to fish but I’m not densely populated with them in any tank. 

[RoyaleButterfly]

@Guppysnail I did not think about my shrimplets going into the traps. I haven't started them yet so I may just manually remove them during my tank maintenance cycles.

@nabokovfan87 and Guppysnail I saw my very first shrimplet last night! it was out with the adults sooooo tiny but I saw it! My husband and I are so excited. I did not see more than one I am just presuming there are more how do I make sure I am keeping them all fed? I have the BacterAE that I read is good to keep babies fed. there is lots of plant matter and I have Almond leaves I can add. I just want to make sure they are doing good. I also have those little cone things too. I added a scoop of BacterAE to my tank last night I have only been doing that once a month until I saw babies. Should I feed them more often? It was eating the shrimp pellets with the adults last night. I will take a pic of my tank and add it here today or tomorrow after I finish my tank maintenance.

[nabokovfan87]

On 9/18/2023 at 6:48 AM, RoyaleButterfly said:

how do I make sure I am keeping them all fed?

You can feed a small amount of powdered food at night. They should be pretty active after lights out. They will graze on surfaces, so having the food in there in such a way will help to make sure they have what they need.

I just use repashy powder, but here's another method as well.

 

On 9/18/2023 at 6:48 AM, RoyaleButterfly said:

Should I feed them more often? I

Once a week or so with the powder stuff. I tend to only do that when I see baby shrimp or I see a female with eggs that she's released.  If you overdo it, can be a bad thing. Essentially, let's say I'm feeding the adults 3x a week, maybe 4. I just replace on of those with a powder day.

[RoyaleButterfly]

Updates: Scuds took over my tank and started killing my shrimp. They demolished my beautiful plants. I went to war with them (all shrimp were removed into a hospital tank during the war) and carbon water bombed the tank for 2 weeks. Everything was great in my tank after that... Until today. The SCUDS ARE BACK! My plants have still been slowly disappearing and I had originally thought it was because they were so badly eaten before. Well, it's because not ALL of the scuds died. Plan B. I am going to NUKE the tank whole. I know this is gonna crash my tank and unfortunately, I think these scuds killed the last couple of shrimp I had left. (the female scuds get pregnant and begin to attack and eat everything. Saw it with my own eyes.) My husband is willing to help me get what I need to restart my shrimp tank properly for Christmas. So this time surely I will be good to go! Will come back here more to journal my process. I am super sad and frustrated right now. I probably will not go back to that LFS again.

[nabokovfan87]

On 12/4/2023 at 11:15 AM, RoyaleButterfly said:

My husband is willing to help me get what I need to restart my shrimp tank properly for Christmas. So this time surely I will be good to go! Will come back here more to journal my process. I am super sad and frustrated right now. I probably will not go back to that LFS again.

If you need anything please feel free to reach out. It's always tough when something like that happens. Fingers crossed and hoping for the best in the decontamination and new setup process!

[RoyaleButterfly]

Alright so up until yesterday I had been very distraught and discouraged in keeping my tank. It had a terrible algae bloom. So thanks to the advice of @nabokovfan87 fix the tank 1st, worry about shrimp 2nd. So I did probably close to a 85% water change yesterday and got fresh water in the tank. I was only able to find 2 cherry shrimp yesterday and Houdini (bamboo shrimp). Houdini actually hit my hand 3x yesterday when I initially started cleaning the tank and removing the water. It felt weird. The only two cherry shrimp that seem to be left don’t look the best so I may lose them. Hopefully they will come back to full health but if not I know I’m trying. I sucked up a bunch of the scuds yesterday so there ain’t many roaming around. I’m still considering getting kuhli loaches and or guppies to help keep the scud population down. I’m going to add a picture of what the tank looks like this morning. Let me know what else I can do to make it Neocaridina heaven please! 

This is what it looked like before I cleaned it yesterday (12-11-23). I learned that I got some not totally true advice from the LFS owner so I’ve been doing a ton more on YouTube and here.