Hi from GA

[CinGA]

Hi, I've been keeping fish for a little over a year now, once I started working from home and decided I wanted some aquariums in my office.  Right now I have three - a 32 gallon, a 10 gallon, and a 3 gallon that I am cycling for shrimp, my newest interest.  I know a little about the hobby, but keep getting myself into problems with all the unique issues I seem to run into that no one else does, so I hope ya'll can help me out!  Looking forward to chatting with everyone.  

[Chick-In-Of-TheSea]

Welcome! 🙂 

[smm333]

Welcome! That's great that you have fish in your office. How fun! Shrimp are amazing! Can't wait to see what kind you choose!

[John Henry]

Glad to have you as part of the forum.  Didn't take you long to catch multi-tank-syndrome!!!  What  kind of plants and livestock are you keeping?

[CinGA]

No, and I’m fighting the desire for another one!  
 

I have a 32 gallon tank with neon tetras, ember tetras, and red cherry shrimp. Planning to add a few nerite snails. Planted with a variety of things, but mostly hornwort and duckweed (the duckweed snuck in and it never goes away)
 

I have a 10 gallon with dwarf rasbora. I plan to add blue caradina shrimp to this one (I'm still debating exactly which variety) once I get the tank working properly again. It had a ph crash which I believe killed off the cycle - at any rate, I only have ammonia in the tank currently. Trying my best to keep the fish alive until I can restart the cycle. So far so good. 

And I have a small 3 gallon tank that will be my first dedicated shrimp tank. Im planning to put tangerine tigers in there. It’s 99% ready - cycled, converting ammonia to nitrates, but it continues to have a low amount of ammonia (0.25-0.5) when I test, in spite of having two filters in there now. It’s been almost three months and I can’t get rid of that small amount of ammonia - I'm sure it’s leeching from the substrate - I just don’t know when it’s going to stop! 
 

 

[John Henry]

Have you tested your tap water, sometimes that can be source of low levels of ammonia?  What substrate are you using, some are notorious for leaching ammonia.  pH also comes into play, if you are reasonably acidic a low level of ammonia may be of little consequence.

[CinGA]

It’s the substrate. I’ve tested everything else. I am pretty acidic in both tanks, but it also read zero in one tank yesterday and 0.25 in the other so I think I’m good to go. (If the tank with a small amount of ammonia doesn’t clear in the next day or two, I can put all the shrimp in the other tank).