20g IM Drop-Off Riparium

[Lynaea]

I’ve had a tank Journal going on another forum for a few months but am looking for a new home-base for reasons I won’t get into here.  My tank is an IM Abyss drop-off 20 gallon that I rebooted after my brief foray into saltwater failed miserably. The plan for now is for it to house orange regular and rili Neocaridina shrimp, a honey gourami and probably some gold WCMM’s. 
Instead of trying to recreate my previous journal on this forum I’ve decided to just link to it here.  The tank has only been running a few months so the journal isn’t very long ….. but there are lots of pretty pictures 😜!!!

Speaking of pictures, here’s the most recent ones to wet your appetite! 😁

 

Now that that’s out of the way, on to the next post!

Thanks for reading!

Edited Saturday at 05:58 AM by Lynaea
Changed title

[Lynaea]

After looking back and doing a bit of math I’ve realized that this tank is about six months old 🎉

I feel like to some extent I am still getting the hang of running it and obviously I’m still stocking it but I have gotten into a bit of a rhythm over the last few months:

• I change about 10% of the water pretty much every week using tap water plus Prime.
  • I add Thrive S, Crystalpro Shrimp Minerals and Florinbacter7  with every water change.
  • I let the water age for at least 24 hours before each water change and add the new water in 2-3 batches over at least 30 minutes.
  • I don’t vacuum or otherwise disturb the substrate during water changes, I just remove water and refill. 
• I feed the shrimp and snails every other day.
  • I use a blend of several veggie heavy shrimp foods as well as powdered baby shrimp foods, BacterAE, ShrimpFit, rice bran, Ron’s Cichlid food and some Northfin Veggie and Krill.
  • I mix all of these in a coffee grinder and grind for 5-10 seconds to get a coarse powder consistency (still working on this part).
  • To feed I mix about a Glasgarten scoop of the powder with water and distribute it evenly around the tank with the pump in feed mode.
• I add botanicals about once a month; I have a variety of leaves and I have been boiling them prior to adding them to the tank. However, boiling takes extra time and forethought and I really need to add some of the leaves more often (they disintegrate at different rates) so I’m still working on this one …… although I did recently discover that my shrimp seem to like bamboo leaves the best.
• I also need to get in the habit of testing the water parameters regularly, maybe once a month?

Alright, enough boring stuff, time for some pictures with my new macro lens! 😃

[Whitecloud09]

Love WCMMs one of my fav fish. Look at my logo lol, one of mine actually! Your tank is awesome! Will follow your journey!

[Lynaea]

Thanks Whitecloud09!

I’ve never kept them but am looking for easy, peaceful fish that won’t eat too many of my shrimp babies and that can survive my high pH and hardness. Seems like they’ll fit the bill. 

[Whitecloud09]

On 9/8/2024 at 4:46 PM, Lynaea said:

Thanks Whitecloud09!

I’ve never kept them but am looking for easy, peaceful fish that won’t eat too many of my shrimp babies and that can survive my high pH and hardness. Seems like they’ll fit the bill. 

Should. Oh is not a problem as they are such a hardy fish enduring a ph of 6.0 to 8 and maybe a lil higher! Sounds sweet good luck!

[Lynaea]

Did some testing today, no big surprises, nitrate is a bit low but considering I’m about to double my shrimp population and then add fish I think I’ll stick to what I’ve been doing.

Ammonia = 0, Nitrite = 0, Nitrate = 10, pH = 8, GH = 300, KH = 80, TDS = 210, Conductivity = 400, Temp = 72

I changed the water 2 days ago and replaced the Purigen, this is only the second month I’ve been running it but it’s definitely helped with the water clarity.

I fed today too, here are some pics of the shrimp and snails nomming down on it!  I also saw both of my berried shrimp together so definitely at least two berried!

Oh, and my rilis should be here tomorrow so more pics to follow!

 

Edited September 12 by Lynaea

[Lynaea]

My orange rili shrimp arrived!

I received them late Friday so I spent the evening acclimating them and getting them settled in their quarantine tank. They came from Shrimp Up Aquatics in Michigan, they sent 21 but 3 were doa so I’m getting refunded for those.  Unfortunately one also died during acclimation so I have 17 new rili shrimp!

I have a link for others to get 10% off, I hope it’s okay to put it here:  https://loox.io/z/OnXPMM7_v

No new bodies this morning and they are happily eating their dinner now so hopefully the rest are good to go!

On to the pictures!

Thanks for reading!

[Whitecloud09]

On 9/14/2024 at 3:57 PM, Lynaea said:

My orange rili shrimp arrived!

I received them late Friday so I spent the evening acclimating them and getting them settled in their quarantine tank. They came from Shrimp Up Aquatics in Michigan, they sent 21 but 3 were doa so I’m getting refunded for those.  Unfortunately one also died during acclimation so I have 17 new rili shrimp!

I have a link for others to get 10% off, I hope it’s okay to put it here:  https://loox.io/z/OnXPMM7_v

No new bodies this morning and they are happily eating their dinner now so hopefully the rest are good to go!

On to the pictures!

Thanks for reading!

Cool! Idk about the link, might be best to remove as we can only mention very few stores, @Lynaea, but awesome shrimp!!!