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Dead Wood Shrimp Stream

drsteeeve

drsteeeve

Member
Joined
9 Jul 2023
Messages
37
Location
UK
Having had my tank sit empty for a couple of years over lockdown it was time to get it back up and running and start breeding shrimp again.
I had a load of old drift wood, dragon stone and bits of pieces in the cupboard and some wood in an active nano tank and decided to use this for a woody and tannin rich stream scape.

I have a base of fluval stratum at the back of the tank, some large flat slate like gravel and then on top black volcanic gravel, some of the slate comes up to the top and looks natural with the smaller stuff.

First image here is weekend one week in after letting the tank run in a bit and after the first batch of plants arrived, still looking dusty (some of this was a bit of a bacteria bloom).
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A couple of weeks in and a few new plants added over this time.

First lesson learned, should have put more aquasoil at the front of the tank and chosen a less demanding carpeting plant. The first one and this newer one in this picture didn't last.

I will add some Fluorite tabs at the front before adding hopefully a more appropriate foreground plant.

I have also added 9 Ember Tetra, two Oto catfish, a random molly or platty baby that snuck in to the bag and 6 Nerite Snails who are doing a great job clearing all the alge that has been growing.


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Moved a few plants around and added some micro sword at the front which should beuch less demanding of light and co2, also a big patch of liverwort in the center behind some wood for the shrimp to hide in.

Speaking of shrimp 20 Bloody Mary shrimp have moved in, are sheding and feeding and looking very happy, hopefully some babies in the next month!

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Love watching the tank, the fish and shrimp, but what I have recently discovered is watching the gravel. It's not as mad as it sounds, get your phone out, macro mode and see what's living in your mulm and substrate!

 
It's been a three weeks since the first 10 shrimp moved in and 10 days since the second 10.
Today we noticed three of them are berried, at least, can't believe I've been in the office for two days and missed this!

The floating plants had also taken over and nearly covered the top, this pic was after taking out a pint jug FULL. This has been moved in to the spare tank I'm going to be growing alge in for the Oto's.
So far so good.
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Need to take a full tank picture again, everything is growing well, have added some more tetra up to my limit for the tank and they are all doing really well, sad side effect of the new fish is that the shrimp are hiding a lot more, need some time, and a new generation before they will feel truly comfortable mixing with the fish.
Have seen 4 formally berries females now scooting around sans eggs, and two more now with eggs, so hopefully there are lots of tiny shrimp hiding in the tank before showing themselves.
Have lost a couple of shrimp, seems to be the smaller males, possibly moulting problems or just bad luck.
Just hope that the birthrate and survival overtake the natural deaths.
Anecdote time, my last shrimp tank had 15 red cherry's to start with, over a few months they died off one by one, I was new and didn't know as much about the water needs and micro food needs, I think I had 2-3 left when I first saw one baby shrimp and hoped for the best, 6 months later I had 400+ shrimp in the tank.
So keeping my hopes up!!

Last news, was looking for baby shrimp tonight and spotted this guy, I have never managed to breed tetra till now so I am over the moon!!
Little baby Ember
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They heard me taking about them it seems, was sat for about 15 minutes scanning all the plants and moss etc, this little guy was there the whole time I just couldn't focus on him!
Think I've spotted 4-6 of them now 😁😁
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Today I had a good look and saw a couple of baby shrimp, thinking maybe there are 10 or so scattered around, then I fed the fish and plopped in some BacterAE, within seconds they all emerged from the moss and our from hiding in the carpet of microword, counted around 50 which could mean a real total of a few hundred from my experience 😍
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Approx three months after filling with water I am so happy with how things are going.
The shrimp army have been breeding on overtime, current manual count is 280 so I'm guessing around 400+ in total hiding in the moss etc.
The Embers have had a second baby which we spotted yesterday, the Lampeyes have had a second batch too.
All chemistry is nice and stable, I'm just doing 10% water change with RO (got a filter off Amazon for £40 and it's a life changer for small amounts of water) and this is really just to add some shrimp salts and keep the TDS around 195 and replenish anything the plants are using up.

Spot the shrimp feeding frenzy on the right.
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And also enjoying a Brussel sprout.
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Nice update.
How big is the tank and you went from 20 shrimp to +300 in about 2 months? Nice.
 
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