# Aquatoon



## X3NiTH (11 May 2014)

Hi there,

I thought I should make a Journal for an upgrade to my CRS Tank that sits on a shelf above my main tank, so here we go.

http://farm3.staticflickr.com/2917/13962200558_b76e64ae8f_b.jpg

http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5488/14130008436_13d1b6d0fc_b.jpg

The crystal shrimp were an impulse buy when I spotted them in my local Fishkeeper, I had been trawling the LFS's looking for Red Rili Shrimp for my main tank, specifically males, since my entire shrimp population of 5 RR and 3 Red Cherry that I have in my main tank are all female, evidenced by each showing a visible saddle, which i have to add is a situation which hasn't changed in the last couple of months as I haven't been able to source any male RR locally. Anyway before the impulse buy I had already been boning up on CRS and so when i spotted them locally I just had to have some and walked away with 14 of them, a nice little starter colony, although within a couple of weeks I lost 3 Tiger Tooths post molt to an No-Entry, no other predation or deaths since. Tank has been up and running for a couple of months and the hitchhiker cherry fry that got caught with the CRS have almost grown full size, but in all that time my CRS colony hasn't bred even with pheromone behaviour post molt, maybe the colony is sterile, who knows but I'm going to give them a new home for when I swap them over to RO/BeeGH+ water to get near 0kH in an effort to get them breeding.

The tank that is currently in use is a £15 Aquatown Starter Tank from P@H, I had this lying empty when I made my impulse buy and bought a JBL TekAir Silent sponge filter for it when I got the shrimp, all the rest I had laying around so it kind off just got thrown together without any thought and its pretty uninspiring to look at (I wouldn't care what the tank looked like if I was being distracted by a multitude of nano sized CRS, but I'm not). I had already been mulling over ideas of what I wanted to do with the shrimp tank to change the way it looks and make it more natural looking with no visible kit in the tank which was going to be a big ask as its such a small tank at 12L (I think?). So with this in mind I thought the easiest way to go about things and not end up with a rush job in an effort to get livestock back in their home quickly, I decided I was just going to go buy another tank!

The new tank will occupy the same spot above the main tank so I can scape it so that the sides that face the corners will hide the filter gubbins behind a wall. I have this clear vision in my head that I want a planted Anubia/Moss wall with a Cladophora Hill/Carpet with no visible filter/heater in the tank. 

To achieve this I needed a way to secure plants to the glass and eggcrate was just going to be a pain to get hold of in a small enough size and black in colour, so I opted to try and source plastic mesh that was sturdy enough to take a shape if bent and hold it and was also black in colour, A4 size would be great but I never was able to find any that sized locally. At the end of a long trawl I found a roll of Gutter Mesh at B&Q and this appeared to be fine/coarse enough for my purposes and cheap enough to punt some money on it, unfortunately it's not wide enough to do the job exactly, so I was going to have to get creative in joining the stuff to make a larger contiguous area.

http://farm3.staticflickr.com/2938/14125240826_568c7158f1_z.jpg

http://farm3.staticflickr.com/2898/13961805938_b1c93cc6cb_z.jpg

So i set about trying the mesh out in the tank with enough space hidden in the corner to house the filter and heater.

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7314/13961766147_76d5c5d4b3_z.jpg

I then set about joining the two long strips of mesh together using a small section of mesh behind and forcing hot glue through the mesh from the front to form a bond with the mesh at the back (Initially i tried stiching the pieces together with nylon fishing line but there was too much play and I wanted the whole wall to be even and not have flex in the middle of the join). I then Siliconed this into place on the back glass and floor pane, I wanted good adherence as the mesh moved if disturbed so I used more silicone than maybe I should have and maybe should have taken the time and used masking tape to make the joins neater.

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7003/13926743804_6df18aa8ce_z.jpg

Its going to be a bit of a challenge to plant Anubia on that wall and get moss to grow through from behind it now that its permanently secured to the back pane , soooo......

Mesh Wall No.2

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7359/13961828260_3067c5f2d0_b.jpg

I've created a removable wall using the same mesh that I can now plant Anubia onto and moss behind, this is secured with just passing a cable tie through both mesh walls to hold in place, I measured the second wall to fit a 5mm spacer to keep a growing space between the walls to allow Anubia roots to grow down between and leave space for any mosses to grow through. 

http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5559/14168564763_6ec1b55bd0_z.jpg

Since this wall may be visible I endeavoured to make it glueless which is where black cable ties from Maplin came to the rescue and Plastic HO Gauge 'I' beams from a local hobby shop.

http://farm3.staticflickr.com/2909/14145187391_63614a69cf_z.jpg

The 2nd wall has been constructed into two easily removable parts using the gutter mesh, cable ties and 'I' beams.

http://farm3.staticflickr.com/2927/13961925298_bc35ff8e56_z.jpg

http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5483/13961933388_144f0d68a7_z.jpg

Here's the backside of the above part to give you an idea of its construction.

http://farm3.staticflickr.com/2930/14148573805_064df3f76f_z.jpg

I also constructed an Under-Cladophora filter (since i'm going gravel free) using the same materials as above, I want to form a low hill so I have stitched with fishing line some sculpted reticulated filter foam to the raised mesh construction. Here's both sides.

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7404/14148535235_4a5eaa8da4_z.jpg

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7297/13961835267_ef154d400d_z.jpg

Stacked loosely together and it looks like this.

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7426/14145254231_ebafd26abd_z.jpg

And placed inside the tank.

http://farm3.staticflickr.com/2920/14145674052_212bbeb7bc_z.jpg

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7339/13961854697_5ccab616b9_z.jpg

I hoovered up the local supplies of Anubia Nana Bonsai which were 8 Tropica pots and 3 Aquafleur pots. 

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7159/13903190641_eedd8b3638_z.jpg

I also raided the main tank for 3 bunches of Nana that had grown spectacularly well in a high light CO2 environment, you can see them sunbathing covered in GSA at the front of my bogwood.

http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3774/13903272301_f688e9228d_b.jpg

Since replaced by C.Willisii which were hiding among the Anubias in the tub above.

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7379/13966578758_8606288288_b.jpg

I also rescued an Anubia from the shrimp tank that they floated after eating their way through the cotton that was holding it to its bogwood support, you can still see the bogwood left in there with a lonely piece of Java Sword. 

Here's one of the little blighters making short work of a Nettle.

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7361/14096648063_842bde1725_k.jpg

So that's a wallet draining collection of 15 pot sized Anubia plants to use to fill the tank. Surely it's enough?

Here's a starter section I planted.

http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5562/14148582825_b86777540a_b.jpg

You can see here that I have tied at the back using Fine Bio-Degradable Fishing Bait Elastic.

http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5156/14148761534_61060d145d_b.jpg

I have cut the roots right back to about a couple of centimetres from the rhizome and placed the Anubia onto the Mesh vertically from above so that some roots pass through the mesh, I then used a large needle threaded with the elastic and stitched from behind through to the front over the rhizome between leaves and back through the mesh again and tied off the elastic and cut to tidy. I planted the first batch above and left it 48hrs before planting the rest, after that elapsed time I could see traces of root growth through the mesh. 

Now for the rest.

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7436/14125549376_169ab94e29_b.jpg

Filling in nicely.

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7453/14168797023_328ab283eb_b.jpg

Boom!

http://farm3.staticflickr.com/2926/13962089139_9118d615d5_k.jpg

I've run out of Anubia to plant!

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7417/14145449471_08fcafc1b0_b.jpg

A small corner on this wall needs filling and I want some more to spread onto the filter wall that I want to maybe transition to Fissidens. 

I'll need to go trawl the LFS's for more Anubia, its been a few weeks since I last cleared them out, so I should be able to get some more, maybe! Carpet next, I'll be having a go with ripped up Cladophora balls in a hairnet combo!


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## Edvet (11 May 2014)

Wow, great idea! Surely will look spectacular.


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## allan angus (11 May 2014)

really nice idea and well executed love it!


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## X3NiTH (13 May 2014)

Here we have 5 Aquatic Tribbles awaiting their fate.

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7335/14169312451_ce87749d42_b.jpg

Up closer, nice and hairy!

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7341/14169953122_1b2ce81dc8_k.jpg

So the plan is to rip open these delightful critters and cover this reticulated filter foam construct.

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7297/13961835267_ef154d400d_b.jpg

And so I got stuck right in and cut them half way down the middle and then spread them out, turning them over to the back while under water and gently teasing them into a flat shape with my fingers, periodically checking for fit over the sponge. The bigger balls opened up really nicely and spread out well while the smaller ones were a bit more tatty at the edges when opened up so I used them to fill gaps. Making sure I had them outer surface side up I placed them onto the construct.

http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5475/14172639835_8c34d10ac7_k.jpg

I then took a hairnet and placed it over the top and round to the underside and pulled it tighter in places (not too tight, just enough so it will hold the carpet), I then stitched through from back to from to back again with nylon fishing line in various places to secure the net to the frame, I also stitched around the inside of the circular shape and cut away a small section of net so that I can pop a small crypt planted pot in there.

Here's a couple of pictures with the hairnet covered carpet placed in the aquarium.

http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5540/14192773773_280d5dc3f9_k.jpg

http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5585/14169375421_e55a99dbd2_k.jpg

It looks a bit messy at the moment but the Cladophora got a good squashing while spreading and teasing it out so it should perk up, hopefully disguising the hairnet over time. I will leave it soaking in the bath tub with the Anubia wall for the moment and see how it looks after a couple of days.

http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5522/14172744594_b5d9d753a0_k.jpg

I really like the contrasting greens of the Anubia with the Cladophora, I hope the hairnet gets grown around.
I may redo it with some dark green fine mesh (the kind of stuff that dressmakers use), I have a pile of different colours somewhere that I used as a macro photography background image so I may give that a try if the hairnet doesn't work out. You can see some blue stuff of it I used here as backdrop for these spiders.

http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3274/2744672505_f5486072bd_b.jpg

I did manage to get a few more Anubia, but I'm going to need more, some really small ones would be nice if I could find them locally as I would like to soften the transition over to the mosses on the filter wall, which I still need to decide on and work out how much I'll need to buy.

In the meantime the Un-Pregnant Rilli in my main tank continue to tease!

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7372/14149575246_964354b004_k.jpg



If the images I'm posting are too large can someone let me know thanks!


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## Lindy (13 May 2014)

Those photos are incredible! Are you not worried about your shrimp getting stuck behind the mesh?


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## X3NiTH (13 May 2014)

Thanks re the pics, they're not too big are they ? (Full res on Flickr)

For fry I suppose they will be able to nip in and out of the mesh on the walls, actually I suspect this is where they will congregate. Im going to put a fine sheet of filter foam behind the filter wall so that there should be no way for them to enter into the filter compartment, on the glass walls I had thought of using foam between the mesh walls but that would impinge on growing space for the Anubia Roots. I could plant moss behind the Anubia and allow it to grow through the mesh like how I'm going to do around the curved filter wall which may minimise the risk. I've added some more cherries to the existing tank which a few are berried so I will have fry by the time this tank is up and running, actually there were a lot of freshly hatched hitchhiker fry in their water, about 20 or so that I hoovered up with a syringe and introduced to the tank but they've disappeared behind the sponge filter. A big part of the plan on this build is to give the shrimp somewhere to hide but still be in full view and not behind stuff I can't get to because it faces the wall (sponge filter and heater). I suppose its a case of wait and see, I'll certainly be trying to minimise any gaps that I can find. Hopefully fry would exit from behind the wall if they get too big, a quick moult may give them a small amount of time to squeeze through the gaps back into the main tank.

Thing is critters always find a way to end up where you least expect them too. If I ever lose one of my Purple Emperors out my main tank I know now to check my cerges/dwell time reactor in the cupboard under the tank since I have witnessed on three occasions one of them swim into the outlet of my glass crook, never would have thought it possible unless I saw it with my own eyes,lol.


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## X3NiTH (19 May 2014)

I decided to redo the mesh for the carpet as the hairnet looked a little messy with the Cladophora clumping up in the spaces. I used the mesh that I mentioned above, not the green as it was a little too lurid over the Cladophora, so I used some black instead. I tested it first by wrapping an intact mini ball from the shrimp tank to gauge the effect, I think it looks like it would probably work out.

http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5530/14029765408_7463b18e09_k.jpg

I was able to pull the mesh a little tighter than the hairnet when fitting over the sponge covered frame and it was easier to stitch in place. It turned out a lot neater this time and hopefully given some growing-in time the mesh should be engulfed evenly without looking clumpy.

http://farm3.staticflickr.com/2927/14029782559_53a3f4932c_k.jpg

http://farm3.staticflickr.com/2912/14029863750_9ffec82c7e_k.jpg

So that was a few days ago that the mesh was redone, I had just chucked the carpet back in the bath with the Anubia Wall, and since then I've been diligently doing 100% daily water changes. Today I noticed the water surface looking quite oily so I did another water change, this got me wondering about using some frets to get the Cladophora going but I wanted to know what would trigger good growth so I did a search. I found a nice patent PDF online about growing Cladophora as a fire retardent filling, the magic to growing it is the usual stuff, "lights, ferts, co2". The magic to killing it so it can be used as a flame retardant filling is by treating it with Chlorine! Oops, I've not been dechlorinating the water the carpet is sitting in and when I've been doing water changes I have been filling straight from the tap. I didn't think I needed to as there's no fish or verts to worry about with it sitting in a tub in the bath. So that's why I was seeing an oily surface, I've been slowly killing the Cladophora with all the non dechlorinated water changes.

Disaster averted I've chucked it all into the new tank and filled it with fresh water, dechlorinated this time, I have also put a mini sponge filter in the filter compartment to get some aerated water moving about. I placed the tank next to my main tank so it could get the ambient light spill bouncing off the wall to illuminate it.

http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5583/14029877078_85da5e07f9_k.jpg

I have good root growth from the Anubia emerging from behind the mesh so the plants should hold fast by the time the fishing bait elastic holding it on dissolves and with the walls new upright position it should encourage the leaves to start to turn and grow vertically upwards while the roots turn to grow down between the walls, hopefully I should get a nice curve to the leaf stems as they start to grow towards the light.

http://farm3.staticflickr.com/2914/14029871958_ee77d3198d_k.jpg

I am hoping the carpet mesh gets engulfed, the closeup below gives me an idea that it might, but I don't know how quickly.

http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5316/14216334644_b12efdab75_k.jpg

I fed the tank a skoosh of Tropica Premium to give it some ferts. I'll keep doing that between the water changes (I might feed it the waste EI dosed water from the main tank when that gets changed). I have my mosses coming this week so I can get on and plant up the other wall. I ordered a couple of tubs of Fissidens, 3 tubs of Flame and a tub of Christmas moss, I already have a good clump of moss tied to my shrimp flats that I'm going to rob and I can dismantle the shrimps floating ball to get at the Java moss. I have a big clump of some unidentified dark green thread like moss thats hiding out in a pale in the bath that will also get chucked into the mix. I also have a pot of Microsorum mini coming that I can add somewhere on the wall, maybe in the left corner and 2 pots of C.Parva, these I can plant up in a small peat cup with some nice growing medium topped with gravel and plant into the circular space in the carpet.

I'm hoping the mosses are going to be enough to cover the filter wall, not yet settled on how to go about planting it, not sure if I'm going to plant through the mesh from the front or just sandwich it between the walls, maybe I should do both. Might do a quick test piece with a single frond sandwich and see how that works out as I don't want to waste the whole lot of Fissidens and Flame to find out it doesn't work.


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## allan angus (19 May 2014)

great thanks for posting this so many good ideas  very inspirational


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## Greenfinger2 (19 May 2014)

Hi X3NiTH, Wow Love your ideas  Fab little tanks too  Thank you for sharing


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## James D (19 May 2014)

I agree, it's great to see people coming up with new ideas, it's starting to look really nice.

One thing's troubling me though..... what's going on with that spider? Are you actually keeping them?


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## Greenfinger2 (19 May 2014)

James D said:


> I agree, it's great to see people coming up with new ideas, it's starting to look really nice.
> 
> One thing's troubling me though..... what's going on with that spider? Are you actually keeping them?


I forgot about the spider  Great  Q, James D


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## Dominic (19 May 2014)

Great idea! Keep us updated


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## X3NiTH (19 May 2014)

Thanks for the comments!



James D said:


> One thing's troubling me though..... what's going on with that spider? Are you actually keeping them?



http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3005/2711661162_2aa9f7435c_b.jpg

This expectant mother was found hiding in the hand towels of my in laws caravan a few years back, obviously I went nuts with the macro that holiday, I brought the little package back home with me for more. I released them into the garden once the eggs hatched (only got a couple of pics of the hatchlings before the wife chased me out the house!). I used the mesh for colour effects to see the colours through the spider when using the flashgun.

http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3002/2744674641_3949827576_b.jpg

My fave macro that holiday was a fly!

http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3113/2711668546_d392721ef8_b.jpg

I have a few other ideas for the tank that could possibly make it like no other if I pull it off, but I need to experiment a little to see if I can fully realise what I have stuck in my head. Who would have thought that a £15 12L starter tank from P@H would turn into such a massive money pit. I reckon by the time I have finished I could have bought an ADA 60P instead, coincidentally the space where my tanks sit could accommodate a 60P exactly but the AquaStart 320 would have to have an accident first , hee hee.


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## X3NiTH (11 Jun 2014)

I've given this a couple of weeks to see if the carpet would grow through the mesh and it appears that it is, definite signs that it will eventually be engulfed.

http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3882/14354129384_b4551827d2_h.jpg

http://farm3.staticflickr.com/2937/14168522187_4ee06f89aa_b.jpg

http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3852/14351210231_bd2984400e_b.jpg

http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5196/14354204864_7b3175dae3_b.jpg

I have made a start on the Moss wall using the sandwich method to hold in the moss, I used the fine mesh I have and stitched it onto the back of the wall over the moss with nylon fishing line.

http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3891/14331363656_bb675fc1a3_b.jpg

http://farm3.staticflickr.com/2938/14351154521_a498993088_b.jpg

I'm not sure what type of Moss it is that I stitched in there but I can describe it as being a dark green very fine hair like growth with little branching, I should have taken a Macro pic of it for an ID. Anyway, I left it for a few days to make sure it would grow through to the front, which it did, so I then got on with planting the wall up from the front. I have used Tropica 1-2-Grow Tubs, three of Taxiphyllum sp. 'Flame' and one of Vesicularia Dubyana 'Christmas'. First I planted up the Flame moss, I tried to do this in a way that made it look like flames spreading across the wall. I used a fine set of tweezers and positioned a small bunch of sprigs between its tips and carefully pushed this through the mesh from the front side until it was far enough through the mesh sandwich that it was able to support itself. Once I had run out of Flame moss I then used the tub of Christmas moss and planted in between the Flame moss and spread it out across the wall a bit, I made sure with the Christmas moss that there was enough pushed through that it would grow through the adjacent holes and fill the wall out a little bit more.

http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3855/14392518114_0988d09096_b.jpg

I then grabbed the tub of Java Sword plantlets that I have been collecting from the mother plants in my main tank that dont grow but continually spawn plantlets, there's some Windelov in there also.

http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3874/14392525294_2821c13ab7_h.jpg

I then set about splitting these up at the rhizome into small enough sizes that i could use the fine needle nosed tweezers and plant through the mesh into the moss sandwich. The black cable tie through the wall in the picture is a place marker for the height of the carpet.

http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5556/14390208881_6fc2e3f0ba_h.jpg

The right hand margin of the wall is sparsley planted because this will go behind a section of mesh on the meeting edge of the Anubia wall, there is still the thread moss behind it that can grow through to fill it out, so it won't remain bare. The next pic is lit a little differently to make the planting look less flat.

http://farm3.staticflickr.com/2914/14392174222_c960b99cc0_h.jpg

There's still a small rectangular section of wall on the left that needs planting up, I am supposed to be using the two portions of Fissidens on steel mesh that I have, but when it came to me along with the other mosses that were in spectacular condition it looked very sorry for itself in its tub with mushy Chinese newspaper and covered in shrimp poo,  such a minimal amount of plant for a tenner and to be honest I doubt it would have survived getting buried in a mesh wall sandwich, so I have had to rescue it by hanging it up in the Intensive Care Unit (my main tank) for the moment so that it can take advantage of the EI ferts and CO2 and hopefully grow some legs.

http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5320/14167859428_62a2c43f0c_h.jpg

The above pic is a couple of weeks after rescue and it's certainly taking advantage of all the goodies in the main tank as I have it positioned in a nice spot just slightly out of the flow from the filter outlet. Hopefully it takes off like my Aternanthera did after I hacked it in half and moved its position in the tank to calmer sunnier climes.

http://farm3.staticflickr.com/2902/14168813717_2f5c8b8c9b_h.jpg

In the shrimp tank I think I have about 60-80 Cherry shrimplets, too many to count actually (I got to 56 with the ones I could see), lots of different colours in there including this little beauty.

http://farm3.staticflickr.com/2925/14392481244_20a5645f3e_k.jpg

Finally saw some stacking action with the CRS, dashed to the other room to get the camera to record the occasion but my wife shouted through that they had separated before I could get back and grab a pic, ah well here's hoping the CRS manage to add to the the RCS smorgasbord I've got going.

The C.Parva I had planned to use for this tank ended up in the main tank for the moment as I did a corner rescape and sand extraction on that and wanted to fill the space.

http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3856/14167883730_41e44f629f_h.jpg

http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5545/14351701081_a79d359899_h.jpg

http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3925/14355066255_e496595415_h.jpg

http://farm3.staticflickr.com/2915/14168431728_9831884339_h.jpg

 I have some mini Sword also that's going in the tank somewhere, probably along the bottom edge of the wall so that it grows up and over the carpet. I'm going to give the moss wall a few days in a bucket in my sunny bathroom to settle in before I start having a go with tying the mini sword to it. Don't know whether to plant the Fissidens behind the wall or just secure it to the front still attached to the steel mesh, the two pieces placed together one above the other just fit in the space I have marked out for it, I need it more grown in though before I do anything with it, I'll ponder on this one.


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## Greenfinger2 (11 Jun 2014)

Hi X3iTH,Superb


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## allan angus (11 Jun 2014)

great looking better and better


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## X3NiTH (16 Jun 2014)

I have added some Mini Java Sword along the bottom edge of the filter wall, the roots will be obscured by the carpet when it is in place. I sandwiched up another moss type (not sure of ID but its a branching moss this time) on the slim side panel and I have also planted in some more Anubia, two pots of Nana Bonsai, and one Petite, although I noticed after planting a label for Coffeefolia staring up at me?

https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3845/14244559769_de7b47c093_b.jpg

https://farm3.staticflickr.com/2896/14244566039_19ebbd5661_k.jpg

It's resting in a bucket with a splash of Tropica ferts until I am ready to fix it into place.

https://farm6.staticflickr.com/5114/14244626200_fe8e7f4d26_k.jpg

Here's how it looks after a dunking to relax the sword leaves.

https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3912/14244608879_777c94fe00_k.jpg


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## Lindy (16 Jun 2014)

I love this and have thought along similar lines in the past. A problem I can't see past though is that moss is going to need trimmed but with all the other plants growing over it this is going to be difficult. How are you going to cope with this so I doesn't become a tank full of moss?


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## X3NiTH (16 Jun 2014)

ldcgroomer said:


> A problem I can't see past though is that moss is going to need trimmed but with all the other plants growing over it this is going to be difficult. How are you going to cope with this so it doesn't become a tank full of moss?



I have absolutely no idea, I imagine it will be a monumental battle once things become established, I love the overgrown look which is why I have planted heavily to begin with. There's a very good chance that there will be some die off and this will determine how or if I will trim back any excess growth. To be honest I never planted thinking how I would maintain excess growth and if I had thought beforehand that it would be a nightmare to trim and keep tidy I may never have progressed further than wistful thinking. The good thing though is that I have gone ahead and done it and have posted my journey here for all to see and if it doesn't work out ending in a tank gut then so be it, but at least it will have been quite a trip and I and everyone else can learn from the experience.


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## Lindy (16 Jun 2014)

I'm looking forward to seeing it grown in. I wanted to do this in a bigger tank, say a 30cm cube, for a Bettta splendens. It would really mimic the grassy banks those fish live along


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## X3NiTH (16 Jun 2014)

Yeah a bigger tank would be great, imagine this being done in an ADA 60P. It's the spilled look, growing down from the top into the water spreading over things like the Blob rather than the traditional planted look of growing up and out of the ground. Different slice of an aquatic realm I suppose. Hmmm grassy banks, I have an idea already in my head for this type of planting for a friends potential tank, long hair grass with a swept look from flow over it until it drops of abruptly into deeper water with a quiff look to the terminal edge.


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## Lindy (16 Jun 2014)

Sounds great, you've got me wanting to rescape my 60cm tank again and I've only just redone it for the shrimp!

Sent from my GT-I9505 using Tapatalk


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## X3NiTH (16 Jun 2014)

Good thing about doing all this on removable walls is that I can reuse it on a bigger scape by attaching more mesh sections so it won't be a total loss if I end up upsizing. How amazing would it be if you could actually buy sections of mesh already pre-planted like how I've done, I've been ruminating this idea for a few weeks on how it could be possibly done without the tremendous amount of legwork required to do it and all roads seem to lead down the tissue culture path. I'm off to the Yucatán in a few weeks and will be surrounded by natural inspiration so will probably get to do a lot of thinking, I'm taking an underwater camera with me and hopefully I'll end up swimming in a Cenote which I'm sure will be all the planted wall inspiration I need to get the creative juices flowing!


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## Edvet (16 Jun 2014)

Loads of pics required, and made with the aquariumhobby in mind!


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## X3NiTH (16 Jun 2014)

Edvet said:


> Loads of pics required, and made with the aquariumhobby in mind!



Last holiday I came back with over 7,000 RAWs, this year I'm going to try and reign it in a little, lol, maybe only 6,999! Inevitably though it will probably be more as I'm going to be surrounded by rainforest this time and the Macro will be welded to the camera.

https://farm9.staticflickr.com/8103/8656245854_d0311c91ef_k.jpg


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## tmiravent (17 Jun 2014)

amazing spider! love it.
you should try to get some images from males in spring/breedind time, unbelivable coulors.
cheers


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## Greenfinger2 (17 Jun 2014)

Super photo


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## X3NiTH (17 Jun 2014)

https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3912/14436229471_303e39c88a_k.jpg

Its not finished yet as there are still things to do, but that's both walls in the tank together. It was quickly filled to get a few pics so the water is not very clear.

https://farm6.staticflickr.com/5274/14252923769_2dddcd6532_k.jpg

Its looking quite untidy at the moment but I think I'll let it rest for a few days before I try and organise the leaves a little more while the walls are in situ. I'm not happy with the frame for the carpet as it has warped after using the mesh tightly on it so it won't sit flat anymore, I even cut the mesh at the back to release the tension which helped a lot but its still slightly warped, it doesn't help that its just ever so slightly positively buoyant so that when I straighten one corner the opposite floats up, I'm also thinking its occupying too much height so I'm thinking that I may redo it in stainless without the girders. Maybe I should dispense with it altogether and replace it with black polished gravel that I have and maybe use a few largish flat polished river stones topped with the Cladophora, hmm need to think on this a bit.

https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3870/14442176111_b20da4b021_k.jpg

I will need to securely rig up a spray bar to trickle the water that will be lofted by the sponge filter over the emergent Anubia growth, hopefully I won't have to rig up a mini power filter as I'm trying to keep the kit as minimal as possible, the filter space has enough room to occupy the JBL TekAir sponge filter and the heater that are in the shrimp tank at the moment. I could make more space by swapping the glass heater for a slim/flat one and trimming the sponge a little. The Red Root in the photo is in the filter compartment temporarily so I could guddle around on the other side without losing it all in the wall. I'll need to get a little more light over it to encourage the leaves to lift more, the reflected spill from the main tank is nowhere near enough to do the job on its own where it is sitting in its temporary spot, a carefully angled mirror may do, or I could just rob the tile from over the current shrimp tank temporarily and stick the old PL light from my Aquatart320 hood in its place since I'm not really trying to grow anything in that tank but shrimp.


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## Greenfinger2 (17 Jun 2014)

This is Wonderful  Where it floats up. Place a couple of stones with fiss on them  For a contrast plant  Just a thought ??


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## X3NiTH (17 Jun 2014)

Thanks!



Greenfinger2 said:


> Where it floats up. Place a couple of stones with fiss on them



Ooh, that's a good idea, some nice Fissidens covered river cobble placed in strategic areas.


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## X3NiTH (21 Jul 2014)

Strange one today, actually I'm flabbergasted, I've been back from my hols since Thursday and I really need to be doing some water changes on all my tanks but I have been running a temperature since I got back that is only now starting to go away (runny nose drying up also) so I have been reluctant to muck about with the tanks. So I'm sitting here and notice something move in the empty Anubia walled tank that is to replace my shrimp tank.

https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3854/14521822908_7831b86fe9_b.jpg

Somehow this CRS has managed to move in all by himself! Wow!


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## James D (21 Jul 2014)

Ha ha, weird!

Have you got any idea where it came from?


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## X3NiTH (21 Jul 2014)

I know exactly where it came from just not the method of transit.

The aquarium on the top shelf in the below picture houses all the CRS (including an ever growing hoard of RCS).

https://farm3.staticflickr.com/2917/13962200558_b76e64ae8f_b.jpg

The new planted shrimp tank sits between the wall and my main tank as you can see in this picture so that it gets incidental light.

https://farm3.staticflickr.com/2930/14355051215_4e976f2465_b.jpg

I just got a text back from my wife, she didn't move it. They were all present yesterday. What I think may have happened is that it must have been sitting around the edge of the lid when I raised it this morning to put in some pellet and it's gone and done a 'leap of faith' and fortuitously it's landed where it will eventually end up. If it landed in the big tank the TDS difference would have knocked it out and the hungry shoal would have devoured it.

I think I'm going to have to name it Geronimo now.


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## X3NiTH (21 Jul 2014)

Geronimo is not only an expert at free fall techniques through 3ft of empty space into quieter realms below but he also appears to be a hide and seek champion! 

Oh yeah, shrimp flats not required in this tank!

He's still in there, I have only just spotted him weaving his way through the Anubia!


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## Greenfinger2 (21 Jul 2014)

Hi X3NiTH, Very nice set up you have there  And Geronimo is one brave shrimp  When he mates watch his baby's they will be jumping everywhere


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## X3NiTH (21 Jul 2014)

Thanks! I only wish they would mate as I'm beginning to suspect my CRS colony is sterile, that's not such a problem for the RCS though as there's scores of them now and they grow fast hence the need to perform an afternoon feed as opposed to one at lights out (need to see that the shrimp are eating what I give them before the snails get a chance to polish it all off).


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## Gilles (22 Jul 2014)

Hi Toon, how the heck do you get such great macro photos? Camera/lens/flash details pleaeaease!


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## X3NiTH (22 Jul 2014)

The macros in this thread have been taken with a Nikon D800E with a Micro Nikkor 60mm f/2.8 lens. Where supplementary lighting has been us it is an Nikon SB800 that is running in Remote mode and the camera flash set to Command Mode, flashgun is suspended above the water surface and is pointing down into the tank at the subject matter. Lens Aperture was set to about f/22 if I recall correctly.


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## X3NiTH (28 Jul 2014)

Discovered another escapee!

https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3913/14581694987_9006d82e42_k.jpg

There may be another escapee today making it three in there now, 1 CRS and 2 RCS. The second RCS escape today happened when I was removing some Frogbit from the shrimp tank, I gave it a good shake inside the tank to get the flies off before I removed it and there was a clinger-on that dripped onto the lid of the walled tank, I noticed it lying in a splash of water, so rummaged in the gubbins box for a dropper so I could run some water over it to flush it into the tank proper but it had gone! I checked the floor and around the tank and couldn't see it, so I assume it hopped into the tank.

I was moving the Frogbit to let light from the flashgun hit the substrate for a feeding time photo.

https://farm6.staticflickr.com/5588/14768174085_c8872d19c4_k.jpg

I have no lack of RCS, and I think it's about to go exponential in there as today I discovered that they have bred (put berried females in the CRS tank, that generation now saddled) there are fry swimming about. This pretty much confirms that my CRS colony (11 individuals) are entirely of the same sex (doubtful) or that they are sterile. Unless of course my TDS isn't high enough for CRS but just enough for RCS to breed. Here's a near full tank shot.

https://farm3.staticflickr.com/2935/14581537658_ef7e319363_k.jpg

It's turning into a snail factory again, so I'll need to get busy with the tweezers and syringe, although a turkey baster might do a quicker job, lol.


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## Lindy (28 Jul 2014)

Crystal shrimp want a lower tds than your cherries. Maybe tds is nice and high for cherries but too high for crystals? Crs usually like a lower ph too.


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## X3NiTH (28 Jul 2014)

Tank has TDS 180 and pH 5.8. I've had the TDS lower, been slowly upping it with BS MineralGH+ and lowering the pH a little with Black Water Fulvo+.


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## Lindy (29 Jul 2014)

It would be interesting to know what the gh is at tds 180 with your water.


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## X3NiTH (29 Jul 2014)

Today's TDS 177
GH 5.6 (100ppm measured with Neutrafin Test Kit)
KH 0 (Neutrafin Test Kit registered 0 on addition of first drop)
Nitrates 0 (API Test Kit)

Pretty much what I expected though I'm reluctant to trust the test kits even though they correlate. Tank water at the beginning of this tank was straight tap which has a TDS of 30-50 out the faucet, typically super soft Edinburgh water but the super low tap TDS consists mainly of buffers and chlorine/chloramines with a KH less than 1 but more than 0. The buffers are confusing as they appear non persistent over time (? Plant uptake) hence change to re-mineralised RO to get stable pH and KH of 0. It's been running purely with re-mineralised RO for about 8 weeks+ slowly upping from a starting TDS of 90 (50% water change once every 4 weeks or so, RO top-up between). By the time I got back from holiday it had stabilised around TDS 150, I upped it slightly yesterday after manually extracting what I could of the resident snail population. Snails are breeding, RCS are breeding, Cyclops are breeding, substrate insuforia reduced due to increased mass of RCS population eating all the food and still no sign of any CRS berried (CRS are fed well and will jump on the food first and swim away with their portion to devour in peace, so no changes there). CRS males exhibit pheromone hunting behaviour on occasion when a female moults somewhere in the tank and have also personally witnessed coupling events between two CRS but still no offspring. The RCS would probably have started their breeding cycle when the tank TDS would have been about 120-150. The pH has been between 6.5 and 6 and only reduced slightly to 5.8 yesterday after adding a drop of Fulvo+ (Catappa bark and leaves in tank along with Alder cones and Guava leaves, substrate is FluvalSS so no buffers in the tank, 1 small Montmorillonite stone present, no carbon in the tank).

CRS purchased from local Fishkeeper (MHA) if that makes any difference, probably not seeing as the RCS were bought berried from there also.

Can't see what else to do with them at this point.


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## Lindy (29 Jul 2014)

Wow, everything looks perfect so you must be annoyed! I'm also soft scottish water but I do get them breeding in the tap water.


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## X3NiTH (30 Jul 2014)

Aye, it's very annoying especially as it was a significant outlay to get a breeding colony to begin with, starting to worry that I need to feed them caviar and Cristal. Doubly annoying as I noticed earlier today that the RCS in my big tank (Tap and EI Ferts) have even managed to produce the goods and that's with having to contend with a hungry shoal in there.

I'm also at the point that if I move them over to the walled tank I may never see them again as they are hide and seek champions, usually I'm only ever able to count five at any one time but today I managed to see all 10 in one count or 11 if I count the escapee in the walled tank, (still in there somewhere behind an Anubia leaf). I had removed 90% of the Frogbit from the tank so it was easier to see in, I also chucked in a few pieces of the Ebi Dama Special that up till now everything avoids but on this occasion the tank went completely nuts for it devouring it from all sides including the bottom so that it was getting walked about the place, mental. Maybe the move may do them good.

Here's a couple of pics of the feeding frenzy.

https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3875/14594265289_cfcac8945e_k.jpg

https://farm6.staticflickr.com/5557/14780588062_96077fc041_k.jpg

And while I was busy sorting out those pics to upload and had the camera in my hand, this walks out from under the fish tank cabinet and stops at my feet (7mm Grout gap!).

https://farm6.staticflickr.com/5582/14594434537_dc048965ff_k.jpg

So I got down on my hands and knees to say hello!

https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3915/14757947006_0f72b94525_k.jpg


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## Lindy (30 Jul 2014)

Haha I'm not looking at the last pic after getting a glimpse of the second last! I have a bit of a phobia re spiders and house are the worst along with the orange wood louse eating ones. Strangely I don't mind the little zebra hunting spiders or the ones that lug their eggs about on their backs (wolf spider?)


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## Lindy (30 Jul 2014)

Re the crystals they may appreciate the move to another tank. Some people have noticed a drop off in breeding in crowded tanks with crs. Maybe you could try and sex them as you are moving them over? They may all be male and they have been reacting to a moulting cherry female if thats possible?


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## X3NiTH (30 Jul 2014)

Aye it's a wolf spider, bold creatures, didn't try to intimidate it too much as the last one I saw that size reared up on its hind legs with fangs displayed at the ready and proceeded to play chicken with me even though I was 6ft away and standing. I love my 60mm Macro it's an adventure looking down that lens, I get totally lost in the moment and because it has a short close focusing distance you have to get really close with your subject, I was chasing the small stuff north of Cairns in Australia and I found a gorgeous black orb web spider with yellow and red markings that's leg span was about the size of my open hand that conveniently was at head height so naturally I end up taking extreme close ups, my hearts pumping and the adrenalin is flowing but I'm totally engrossed looking down that lens, a few exposures in and the mirror flips up followed by a scuttling noise and it's gone from the viewfinder, very scary moment, I had accidentally brushed passed its legs with the lens hood trying to get a good fang shot and if it weren't for the fact I was shooting it through its web I think it would have ended up jumping at my like a Facehugger from Alien. Kept my distance after that!

Re the CRS, they had the place to themselves for a couple of months or so but the correct breeding parameters might have been achieved outside this time and I've missed the window of opportunity, who knows, when I move the CRS over the RCS are going in the big tank to free up space except maybe for the blue and green variants.


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## Lindy (30 Jul 2014)

The wolf spiders here are tiny but so interesting.  I used to have a polytunnel with a barkchip base. The wolf spiders loved it and the floor used to scatter when I walked across it. I started watching them and noticed the smaller males trying to woo the ladies. They waved their (palps?) Like some kind of semaphore.  Really funny to watch.


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## Lindy (30 Jul 2014)

I'm in scotland so wee Scottish wolf spiders!


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## X3NiTH (30 Jul 2014)

Aye, they're wee ones but occasionally they're not so wee, like the one above. Biggest naturally occurring spider I have seen up this end is the Scottish Cave Spider and if you ever visit Arisaig make sure to visit or avoid (depending on the fear factor) Prince Charles Cave because it's full of them and they're big, tarantula big! Brrrrr I get the Heebie-jeebies just thinking about them. Take a torch and mind the skull cracker of a rock at the entrance both on the way in and out!


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## Lindy (30 Jul 2014)

I have had an encounter with the cave spiders in the dungeons at dundonald castle. I noticed white teardrop shaped things hanging from the natural rock ceiling.  They looked like weird light bulbs. I then noticed the spiders and realised that the hanging things must have been egg sacks. I made a sharp exit leaving my husband to explain... They were feckin huge!


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## X3NiTH (30 Jul 2014)

Yep, that's the ones, egg sacs like giant gobstoppers, magic when you shine a torch and the ceiling is festooned with them, the monster I saw was at eye level and the egg sac looked way too big to hang so she just sat astride it all big black and shiny with eyes glowing in the reflected torch light. I just wish they would eat more of the midges!


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## X3NiTH (8 Aug 2014)

Had two consecutive days of this pheromone hunting behaviour, the first day the cherries were flying around with the CRS lazily joining in but the next day as you can see in the vid below, the CRS are being very determined.



I added a couple of CBS into the mix to see what happens.


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## X3NiTH (10 Aug 2014)

The Glosso in my main planted tank is needing a bit of a trim! I dialled the CO2 back up after I got back from holiday and it's showing.



Not sure whether to uproot and divide it or trim it right down in situ and plant the tops in between.


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## X3NiTH (11 Aug 2014)

I removed the carpet from the tank and filled it with black gravel.

https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3875/14694229498_3770bb0f29_b.jpg

I have swapped the tank positions around so the walled tank now sits on the shelf.

https://farm6.staticflickr.com/5593/14878381214_bced809e4e_b.jpg

I just need to catch the shrimp I want to put in there, but that will have to wait until tomorrow when the lights come back on.


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## X3NiTH (11 Aug 2014)

Here's a few pics of the filter gubbins.

https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3879/14887033345_08508429f9_k.jpg

https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3863/14700374750_702603ae71_k.jpg

https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3878/14887042505_aa4e2c47b2_k.jpg

There's no sponge in the powered filter, it's just being used to move water into the main compartment via a short spraybar to create a little flow, I widened the holes on the spraybar to reduce the force of the output. I added some sponge between the walls to create a small barrier to prevent access to the filter box, this was mainly prompted by Geronimo disappearing between the walls last night and going for a wander amongst the roots, I saw him up near the spraybar output and he disappeared, I next saw him through the mesh. I was fair expecting to have to dismantle the wall this morning to fish him out but luckily he was back in the main compartment when I went through for a look. Hopefully I have prevented him from doing it again, I just don't want him to end up in the filter box and get chewed up in the filter. I have cut up and used a large 5mm thickness carbon pad to prevent access to the filter box through the mesh itself, I'd rather have a fine PPI reticulated foam doing the job but I don't have any and it's impossible to source locally how I want it. 

https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3902/14887049955_357d5233be_k.jpg


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## X3NiTH (3 Sep 2014)

I moved my Nerite over from the other tank, he's much happier in here.

https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3856/14944557889_03bc3562a8_k.jpg

There's plenty of microscopic life colonising the substrate like nematode worms and cyclops and some pod creature that you can see next to the Nerite for a sense of scale.

https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3887/15128276001_c076aead88_k.jpg

Here's one next to a Nematode.

https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3900/15108253016_bfa507f8f1_k.jpg

Hanging out in the Cladophora.

https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3887/15128268931_8576496d59_h.jpg

On the glass amongst the substrate.

https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3835/14944548969_e2eed2a7bb_k.jpg

Some interesting colours in there!

https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3865/14944550199_0c3ef1d9ec_b.jpg


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## Vinkenoog1977 (3 Sep 2014)

Amazing shots man!


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## X3NiTH (4 Sep 2014)

Thanks!


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## dw1305 (4 Sep 2014)

Hi all, 





X3NiTH said:


> and some pod creature that you can see next to the Nerite for a sense of scale.


 Fantastic photos, the thing is an "Ostracod", basically a _Daphnia_ like crustacean with a bivalve shell that it can clamp shut, some fish will eat them, some aren't so keen. 

I think the "nematode" is a _Planaria_, you can see a gut etc that a nematode wouldn't have. It is travelling downwards and you can see the eyes (from the ventral side) at the head end. Have a look here:<"Planaria:Microscopy UK"> you can see some similar images, with the gut visible in a translucent body.






cheers Darrel


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## Andy Thurston (4 Sep 2014)

Awesome pics! very jealous. I really really want a decent macro lens


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## Gilles (4 Sep 2014)

X3NiTH said:


> The macros in this thread have been taken with a Nikon D800E with a Micro Nikkor 60mm f/2.8 lens. Where supplementary lighting has been us it is an Nikon SB800 that is running in Remote mode and the camera flash set to Command Mode, flashgun is suspended above the water surface and is pointing down into the tank at the subject matter. Lens Aperture was set to about f/22 if I recall correctly.


Wouldn't you get a huge reflection in the window if you flash also from the front?


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## X3NiTH (4 Sep 2014)

Cods not Pods! Thanks Darrel, I racked my brains trying to work that one out, ran through Copepoda, Isopoda and even as far as looking at mussels due to the double shell, totally forgot about Ostracods. Are you sure the worm is Planaria though, I can clearly see the pharyngeal shape of a predatory nematode and that what at first appear to be intestines may actually be ovaries, looking at the tail there is a very faint anal line that is present on female nematodes. If I need it I've got an unopened pack of Fenbendazole powder (Panacur) that I bought to treat the original shrimp tank, I never used it because the bio load of worms got to a point that if I treated the tank the die off would have turned things toxic, I held off feeding for a few days and cut back the amount when reintroducing food, the worms seemed to have sorted their population out or that the shrimps ate them, so I never used the Panacur.



Gilles said:


> Wouldn't you get a huge reflection in the window if you flash also from the front?



When using the D800E with the flash in Commander Mode there is a small amount of light that will be picked up on the front aquarium glass if the lens is far enough away from the glass to capture the reflection of the pop up flash of the body (I can block the light being picked up by obstructing the flash enough for it to not show or I could put IR film on the flash and it won't show but still fire the strobe), when in really close the flash is out of the frame. The camera pop up flash set in Commander mode doesn't provide enough light to illuminate a subject, it's function is to provide enough IR light for the Strobes IR window to detect so it can fire off, (information can be sent from the camera to the strobe using this method). The actual method for the above Macros is that I'm not using the 800E I'm using an Nikon SB-800 Strobe in SU-4 mode for the fill light (different from Remote mode in that the strobe will fire if it detects any flash and it doesn't have to be Nikon) and taking the images for a change with a Nikon V1 with FT-1 adapter and Micro Nikkor 60mm f/2.8D. I'm shooting in Manual mode and Manual Focusing (shifting body position). The V1 also has a SB-N7 strobe in the hot shoe with the flash pointing directly towards the ceiling away from the frame (only want the IR signal for the SB-800 to detect and fire).

I should say that one of the reasons I'm using the V1 is that the crop size of the sensor means I can multiply the focal length of the lens by 2.7 getting me real close to the subject in my field of view, however the V1 is only 10Mpx (sensor crop x Mpx gives effective 27Mpx cropped resolution). The D800E is 36Mpx Full Frame so I could get further in by cropping the image but if I intend to shoot video the V1 60mm combo gets me way closer.

Here's a few more pics from today, some side illuminated and some from above. They appear to like the Catappa Bark!

https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3870/14953207439_c1f15c6c98_k.jpg

https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3906/15136930501_818768bb67_k.jpg

Turning gravel into boulders!

https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3850/14953352167_3d0908486b_k.jpg

https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3860/14953246350_a57378f229_h.jpg

Here's the tank, you can just make out the tiny Ostracods on the Catappa Bark.

https://farm6.staticflickr.com/5595/15136938931_7f16d7c8ee_k.jpg

https://farm6.staticflickr.com/5554/14953361957_c40cf37d1c_k.jpg


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## tmiravent (4 Sep 2014)

amazing images! 
i have the same lens but my camera is not so good.
really want to put my hands in a full frame!
cheers


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## dw1305 (5 Sep 2014)

Hi all,





X3NiTH said:


> Are you sure the worm is Planaria though


 ~95% sure.

cheers Darrel


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## Edvet (5 Sep 2014)

Nice pics!
Are the black (gravel) stones treated or lacquered? they seem so shiny


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## X3NiTH (5 Sep 2014)

dw1305 said:


> Hi all, ~95% sure.
> 
> cheers Darrel



Thanks Darrel, the 5% will keep the Panacur in the box for the moment! Whatever they are eating it's not the shrimp!



Edvet said:


> Nice pics!
> Are the black (gravel) stones treated or lacquered? they seem so shiny



Thanks Edvet, yeah I think the stones are varnished, it's MARINA Aquarium Gravel it's all I had spare that had some weight to it to keep the mesh down that once held the sponge and Cladophora which is now convalescing in a bucket of water beneath an overgrown conglomerated layer of frog bit, phylanthus and salvinia. I'm probably going to scoop some of the gravel out and place some shrimp friendly substrate in there so they can scavenge out in the open rather than behind all that Anubia. I've not moved the bulk of the shrimps over yet and only 2 CBS, 1 CRS and 2 RCS (one is a berried green variant) occupy the tank for the moment, this is because there appears to be slim pickings in there for scavenging and if I don't feed enough Sera pellet the CBS gets too hungry and it chases the CRS (Geronimo) around the tank until it gets on it's back and tries to eat its brains out from through the shell (that's what it looks like), Geronimo is having none of it though! Weirdly they won't eat the Shirakura Special when I offer it in this tank, if I put it with the hoard they can devour 4 pieces overnight.

Trying to keep the over feeding to an absolute minimum so as not to cause a substrate population explosion and diatom outbreak. I wish you could get a shrimp feeder in glass that you can hang on the inside glass wall that has a feeding platform underneath a food introduction tube (a bit like a hanging cage bird seed feeder but with a bigger platform to fit many shrimp). I could do it in plastic but it would look a bit naff, glass would be best but I don't have the tools to do it, shame, for redoing my Lilly's  I keep telling myself it's Pipe dreams every time I eye up a set of 15mm stainless benders! Lol.


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## Andy Thurston (5 Sep 2014)

You can buy glass feeding trays and glass tubes to get food onto the tray


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## Greenfinger2 (5 Sep 2014)

Hi X3NiTH, Superb photos  Nice Scape too


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## Alexander Belchenko (5 Sep 2014)

I have jaw dropped after finally looked on your photos. Unfortunately I can only see them on PC, tapatalk on my phone and tablet shows only links to images.
May I ask you to insert images as BBCode, please? So I (and maybe others) can see your beautifl images via tapatalk. (You can find BBCode option on Flickr in Share menu).


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## X3NiTH (5 Sep 2014)

Big clown said:


> You can buy glass feeding trays and glass tubes to get food onto the tray



Now imagine welding the two together and sticking a couple of suction cups on it! 



Alexander Belchenko said:


> I have jaw dropped after finally looked on your photos. Unfortunately I can only see them on PC, tapatalk on my phone and tablet shows only links to images.
> May I ask you to insert images as BBCode, please? So I (and maybe others) can see your beautifl images via tapatalk. (You can find BBCode option on Flickr in Share menu).



Here's the last pic as BBCode (I don't use Tapatalk so I was oblivious to that issue, until now thanks!). I'm not sure I like it that it doesn't zoom the image within the page when you click on it but takes you to its Flickr page instead, if it took you to the full res page great, but it doesn't.


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## Alexander Belchenko (5 Sep 2014)

Well, now I can see image in tapatalk. But the choice of the images inserting method is up to you.


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## tim (5 Sep 2014)

X3NiTH said:


> Now imagine welding the two together and sticking a couple of suction cups on it!


http://www.aquariumplantfood.co.uk/glassware/aquarium-glassware/gush-shrimp-pod/gush-shrimp-pod.html
Maybe you could use this not cheap but should work.
Just seen it's out of stock Maybe drop john at apfuk a pm see when they'll be back.


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## X3NiTH (5 Sep 2014)

Alexander Belchenko said:


> Well, now I can see image in tapatalk. But the choice of the images inserting method is up to you.



Okay BBCode from now on then, I suppose it's only two clicks further to get to the HiRes images but for some folks that might be two clicks too far. 



tim said:


> http://www.aquariumplantfood.co.uk/glassware/aquarium-glassware/gush-shrimp-pod/gush-shrimp-pod.html
> Maybe you could use this not cheap but should work.
> Just seen it's out of stock Maybe drop john at apfuk a pm see when they'll be back.



Yeah I've seen the gush pods, nice aren't they! Too big for my tank and too enclosed though, I rigged up a bottle a couple of months back to catch some shrimp and the food I used (Sera Pellet) leached into the water in the bottle overnight and turned it blue, I think there was 1 shrimp in it when I got there in the morning and it was trying to find the exit (all the others escaped, including the snails). Having something that doesn't hinder the flow of water across the feeding table to let wafting food smells permeate the tank is probably preferable, besides I'll miss out on some great feeding frenzy photo opportunities if there's too much glass in the way.


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## Edvet (5 Sep 2014)

Hah!!! Busted!!
You are using plastic plants!!


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## X3NiTH (5 Sep 2014)

Edvet said:


> Hah!!! Busted!!
> You are using plastic plants!!



Shhhhh! Lol! 

Can't have a Diorama if there's not at least one Tamiya kit in there, lol, If they start pearling at least I'll know my pH is a tad on the low side, ha ha!


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## X3NiTH (6 Sep 2014)

> X3NiTH said:
> 
> 
> > Are you sure the worm is Planaria
> ...



Here's your missing ~5%!


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## X3NiTH (8 Sep 2014)

I dosed 300ml of Macro into my 28L tank yesterday when the Macro dosing pump timer triggered on continuous late afternoon which left it running for hours at 1ml a minute, I was trying to film the population explosion of Ostracods and needed the light at 100% so used the power adapter for the mini400 tile instead of bumping the light up on the controller (main tank light would be affected by this change) and I plugged it into the timer the Macro dosing pump uses and switched it over to manual from auto, but the tile just kept flashing on and off repeatedly (??? It's fine on the controller at 20% why not on its own power brick at 100%) so I gave up and put everything back the way it was but somehow the dosing pump ran outside its programme later on, I have no idea why it did this and I can't explain the light malfunction either, maybe plugging the tile in through the timer has knackered it. I only noticed the problem a couple of hours after a 50% water change when the tank water appeared to be looking yellow when it shouldn't and noticed the outlet dripping! I did another 50% waterchange just in case. For the moment none of the shrimp or fish appear to be affected by it, if anything the shrimp appear more active today. Tank pH dropped by 0.5pH as a result which I feared might have made things interesting today for balancing co2 injection as the water change was coupled with a savage trimming of my glosso requiring an injection fine tune, thankfully it only required a tiny increase in aeration to get the fish away from the surface at lights on today. Had lots of pearling from all the decapitated glosso stems, hopefully it gets the message and starts growing sideways, maybe the extra macro will help!


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## X3NiTH (25 Sep 2014)

This afternoon in the Anubia walled tank, developments, the wife spotted it first but I did note a translucency in the body last night after lights out !!!



So happy, had to perform a Quirkafleeg!

TDS @ 185


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## Greenfinger2 (25 Sep 2014)

Stunning


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## Dantrasy (2 Oct 2014)

You're like an artistic engineer. Really liked going through your thread, thanks.


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## X3NiTH (14 Oct 2014)

The main tank has been through a few changes.





The images above were taken on the 10th of September. This one below from October 5th was after I moved the A.Reinekii at the front left to the back and trimmed and replanted a few heads from the ones already up the back. I trimmed the E.Tenellus right back that lived in the back left corner. The Glosso at the front was hacked right down to the substrate level and it has grown back in far more squat, although it is looking rather pale.



There was a bit of a hiccup with the main tank when I had been borrowing power outlets to put the shrimp tank light on the power brick to get 100% for filming (went badly as the light unit just flashed indicating a toasted power brick) hadn't noticed that I had accidentally tripped the micro dosing pump when I borrowed its outlet and ran about 300ml of micro into the tank, unaware of this at the I later performed the weekly tank water change of 50%, about half the micro had gone in up to this point (did note a drip at the ferts outlet but dismissed it as splashed water from the WC), I then gutted out the filter and removed the water along with half the media to get more flow (Eheim Mech and MechPro) and stuck a large filter sponge in place of the Mech and a slice of carbon filter matting,  I then gave the 20" reactor a quick clean and replaced its water, so probably in all an 85%+ water change at this point (the filter really needed the clean). Later on I noticed the tank water was yellowing and scratched my head for a couple of seconds when suddenly I remembered dismissing the drip earlier on, looked at the outlet and it was dripping, looked at the pump and it was ever so silently spinning, looked at the bottle of Micro I filled the day before, 200ml left out of 500ml, aaaargh!!! I calculated I had already taken half it out at the water change but thought best to do another 70% change straight away. All fish and cherry shrimps totally fine with it.

The loss of half the mature filter media to get more flow kicked off quite a large bloom of diatoms on the front of the glass where the flow from the filter hits it and also in the shade just on the corner of the front side wall behind the fissidens that is growing on mesh, again a high flow area. Not long after this I noticed that the Frogbit new growth was very pale and so was the Glosso new growth that was coming in after being hacked to substrate level.



And some of it is dying off.



So I had to rescue it from the main tank and put it in the shrimp tank next to it but still under the same light, although less direct (not the planted shrimp tank), it has greened up a little being back in there and is starting to look much more healthy. I'm not sure overdosing Micro is quite safe for plants, doing it at the same time as cutting half the filter media probably didn't help.

Having moved on a little from that, I was out at McArthurGlenn in Livingston yesterday and while there popped into the local P@H to look and see if they had a dual output air pump (ended up with the 'love fish' 2x140lph), the tanks were spotless which was nice to see, even the Tropica plants display tank, I couldn't resist getting a couple of very nice pots of Pogostemon.Erectus and a pot of Lilaeopsis.Brasiliensis. I put all the Pogostemon in the main tank and split the Lilaeopsis between the main and shrimp tank.





As you can see I've stuck the Lilaeopsis up in the back corner under bright light (the 1500 tile outer ring is on at 35% and inner at 25%) to see how it fares there, I've also stuck some in the shade at the front behind the Crypts. In the second of the above recent pics you can see the Glosso at the front is still really pale. The Alternanthera up the back is growing rampant though, it's the fastest growing thing in the tank so far (the last haircut slowed the Glosso right down).

Heres the planted shrimp tank with some of the Lilaeopsis planted up the back.



All the moss on the walls has died off but the Anubias and Swords in there are growing, but very slowly. There is also a stem cutting of some Alternanthera in there to see how it reacts to low tech and it is also growing very slowly but it's staying squat and is very red. I was thinking of using the Cladophora that I have and teasing little tufts of it out and sticking it in the gaps in the mesh but I've put that on hold for the moment because this little one is nearly due and I don't want to disturb her (hates the camera lens and mostly always turn to face it and hide her brood behind her).



The close up stills in that video were taken today, here they are below, hopefully not long until hatching.



And a closer crop.


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## X3NiTH (15 Oct 2014)

Maybe time to dose the Panacur.



Hydra Infestation on a post moult CRS!



Great, I wonder if that means a CBS shrimplet carve up when they arrive if I don't dose?


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## Lindy (15 Oct 2014)

Wow, amazing shots! It never occurred to me that the hydra would sit on the shrimp. Are there any on your glass?


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## Edvet (15 Oct 2014)

Nice fresh looking tank, just not sure about the fish choice. I would go for one species and maybe a smaller one. Try to find one which doesnt want tanine rich water like the emperor, just my 2 €cents


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## Lindy (15 Oct 2014)

I just noticed all the hydra on the shrimps legs! Eek! Burn it with fire!


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## Edvet (15 Oct 2014)

She needs a shave


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## Lindy (15 Oct 2014)

Edvet said:


> She needs a shave


lol...


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## X3NiTH (15 Oct 2014)

ldcgroomer said:


> Wow, amazing shots! It never occurred to me that the hydra would sit on the shrimp. Are there any on your glass?



Thanks! No I can't see any on the glass which is completely clear, not even diatoms. I remember taking a pic a while back after first getting the CRS and seeing the polyp structure near the face but didn't scrutinise it further being unfamiliar with the way CRS lay down colour in their shell and thought it was normal. So I took a few more pics.



Geronimo is surprisingly free of any (maybe he was the one that moulted and is now free of them for the moment). I'm thinking that Geronimo Is the father for the CBS shrimplets as I'm sure I can see some red in amongst the eggs, some whites and a nice deep black one. Here's a pic of a RCS female that appears free of infestation.



Heres one of its progeny, again clear of hydra.



Moving over to the old shrimp tank where the RCS and CRS came from.



As you can see there are Hydra present on the CRS, so at least I know where it came from. The infested one I put in the planted shrimp tank a couple of weeks ago to give Geronimo company came from here. It only appears to be the CRS that are affected and that tank is infested with RCS, the colony is growing again and doesn't look like stopping any time soon. I have seen young RCS back browsing on the CRS which they don't like and I'm wondering if the CRS are using the Hydra as a defence (or is it only on the parts it doesn't reach when cleaning itself?).


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## X3NiTH (22 Oct 2014)

Spotted these in the tank yesterday!















And here's a couple of 'Where's Wally' full tank shots.





Here's Geronimo, the father of that lot above, strutting his stuff feeling quite chuffed with himself after getting in there again for the second time!



What drew me to looking for that lot above was that the egg carrying female appeared very pale in the belly and the male shrimps (CRS, CBS and RCS) in the tank were buzzing around like flies chasing after her, I presumed that she had cast her young and had moulted, she was looking very brown. I kept my eye on her as the others tried to catch up and spotted her get some peace for a moment and she suddenly moulted bursting free from her old skin, Geronimo was hanging back and got right on the case immediately, she hadn't been out the shell for more than a second before he pounced and mated. After this she was chased around the tank by everything, an RCS clamped onto her brain pan, which put a little bit of drama into the mix which had me reaching for the long tweezers to remove it (I've had three CRS females go this way, brain munched, and I'm not going to watch it happen), Zombie RCS episode averted!

And today here's Moya (She's the only Mothership in there after all) bearing the fruits of Geronimos persistence!


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## Greenfinger2 (22 Oct 2014)

Hi X3niTH,
Congratulation to Mum and Geronimo 
Great photos i love number 2


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## X3NiTH (22 Oct 2014)

Thanks!

In pic number two I thought it was about to be munched when I took the shot, a moment later the shrimplet used its lightning reflexes to appear to teleport itself backwards 1cm onto the strand of moss away from the giant claws of death that were bearing down on it! Obviously has Geronimos Genes on!


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## GreenNeedle (23 Oct 2014)

Absolutely love the idea of the anubias wall.  Its almost like Ivy   Might try that one day myself.


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## X3NiTH (4 Nov 2014)

Main Tank as of this week.



I have removed all the Glosso (except one 15cm long stem I replanted at the back) even though it was growing back after the micro overdose and staying really squat (ghostly pale), the fish kept uprooting it while chasing cherry shrimp fry, so out it came and in its place I lopped some heads of the Stauro and replanted towards the front. I have also added some C.Balansae in various areas to see where it grows best and also some C.Nevelli, the Nevelli can't be seen because only the roots have been planted as one night and one day in a holding tub of RO in the bathtub sent it melting into oblivion, the Balansae sitting in the same tub next to it didn't even blink!

This is what Alternanthera.R.Mini.Pink looks like when it hits the surface.



My tank is in the kitchen and the house is quite dry so the lower leaves that were first to emerge weren't able to cope and shrivelled at the tips (now removed, post pic), the plant stem before emergence would flop slightly forward in the flow from the crook, but this last week (a week after emergence) it is remaining upright, so I assume the plant is laying down structural growth in the stem below the water line to strengthen the support for the above water growth.

I removed the floating surface cover last week and turned down one of the channels to 15%, the other is on 22%. Up until the weekend I went 3 weeks without a waterchange (watched the TDS climb from 180 to 370 over this period) in an attempt to clear the micro overdose by making more macro available over a longer time frame (absolute no scientific reasoning for this, just wanted to experiment to see the effects, fert dosage rates are 15ml macro per EI dose and 9ml micro per EI dose, I continued to dose micro during this period even though I was clearing the vestiges of an overdose as I didn't want there to be a shortfall causing other problems), this has helped to reduce the diatom outbreak I was having due to the reduced filter media bacteria colony lagging behind after the overdose (filter media reduction and accidental 300ml micro overdose was on same day, overdose only spotted after media reduction, I think the filter colony has recovered sufficiently to deal with the by products that diatoms use to grow). Tank health has appeared to improve greatly over this lay period.

Tanks TDS is now back down at 220ish after WC. Other observations over this period were how EI influences tank pH over time (0.2ish pH rise above WC start point at above dosing rate over 3 weeks, top-ups with RO @ Zero TDS) and that the increase in TDS over this time narrowed the variance of the two pH controllers in the tank from 0.35 pH variance @ around 180 TDS to 0.15 pH variance @ 370 TDS. No apparent change to fish and shrimp behaviour during this time with elevated fert levels and increased TDS, the fish still know they're going to be fed and line up if I put my hand anywhere near the food tub within their eyeshot.


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## X3NiTH (6 Nov 2014)

Looking quite lonesome there with only an Ostracod for company, not to worry there plenty more where that one came from. Quite a rainbow clutch from a CBSxCRS, the majority are expressing black colours then reds next, a couple of mottled whites, a pure white and a white wearing a blue waistcoat with a black/grey back panel. I really like the blue! If I can get a clearer shot nearer to the front glass I'll post it up.


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## Bhu (6 Nov 2014)

Your picture quality is amazing! As for Geronimo well that's just a small miracle! Who knows where they will be crawling next. Yours tanks are stunning and your shrimp amazing


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## X3NiTH (6 Nov 2014)

Thanks!


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## Andy Thurston (6 Nov 2014)

Like everyone says Darren, tank looks superb. Loving the pics. I've got some serious camera envy going on here. One day i'll have a full frame nikon. Keep the pics coming


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## Bhu (6 Nov 2014)

Just out of interest what camera do you use?


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## X3NiTH (6 Nov 2014)

Thanks!

First up is Moya (Mum)!



As you can see stuffed with eggs, what I haven't reported is that a couple of days ago she dropped the load she was carrying after mating with Geronimo at the post hatch moult, this new set of eggs would have been fresh from the ovaries (no idea who the father is this time but more than likely it's Geronimo). I'm hoping that when I topped up with RO the other day it didn't trigger the moult. If you have a closer look at her carapace you can see in the black that makes her a CBS both red and blue, appears to have a red tail and if you add that to the orange high lights on her appendages she's turning out to be quite a rainbow.

Here's a CBS and a CRS next to Mum!



Another CBS (2 if you count the background out of focus one)!



Another CRS!



It's Blue!



And unbelievably next to the Blue, a big Clown wearing a red spotted waistcoat and tan trousers!!!





Here's a white with red spots next to a pond snail and some RCS for a sense of scale.



I hope the Blue one doesn't fade over the next few moults!



Bhu said:


> Just out of interest what camera do you use?



Nikon D800E


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## X3NiTH (7 Nov 2014)

Nikon1 V1 + 60mm using the FT-1 adapter.
(ISO1600 1/100sec @ f/11 with TMC mini400 tile @ 100% 20cm above subject)


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## DivZero (8 Nov 2014)

Beautiful pictures indeed!


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## Greenfinger2 (8 Nov 2014)

Superb


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## bogwood (10 Nov 2014)

Very enjoyable reading, some excellent techniques you use.


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## Easystreet (10 Nov 2014)

Wow!!!! Something for me to work up to! Great tank and awesome photos!! I like the fact that you have such diverse varieties in there that you never know what mix you'll get from the offspring.

Are you ever planning to selectively breed or are you just happy seeing what happens?


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## X3NiTH (10 Nov 2014)

Thanks!

Just happy seeing what happens for now, if I find something that screams out at me I might take the plunge. There's space on the shelf for a very small breeding isolation cube if the need arises.


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## X3NiTH (11 Nov 2014)

Time to evict the berried cherries, let's go fishing!


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## Bhu (11 Nov 2014)

Ha ha ha how's that going to work? Is it like a mini lobster pot!?


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## X3NiTH (11 Nov 2014)

Yup!

The Nano version of 'Deadliest Catch', except it's more friendly than deadly.


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## Alexander Belchenko (12 Nov 2014)

Can you explain, please?


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## Bhu (12 Nov 2014)

I made a shrimp trap to try to remove shrimp... All I caught was corys and cardinals lol.  But mine was the inverted bottle top version. This looks better!


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## X3NiTH (12 Nov 2014)

Alexander Belchenko said:


> Can you explain, please?



It's two plant pots dissected and put back together again with fine mesh, there is an opening at the top to allow the shrimp to climb in and get at the food stored in the middle of a terracotta plant pot weight at the bottom that is also stopping the trap floating up.

I have three heavily berried 2nd generation RCS in this tank along with my CBS and CRS, they appear to be carrying in excess of 40+ eggs each and I don't want them hatching and out competing the CRSxCBS shrimplets for food. So the need to evict them.

Got up today and was "On the Crab", slim pickings though as I only had two RCS in the pot this morning but not the berried ones. Plan change, so I am on pot iteration number two now (changed the lid to exclude the mesh and widened the entry hole), if I'm quick I can plug the hole and get the pot out the tank before any escape.


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## Bhu (13 Nov 2014)

You could try one of these 

http://www.aquariumplantfood.co.uk/glass-shrimp-catcher.html

Go after the ones you want. I hear they work well...


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## X3NiTH (13 Nov 2014)

Already have one! 

Great tool, only drawback though is its 17" which is longer than the height space I have to work in with that tank. This tool requires a bit of space to manoeuvre it around, also while it may be nearly invisible in the tank when you move towards a shrimp it's aware of the water movement behind it and reacts accordingly, so it's not as easy as it first appears. I should also say it's quite solid and I can see me putting it through the thin walls of my shrimp tanks if I go chasing with it. To catch a load of shrimp at one time I find it easier to place the catcher in the tank and drop food down the handle tube to rest in the bottom of the catcher, I then wait until there's enough of a scrum to get at the food before gently lifting out, this way there are no pressure waves moving towards the shrimp to spook it and they usually sit tight allowing you to lift them carefully out the tank (superb lazy way to catch snails). It's a waiting game I'm afraid on this one as you would not believe how effective an Anubia wall is for hiding shrimp!

The original CRS shrimp tank got a gutting last night!



Decided to make it for CRS only again and put all the RCS in the main tank. So I fished out the CRS first (easier than you think) and put them back in their rescaped tank (not planted yet, apart from some Lillaeopsis up the back corner out of pic). Picture taken after lights out for a few hours as can be noted by the emergent Alternanthera tops closed up for the night and pale fish.



Did the RCS last, no clandestine sneakiness with tube to substrate just tipped straight into the top of the tank (made sure the majority of co2 had degassed first), the lights were off and the fish stayed out the way. Here's the total mass of everything before I did the move.



The Purple Emperors were very excited when the lights came on over the main tank this morning! Don't know how many RCS I put in there (I stopped counting past 60) but it looks like it may be near the 200 mark! Shrimp are a bit spooked, not surprising when they've never seen a fish before, there will be a fair few fat bellied fish by the end of the day!

Nothing in the shrimp pot this morning  . Must have spoked them when I did the last pot change over, I'll give it a day or so before I stick my hand in there again.


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## brancaman (13 Nov 2014)

I'm a huge fan of yours macros, those little shrimps seems huge .  Another journal to watch


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## X3NiTH (14 Nov 2014)

Did some rearranging of the lights, I moved the mini400 tile from above the Anubia walled tank and put it over the bottom shrimp tank. I put a new 600Ultima strip above the walled tank.





Here is a shot to show comparative bulb brightness to each other (how I have them set). They all share the same controller (8-way), the 1500 tile is set at 15% (inner) and 27% outer, the mini400 tile is at 15% and the new 600 strip is at 27%.



There is no supplemental lighting in these pictures, the top two are shot at ISO2500 1/60sec f/9, the bottom one at ISO800 1/60sec f/16.

Also bought a couple of stuffed pots each of Lilaeopsis Novea-Zeelandiae and Didiples Diandra to plant up in the refreshed shrimp tank now that it has a light over it. Still having no luck with catching the berried cherries in the walled tank, if I put anything in the tank they dart behind the Anubias. Ah well, just have to keep trying!



Ps. Forgot to say I opted for the strip rather than another tile is I'm going to put a small cube tank in the space it extends over.


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## Wallis97 (15 Nov 2014)

Great photos!


From Alex - Internet names may vary. Comment not fit for human consumption. Contains small parts.


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## X3NiTH (15 Nov 2014)

Thanks!


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## X3NiTH (15 Nov 2014)

Here's the Shrimp Tank all planted up with the Lilaeopsis, the mini400 tile is on the brick at 100% as I planted this up outside the lighting period. The Didiples.D went into the main tank in various places.


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## X3NiTH (16 Nov 2014)

Here's both sides of the other blue.





Also this white Shrimplet is showing blue and red spots!



It's not that hard to tell the sexes apart when they are so small (different story when they are bigger), the females are growing far faster and are much larger than the males. Top one male, bottom one female, the shape differences are very apparent.

I'm going to be getting a Dennerle Nano 10 to put on the shelf to isolate the Blue Bolts (can I call them that if they are not directly bred from a Panda?) tank size is perfect for the space but I'm not liking the rounded corners at the front, I'm hoping I can turn the tank around and use it that way. I was thinking of putting a wall in the middle to create two cells for selective breeding. I was thinking of maybe doing another Anubia wall, Buces would be an amazing alternative but it would be very expensive (at least 10 plants minimum, maybe double that).


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## X3NiTH (20 Nov 2014)

Moya is missing (or having a crack at the hide and seek championships behind the Anubia), the Cherry Shrimp trap turned out to be not much of a trap, so ended up having to perform a manual extraction with a net and captured 9 berried RCS, one remains and is so spooked has gone into hiding, Geronimo is still in there but the other CRS I found as a half eaten husk, the other CBS is missing also, maybe a goner, maybe this is where Moya is dining at. I'm hoping she'll turn up. I've had a pry about behind the leaves, but it's a thicket in there. Lots of Shrimplets about though, I have counted about 25 of them at any one time, there's 3 Red Stripes, 1 Blue Stripes, 3 White with Blue patches, 4 whites and the rest a mix of Black and White, patches and stripes.

Red v Blue



And in the main tank today - After receiving reinforcements earlier in the week a contingent of the Red Cherry Army managed a supply run to Bogwood Ridge. Scouts sent on reconnaissance had reported back that Imperial activity in this area is high, superior numbers required to assault the ridge.











It was touch and go for a moment and the Red Cherry contingent was almost forced to flee the ridge, fortuitously starving Imperial forces received a timely supply drop that distracted their numbers long enough for the Ridge to be assaulted. Having collected a significant amount of BBA supplies the Red Cherry Army dispersed from the ridge.


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## Vinkenoog1977 (20 Nov 2014)

Awesome post!


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## DivZero (20 Nov 2014)

Red vs. blue ... that's seriously ridiculously beautiful...


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## X3NiTH (21 Nov 2014)

Spotted Moya hiding in the gloom (behind an Anubia leaf) late last night hours after lights of (even checked the filter box at the back earlier in the day and there's only a solitary green cherry back there), thought it might have been Geronimo. Got the torch out and had a quick squizz, and there she was eyes reflecting silver back at me out of the dark from behind the leaf and she's still berried, phew!

Haven't found that last remaining berried cherry, I might be too late to catch it, at least it's just one and not ten because that would have been stupendous, at least 400ish Shrimplets would have come flying out on hatching day, now it's only going to be 40ish. Main Tank will be getting plenty reinforcement soon and the fish are going to have a field day chasing it all.


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## X3NiTH (21 Nov 2014)

And it gets even better!



The numbers just went up, that's 3 Blue and White striped Shrimplets!





Here's a nice looking White with the tiniest hints of blue in it.



Really liking the shade of blue in this one!



Can't wait for the next round!


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## Wallis97 (21 Nov 2014)

X3NiTH said:


> Moya is missing (or having a crack at the hide and seek championships behind the Anubia)]



Sorry, that's gone to Kim Jong Un; http://www.newsbiscuit.com/2014/10/...t-in-world-at-hide-and-seek-says-north-korea/


From Alex - Internet names may vary. Comment not fit for human consumption. Contains small parts.


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## Lindy (21 Nov 2014)

Wow,  some amazing shrimp! Do you have shadow hybrids in there?  The blue and white shrimp may darken to shadow  pandas. Stunning!


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## X3NiTH (21 Nov 2014)

ldcgroomer said:


> Wow,  some amazing shrimp! Do you have shadow hybrids in there?  The blue and white shrimp may darken to shadow  pandas. Stunning!



Thanks Lindy!

All the young are a known cross between my escapee CRS (Geronimo) from my original colony and a CBS (Moya). The CBS I bought as a pair carefully selected from the shop tank that appeared to show the most female traits, out of the two Moya has turned out to be the female, she is the only female Crystal shrimp of any colour that I have.

Mum


Dad


I'm not yet fully educated about all the different naming conventions and gene lines, I'm having a good read up though trying to match what I'm seeing in the tank. Having a look over here on Shrimpism it appears the ones I'm calling Whites are actually Golden Bees. The site speculates that the genetic crossing of Red, Black and Golden Bees is what gave rise to Black Bees, Pandas and Shadows. So it appears this could be correct and this is why I am seeing such an eclectic mix from crossing the above pair. My CBS is showing Red, Blue, Black and White as markings, the Gold is stained throughout the clear portions of her exoskeleton. The CRS is unremarkable other than he's good at tank migration and getting in their first to mate with the female CBS.

So answering your question Lindy, no, there's no Shadows in the tank!

Could there be any as Shrimplets? No idea, I only spotted the extra two blue and white striped ones today so you never know what's hiding in the darkness behind the Anubia wall that hasn't yet been noticed! Also, like you said a few more moults down the line, who knows what they will mature to?

Due date for the next batch should be sometime over the next couple of days so I'll need to hurry and get the new tank to set up to breed this lot out!


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## Greenfinger2 (22 Nov 2014)

Stunning


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## X3NiTH (23 Nov 2014)

Bought some C.Undalatus and some J.Repens yesterday to replace some of the Alternanthera in the main tank, those I removed I transferred to the rescaped shrimp tank. This is how it looks now.



Here's a closer look up the back, the Tennelus I found hiding amongst the removed Alternanthera so that also went in.



The CRS colony appear to like their newly planted home.



Here's how the back right corner of the main tank looks now, less lush than before with the some of the Alternanthera removed but hopefully it will fill in. The Purple Emperors have made full use of the new space to chase the RCS that hide up there.



One of the Anubias in the walled tank is flowering above the surface.



Last night I also noted that Geronimo was furtively searching for Moya, thats been 30 days since the first Generation arrived. Since I hadn't seen mum for a few days I was worried she had dropped the eggs late term, later on last night she came out from behind the Anubia wall to feed and appeared to still be carrying eggs, either it's still the last batch or she has moulted, mated and berried again.

Seen today!



Batch 2 is now here, batch 3 hopefully in another 30 days!


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## Easystreet (25 Nov 2014)

Wow again!! This is awesome... I had no idea that so many variants would be possible from a CRS x CBS mix!! Makes me very tempted to hunt for a 'moya' of my own at some point (I'll wait to see if my CRS's breed on there own first though!). I didn't realise the shrimplets hatch and then then mother mates again straight away!! No wonder shrimp populations can explode so rapidly!!

Good luck with the new tanks and breeding of blue, golden bees, etc... Really nice project!! It must be good to know you've got such a variety of  genes floating about to play with (that sounded a bit evil!).

If you ever get to the point where your thinking about selling some...

Jim


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## X3NiTH (25 Nov 2014)

Thanks, I had no idea about the variants either, I would have been just as happy if they were all blacks and reds but the bonus colours has made the long wait feel completely worthwhile.

I would have never of known what breeding looks like if I hadn't observed it closely myself, amazing and scary at the same time.

It's going be a while until I'm at the point of being able to sell any, depends if the wild colours are a blip due to some specific parameter being just right from the moment of conception to birth, or whether I get these all the time, if it's all the time then experimenting might be easier. New tank is needed to do this, luckily it's on its way though!


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## Lindy (25 Nov 2014)

X3NiTH said:


> , I had no idea about the variants either


Your shrimp must be hybrids at some level so there is taiwan (shadow) genes in them somewhere.


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## X3NiTH (25 Nov 2014)

Very likely, kind of makes up for all the previous hassles with the CRS.


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## X3NiTH (27 Nov 2014)

Next couple of pics are not for the Squeamish. Don't usually get to see this sort of thing as it usually happens up the back somewhere I can't get to.



One of the Rummy Nose didn't appear to survive the night, noticed a bit of a shrimp commotion in amongst the Stauro when the lights came on, this was an unusually humpbacked (diseased?) fish so not sure what happened. Either the fish died because it was its time to go, or it was weakened by disease or some other thing, no idea, however I won't discount the possibility that the Rummy was ambushed by a contingent of Cherry Shrimp while it was sleeping in the Stauro (have seen the Rummys do this way after lights out and I've shone a torch into the tank, and there they were fast asleep nestled among the leaves of the Stauro). I don't think I need to remove what's left, the shrimp are taking care of it all on their own, let them have the spoils as they suffer attrition daily by the fish. Here's a nice closeup not long after lights on, it was near skeletonised by lights out.



For a minute there I thought this one was going to have some vegetables to go with the fish, but alas, it was not to be!



New Tank arrived yesterday for trying to breed on all those rarities I've got, trying it out in its spot. Still mulling over what I'm going to do with regards to scaping it.


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## Wallis97 (28 Nov 2014)

I do love the anubias wall 


From Alex - Internet names may vary. Comment not fit for human consumption. Contains small parts.


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## brancaman (28 Nov 2014)

X3NiTH said:


>



This shot is amazing, never saw one like this, now i know what happened to my lost never found fish 

Do you get your macros with external flash?


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## X3NiTH (28 Nov 2014)

brancaman said:


> Do you get your macros with external flash?



Yes, remote strobe above the tank surface.


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## X3NiTH (29 Nov 2014)

Been reading up a little and this unremarkable little Shrimplet appears to be a Red Bolt, but the Red is not very strong in this one. Plenty other strong genes though!



What is remarkable about this little Shrimplet is that its in the wrong effing tank!



I am at a loss to work out how this one got into the tank, cross contamination is my first guess, but it was weeks ago that I moved the moss ball from the walled tank to this one and today I spot it the same way I did Geronimo, caught out of the corner of my eye, turned around and there it was. It looked like it just got there! So it's getting called Geronimo Jr.

Still trying to work out what I'm doing with the new tank but I think it might involve quite a few packets of black Milliput. I've been rooting through some old Fujichromes for inspiration, here's the thought train.

















And if you want to know what eventually happened to that poor Rummy Nose in the previous post.



Nothing left but bones!


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## brancaman (30 Nov 2014)

Last photo could be a cover shot of any music cd


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## X3NiTH (9 Dec 2014)

Old shrimp tank has had some more AR transplanted into it.



I also put some sliced pepper in there which the snails went nuts over, the CRS also appeared to have eaten it (after lights out) and I noticed that they have taken on more colour and crucially they have thickened out the white by a massive amount (the CRS had been lacking white significantly and I have been trying various things to try and encourage it to strengthen). Here's a nice pic of one of the strengthened coloured CRS in this tank.



Meanwhile in the other tank (with more AR in it).



Its coming along nicely, although the bare mesh where the moss died off is really starting to annoy me, I've had a few thoughts about what to do with it, I thought of using Cladophora stuffed into the gaps to fill out the wall so conducted a test in the old shrimp tank with some mesh around the sponge filter. I used some of the Cladophora from the dismantled carpet and teased out little tufts and stuffed the gaps in the mesh, took ages to do a couple of square centimetres and feels more like embroidery than planting, so I doubled up and tried to use a larger section of Cladophora held in place behind the mesh with a cable tie. Problem is to do any of this means dismantling the filter wall, that itself should be easy, it's doing it with all the life in the tank that will be the hard bit, so I'm going to wait off until the most desirable Shrimplets are grown enough to be easier to catch (ha ha, as if) and moved to a new tank. Or I could use some Pellia instead of clado, not sure.

Anyway here are some more pics of the shrimplets in this tank.



Wine Reds, amongst the the shyest of all the Shrimplets in this tank and these are the first good pics I have of these, I have them in both generations so far, the first lot only came out from behind the Anubia wall after the second generation were born. There is one Wine Red? that I have yet to get any good picture of as every time I spot it its heading back into the undergrowth, very difficult to spot and have only seen it on two occasions, I think it's a Masked Double Lined Var2 Classic Shadow (that's what it looks like compared to charts). Heres a pic for scale for the one above (that's Geronimos Tail and a Gen1 Shrimplet in the background).



There's quite few of these that wear mums markings.



The Blue Bolts are looking quite spectacular.



I especially like this one!


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## X3NiTH (15 Dec 2014)

Found a way to entice the rarer shrimp out from behind the Anubias, I turned off the spraybar pump and laced the top of the Catappa bark with a mix of Spirulina, Chlorella, Biozyme and Aminovita-P. The tank looks empty most of the time but after doing this the tank becomes very busy indeed. Here's a look at some of the shyest Shrimplets.

First up is this Mystery, no idea what it's supposed to be but there's pink, yellow and orange spots in there.



Here's the Classic Shadow I mentioned in the previous post, the larger CBS next to it is from the previous Generation.



Again but with some Ostracods in the shot swarming a piece of Ebi Dama Special for a sense of scale.



This would be getting boring taking pictures of the same shrimp were it not for the fact that the blue one sitting next to it is the first time it has shown its presence in the tank.



I now know that the blue won't stay this way, it's going to turn a deep black, so deep in fact it becomes a challenge to photograph. Here's one of the blue and whites from a previous posting feeding next to Geronimo (whos making quite a mess as he eats).



Here's a different one next to a CRS. If I'm not mistaken this is a Panda Shrimp?



See what I mean about the black being very deep and hard to photograph.



Even when you purposefully over expose the image!



Seems I have quite few of these.



I'm thinking this is a Shadow Panda?



Here's a closer view!



Here a few close clones of Mum, both red and black causing quite a stoor on the Cattapa bark.



Here's Mum with shrimplets from her first and second brood that bear her markings (or very close to it).



She's due to let her latest clutch go in about four or five days and I'm wondering if I can get away with leaving her in there hoping Geronimo gets to mate with her again or am I running the risk that one of her young may get in there first, the first Gen males are only two months old so I think I can get away with it for another round. The rarities from this couple have been a complete surprise and I'd like to keep it going for as long as I can to see what else may emerge, it's certainly making the photography far more interesting.

The Berried Cherry that I couldn't catch hatched her brood the other week so the tank is also full of tiny cherry Shrimplets, the Ostracod colony that's in there has also grown to a very large size due to having no predators and the pond Snails face constant eviction as they replicate worse than rabbits do in Oz, also because they eat food faster than the shrimp can and make more mess.

So here's a Pest Shot for fun!


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## Edvet (16 Dec 2014)

Nice quality pics!


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## Lindy (16 Dec 2014)

The 'classic' shadow I would call a king kong or extreme shadow. The others are definately shadow pandas and blue shadow pandas. You have some extremely nice shrimp! There is a great facebook page run by a couple who breed some really special shrimp. One of them is known as 'Basil' on here. They would be able to identify all of your shrimp. It is ''freshwater shrimp'' so pretty easy to remember!


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## X3NiTH (22 Dec 2014)

Made some changes in the Main Tank, had to shift a few things around as I bought a few extra plants (C.Beckettii, C.Wendtii and Alternanthera Rosaeafolia) and had to find somewhere to put them, the Alternanthera Reneckii Pink Mini was getting too big so it was time to chop it down. Here's where the tank was at before the changes.





This is what the emergent growth of the AR looked like before trimming.





It's lovely, but it's blocking a lot of light so it now lives in the floater grow out box I have on the bathroom windowsill as I couldn't bring myself to bin it, hopefully it survives in there. So here's a before and after set of pics.





Moved some Didiplis around and planted up the new plants, I'll give it a few days to settle before doing a FTS, but in the meantime here's a quick pic of up the back.



While there was more space to play at the back I was able to better access the far end of the bogwood where there has been a mystery liverwort growing, this thing has been on the bogwood for about 5 years and has been in and out the tank left to dry out countless times, it has even been scrubbed to oblivion with a toothbrush back when it looked like algae. Same tank, same bogwood but now living with EI ferts, Co2 and an army of shrimp to contend with it has exploded in growth and has crept right round the back of the bogwood, it's now emerging out from the front of the wood. Now that I can semi see what I'm doing I managed to get the tweezers down there to pull out a few pieces, didn't realise how prolific the growth has been, managed to get a golf ball sized portion of it out without much effort, I stuck it in the shrimp tank for the moment as I have some plans for it.

Heres a portion next to a golf ball sized specimen of Cladophora (the smaller of the two).



In for a closer look.



Here's a frond showing long blade like leaves that don't appear to branch, looks a bit like Java fern but the roots extend all along the underside of the leaf for anchoring.



Eventually it's going into the new tank which is nowhere near done yet.





Lots of assembly and test fitting to do before planting and filling.


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## Rob Dahl (26 Dec 2014)

Just wanted to let you know how much I've enjoyed following the shrimptown adventures. I will be starting my own new shrimp adventure when my dry start Fluvial SpecV is ready. What would you recommend RCS or CRS to start off? Do you enjoy either one more than the other?


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## X3NiTH (28 Dec 2014)

Glad you are enjoying the adventure, I know I am!

I have found RCS to be quite prolific breeders in a wide range of water parameters (low TDS 150s to high TDS 400s) whereas the CRS present more of a challenge and need very narrow water parameters to breed (TDS 150-180). Breeding cherries you still get a range of colours out of the young but the CRS and CBS are far more striking (especially if they have the Taiwan Bee gene which I didn't know I had until the rarities popped up).

My only breeding Crystal Shrimp are the two named individuals Geronimo and Moya, what I have found surprising is that they have actually properly paired up and Moya will allow Geronimo to climb her back and hold her (whilst she was carrying eggs), from observation this is a level of intimacy that no shrimp will tolerate for more than a few seconds, so she is allowing him to do this, I have also caught them via shone torchlight in the dark nose to nose rubbing their antennae together, I'm calling it kissing!

She has released her latest clutch over the last few days but during the pregnancy I didn't change any water and through feeding the growing young the TDS has risen from 180 to 330, I have got it back down at 171 after a few small water changes over a couple of days but she is not berried again and breeding has now stopped, she may be doing this intentionally holding off the moult as the tank is full of her young and the males appeared to be showing interest in her through the day she shed the new batch, Geronimo did his best trying to keep them away and climbed her back a few times to guard her but she hasn't shown signs of moulting, she is currently voraciously eating so she may be fattening herself up for another round, (last egg clutch was half the size of the previous so she may be depleted in certain egg crafting minerals and needs to replenish) putting on extra weight will guarantee she will have to moult at some point or be crushed within her shell, hopefully she won't let that happen.

Crystals are more fun because they are more of a challenge to get breeding.


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## Rob Dahl (28 Dec 2014)

Thanks so much for the information. I think I will start my Spec V (another few weeks to get emergent plants established) with cherries, as I am very much the beginner when it comes to shrimp breeding, but will certainly keep crystals in mind down the road. I presently have 4 amanos and 2 orange rillis along with a few ghosts. It's very hard for me to find, much less to identify individuals other than by size and I have seen two rillis. I am in awe of your prowess in identification of individuals.
 I enclose a few pictures of my orange and my Fluvial Flora tank. Please pardon the quality, they were taken with my little iPod Touch. Have not mastered my canon SX 50 as of yet.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/129377489@N05/15450457674/
https://www.flickr.com/photos/129377489@N05/16104416616/
https://www.flickr.com/photos/129377489@N05/15944220999/


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## X3NiTH (29 Dec 2014)

I am a beginner also, this thread almost constitutes the entire sum of my exploits so far to get breeding going. No prowess at identification just an enthusiastic desire to know exactly what I'm looking at.


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## kirk (29 Dec 2014)

Some great shots nice tank and some very nice looking shrimp.


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## X3NiTH (29 Dec 2014)

Ebi Dama Special, the Marmite of shrimp foods!







Here's a pic taken last week of my main planted tank under the Aquaray lights.



And here it is today under a couple of strobes.





I've been having trouble with my regulator in that the bottle pressure gauge stuck at full pressure giving me no indication the bottle was actually out, stupid me had fiddled with the needle valve thinking it may be the atomiser (which it wasn't) so I'm back to balancing things out again and managed to squeeze a little more co2 in than I had intended, dropping 0.1 pH further than usual, which started a mad pearling event mid afternoon.



While I had the strobes out I stuck them over the other tanks. First up is the low tech planted shrimp tank which has had a few more trimmings planted here and there.



Here's the Anubia walled tank, I turned the pump off as the tank looked a little empty with all the shrimp hiding behind the leaves, seemed to coax a few of them out.


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## Rob Dahl (30 Dec 2014)

X3NiTH said:


> I am a beginner also, this thread almost constitutes the entire sum of my exploits so far to get breeding going. No prowess at identification just an enthusiastic desire to know exactly what I'm looking at.


Well you certainly have good powers of observation. I admire your perspicacity. Keep the excellent threads coming!


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## Greenfinger2 (30 Dec 2014)

Wonderful journal Great Scape's fab shrimp and fish and healthy plants too


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## Greenfinger2 (30 Dec 2014)

Hi N3NiTH
""I was able to better access the far end of the bogwood where there has been a mystery liverwort growing,""
It could be Subwassetang ??


https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=subwassertang&es_sm=93&tbm=isch&imgil=jFiWkXXWRgEoHM%3A%3BSbY7-KJ0YNyx5M%3Bhttp%253A%252F%2


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## X3NiTH (30 Dec 2014)

Thanks for the comments!

Subwassetang, that's a pretty good candidate.

We will see what it does once it goes in the new tank and gets more light (actually lower overall light but placed in a position that it gets more than before), it's going to want the co2 turned back on though, I'm going to try to run a little leaner on the gas as the new tank will still be run as lowish tech with occasional ferts, the gas will be more for the Buces I've got coming. I'm determined this time to keep the mosses alive on the hard scape as it all died off in the walled tank.


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## Rob Dahl (30 Dec 2014)

Thought I would interject these plant pictures with a couple of my own. Kind of like a strangler fig, my frogbit has wound around the growing tip of one of my _Ludwegias.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/129377489@N05/15962530047/_


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## Rob Dahl (30 Dec 2014)

Just got back from the LFS with a male and female red rillis. Also picked up two sprigs of Water Sprite (_Ceratopteris thalictroides_) which I will grow out in auxiliary container with some frogbit and _fissidens fontanus. _Forgot to photograph my new shrimpies while they were in the small container but caught one of them hiding in the weeds.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/129377489@N05/16124657006/in/photostream/


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## Rob Dahl (1 Jan 2015)

Got a blurry pic of the female red rilli and a nighttime shot of the male, using my headlamp. Hope thy breed and the male has other affairs with the two orange rillis.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/129377489@N05/15973641718/in/photostream/
https://www.flickr.com/photos/129377489@N05/15975312007/in/photostream/


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## Rob Dahl (4 Jan 2015)

Looks like things are really progressing Toon. I have a question for you. I enclose an image of my female orange rili and would like you can tell if she is ready to mate w/ the male. Sorry the  picture is not very sharp, but that's about all I can get with my iPod Touch.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/129377489@N05/16012741259/


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## X3NiTH (4 Jan 2015)

It's displaying quite a distinct saddle, it will only be ready to mate when it decides to moult and allow a male to get close enough (providing there is a male and it is mature), this will only happen if the water conditions are right. Watch and wait!


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## zgmarkozg (5 Jan 2015)

awesome pictures of shrimps!!!!!!!!!!


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## Rob Dahl (5 Jan 2015)

Thank you Toon. Coincidentally, I found a shed of hers yesterday afternoon, could tell by the markings. I'll keep a weather eye. Haven't seen either male (I have a pair of reds as well) in a couple of days. They can sure hide out. Did a 40% water change yesterday, so we'll see what happens.


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## X3NiTH (5 Jan 2015)

The Bucephalandras for the New Tank have arrived!

Black Gaia


Cherry Red


Pink Lady


Black Phantom


Brownie Ghost (Upper Stream)


To get an idea of the scale the bag dimensions are 90mm x 130mm

I need to work out where they will go in the new tank, haven't done the hardscaping yet so I can work that round these little beauties.


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## Rob Dahl (5 Jan 2015)

I look forward to seeing these when planted as part of the landscape.
Rob

7.9 gal. Fluval Flora: "
https://www.flickr.com/photos/129377489@N05/15568152783/


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## ADA (5 Jan 2015)

Loving the Buces, where did ya source those?


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## X3NiTH (5 Jan 2015)

Nice Looking tank Rob.



ADA said:


> Loving the Buces, where did ya source those?



Right here on the forums, Xmas 4+1 offer from FreshwaterShrimp, one of the forum sponsors.

Rather than take the chance and leave them in the bags until I'm ready to scape with them (maybe more than a few days) I tied them up on pot weights with fishing bait elastic, I added a cable tie also to allow me to lift them out and move them about without having to put much more than my fingers in the tank. Here they are at the front of my LoTech Planted CRS tank (not the Anubia walled tank).







Left to right + back row = Black Phantom - Brownie Ghost (Upper Stream) - Black Gaia - Pink Lady + Cherry Red

I probably should have used a pencil to write on the pot weights what they were because they'll get mixed up at some point, at least I've got the out the bag photos for reference.

Liking the colours so far, the CRS in there are enjoying the free Biofilm/Algae meal on the leaves so hopefully they will be nice and cleaned up in no time!


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## Rob Dahl (6 Jan 2015)

They certainly look better than in the bags!  Very interesting, now I know why you got them. Have you ever been to Borneo ? (I think that's where they're from)


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## X3NiTH (7 Jan 2015)

Rob Dahl said:


> They certainly look better than in the bags!  Very interesting, now I know why you got them. Have you ever been to Borneo ? (I think that's where they're from)



No never been to Borneo but seen a lot of it watching David Attenborough on TV. I imagine these will not be the last Buces I buy.


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## X3NiTH (7 Jan 2015)

These interesting specimens came via CO2Art, spotted them in the plant list, never seen them before, didn't know anything about them so bought three! Stuck 2 in the main tank and one in the walled tank, came back a couple of minutes later and the shrimps were literally going bananas over Bananas (Nymphoides Aquatica).







The one in the Anubia walled tank looks like a Christmas tree!





I wasn't really after more plants, impulse buy whilst shopping for these beauties!



Took both of them immediately down the road to get them filled up, £10 each, nearly a kilo of gas per cylinder after filling (dry weight 1.17kg, 2.1kg filled). Lost the yellow plastic nozzle safety caps that came with them when I picked them back up after being filled, noticed they'd replaced them with nice screw on metal ones, bonus!



For curiosities sake this is what the nozzle looks like with the safety cap off.



2kg capacity cylinders would have been more preferable but I couldn't find any, these are nice and shiny though! On the plus side at least I've halved my gas bill compared to using sodastream and those nice valves take the scare factor and urgency out of a bottle change when compared to changing a soda stream one (old co2art adapter no valve).


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## X3NiTH (7 Jan 2015)

And I thought I was over feeding the shrimp, they are still glued to the Bananas!


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## X3NiTH (8 Jan 2015)

Gas ran out on the soda stream today only lasted 14 days this time instead of 20 so I definately shouldn't have touched the needle valve last bottle change. Time to test new waters so swapped over the single stage reg feeding the main tank onto the new UP bottle and stuck my new dual stage reg onto the near empty soda stream bottle for testing, also to see if it all fits in the cabinet together, luckily it does.



The extra bottle pressure on the UP (1800psi) compared to Sodastream (500psi) and having a knackered second gauge means I'm not sure it's giving me correct readings, on the soda stream the second gauge used to read 20psi (should be 50 but after the dial got bent it only read 20 thereafter), now it's up at 80psi, it's gonna be a few days to sort this out, pH drop after gas on tomorrow should tell me if I'm near where I should be on this new cylinder.


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## Rob Dahl (8 Jan 2015)

Wow! That looks like the control room of some intricate device. Toon, I got a $50US coupon from Fluval and found out that Petco was having a sale on Fluval nano LEDs for $45, so I got it for $3.34 taxes included. Pretty good deal eh?


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## naughtymoose (9 Jan 2015)

Rob Dahl said:


> Wow! That looks like the control room of some intricate device. Toon, I got a $50US coupon from Fluval and found out that Petco was having a sale on Fluval nano LEDs for $45, so I got it for $3.34 taxes included. Pretty good deal eh?


Result!


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## Rob Dahl (9 Jan 2015)

If I could have results like this frequently, I would be delighted. Going to use the light on my next endeavor–another Fluval Flora tank. But first I have to complete my Spec V dry start project. The plants have been in for a month and I have yet to decide on background plants. A week or three maybe.


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## Rob Dahl (14 Jan 2015)

Question, toon, how big is your main tank?


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## X3NiTH (14 Jan 2015)

Hi Rob

It's a 28 Litre Aquastart 320. Its a 5 year old tank that's been through quite a journey, always had plants but only properly scaped since the beginning of last year when I added co2, never made a journal for scaping it, just slipped it in here on my Aquatoon thread.


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## Rob Dahl (14 Jan 2015)

Smaller than it appeared. I  am staying under 30 myself. I find them much easier to work with as I bring all my water (R/O) in from the store for weekly water changes, and I can work sitting down mostly. 
In addition to the SpedV and Flora, I have another Flora tank coming in soon, so have another opportunity to work on my landscaping skills. My wife will kill me if I continue to accumulate. She doesn't know about the new tank.

Here's the just filled SpecV with two ottos testing the waters:


...and the Tree of Life, the Flora (see the shrimp) they came out of hiding
Rob


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## Rob Dahl (14 Jan 2015)

Sorry, I should not have posted those images on your thread.
Rob


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## X3NiTH (17 Jan 2015)

25 days after a breeding pause there's some Musk in the tank, missed the landing event actual due to leaf cover so here's some launch footage instead to make up for it!


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## Rob Dahl (17 Jan 2015)

Nicely done X3NiTH, ahh, romance is in the air!


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## X3NiTH (21 Jan 2015)

Here's Lucky!



Caught this little fella out the corner of my eye doing six inch high flip flops on the lid of the tank, did about five or six of them then landed in a dry spot, I rushed for a pipette and filled it with tank water to flush the escapee back in the tank except it flip flopped down the tiny gap between tanks, luckily it got stuck to the glass half centimetre down so I was able to slide in my long tweezers flat and use the capillary action of a drop of water to transfer it onto them and then slowly lift out the gap at which point it flip flopped back on the lid, I quickly up ended the lid and flushed it into the tank with the pipette. I should have used a net over it instead of just the flush, close one, thing is I'm not sure if it's an escapee from the tank above on the shelf or if it's one of the four I put in the bottom Shrimp tank and its climbed onto the lid, if I see five CBS in there I'll know it's a migration from above.



I've moved the Buces into the main tank to get some co2, I had to move the Pink Lady back into the low tech a day later as the leaves had been attacked by shrimp, possibly too much light for that one compared to the others and the shrimp just taking advantage of the damaged tissues, there will be less light in the tank it eventually moves to so that shouldn't be a long term issue. Cherry Red and Black Gaia at the front, Brownie Ghost and Black Phantom are hiding on top of the bogwood, the Black Phantom has chucked out a couple of new leaves and the Plantlet on the Cherry Red is growing quickly also.



Loving the structure and surface colouration on the Cherry Red leaves!


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## X3NiTH (21 Jan 2015)

I had run out of the Ebi Dama Special over the weekend and the shrimp had become very hungry, the NovoPrawn was largely being ignored, breaks down too quickly if there is a frenzy over it and they start playing 'grab the parcel' from whoever has a piece. Ordered some more on Monday night from John at APF (and a few other things) and less than 48hrs later they arrived this afternoon. 3 pieces of plain old Ebi Dama went in to see how they would react to it compared to the Special (have that again but going to feed that once a week), it appears to be liked as the baby spinach got ignored and even Moya was drawn out from the undergrowth (looking very berried, lots of blue berries!).



Hopefully the new telescopic shrimp net I bought from APF will help me get the job done of catching a few of these later on and sticking them in the other tank.


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## X3NiTH (21 Jan 2015)

Telescopic Shrimp Net is ace, bit of a challenge to capture the shrimp because of its small net but it's small enough for me to chase shrimp around my small tanks! Managed to get about 7 of them out of the walled tank into the one below, went just for the CBS and CRS, the rarities are staying put for the time being. Stopped at 7 because the ones I was after sussed that they were being targeted for eviction and went and hid behind the Anubias, whereas the Blue Bolts, Red Bolts, Golden Bees, Snow Whites, Wine Reds, Shadow Pandas and King Kongs all went about their business and ignored me when they saw I wasn't chasing them, crafty lot! Don't think the adult CRS in the other shrimp tank were impressed at the invasion, started a bit of a squabble, thankfully all calmed down now though. No idea if any of the CBS I moved were female (4 were sporting mums colours and pattern, so may be female), have to wait until one moults to find out if it starts a pheromone hunt among the male CRS.


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## josepinto (22 Jan 2015)

amazing shots, whats the lens you use?


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## X3NiTH (22 Jan 2015)

josepinto said:


> whats the lens you use?



Macro - Micro Nikkor 60mm f/2.8D (not the new gelded one, older model with extending barrel and aperture ring) (FX)

Wide - Nikkor 14-24mm f/2.8G (FX)

Normal - Nikkor 17-55 f/2.8G (DX Lens, usable on FX without vignetting at lengths above 24mm)


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## X3NiTH (24 Jan 2015)

Brown Trouser event!





This is the spare bottle, I was sitting about a foot away from it (full and sitting in its box), had my last mouthful of dinner on my fork just about to shovel it in (a very tasty steak and ale pie from M&S) when there was an almighty bang immediately followed by extremely vigorous venting, and I'm surrounded by a cloud of co2, caused my family to panic as the bottle emptied in 10 seconds very noisily!

Opened all the windows and opened the doors for a bit as a safety precaution, opened the downstairs door also, probably would have been ok but not taking chances with an asphyxiant.

Ambient air temp less than 25c, but a little warmer today in the house than I usually like it.

Faulty burst valve or overfilled bottle?


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## X3NiTH (24 Jan 2015)

It's been a half hour since it happened and it still looks like it's at about -60c, can't touch the bottle at the moment as it still feels sticky!


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## Crossocheilus (24 Jan 2015)

Yikes! Good thing you and your family are okay. I'm afraid I can't offer any explanation but it does make me wonder about the fe I'm using  

All's well that ends well  ...maybe


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## X3NiTH (24 Jan 2015)

I'm just glad it didn't happen in the car when I was transporting it home!

Never seen a cylinder go like this, ever, I know it happens, but at room temperature? Scary! It was stored upright so orientation isn't an issue. Thankfully the other bottle is up and running at 500psi stably since end of last week, it read 1800psi on the gauge when first connected up to a regulator and dropped over 5/6 days to level out at 500psi.

Both bottles dry weight 1.7kg, after filling they weighed 2.1kg and 2.08kg.

Head scratcher! Whole point of getting the UP cylinders was to avoid using an FE.


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## Alexander Belchenko (25 Jan 2015)

That was scary.
My thought is overfilled bottle. The bottles really should be filled by weight, not by pressure.
There should be info carved on the bottle itself about weight in empty and filled state. You'd better carefully check that info.


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## Vinkenoog1977 (25 Jan 2015)

Have seen this happen, it's the main reason I stay away from pressurised CO2. Worked as a bartender or years and years, and every so often, a bottle would just go off like that, and even more violently (have had a bottle shoot through my bar once). From what I gathered from our supplier, is that this happens when they overfill the bottles, safer to fill them to max 90% apparently.

Glad to hear everyone's still safe!


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## Rob Dahl (28 Jan 2015)

X3NiTH, So sorry to hear of your accident. Glad that no one injured. That must be highly unusual.


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## tmiravent (28 Jan 2015)

love the bucheps.
strange even with Co2, glad no one injuried.
cheers


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## X3NiTH (30 Jan 2015)

I'm loving the Buceps also, the Pink Lady is back in the main tank again, looks like it's stabilised, as there's been no more attacks on the healthy leaves, however the Black Gaia looks like it's on its way out, at least the main growth portion, it's lost one whole leaf so far, it's not all bad as it has put out a couple of tiny leaves at the other end of the long roots, once it gets a little bigger I'll post a pic. 

Thought I would post my RCS hauling themselves onto the sponge that sits above my crook, when they are feeling the co2 a little bit high they congregate on here in number, usually it's the larger adults that end up here, I think they also graze it for food as its growing a few things in it, I've seen them walk across the top of the sponge completely out the water.



A little closer!



I popped some of the Ebi Dama Special in, I was going to do it at the weekend but the hoard looked hungry!



And if there were any doubts as to whether they are breeding or not with co2 injection and EI ferts, this shows that they are.



I've been putting the new telescopic shrimp net to good use and fishing out the non Taiwan colours from the walled tank and putting them in the other tank, hopefully I can get them breeding in here.



Learnt an interesting fact about the pH of my Anubia walled tank the other day (I don't usually test this), thought it should be about 6.5ish like the rescaped one, turns out it's 7.5!


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## tmiravent (30 Jan 2015)

Love the lobsters! Very nice one of feeding time.
cheers


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## Ady34 (30 Jan 2015)

Stunning images


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## X3NiTH (2 Feb 2015)

Here's a vid I shot the day after the large shrimp transfer into my main tank mentioned previously, they're not acclimatised to the co2 and one of the Cherries is going on a walkabout.


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## jarcher1390 (2 Feb 2015)

Hey

Glad to hear every ones okay.

Loving the photos and every thing, cannot believe how colourful they look

Did you get the bottle filled by forth fire protection?

Jonny


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## X3NiTH (2 Feb 2015)

Hi Jonny, yes the tanks were filled by FFP, I know what the fill weight should be so there shouldnt be any issue with them being overfilled on the next visit.


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## X3NiTH (9 Feb 2015)

It's been a year to the day since I did a proper scape on my tank and I thought I really should show how the journey started.

Around this time last year after about 4 years running I started the journey of upgrading the fish tank from low tech having mastered the art of growing Java Ferns by doing nothing but feed feeding fish, the plan was just to upgrade to an external filter and swap out the lighting for a mini400 tile to make it look a little nicer. It kind of snowballed from there.

Here is how it looked before being properly scaped, the Bogwood had a major trim before this pic as over 4 years growth it was smothered..



Stocking up on things needed to scape it, the tank is now full of plants still in their pots waiting.



No going back now!











Hardscape done, time for planting.











It's done! Its the very small hours and I'm trying to go as quick as I can and so my iPhone looks like it's been through a mud bath, wished I'd set the big camera on a tripod but it would have slowed me down, just wanted to get it done.



Time to fill it up, slowly, very slowly, not going to destroy the scape I've just planted, it was a very steep learning curve to get it all done in one go on the first try with a substrate that resisted as much as it could to being planted.



And here it is all filled up, I felt immensely satisfied with the fruits of my labor.



And how it looks a year to the day!







The only plants from the original planting that remain in the tank today are the Java ferns and Anubia that are sandwiched between the Bogwood and Mopani. The shrimp project that grew from this was an attempt to have some colourful cleaning crew, it just all snowballed from that day a year ago!









Thanks UKAPS!


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## rodoselada (10 Feb 2015)

superb!!!!!!!!!!


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## Rob Dahl (10 Feb 2015)

Thanks for the historical run-through of tank and accessories. You really do have a jungle now.


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## Rob Dahl (10 Feb 2015)

X3NiTH, I forgot to ask. Was your moss ball floating or did you have some way to suspend it? How did you do it.


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## X3NiTH (11 Feb 2015)

It was a polystyrene ball wrapped in Moss and tied with nylon fishing line, it was held down by nylon line that is tied to a small square piece of glass used for weight, bought from LFS like that, was dismantled (what was left of it) eventually and used in the Anubia tank as part of the wall here and there, all gone now though, not enough light/ferts/co2 in there.


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## X3NiTH (11 Feb 2015)

Blowing Bubbles!







1.4 pH point drop today, Fish fine, bit too much for the Shrimp as they were hanging out on the leaf tops at the surface for the last couple of hours of the injection period, a few got munched by the fish. The Rotala I put in at the weekend has grown a couple of centimetres already, it's in the corner next to the filter inlet where the co2 low down is not so great (low growth doesn't do well here), new growth at the tops however are pearling like crazy, lower down on the reddish leaves not so much (emmersed growth?).


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## Rob Dahl (11 Feb 2015)

X3NiTH, thanks for the moss ball explanation. I have another question for you. My _Ludwegia_ has been trimmed so much now it has all these branches off a few main stems and I as thinking of uprooting them and replanting younger shoots. What do you think? The lower levels are a maze of aerial roots off the old stems. I'll have to postpone major logging anyway until the babies get a little bigger and are easier to spot.


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## X3NiTH (12 Feb 2015)

Take off the tops and plant them, that's what I do with my stem plants, the Stauro in my tank is grown from a few survivor stems from when my co2 wasn't quite right, when they did better I lopped the heads off the better looking ones and planted them further up front and over time doing it's filled in down both sides of my tank, I've been thinking about planting some lopped Stauro heads at the front of the tank but the Buces are in the way at the moment.


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## X3NiTH (12 Feb 2015)

Yesterday @ 21:00hrs (lights off @ 21:30)



Taken today @ 17:00hrs (lights on @ 12:30)



Four and a half hours later!



At this rate it will be at the surface by the end of the weekend. Trimmings are going in the lower shrimp tank to see how it fares with lower light negligible ferts and only ambient co2, question is will the shrimp consume it before it gets a chance to find its legs.


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## Crossocheilus (12 Feb 2015)

That's fast! 

Great tanks and really nice macro shots of the shrimp.

What percentage do you run the LED on? Your CO2 must be absolutely perfect for that (crazy) light level, no wonder you're seeing that much growth!

Also (sorry if this has already been mentioned) what is your diffusion method for CO2? Again, whatever it is, it must be working!


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## X3NiTH (13 Feb 2015)

How the tanks look to today under their own lighting (2700K LED room lights off).



All three of my lights run from the 8-way controller.

1500NDUltima Tile over main tank.
Channel 1 is on @ 10% (outer ring of LEDs)
Channel 2 is on @ 35% (inner ring of LEDs, use 1% for moonlight)

Mini400 Tile over lower Shrimp Tank.
Using Channel 1 so it's @ 10%

Grobeam600ND Strip over upper Shrimp Tank (only three emitters are over the tank, two over the new tank)
Using Channel 2 so it's @ 35% (no moonlight at 1% with this light)

This is the gubbins in the cupboard, the 20" water filter housing on the right is fed co2 by an inline atomiser (hiding at the back) which works it's magic so that the water is gin clear when gets to the tank.



Co2 has been near perfect in the main tank for last week or so, pearling starts on the ferns about an hour after lights on and increases until lights out where the ferns look like they are decorated for Christmas.





Fish were moving towards the surface today, one Glowlight took a few gulps of air and went back down, lots of shrimp congregating near the surface so I dialled the gas down a little, so maybe not so perfect tomorrow for pearling soon after lights on but the shrimp might not be so sleepy and have a better chance of surviving a dashing attack from the tanks top predator.


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## X3NiTH (13 Feb 2015)

24hrs later and another Rotala pic.



It was planted below the level of the bell opening of the Drop checker 5 days earlier.


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## LondonDragon (15 Feb 2015)

Stop moving the drop checker down!!! 

Great setup, love the tanks  



X3NiTH said:


> This is the gubbins in the cupboard, the 20" water filter housing on the right is fed co2 by an inline atomiser (hiding at the back) which works it's magic so that the water is gin clear when gets to the tank.


Can you provide mode details on this? All the pieces and how it works?


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## X3NiTH (15 Feb 2015)

Thanks Paulo! 

Rotala now at the surface!





The water line is as high as I can go without it spilling onto the lid support step (when it had a lid), given a couple of days of Evap it's going to be well above the surface. WC tonight is gonna be interesting, wonder how robust those stems are.

At some point I'll put my setup into a diagram and also detail the reactor build.


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## pepedopolous (15 Feb 2015)

Amazing photos. There must be something special about your reactor as the pearling is intense and yet the drop checker is 'only' green?!

Do you set your temp at 22 degrees on purpose? I guess this helps with CO2 dissolution, I have the same filter so could try it myself... 

P


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## X3NiTH (15 Feb 2015)

Thanks!

Yes the 22c temperature is intentional, less evap and better at holding in co2, in summer the ambient took it up to 28c at some points when it was set at 24c so I dropped it down a couple of degrees and the tank seems better for it. 

Today the pearling wasn't as pronounced as yesterday, possibly because of being a no fert day and the plants are running out of something. I think with my water being near zero KH the reactor makes it easy dissolving the co2 into the water even with a good throughput where I'm doing more than 10x turnover per hour from a crook. I don't have a lot of surface movement, there's enough to show that there is flow in the tank but there are no large ripples, any increased movement in the surface is only due to air bubbles flowing into a sponge above my outlet, a few tiny bubbles escape the side and pop at the surface providing a little movement. I run the Airstone 24/7 but at very low output, max output only happens if the UP pH controller triggers and turns on another air pump feeding through the same line, lots of surface agitation in the corner generating some ripples when this happens. If I don't run the Airstone the surface becomes too still and co2 gets trapped and the fish feel it very quickly and head to the surface. How contributory this is for pearling I am not sure, availability of nutrients certainly slowed it down today as the DC was same colour as yesterday. pH last few days has climbed about 0.05 points to 5.16 at lights on this meant the controller never came on at any point today. WC has happened tonight so tomorrow the pH should be a little lower as it usually is on a Monday after WC, hopefully the controller reads what I expect it to read or near enough to it, fingers crossed.

I'm thinking the Rotala might be a little too leggy, it would be much nicer with shorter spacing between the nodes, not sure what to do to keep it shorter, Glosso did this also, I tried trimming and it grew the same and then I trimmed it again and it grew the same some more, I then trimmed once more and then when it grew it didn't look like it was doing so well so it came out. I'll leave it alone for the moment and see what being at the surface does to it.


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## pepedopolous (15 Feb 2015)

Maybe with the _Rotala_ you could re-plant the tops only when the stems start to have too much space between the nodes. Never achieved the real bushy look but one day will give it another try. I actually found _Rotala macrandra_ easier than the 'green' or _rotundifolia_.

This guy gives trimming masterclasses: -
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCaG3z-5Jwd9o_mHiMBrWhaQ

I thought electronic pH meters were unreliable with low KH... I've increased mine with a KH boosting product plus coral sand in the filter for that reason (from 0 to 4). However, even at KH 4 I have to really clean the evaporation line each week with vinegar and elbow grease!

At the minute I'm getting a pH drop of about 1.3 (with plenty of surface agitation). Amano shrimp OK but some of the smallest fish (WCMMs) make the surface their home.

P


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## X3NiTH (15 Feb 2015)

Yeah I was going to to top them and plant between to bush it out a bit, it would be nice if it went red like the lower growth, early days yet it's only been a week with this plant so plenty time to find out what it likes or not. Ive found the super low KH is not a total impediment to the controllers if you nanny them a little, don't need to really know the actual pH but at least read a drop that corresponds to a green DC colour, it definitely has issues with the Weipro but the UP appears more stable (UP is slower to read but more stable over time, Weipro reads much faster but can mismatch the output from the UP by about 0.1pH higher at the top and bottom of the injection period), I still get readings that make a lot of sense, I'm using two, both influenced by each other and both influenced by the stray voltage the filters impeller is generating, co2 never gets controlled anymore, just an Airspump to increase the rate co2 off gasses. I want to do the co2 pH probe mod so that I can separate one of them away from the tank and just read the pH shift in the sample due to co2, need to get some membrane first (fish transport breather bags).


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## tmiravent (16 Feb 2015)

nice cabinet!
looks like car inside, very nice.
good plants colors btw,
cheers


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## parotet (16 Feb 2015)

pepedopolous said:


> This guy gives trimming masterclasses: -
> https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCaG3z-5Jwd9o_mHiMBrWhaQ
> P


Is it just me, or the link is broken?

Jordi


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## pepedopolous (16 Feb 2015)

parotet said:


> Is it just me, or the link is broken?
> 
> Jordi


Works for me. It's Dennis Wong's Youtube Channel if that helps.

P


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## parotet (16 Feb 2015)

pepedopolous said:


> Works for me. It's Dennis Wong's Youtube Channel if that helps.


yup... it doesn't work on Tapatalk, but it does on the web version


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## Alexander Belchenko (16 Feb 2015)

Jordi, it's just you. Try to search Dennis Wong on youtube. Oops, too late.


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## naughtymoose (16 Feb 2015)

Dennis Wong. Deffo watching all his YouTubes, they look really great!


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## X3NiTH (16 Feb 2015)

There's some good tips in there, nice looking tanks as well!


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## X3NiTH (16 Feb 2015)

Cherry Shrimp, Kneecapped by Fish!



Still alive in the photo, lasted about fifteen minutes and then his tank mates came along and finished him off.

Here's the Rotala today.



Its emerging out the surface now.


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## Rob Dahl (26 Feb 2015)

Looks like the Rotala may punch a hole in your ceiling if you don't watch out.Are you using pixie dust on them?


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## X3NiTH (16 Mar 2015)

Another tank migration, this time from the Anubia walled shrimp tank into the main tank, I think it must of happened before the injection phase today because if it had gone in just before I spotted it would not be munching on the Fissidens but floating or half eaten having gone from a tank with a pH of 7.5 to one at 5.1 and from negligible co2 to 20-30ppm.



I'm quite surprised it wasn't gobbled up by the fish, taking no chances though so quickly caught it and relocated it to the adjacent shrimp tank. They're good at this, that's 3 out of 4 Crystal migrations that have been successful (have only ever found one down the sides of the tanks that didn't make it). To make it into the main tank it would have had to have flopped onto the shelf the tank sits on and crawl to the front edge and fall over onto the top of the Aquaray tile above the main tank and then crawl over that until it fell into the water. Had it crawled in the other direction it would of ended up down the back of the tank unless of course it slid down the wall and was able to do a direction change flip mid fall to end up in the tank.


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## Rob Dahl (16 Mar 2015)

Boy, have you been busy. Quite an undertaking. I'll have to watch my CC in the LFS. Looks like everything is going well. I always look forward to your progress. I'm getting some new nano fish this week.


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## X3NiTH (27 Mar 2015)

Found a few more fatalities down the back of the main tank all dried up, including Geronimo, ah well it was good while it lasted. Done some shoring up around the walled tank to try and reduce the likelihood of it happening again. He'd been MIA for over a week, I was prompted yesterday to have a good look down the back after I spotted a Red Bolt walking across the lid of the lower shrimp tank, so another migration, I managed to get it into the destination water before he expired, he was unconscious when he hit the water and was immediately set upon by the other shrimp, I chased them away until I could be certain he wasn't dead, took about 30 seconds for it to come around enough to start twitching and another 30 to get off its back and onto shaky legs and then half a second to propel itself backwards to hide amongst the plants up the back, observed 24hrs later wandering about acting normally as if he'd always been there. I'll need to try move one of the other mature CRS males (Geronimos brothers) in this tank over to the other one so Moya can breed again, I'm also a bit worried that all her offspring with Geronimo are male as none have shown any breeding signs yet in either tank, the cherries aren't having this problem though. 

Anyways, more Buces arrived!



I'm not ready to put them in their own tank at the moment so I stuck them in the main tank along with the others so they can take advantage of the ferts and co2, it's getting very overgrown in there so not much space for them, so they're just stuck in a gap at the side where it's a little shady and in next to the Anubia on the Bogwood, they're just wedged in enough that the flow doesn't push them around.



Since its getting so overgrown In there I've decided I'm going to tear this all down at some point soonish and stick it all in a new tank (as much as I can fit that is), I'm also getting sick of the bow front adding distortion when taking macro pics deeper in the tank, the rim looks a mess also and gets in the way when using flash, thinking of getting a Dennerle 30 Nano as it's nice enough (already have the 10) fits roughly the same footprint as the Aquastart320, if I were to put a bigger tank in its place I would lose the Crystal shrimp tank next to it (could just put them in the bigger tank), a Scapers tank wouldn't fit front to back, an ADA 45P would fit nicely but it's more than 4x the cost and unfortunately the other half vetoed that idea straight away when I mentioned it, ah well worth a try, I still need to sing for the 30 though!


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## X3NiTH (30 Mar 2015)

With all the migrations going on from the Anubia Walled a Tank I thought I'd give the substrate a bit of a clean out, and bang away at the filter wall from the back to knock the silt out and also change the water (needed after that lot), I removed some of the gravel and sucked out below the mesh bed it sits on, quite a lot of debris down their which caused quite a mess as it was being extracted, with that done I replaced the removed gravel with some Dennerle black sand. I was quite brutal with the clean out, I tried catching the shrimp before I did all this but they were having none of it and went and hid behind the Anubias. I even went as far as putting a glass feeding tray in there after the tidy up with a slice of carrot and some Ebi dama to coax them back out from the back but they were having none of that either and it wasn't until yesterday that I fed White Pellet directly onto the substrate did they all come crawling out.



I captured one of the the adult male CRS from the other tank to breed with the adult CBS female in here, you can see Geronimos replacement at the back next to Moya (CBS female).

Here's a few close ups of some of the others.







No idea what's happened to this ones beak, hope it wasn't me with the vigorous clean out!



Here's where all the other CRS and CBS offspring went (when I can catch them and put them in there), anything other than a CRS or a CBS in here got here under its own steam (or near enough).



Another similar pic below but better showing the Nymphoides Aquatica placed in this tank showing it is exploding in growth, there's two others in here rescued from each of the other tanks (one behind the Bogwood with small leaves from the injected tank, one with no leaves from the walled tank, it's in front of the the one with good growth, only see a leafless stem sticking out) both were devoured by shrimp, for some reason the damage on the bananas from being eaten by shrimp isn't as extensive in here as the other low tech (walled tank, the one in here got stripped to the bone) and the one in the injected EI tank which grew the small leaves but lost all but one banana. Shrimp in this tank don't mind eating out of a glass, go figure!


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## alto (30 Mar 2015)

Don't recall if I've ever said how much FUN this journal is!

Poor Geronimo though!!!
(I recently moved the Python basket & found a chocolate gourami dessicant )


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## X3NiTH (1 Apr 2015)

alto said:


> Don't recall if I've ever said how much FUN this journal is!



Thanks!



alto said:


> Poor Geronimo though!!!



I know I was quite gutted when I found him, a few weeks previously he'd been living down the back of the filter grazing with a few other offspring when he went missing the first time, I relocated him back into the main tank (offspring went in the other tank) where he stayed for a week and then disappeared again, left it for a week before I went investigating after Moya had moulted and he didn't reappear, couldn't see him down the back of the filter, it wasn't until after the tank clean that confitmed he wasn't hiding in the back filter again, that's when I found him down the back of the main tank.

Here he is with the other Pioneers that didn't make it, the Cherries climbed out the Main Tank (or chased out by fish).



Moya climbed out the tank again today, that's the third time she's done this, headed in the direction of the filter box (which is now closed over with sponge), there's no gaps in that direction that shrimp can now fall through so they'd have to return to whence they came. Heres she's is climbing out, finding nowhere to go then turning back, she flicked into the water when she saw me come too close with the camera.











If I were to anthropomorphise I would say she's pining for Geronimo and she goes looking for him every now and again. If I were to think of this logically it may be that she's is hungry (white pellet, novo prawn, Ebi Dama, Ebi Dama special and a slice of carrot have gone in recently, she only eat a little of the White pellet from what I saw, she still grazes elsewhere on the leaves) or there is something missing from her diet that I've not provided in great enough quantity, so to mitigate it being firstly a mineral loss I've stuck some Montmorilite stone and some cuttlefish bone in their as an extra. I tried a slice of kiwi fruit out in the other tank as something different to try, so far only the cherries in there seem to be stripping it down, the crystals are more interested in digging trenches in the Dennerle black sand substrate.

Amongst other things I've been working on, I have made a start on part of the backdrop for the new nano, I'm copying the face of a garden Buddha statue, a whole pack of black milliput got used up in the process, 2 if you count the pack that hardened not long after it reached the working consistency I wanted it to be and became brittle and broke apart when worked (used the pasta machine to get it into flat strips for laying on), second pack I didn't wait for it to condition after I mixed it thoroughly so I just got messy with it and rolled it in the pasta machine immediately (delaminated a bit) and then laid it on and smoothed it out best I could before it became unworkable, hopefully it doesn't delaminate when I go to sand it to give it a nice key to take some 24ct Gold Leaf!


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## Lindy (2 Apr 2015)

You have some truly beautiful shrimp! You got pretty lucky there when you thought they were straight crs/cbs. I wouldn't mind some of your hybrids.....


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## Rob Dahl (2 Apr 2015)

Love your micro photography X3NITH. What kind of camera setup do you have?


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## X3NiTH (3 Apr 2015)

ldcgroomer said:


> You have some truly beautiful shrimp! You got pretty lucky there when you thought they were straight crs/cbs. I wouldn't mind some of your hybrids.....



Thanks Lindy, yeah pretty lucky, though Geronimo climbing out was pretty bad luck, hopefully Moya breeds with one of his brothers that I put in there with her, although she's threatening to go the same way as Geronimo as she climbed out again last night, I've seen her do it three times now, who knows how many other times she's tried when I'm not looking, it might be because too many of her offspring are close to maturing and she's trying to get away from them, or is she looking for Geronimo, or just looking for a new source of food, I need to shore the tank sides up further so no climbing out can happen at all (see below vid). As to passing on some the Hybrids I may do at some point later on if she breeds again giving me more Hybrids with the new partner, that's if she stays long enough to breed with him.

Fingers crossed she doesn't follow Geronimo, she's trying her best though !



Heart stopper!!!



Rob Dahl said:


> Love your micro photography X3NITH. What kind of camera setup do you have?



Thanks Rob, I am using a Nikon D800E with a Nikkor 60mm f/2.8D lens most of the time using off camera flash, the video above though was shot using a Nikon1 V1 with a 10mm f/2.8 Pancake Lens.


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## Wallis97 (3 Apr 2015)

X3NiTH said:


> sand it to give it a nice key to take some 24ct Gold Leaf!



Well, that could quite possibly be the most ornate decoration for a tank that I've heard of!


From Alex - Internet names may vary. Comment not fit for human consumption. Contains small parts.


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## X3NiTH (9 Aug 2015)

Things always happen in the tanks when you sit down to eat a hot dinner!


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## Dantrasy (9 Aug 2015)

Best video of its type I've ever seen.


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## Rob Dahl (9 Aug 2015)

Terrific video best I've seen. I have yet to see mine give birth. Guess I' ® been at the dinner table.


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## Greenfinger2 (9 Aug 2015)

Hi Aquatoon, Awesome video Congratulations on the baby shrimp


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## Lindy (9 Aug 2015)

Fantastic video!

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## X3NiTH (10 Aug 2015)

Thanks everyone!

It's a pity that I found this shrimp floating in the fissidens minus legs this evening, with a few mostly blue eggs still in her swimmerets, I fished the eggs out with some tweezers and had a closer look, couldn't see any movement so they don't look viable. I put them back in the tank loose just in case (not set up to get the filtration they need on them properly to ensure survival, but I know this can be done as my father did this successfully with Lobster Eggs about 30 years ago which is magnitude harder to achieve as they are competitively cannibalistic straight out the egg).



No idea what happened other than I fed some powdered Biozyme before lights out and come this morning the sponge filter had clogged. It's a pain, I feed powdered food to prevent polluting the water and it clogs the filter, causing a bloom by morning polluting the water, if I try and feed solid Ebi Dama it gets ignored, they love eating nymphaea aquatica bananas but that would get expensive. It's a fine line between starvation and pollution once the population gets big enough in physical stature they can devour things very quickly, but they're damned fussy at doing it. 

Breeding becomes very fraught when the tank is like this, I lost the last of Moyas hybrid females the other day (all the others were wiped out when I changed over the substrate in the Anubia walled tank, that's now got the Emperor Tetras in it and a few remaining crystals that frustratingly showed eggs the day after I put the Emperors in to attempt to get them breeding away from the greedy glowlight tetras, pH in that tank is down at 4.5), she was much smaller than the others but a beautiful toritishell colour with iridescent pink spots on her carapace an absolute beauty, she must have matured as I had noticed eggs through a split over her saddle so I knew she was due to moult, when she did it was an utter frenzy she must have been overwhelmed to exhaustion and some opportunistic shrimp decided on having a meal instead of breeding, found her under the catappa bark, I was so gutted I stamped my feet in frustration.

Moya and Geronimos gene line is still going although being interbred (which may go some way to explain deaths if they have weakened immune systems), a month or so ago 5 females all matured at the same time (5 months from birth to maturity), all had viable eggs but not seeing large numbers of young though, I missed those hatching as I was away on holiday, I'm hoping they're all hiding. Learning lots, though at times the frustrations of losing shrimp really gets me down. There's still Ostracods and Cyclopia swimming about the tank in decent numbers so the water quality should be okay with regards to pathogens, managing to keep the TDS around 180 and the pH in this tank is around 6.5 (there's some Fluval shrimp substrate in there which doesn't freak out when you use RO with it unlike the JBL stuff), I never see Planaria on the glass but I can't discount them not being there although there are plenty of other worms feeding in the substrate that appear to have the mouthparts for a non-carnivorous diet, tiny leeches on the other hand I do see coiling themselves through the water column. 

Growing shrimp populations just means more excreta into the substrate (and into the sponge filter) so the substrate population just gets larger, careful siphoning from under the substrate helps to alleviate this somewhat but I can only do this in the non planted black sand section, so I think I'm going to try fabricate some form of Plenum that I can clean of debris next time I redo the tank, not sure I'll filter it this way I just need to be able to clear it more easily, obviously a much bigger tank than 10L would reduce a lot of issues but I just don't have the space for it.

Just gotta keep on keeping on!


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## Greenfinger2 (10 Aug 2015)

Hi Sorry to hear of the shrimp loss  Please keep up this fantastic thread I for one am learning so much from your ups and downs. With you all the way As you said Just gotta keep on going.


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## Lindy (10 Aug 2015)

You could try feeding a shrimp food called snowflake. It doesn't pollute the water and i aways have it in my tanks. I use feeding dishes now, some have an acrylic pipe to guide food into them or i use a bit of plumbers pipe to make sure the food goes in. It means that i can feed powdered food such as spirulina or genchem biomax baby food without it going all over the tank/ into the filter.

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## X3NiTH (10 Aug 2015)

Thanks Greenfinger2, perpetual work in progress, as many ups as there is downs, getting better at it though!

I've done all these things you've mentioned Lindy but not with the greatest of success, I'll need to try the Snowflake though as it appears that it stays intact and doesn't appear to pollute from what I've read. I've tried loads of things but the shrimp are so busy grazing the entire tank that when food goes in they don't notice it to begin with and when they do they pass over it and go somewhere else and don't stop to eat (looking at you Ebi Dama) but then later I'll notice later one or two eating it, snails and cherry shrimp are on it like a shot but the crystals not really interested, eventually everything gets bored of the taste including the snails and if you leave it in too long it sprouts fungus, it looks intact but if you try and fish it out with tweezers it disintegrates, I know that you're only supposed to put this food in for only a few hours then remove but it wouldn't have enough visitors to consider it eaten, I would prefer to see an initial frenzy over the food when its first introduced, kind of like how successful Tescos Finest Pork Fillet was seconds after introducing it into the tank.



That's more like it, cant leave it in too long though or it will pollute, this single piece of food instigated maturation in all of Moyas first generation, the escapee from the Anubia walled tank on the shelf above was the first to berry.



The button mushroom goes down very well (Shitakes disintegrate faster), it's an excellent source of Chitin, again can't leave it in too long or it pollutes (just about everything does). A week or so after introducing this Chitin source (and a second sliver of fillet) all the first generation females were berried, six in total, four CBS, one CRS and the hybrid above, because these are hungry shrimp and I've been feeding them well they have grown very large, large enough to support a significant clutch of eggs.



Looks like there's still space at the back to fit a larger clutch! Although on thinking about this maybe larger clutches have more issues with egg viability with the crowding decreasing the mothers ability to successfully keep all the eggs clean and well aerated?

Courgette goes down well also but it disintegrates quickly once it's set upon and the outer skin goes (snails especially like it as do ostracods which is a good way to fish them out if you have too many), to stop the mushroom and the courgette floating I make up a shish kebab with a piece of each (courgette ends work better than slices) using a bamboo skewer that I then jam into a hole in the bogwood to keep it upright, this also makes it easier to fish them out when it's time, preferably before the courgette disintegrates, mushroom holds together longer.

Of the prepared foods Genchems White Pellet gets readily eaten by the crystals but it disintegrates very quickly to a powder once it's grazed upon and falls into the substrate feeding the fauna down there. This feed disintegration was the issue that caused me to have to swap out the substrate in the Anubia tank and precipitated me eventually losing all the Hybrids, yes all off them, totally gut wrenching, I rescued the king kongs but they died next day, combination of being weakened by a mildly polluted system and a substrate that was very aggressive in sucking the minerals out the carefully re-mineralised RO/DI water causing moulting issues (the ones that survive and breeding in the other tank had already been removed from the tank as I was conducting a photoshoot with them and they went into the other tank when I was finished). If I put the white pellet in a feeding dish the shrimp will be on it (won't stay there) and carry away a parcel out of the tray to somewhere else in the tank where it will still end up in the substrate but somewhere up the back of the tank amongst the plants where I can't get to without disturbing the substrate (there's Tropica Soil under a Fluval Shrimp Stratum cap which with all the grazing activity now sits above the cap and the slightest disturbance up there instantly clouds the tank).

The Powder food (Genchem Biozyme and Aminovita-P) is supposed to be dosed to the tank surface and allowed to settle around the tank except if I turn off the air to the sponge filter to prevent it swallowing it then there is no surface movement and the powder will form a surface film and resist sinking, I'd put it in a tray but then it just gets ignored (no idea why the shrimp don't like the tray, I bought it specially for them the ungrateful little blighters), if wetted first into a solution with tank water and introduced via a pipette works better but the sponge filter will still have some of it eventually (it's also probably sucking up some of the Tropica soil when it's disturbed helping to clog things more), I could say I should starve the shrimp a bit more so they have no choice but to eventually eat from the tray but they appear more willing to eat each other first and leave the snails to the tray, maybe it's the snails they hate and they can't handle the snail trail mucus once they're on the food, I've pondered that thought before, I'll ponder it further as I don't see definitive evidence for that.

From what I'm learning Crystal Shrimp like a varied diet (Cherries very much like the chum), fresh food especially, prepared food not so much once they're used to fresh (think they liked the Banana lotus too much as they devoured it in its entirety, bananas, stems runners and leaves, the whole shebang, not forgetting the one they had before they ate the last one). They will still bore of foods if you feed the same things over and over again, put something new in the tank and they're all over it initially, feed it again next time and it gets ignored (the shish kebab went this way if I fed it twice in a row). Shrimp also like to eat takeaway if they can, any morsel they can carry individually and they're off with it, even if there's plenty available (in a tray) they will still fight over the speck one shrimp managed to carry away, although I don't think they can hear me shouting at them to get their own piece, ah well I suppose it helps me though with dealing with frustration of it all.


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## Edvet (11 Aug 2015)

Newbie question: did you try nettle leaves?


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## Lindy (11 Aug 2015)

Snowflake doesn't pollute. It is always in my tanks. My shrimp will ignore all the other fancy foods that you've mentioned and others too, they always go to the snowflake.


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## Lindy (11 Aug 2015)

I can't recommend the little acrylic feeding dishes highly enough. Stops food disappearing into the substrate and using the feeding tube i can use fine powder food such as spirulina or ZM fry food, which they love, without it going everywhere.

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## X3NiTH (11 Aug 2015)

Edvet said:


> Newbie question: did you try nettle leaves?



Yeah I've tried nettles a few times, first time it was devoured (blanched in hot water first), second time ignored (not blanched), every other time after this it's been a so so experience (blanched), mind you it has been a while since I last used it so might try put some in later on as there's currently a healthy supply growing in the garden, my main gripe with nettles is that they need to be weighted down or they float and also the tissues are very soft and they disintegrate very readily over a day or two usually before its all eaten and get spread around the tank (or sheds weight and floats to the surface), mind you this is probably the mildest form of pollution than say using and leaving in a protein based food. 

I've tested quite few fresh foods on them, being Omnivorous its made me wonder if they go around looking to eat specific items to stock up on certain elements that may be lacking from a diet from a single food source, they get bored of stuff because it's lacking things they need, this is why I tried out using a button mushroom to supply them with a rich fresh source of Chitin that doesn't come from higher polluting sources that are also rich in protein such as brine shrimp, which was fed the other day and that appeared to go down well (very small amount), but if that doesn't get eaten it will pollute as they go everywhere around the tank, I wasn't counting on them being caught and eaten alive by the shrimp but once they had expired the carcass would be free to eat off the substrate, again why I fed a very small amount. 



ldcgroomer said:


> Snowflake doesn't pollute. It is always in my tanks. My shrimp will ignore all the other fancy foods that you've mentioned and others too, they always go to the snowflake.



I'll need to get some and give it a go. 

The feeding tray with attached tube looks ideal, I'm pretty sure I've said somewhere else on here that something like that would be handy, the glass feeding trays are on the heavy side (if using long handled tweezers from the edge to lift you only need to mess this up once and uneaten food ends up everywhere) so it makes it kind of difficult to get out the tank without putting your hand in, I modded mine with a pipe ring sucker pushed onto the feeding surface with a long cable tie attached around the ring so I an fish it out, though this reduces the available feeding area a little and doesn't look so good if left in the tank.


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## LfcFan1977 (11 Aug 2015)

What about attaching a syphon tube to the top of the feeding tube (or sliding it inside) to suck up anything that is left over? no need to remove the tray.
Also, instead of feeding one type of food, why not mix different things together? Make up a mix and store it in the fridge. When we eat out, we don't all order the same meal


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## Greenfinger2 (15 Feb 2016)

Hi X3NiTH, Any Updates


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## Rob Dahl (15 Feb 2016)

I have not been feeding my neon red rillis in my new 22 gal. long tank until the other day. Have seen some young, but not any fry. Will start feeding AZOO Max Breed once again and see if the population begins to increase.


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## X3NiTH (16 Feb 2016)

There's been lots of changes mostly in response to catastrophe, just had no enthusiasm to take pictures and share the progress. Watching a tank go from thriving to meltdown after rinsing and reusing the Fluval Stratum in the main tank was heart wrenching, the unipac substrate (supposed neutral) that went into replace it also shoved out KH until it reached 9, this was after me deciding to change routine to add some KH to bring it up to 4 (knowing that it depletes in a system that doesn't add any except at water change). The extra KH decision was to get more precise readings from the pH controller rather than just get used to it working in an imprecise range due to low conductivity, (climbing KH gives you no warning in the absence of fish when your drop checker is Yellow that CO₂ is through the roof and climbing in tandem with KH).

The stem plants and crypts just couldn't cope with the changing conditions, the buce didn't do much as they were in a state of decline anyway at this point (the tank gut was to concentrate on helping the Buce thrive). Any plants that survived this (apart from the Buce as they came from there to get a good cleaning from BBA build up, they were now glued to bogwood and immovable) went into the shrimp tank which was getting more light than the main tank after I turned the lights down (from 55% in 200% down to 20% of 200%, gone from using 35% and 20% on both emitters loops using ND1500 tile to one emitter loop and 20%) the light drop in the main tank came day before I tested KH and found it close to 12+.

Crypts rescued into the shrimp tank are thriving again (took a while to recover), S.Repens although recovered is in a state of suspended animation due to the low light, D.Diandra growing better than I saw it in the main tank under CO₂ and EI. The shrimp tank gets no added ferts, maybe a drop of trace once or twice a month, all other ferts are produced by the ever increasing amounts of cherry shrimp and ever decreasing numbers of CRS (no idea as to cause of loss of the entirety of my hybrid Crystals, I have 4 left in the tank and they are all CRS tiger toothed markings, all the CBS are gone, think it was an introduced pathogen that has wiped them out (started in the Anubia walled tank and continued once CBS offspring and CRS offspring were transferred to the other shrimp tank), got one Crystal breeding cycle in that tank then they just went one after the other, Rilli and Cherry shrimp continued to multiply healthily along with the snails, to where ive just added a Dwarf Puffer as I am sick of picking 50+ snails out a week. Thought there might be a water quality issue but the tank thrives with Cyclopia and Ostracods. Thought it may be a Planarian issue but turned out not to be the case, I have zero worms in the substrate after two healthy doses of Fenbendazole (I think I underdosed first time) Crystal deaths didn't abate, the 4 left I think are the strongest Genetically (one is an original offspring of my first brood, the other three were the last cycle bred in the shrimp tank, all hybrids wiped out. The tank is sponge filtered, water column wobbles more than it flows. Fissidens on the mesh in the shrimp tank is still growing but not at the rate it did when under CO₂. Anubias saved from walled tank have been free floated in the shrimp tank along with C.Balansae and a bunch of Lilaeopsis, the Alternanthera that was stem tops cut from my windowsill box grow in the shrimp tank, it's very reddy brown, nice growth still living.

Can't get anything to thrive in the main tank except for a couple of Motleyana Buce, some Java Fern and the Monoselenium that is growing on my Bogwood (quadrupled in size and then some, even emerged growth was taken and submerged and that's still thriving). Some Fissidens I chucked in there all shredded up and squished into the Bogwood is sprouting up in a few places.

The Buces are suffering (growing, melting, growing and meting again) and I don't know what to do to turn things around, it partly coincided with a 50% wipeout of the Anubias in the walled tank (partly due to declining light levels from emerged leaf growth), roots going brown and mushy, but they were already suffering decaying stems before they were transferred to the Anubia walled tank just before I did the main tank gut, it was around the same time I noticed a smattering of very tiny nematodes on the glass in a cluster, there was no substrate in this tank at that time due to me clearing out everything after the hybrids crystal shrimp were dying like flies, tried to rescue them by transferring remaining hybrids to other shrimp tank, they survived for one more round of breeding and then they just disappeared one by one. All the fish that were in the main tank ended up in the Walled tank before the main tank was gutted, the walled tank was repurposed to try and get the emperors to breed without the glow lights present, the male emperor just bullied the female to the point I thought she was not going to make it as he wouldn't let her feed when I added food, just chased her back behind the Anubias, putting the glowlights in there with the emperors just gave the male some other fish to play the territory game with. Catastrophic Anubia melt coincided with the extra bioload (there was a larger bio load in there when it was just shrimp).

All the fish ended up in the tank I was going to use for the Buddha mask I made which I noted in a post previously above and they remain there today.

Tank gut (done because BBA was getting out of hand), the Buces were placed into the shrimp tank, same parameters as the main tank, nearly, just no CO₂ and no EI, light much lower, needed a way for them to be picked clean, can't just go removing affected leaves or none will be left.



I had to kill the BBA with fire first before the shrimps would touch it, not really fire just a squirt of H₂O₂.



Here's the tank empty waiting for it to be rescaped.



Here's it all back in the tank, Buces glued to Bogwood, Fluval Stratum rinsed of fine silted debris.



Here's the shrimp tank and the main tank side by side shot to show apparent brightness after gut.



Replanted the S.Repens tops, Anubia on the left of the Bogwood not looking too good.



Here's a top down view.



Here's the extent of the Monoselenium attached to my Bogwood at the time the KH was climbing, Anubia looks sickly, the flowering Buces were bought from MA and I think are Motleyana variety, they look pretty now but will be a different story in a week or two.



The Dropchecker was this colour.



This is the last pic of the tank taken as the lights were on the ramp down so it's really high ISO and very noisy, quite happy they way the look of the Buce Rescue tank turned out, shame it all went to s***.



Here's what the Anubia walled tank looked like, with the fish in it, would have just been the Emperors but as I said the Male couldn't handle being in a relationship and hassled the female near to death (her fins were bitten ragged). Looks nice but the tips of the lower leaves are browning (not really seen in pic), despite me giving ferts, the lower leaves and roots (in the lower shaded portions of the tank) are about to go full blown Autumnal.



This is what the growth above the waterline looks like in this tank.



I constructed this to allow above waterline growth but keep the humidity up in the tank, see the liverwort growing up the side of the wall, this is the same plant as what is attached to my Bogwood in the main tank, except it's growing out of water. Gutter guard and cable ties do come in handy, the black walls are made of HobbyCraft FabFoam pieces, the black splodges on the corner stabilising brackets are Sugru to allow a grippy fit for some Perspex that sits on top keeping moisture in, there is a slight gap when it's on to allow some evaporation.



Group shot before calamity!



It's at this point I'm suspecting that things are not well with the tank, there are two dropcheckers in the tank, should have near yellow but it's not, it's green, this tells me I'm not getting enough CO₂ into the tank (haven't checked the KH yet, no reason to suspect it's anything but wonky CO₂ but really what's happening is that the KH is rising and my injection rate isn't keeping up).



You'll note that I've got a small atomiser in tank and I'm keeping an eye on the lower Dropchecker, you may also have noticed that my inlet configuration has changed from the O-Jet to having a spray bar stuck on the end, I've changed from using the pH controller to off gassing with air to controlling the CO₂ solenoid directly (before CO₂ was on for the whole injection period, solenoid only tripped twice in 24hrs, it's now working at an increased rate at one to two injection periods per hour).

So I went investigating in the cabinet and discover the Inline in this state!



You can see in the next pic that I've discovered the source of my issues and my attempt to rectify it.
Say goodbye to the Hyperactive substrate! Hello glass bottom!



You'll also note that the Anubia has completely removed itself from the Bogwood and has left the tank (I just sucked up the debris).

In the next pic, which is taken a while after suffering with a glass bottom and the Bucephalandras still not recovering (light is still down at 20% using only one emitter ring on the TMC 1500ND), I thought maybe too much light is being reflected around like a mirror box so I put in some Unipac Gravel mixed with some Dennerle black shrimp sand, read it was all supposed to be neutral but the Unipac isn't, I'll not find this out until later when I decide to do a water change after 8 weeks of reduced ferts (suspecting ferts doing in the Buce), there are signs of new growth after the leaves had stopped melting (haven't shown Buce melt yet because by the time it came after discovering the above issues I was well fed up)



This next picture is very recent, look at the devestation wrought on the Buce on the front Bogwood in comparison to after it had all been planted up. Java Fern looks great though, the Motleyana Buces are recovering enough that one decided to flower, the others just keeping putting out new growth only for it to melt.



Note the DIY surface skimmer in the background made out of PVC pipe and a Nano aquarium pump inverted and cable tied together with half a Marigold glove, looks like crap but it's working, I did this because surface scum was an issue changing from the lily outlet and 24/7 airstone to a spraybar, like not just a little problem but a really bad one, last thing you want with having KH and CO₂ climbing is for it to be trapped under a crust preventing it leaving and preventing O₂ coming in from the atmosphere).

Can you see the growth in the non-CO₂ non EI shrimp tank after 4 months, no algae in there (except one tiny tuft of BBA on the sponge filter except it's verdant green and not the usual black type I have everywhere else).

In this pic you can clearly see the Buces are suffering, the algae covered leaves cannot be removed as each plant has one of them and this keeps the plant going when the new growth melts, grows, melts, grows and melts again, the one on the left has just melted after recovering nicely for a while.



 At this point I've changed out my ferts to all in one after discovering a dosing pump failure (or I forgot to turn it back on after suspecting nitrates were my Buce issues and then forgetting I had done so, depression will do that to a person). Anyway the Buce new growth all promptly melted the day after I put the Macro back on, the Micro was already running at a reduced dose (1/5 EI). Totally frustrating!

But look at the Monoselenium, look where it's at now!



The Motleyana recovered and flowered!



This is what a stem of Didiplis Diandra did when it was taken from the shrimp tank and put in the main tank to see what a soft stem would do in the main tank under the current conditions.



The above growth is after one week, in gravel at 1/5 EI and under a 1500ND tile set to 70% (one emitter set, which is still brighter than it's ever been). That's gravel growth, it's just erupted at the roots. What did it do up top?



Split in two is what it did and within one day, it's also going red which is what I've never been able to do before. It's staying green and single stemmed in the shrimp tank, see here behind Thomas the Tank Engine (he is just a little puffer after all!).



He's going to have to get fat on Cyclopia and Ostrocods before he can fit a snail in his gob, he's not interested in the eggs on the glass and he's about half the size of the largest shrimp in the tank so he better keep on his toes and not let them mug him! Shrimp fry are going to have to get good at hiding out in the mosses!



There you go, that's the update, probably forgot to mention loads of other things but so much has happened it's all a bit of a blur.

Enjoy the post!


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## X3NiTH (16 Feb 2016)

Your tanks looking good Rob, like your moss especially!


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## Rob Dahl (16 Feb 2016)

X3NiTH said:


> There you go, that's the update, probably forgot to mention loads of other things but so much has happened it's all a bit of a blur.



What a thorough update and valuable contribution.  Thanks so much. I am learning important lessons about what *not* to do which, many times,  I consider even more important than what *to* do.


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## X3NiTH (16 Feb 2016)

Rob Dahl said:


> What a thorough update and valuable contribution.  Thanks so much. I am learning important lessons about what *not* to do which, many times,  I consider even more important than what *to* do.



You're welcome Rob!


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## hypnogogia (11 May 2020)

X3NiTH said:


> Things always happen in the tanks when you sit down to eat a hot dinner!



What a superb video!


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## X3NiTH (12 May 2020)

Some changes and additions, bigger freshwater tank and some marine tank dabbling (the EVO in the backround is getting superseded by a 250L reef tank, hopefully delivered post lockdown).


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