150l Gurami - Somewhat Asian Themed

[Raptorendame]

Hi alto!

thanks for replying. They are from a local breeder, who said on his ad that the shrimps were kept at PH6 (which is the PH in my tank). When I arrived to collect the shrimp, he had to confess that his PH had spiked somewhat and was around 7. That's.. not ideal I guess.

"crash" - well, I have my PH at 6 bc that'S what I want for the fish. Doing 30-40-50% with tap water of course changed that and now the soil and the bogwood will need some time to bring the PH down again (it's 6.5 after the wc yesterday).

I'll get some right tomorrow morning (shops are closed on sundays). I'm down to 8 shrimps (from 12).Thanks for the tip with Seachem, I'll get some of that too. I assume it's an copper issue, but I am not sure - if there were high dosages in my water, I'd have thought they would show more severe signs of intoxication. It's more like... one shrimp starts to detoriate (getting very very still,some twitching, then very very still again), and then after a few hours another. Maybe it's no toxin at all, but the PH change. The symptoms did lessen yesterday after the water change, which raised my PH to 6.5

*sighs* Next week is a fish-market, where I can probably get some gourami. But if I filter through carbon, I'll probably postpone that for another week.

(I lost two shrimps on friday, and two more through yesterday. I saw at least one molt)

 

[alto]

I recommend waiting on the fish introduction & just focus on the shrimp for now - most shrimp are stressed to some degree by fish "interest", especially if they come from shrimp only tanks
In addition you don't yet have the plant density for shrimp to move about the tank unseen

Not sure which gourami you're interested in but most will be quite intrigued by shrimp "wiggles"
S vaillanti are the only anabantoid I've kept that I've observed to be completely shrimp safe (though I can't fathom why )

 

[Raptorendame]

You're right! I didn't even think of the gourami feeding on the shrimps.. I wanted to get honey gouramis.

I bought carbon and neutralizer for metals today and added it to the tank. I am down to .. 4 shrimps? I just find them lying around dead while the rest seems to mind it's own business.

 

[sciencefiction]

Sorry about the shrimp.

Do you have anywhere else to move them to? A plastic tote will do, and some daily water changes, very little food, etc...,while you sort out the tank.

I see the tank is a new set up. How was it cycled?

 

[Raptorendame]

Hi sciencefiction!

The tank has been set up for three weeks when I put in the shrimp, 4 weeks this week. I gave the filter some stuff (?) from the running filter I have, added a bit of food at day one, dosed bacteria starter right from the beginning once a week. Before I decided to get the shrimps I tested the water for a couple of days (Ammonia, Nitrite, Nitrate, PH), after the first shrimps died I tested too, but everything was fine. I also have Ceratophyllum and Lemna, as well as a couple of snails that have been living in there since day one (I don't know how they snuck in).

Since yesterday no more losses. 4 shrimps, all happily swimming around.

 

[Raptorendame]

It's time for an update I think.

Despite immediate counter measures I lost all of the shrimps. Some may still be hiding, but I sincerely doubt it.
I was at a club market for fish and got pearl gouramis from a breeder that were just too beautiful to pass by and two long finned ancistrus (there goes my asian theme, but also - too beautiful to pass).
A week ago I got another addition to the tank - 11 Trigonostigma espei

The plants have grown in nicely - I added a tiger lotus since my bulb never sprouted, as well as Vallisneria gigantea and Pistia stratiotes. I am thinning out the hornwort at least weekly...

Let's go for some pictures:

I think it has matured rather nicely.
I'm doing weekly water changes and add a all-in-one fertilizer as well as extra Kalium-Potassium fertilizer.

Kind Regards

Bianca

 

[Smells Fishy]

Lovely pics.

 

[Raptorendame]

Hey everyone

this tank matured rather nicely over the year, although growing into a proper jungle somewhere around august

I finally cut that jungle back a week ago, since the plants atthe bottom started to suffer and I wanted to thin everything out. I want to give the red lotus some more space to grow and will probably cut back the vallisneria more rigorously in the foreseeable future.

All fish (and a few amano srimps) are happy and healthy at weekly water change, weakly dosing of nutrients.

I'm thinking of maybe adding some more Buces on the ground, what do you think?

Kind regards

 

[Raptorendame]

It's been roughly a year with this tank now, going from this:

To this (Yesterday):

Since the Vallisneria is slowly taking over the tank I'm thinking of actually rescaping the whole thing. Or I could try and get rid of the Vallisneria. What do you guys think?
The soil is thoroughly rooted - if I pull on one edge, the whole surrounding soil moves bc of all the roots in it.

Kind Regards

 

[alto]

After my very negative experience removing Vallisneria, I recommend removing as much stock as possible to a temporary bin, also keep dosing tank with Prime as it clouds up (re disturbed substrate)

In my case, although I’d trimmed back the Vallisneria on a few previous occasions, that day, almost all livestock (fish and shrimp) died very quickly - water was only slightly clouded when fish began showing distress