# Mountain & Valley Shrimp Tank - Fluval Spec V



## etgregoire (Oct 28, 2009)

Hi guys this is my first tank journal! I currently have a 75g planted aquarium that has been set up for about 3 years. I run pressurized CO2, T5 HO lighting, EI dosing, with around 20 types of plants in there and filled with neon tetras, black mollies, otos, albino cories, harlequin rasboras, and an angelfish. 

I have been wanting to set up another tank for a while, but there were always concerns about size and space, devoting more time, and of course getting permission from my partner! Well I found a great deal on Craigs for a new Fluval Spec V and after getting the green light I decided to go for it. 

I decided I will be keeping shrimp in this tank, which I have never really done. I had a bamboo shrimp who last about a year and some amano's that eventually got eaten or escaped. But after doing some reading here I would like to have some Red Cherries. 

So here's the low down on my "Mountain & Valley Shrimp Tank"

Fluval Spec V - using factory lighting & filtration
Fluval heater - which may not be working? Water just seems room temp?
Flourite substrate
Lava rocks
Lightly dosing Excel & Flourish 

Peacock Moss
Blyxa Japnonica
Dwarf Hairgrass
Water Onion

Red Cherry Shrimp (still to come)
harlequin rasbora

The vision I had in my mind was being a nano tank, trying to create a scene that would mimic in my mind a larger space. More planned out than my 75 gallon, which is just kind of a grow-out tank I suppose.

I was imagining a valley below a range of mountains that shoot out of the ground like giant cliffs of a volcanic island. The plants would grow to larger kinds as we move up the mountains away from the valley.

So far I have the tank mostly up and running and I will follow in additional posts with photos of the process and progress!


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## etgregoire (Oct 28, 2009)

Friday evening, I met the seller to pick up the aquarium. Turns out he is a marine biologist but is working for Petsmart and he decides what fish go in what stores, and planning out the fish stocking at the stores in the area. He's got 9 aquariums up and running the smallest being 90 gallons and the largest being 250. Also a 2000 gallon koi pond in his yard. So this tank was maybe too small for him! But cool to meet someone so into the hobby. I could have talked to him for a long time asking about the tanks but he obviously had to go!

That evening I also picked up a bag of Flourite from my LFS. This was my first time using a substrate other than gravel. It looks so nice, I really am happy with how it turned out. 

I also cannot believe there was ever any sort of debate about whether or not this stuff should be washed. It was black / dark brown out of the bag. And you can see how it looks now. I guess its debated as to whether or not you are washing away minerals... I don't know everyone argues about it, but either way it would have been cloudy forever with the small filter on this.


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## etgregoire (Oct 28, 2009)

Here is the tank the next day after the water cleared up a little bit. The tank is sitting in our kitchen, on the bar against the wall. I am featuring it sticking out from the wall, with the filter in the back as appose to showing it width-wise against the wall. I think this will be an interesting way of showing it as you can look through both sides of it rather than just flat into it. It also plays along with the mountain scene, with the mountains arranged growing higher as the tank goes back, rather than from side to side.


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## etgregoire (Oct 28, 2009)

Saturday I made the trek up to Dayton to a LFS store up there. I didn't quite find the rocks I was after at the one I go to down here in Cincinnati. It was a long drive for a few rocks, but I found some cool ones and it was a nice little outing for the afternoon. I spent a lot of time digging through their rock selections after I narrowed it down to Lava. I then was trying to find the right 3 or so that would fit in the tank and go with the mountain theme I had in mind. I think these 3 look great together.


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## etgregoire (Oct 28, 2009)

I decided I want to make some "moss balls" for this tank. Which I have done in my 75 gallon using peacock moss and some smooth rocks I pulled out of Lake Erie when I lived in Cleveland. They are anchored to the stone using a shower scrubbie. The next photos will illustrate the process.










I pulled it out of the tank and put in in a bowl of water. I have pieces of the shower scrubbie, black thread, smooth river stones, and scissors. I trim off a bit of the moss, place it on the new stone, wrap the stone with a piece of nylon/plastic shower scrubby, pull it tight and tie it on the bottom.

http://www.plantedtank.net/forums/pHosting.php?do=show&type=f&id=14042&title=005c.jpg

The result, which I have placed back in my 75 gallon to grow them out before moving them to the smaller low tech tank.


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## etgregoire (Oct 28, 2009)

I also pulled out the 2 largest lava stones, and wrapped a bit of moss on them and tied down with thread. I put them back in the larger tank to help grow out before moving over.


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## etgregoire (Oct 28, 2009)

Then I decided to pull a few propagations from my blyxa japonica and place them in this tank as more forest, denser growth as we move up the mountain scape, away from the valley. I also added the water onion from my large tank to be at the top end of the forest growth, the tallest.










A close up of the blyxa.


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## etgregoire (Oct 28, 2009)

Sunday I was at Petsmart picking up some Tetra Safe Start, so I could move the Rasboras over to this tank. I happened to see some dwarf hair grass!! I've never bought the type of plants that come in a pouch before, so we'll see how they do. Not sure if they're going to take our what. The brand is called TopFin. So what the heck, I bought it and brough it home to plant. I placed it in a dish so that I could tear it apart and plant all of the pieces. I bought 2, and as it turns out 1 was a lot! I'll try and return the other package today.










Planting it was a little tricky because you can barely tell where the shoots and roots differ. I just tore out little chunks and tried to tuck the bunches down into the flourite. Here is the finish product of the "valley." I have left a few black patches which is where the moss ball rocks will go, once they've grown out a bit in the high tech tank.


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## etgregoire (Oct 28, 2009)

Here is a shot that I tried to take from another angle to convey the valley and mountain scene. 










So far I was able to catch 3 of the Rasboras and move them over. i don't have a pic of them in there yet but they are just in there chilling. I hope the bottle of Safe Start does the trick. It seems to have pretty good reviews!

That's all for today... And I may be in a holding pattern as I wait for the moss to grow out on the rocks and lava in the other tank...


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## shift (Jan 7, 2013)

Looking good!


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## jhwku (Feb 25, 2011)

I liked the mountain scape. I think the way you set up the tank is how it should be shown off. It is truly a good looking tank. Cant wait to see some more progress on your tank.


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## etgregoire (Oct 28, 2009)

Thanks guys! 

ROCK CHALK! I grew up in Lawrence... haven't lived there in over 15 years though. I went to Hillcrest and West.. haha!


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## jhwku (Feb 25, 2011)

Its nice to see all those Jayhawk fans all around the country. Surprising how many there are. If you get a chance to go back you should it has changed quite a bit over the last few years.


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## Tecstasy (Jan 13, 2013)

Whats your room temperature? The heater is designed to keep it around 78f 25.5C


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## etgregoire (Oct 28, 2009)

Well... The room is probably 72ish. There was a noticeable difference to the touch between my 75g and this one. I believe that tank is around 76. :-/ May be buying a new heater.


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## nerdariostomp (Aug 23, 2012)

Looks great so far! I love the moss idea and will probably try that out soon myself  you running CO2? A small paintball regulator would be cool but there's always the small fluval kits as well. Can't wait to see this one come together


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## etgregoire (Oct 28, 2009)

Thanks!! I was thinking that I wouldn't be doing co2 because it as my understanding that it wasn't good for shrimp. Are you running co2 on your shrimp tank? Remind me what shrimp you are keeping...


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## nerdariostomp (Aug 23, 2012)

You can run it, but its something you want to gradually ease into. Totally doable though although I'm currently only dosing excel in my planted shrimp tank (CRS shrimp)


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## Conrad283 (Dec 10, 2012)

I have CO2 with my RCS and they've been fine. Been a number of weeks now. Babies too.

Tank looks good


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## etgregoire (Oct 28, 2009)

Thanks guys... I'll look into it... I think it would definitely look a lot nicer. 

What regulators are you guys using on a paintball setup? That's a realm I haven't even began to read up on at this point!


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## nerdariostomp (Aug 23, 2012)

I'm using aquateks regulator. No complaints. Just a little fine tuning here and there to get flow right but its great and 90 bux on Amazon with a bubble counter. Ordered another one on Sunday night and it'll be here today


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## etgregoire (Oct 28, 2009)

It's hard to tell from the photo, but that particular setup looks a little big for my situation. The only space I really have to hide anything is behind the short end of the tank because it is out on my kitchen counter. I'll probably do some research on the GLA nano setups, that could work if I do go this route. 

How tall is the 20 oz tank? That's the "standard" for paintball setups right? Where do you refill your tanks?

Do you have your CO2 going directly into your filter for diffusion? That would make me so nervous to drill into the canister!!! I'm not the most tools oriented person.


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## nerdariostomp (Aug 23, 2012)

The tank is 10" tall. With the regulator it's 14.5". I run a line to a bubble counter and then to a diffuser in the tank. I fill the tank at my local paintball supply store but dicks sporting goods does it as well. You'd be surprised how many places there are to get them filled. 

Cal aqua makes an inline diffuser you can run that would attach to your canister filter outpipe like an in line heater would but its $$$. You can find it on the green leaf site too. 

There's always the fluval disposable setups too if you're going for uber small.


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## Level200 (Jan 3, 2013)

Wow looking great mate. Love the idea of moss around a rock. Thanks for the feedback on mine, will be interesting to see how both tanks progress over the next few weeks. 

Sent from my GT-I9300 using Tapatalk 2


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## etgregoire (Oct 28, 2009)

Well... I took the plunge. And last night was interesting.

I had a small road trip yesterday to pick up some red cherries from a person I got connected with on a Ohio fish keepers group on facebook. I had added some Tetra safe start and had moved some rasboras from my 75g over to this tank so I thought the tank was ready to go. At the last minute I wasn't 100% sure. Also... the shrimp were MUCH smaller than I was thinking they would be as they were all juveniles.

Well long story short I put them in the 75g thinking they would hide among all the plants and start living/breeding? more in the large tank and in several weeks move some guys over. The tank is very densely planted and has a good amount of thick moss to hide in as well. Well that didn't work as well as I thought. Everyone in the tank was hot for fresh meat. And I mean everyone. I really only thought the one angelfish would be the only problem but the shrimp being so small were looking good to everyone right down to the neons.

I saw one get eaten, and I'm not sure how many others may have been eaten. So I was able to find about 5 and move them over to the Fluval spec. Hopefully the tank is going to hold params okay for these guys, they had a rough day yesterday.

Also... they were swimming all over the place last night and 2 went right into the filter. So that was great. Spent like 20 minutes standing on my kitchen counter over the tank trying to get them out. When I went to bed I put a piece of paper towel over the intake. They are laying low this morning so I pulled it out to help the filter a bit, but I will have to figure out some sort of sponge material to put over the intake.

Anyway, I guess maybe this is a lesson in patience, although I was really not expecting these guys to be the size of a grain of rice. I think sometimes people give me a hard time for being a planner, asking too many questions, mapping everything out and over thinking things. But I guess this situation shows me that sometimes that is not a bad thing. There were a lot of opportunities for me to plan things out a little better here - but I guess sometimes also you just have to see all the balls in the air before you know how they're gonna land.

Well... hopefully I get a couple that hang on through this whole process. And who knows maybe there are a bunch hanging in the 75g that will lay low and be survivors. If not... I guess I will be starting this process again in a couple weeks.


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## nerdariostomp (Aug 23, 2012)

Wow that sounds like a chaotic day. Sorry about how things played out. I've had great luck with my Ottos but anyone else with fish and shrimp seem to have the same experience unless they're massive adults. I knew the intake was going to be weird too. My buddy had similar issues with his and it seems like a sponge material does the trick. Maybe a replacement piece from a regular filter? Hopefully they settle in OK and procreate. 

Don't forget to breathe


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## etgregoire (Oct 28, 2009)

Well. It is what it is. I have been better about not letting things upset me the way they might have. I guess worst case scenario it is a pricey meal for some of the other fish. I am actually surprised about the filter. It has a large sponge in there but some how they were able to slip between it and the glass I guess. We shall see now it all shakes out...


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## etgregoire (Oct 28, 2009)

I have been able to move around 10-11 shrimp over to the new tank and they seem happy. I figured out the filter issue. They can go in and out of the intake at the top freely. 

There is a small hole at the bottom that goes from the tank to the filter chamber. I think this is to allow water pressure to equalize when you push the foam filter pack down into the back. I have blocked it with substrate as a temporary measure. I'll figure out something else later. 

Definitely feeling more optimistic about the livestock! I'll post some pics of them soon. It's so mesmerizing to sit and watch them!!!


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## tekkguy (Jan 3, 2013)

etgregoire said:


> I have been able to move around 10-11 shrimp over to the new tank and they seem happy. I figured out the filter issue. They can go in and out of the intake at the top freely.
> 
> There is a small hole at the bottom that goes from the tank to the filter chamber. I think this is to allow water pressure to equalize when you push the foam filter pack down into the back. I have blocked it with substrate as a temporary measure. I'll figure out something else later.
> 
> Definitely feeling more optimistic about the livestock! I'll post some pics of them soon. It's so mesmerizing to sit and watch them!!!


Have you seen any problems with them going in and out of the filter chamber at the top? I just added cherries to my Spec V last night, and they seem to be loving it. I have the bottom hole blocked. Substrate was my original thought, but I ended up sliding a piece of stiff plastic between the substrate the wall.


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## KD8ATF (Nov 5, 2012)

I am liking what I see... I'll have to read it when I have a few more minutes!


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## Kinection (Dec 1, 2012)

nerdariostomp said:


> You can run it, but its something you want to gradually ease into. Totally doable though although I'm currently only dosing excel in my planted shrimp tank (CRS shrimp)


Just wondering, what kind of substrate is that?


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## etgregoire (Oct 28, 2009)

I have had them go in at the top. I stopped worrying about it bc I figured they could get back out. I just have the bottom blocked with substrate but i think that I will make it a goal to seal that up this weekend.


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## etgregoire (Oct 28, 2009)

Aquaticstory- I think he uses aqua soil


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## nerdariostomp (Aug 23, 2012)

Yeah I do in my 12 long. That tank is just Eco complete though

How have the shrimp been as far as activity? Getting pretty active?


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