# diwu13's Twin 10G Shrimp Tanks (picture heavy)



## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

*Progression of Left Tank*

Just thought I'd post pictures showing the progression of the left tank.



























































































All new updates will be here -> http://shrimpery.com/forum/photo-journals/28-diwu13-s-shrimp-tanks#63


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

*Progression of Right Tank*

Progression of the right tank. This tank was the first one I set up and has gone through much more change than the left tank.


















































































All updates will now be here -> http://shrimpery.com/forum/photo-journals/28-diwu13-s-shrimp-tanks#64


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## green_valley (Sep 14, 2011)

Very nice shrimps.


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

Thanks! Here's to hoping the flourite black makes their reds darker.


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## Sd760 (Apr 25, 2011)

Niccce


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

Awww crap. Found two shrimps with white bodies on 11/19 but didn't think anything was wrong. Found out they were infected around 11/20 but didn't return to my apartment until 11/23. Found a total of four shrimp infected. Took those all out. But I kept finding infected shrimps and couldn't figure out why. Today I vac'd the tank hard and found a half eaten shrimp... that was infected. So I'll probabily need to dose the entire tank with paraguard. Hope that works out well :X


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

Ended up moving all the shrimps from the bare bottom tank to the tank with substrate. 12 hours later they all seem to be doing fine. Hope it stays that way. Will probabily need to dose this entire tank with paraguard since I'm not sure which shrimp chow'd down on the infected one :\


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## chad320 (Mar 7, 2010)

Are your TTs still good or is this the cherries?


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## allaboutfish (Oct 14, 2011)

awesome tanks. not to hi jack the thread but how much do tiger shrimp usually run for? theyre really pretty


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

chad320 said:


> Are your TTs still good or is this the cherries?


Those aren't TT's (I wish!), just regular tigers. Can't afford to get anything really pricey and have it die when I'm at school. So far it's only been the cherries with the cloudy bodies, but I can't say for sure if the tigers are ok since it seemed to be an all-you-can-eat-buffet on that dead infected shrimp .



allaboutfish said:


> awesome tanks. not to hi jack the thread but how much do tiger shrimp usually run for? theyre really pretty


Regular tigers will go for around $3 each. If you can wait, wait for Liam or Nikki's sales and you can get them for $2.50 each.


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## allaboutfish (Oct 14, 2011)

diwu13 said:


> Those aren't TT's (I wish!), just regular tigers. Can't afford to get anything really pricey and have it die when I'm at school. So far it's only been the cherries with the cloudy bodies, but I can't say for sure if the tigers are ok since it seemed to be an all-you-can-eat-buffet on that dead infected shrimp .
> 
> 
> 
> Regular tigers will go for around $3 each. If you can wait, wait for Liam or Nikki's sales and you can get them for $2.50 each.


ok thanks!!


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

Haha. So I happened to find a picture of what the tank used to look like. I think the scape looks better now right ?










Tiger peeking out from my anubias (not sure what kind...) in the sea urchin 









Paraguard arrives Wednesday. Hope that cures the shrimp without too many casualties.


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## chad320 (Mar 7, 2010)

The sea urchin is a nice experiment in itself. I guess well see if anubias likes Ca. I hope it does good for you. Have you noticed it kicking out new leaves?


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

Yea that little anubias is growing really well. The roots were out the bottom of it when I pulled it up this morning. Not sure if its from the extra calcium though 

I really like the look of the little sea urchins. Brought two over from China, one in each tank! Too bad I had to super glue them together after I boiled them... they each broke into 5 pieces along the "seam"-like thing.


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

Busy morning today. Remember the left tank that used to look like this:










Added black flourite yesterday, 11-28-2011, and it looked like this:










Cleared up very well this morning, 11-29-2011, considering no filter was running. Ran the bubbler the entire time so remove the surface oil that seemed to be released from the flourite.










And to end this picture update... shrimp ball!


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## johnny313 (Apr 15, 2011)

finally read it! now all i have to do is look at the pics when I get home!


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

johnny313 said:


> finally read it! now all i have to do is look at the pics when I get home!


. Any idea what made some infected shrimps from reading?


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

Paraguard arrives tomorrow! Time to get ready with the large water changes :icon_eek:

On a different note the right tank water seems to have really cleared up. Flourite is pretty good as a beginner substrate. Didn't rinse it before placing it in the tank and the water is already clear after 2 days with no filter!


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## doncityz (May 17, 2011)

Hey...... finally your journal! Congrats!
Nice shrimps especially the tiger ones... 

I see those teepees are metallic, won't they kinda poison the water?


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

doncityz said:


> Hey...... finally your journal! Congrats!
> Nice shrimps especially the tiger ones...
> 
> I see those teepees are metallic, won't they kinda poison the water?


Hey doncityz, thanks for looking and commenting! I just recently started this so it didn't take you too long to find haha. Hopefully those nice looking tigers breed for me >.>

The teepee's are made using stainless steel mesh for structure, and cloth mesh and fishing line to hold the moss in. So no worries about water poisoning. I made a bunch of moss tiles as well to block the output current from kicking up all the flourite black.


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## johnny313 (Apr 15, 2011)

i have no clue what caused them to get infected. maybe one was already infected when you introduced them into the tank? just never showed any visible signs.


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

I dunno the RCS have been in there for 2+ months already... I know why the others are getting infected though. Eating their comrades dead infected body. It's like inverse zombies or something.


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

Aww... crap. Came home to find a dead shrimp, possibly one that was infected. Seachem paraguard arrived today so I'll be putting that to use right away. However, I also ordered two mini-thermometers and one arrived broken. Darn minimal amazon.com packaging :\.


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## doncityz (May 17, 2011)

diwu13 said:


> Eating their comrades dead infected body. It's like inverse zombies or something.


They really love eating their brother's dead body... its like sushi to them.. oh wait, it is sushi. lol


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## [email protected] (Apr 27, 2011)

Love the addition of the flourite. I think it is going to help set the colors off in your tank. Those Tigers are awesome, I want some now!! I hope they breed for you, and you make some available on S-n-S. I would definitely buy some. 

I see you are also a pro moss-wall creator. I cannot get the stuff to grow for me to save my life. The tank looks good, thanks for all the updates and pics. I will definitely continue to follow how this progresses.

Sorry to hear about all the losses you have been suffering. I went through this as well, and lost 5 Sakuras and 15 Neo's. I hope everything gets better for you, just keep at it and don't give up on it. I have seen stock deaths ruin some very talented aquascapers to where they just quit all together and would hate to see that here.


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

doncityz said:


> They really love eating their brother's dead body... its like sushi to them.. oh wait, it is sushi. lol


Would make a nice zombie spoof. You get infected, die, but look super appealing and the humans eat you... get infected, repeat.



[email protected] said:


> Love the addition of the flourite. I think it is going to help set the colors off in your tank. Those Tigers are awesome, I want some now!! I hope they breed for you, and you make some available on S-n-S. I would definitely buy some.
> 
> I see you are also a pro moss-wall creator. I cannot get the stuff to grow for me to save my life. The tank looks good, thanks for all the updates and pics. I will definitely continue to follow how this progresses.
> 
> Sorry to hear about all the losses you have been suffering. I went through this as well, and lost 5 Sakuras and 15 Neo's. I hope everything gets better for you, just keep at it and don't give up on it. I have seen stock deaths ruin some very talented aquascapers to where they just quit all together and would hate to see that here.


Here's hoping to their colors deepening as well from the flourite. I see a few tigers with saddles so hopefully I have some males. Much harder to tell than the RCS.

I'd say I'm pretty good at making moss walls now haha. The key is using needle + fishing line instead of trying to poke the fishing line through the moss by hand. Sped up the production time immensely as well. The moss grew really slowly before I started to add ferts. The nitrites from the shrimp poop just weren't cutting it. Now that I add ferts the moss takes off.

Did you ever find out what caused your shrimp deaths? I doubt I would stop shrimp tanks as they take my mind off of school and work. But losing all these shrimp is making a dent on my wallet :X! And thanks for looking both of you :]!


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

Well. 12 hours after I added 3/4 strength paraguard into my tank all the shrimp seem alive and well. I notice they're swimming much more... which probably is bad. Shouldn't do a water change yet to let the paraguard do its stuff. Tonight I'll be doing a larger water change tonight and then redosing with paraguard. 

I'm using this article on how to treat shrimp with bacterial infection.

Will post some pictures later of just random things :]


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## doncityz (May 17, 2011)

I notice you are using mixed lighting (daylight and warm light), any reason for that?


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

Save some money ? Because of the whisper internal filter there's more plants on the right side of each tank anyway, so that's where I center the 6500K lighting. The moss seems to grow great with the 2300K bulb. I'm sure they will do better if I had dual 6500K bulbs. Think I should switch them out? I do have extras laying around.


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## doncityz (May 17, 2011)

What are the wattage of each of the bulbs? 

But i hear you, i have 2x 11W CFLs... that's equivalent light of my bedroom.


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

Both of the 6500K and 2300K are 13W. I believe that comes out to med-high to high light. So I only light for about 6 hours a day. Not sure if that comes out right but my plants seem to be doing fine. I'm open to any suggestions since this is all assumptions.


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

So here's my paraguard treatment so far...

Day 1: removed carbon from filter. 3mL of paraguard. no deaths
Day 2: 60% water change. 4mL of paraguard. no deaths

I'll be interested if any of the infected shrimp die by tomorrow morning. I kinda squirted a ton of paraguard right into two of the infected shrimp's face... and they didn't even move an inch. Haha. Pretty funny.


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

Just some random pictures to try and get more people looking 


One of the many moss walls I created. Moss walls are really helpful increasing the amount of surface area for biofilm to grow and makes the shrimp hang around the top of your tank more. Very useful! I have one of these for every surface besides the front of course .










My largest/oldest red cherry shrimp. I call her "big betty" haha. She's nearly 1.5 inches long!!! She's been through hell and this may be one of her last time giving birth. She's currently saddled!










Another shot of "big betty" with two smaller female RCS. The one on the bottom left is 1 inch long.










And finally, I got this great dosing kit from dmattbfan5 here. Needle is 9 inches long and with any of the syringes you get nearly 1 foot of reach into the tank without getting hands wet. And I don't need to pour anything as it comes with a 5, 10, 20, and 60mL syringes. My only fear is falling on this needle and having it go clear through my arm!


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## doncityz (May 17, 2011)

Whoa..that's a lobotomy syringe!! lol

nice shrimp.. 1.5inch that's huge man...


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

doncityz said:


> Whoa..that's a lobotomy syringe!! lol
> 
> nice shrimp.. 1.5inch that's huge man...


The syringe works really well ! Yea it's often used for spinal taps and what not haha.And the 1.5" is an oldie. It'd be equivalent to like a 80+ year old woman giving birth for the 10th time? :X

In other news. Today is day 4 of paraguard... as a recap

Day 1: removed carbon from filter. 3mL of paraguard. no deaths*
Day 2: 60% water change. 4mL of paraguard. no deaths
Day 3: 4mL of paraguard. no deaths (even though I unloaded ~1mL on top of the infected shrimps)
Day 4: 60% water change. 4mL of paraguard

*no deaths from what I can see... unless they die inside my cholla wood it might be smooth sailing from here


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## doncityz (May 17, 2011)

Good to hear your treatment goes well so far.
Why did you remove the carbon from your filter though?


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

So I wasn't sure if carbon/purigen will remove anything active in the paraguard so I did a google search. Came to this article. It's the actual seachem forum so I thought it would be pretty legit. Key things are these two...



> ParaGuard have the same 3 types of medications. There is a disinfectant, a protein active collide, and a dye. They are just in different ratios in these two products.





> Purigen and carbon will remove everything but the disinfectant. So Paraguard and StressGuard will still be effective when using carbon or Purigen. It just won't be as effective. Usually enough of the protein active collide will attach to the wounds before it is all removed. The dye fights parasites and the protein active collide acts as a liquid bandage.


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

VERY interesting. People have said some of the ingredients in seachem's paraguard is the same as seachem's excel. Even dosing only 4 days with paraguard I'm seeing tons of growth in the moss and other plants!


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## jkan0228 (Feb 6, 2011)

Did you get the plastic mesh at a craft store or something?


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

jkan0228 said:


> Did you get the plastic mesh at a craft store or something?


Thanks for looking! For the moss walls I got the mesh at the cloth department of Walmart. I got enough to pretty much cover a king sized bed for under $1. I was afraid of the color leeching into the tank and killing everything so I got the white, unbleached one. If I were to ever need to buy this stuff again I would definitely get the green mesh to blend into the moss more. It doesn't seem to leech at all!

For my moss tiles/teepee I use the same cloth mesh over stainless steel mesh.


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## doncityz (May 17, 2011)

diwu13 said:


> So I wasn't sure if carbon/purigen will remove anything active in the paraguard so I did a google search. Came to this article. It's the actual seachem forum so I thought it would be pretty legit. Key things are these two...


I see... you seem to be thorough when putting things into the tank. if I were u, i'd probably just dump the paraguard without removing anything. lol


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

I used to do things instinctively. Then it killed most of my shrimp off :X


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## doncityz (May 17, 2011)

diwu13 said:


> I used to do things instinctively. Then it killed most of my shrimp off :X


Sorry to hear about that... 

Hey i notice you have some marimo balls... i saw some at the lfs, sold at ridiculous price... like 10bucks at the size of golf ball. im wondering, does it require extra care compared to the java moss? how is the bottom side going to grow because it is always under shade.. ? or do u have to occasionally turning them over?


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

Marimo balls are actually balls of algae so you don't wanna put them in tanks with amanos (they will eat them all haha). Normal RCS won't eat them. Yea the ones at the LFS are so expensive. I bought one there... and no more. I bought all the remaining ones from gordonrichards. Great seller and he sells them at $2.50 a piece. http://www.plantedtank.net/forums/s...ls/144849-4-00-anubias-plants-ial-shrimp.html His power seller thread is there. He gave me this HUGE one, about 3.5" in diameter haha.

They seem to grow uniformly. I cut all but the giant one in half. All the ones I cut in half are slowly growing back into full circles so I think they just do that automatically. Haven't moved them at all, I just noticed them slowly becoming more circular.

They require no extra care. I just leave them where they are, dose ferts, and watch them grow. I'm sure you have to do something special to grow them huge, but all of mine are growing.


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

So day 5 of paraguard. Found the two infected males dead near the back of my tank. Most likely caused by the fact I squirted ~1mL of paraguard in their faces yesterday :X! Took out their little bodies so no passerby will eat them and possibly become infected themselves. I'll continue with paraguard until 10 days just to be safe. It doesn't seem to have any ill effect on the other shrimp, and the plants are growing like crazy :O. Will post some random pictures again tomorrow.


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## doncityz (May 17, 2011)

THanks for the info on marimo balls.. sorry to hear about your shrimp losses.


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

Quick update, this morning found another infected male dead. Seems it's definitely true about paraguard speeding up the infection process and killing some shrimp off that are probabily screwed anyway. Good news is that another male was semi-cloudy but I see it clearing up. If you're wondering how I can keep track of all my males... I only have 3 left :\. Around 20+ females but only 3 males. Those lucky fellas haha. Seems like the females have tougher immune systems.


Some pictures. Updated the setup on the first page but here it is here as well. Full setup with both tanks. Right tank is fully cycled but waiting on shrimp.










Wish I had a better setup to do large water changes but for now in the apartment I decided to go to walmart and buy some 5gallon buckets. Only costs $2.50 each, had to label the divisions though. Much easier to do large changes now !










TONS of new growth on all my plants and mosses. Haven't dosed fertilizer at all since I've been dosing paraguard. Also true about paraguard containing similar ingredients as seachem excel.










She was molting! Watched the entire process but missed the last bit where she "pops" out of her shell. Really cool and something definitely worth seeing again. You can see all the bright green areas of new growth on the moss as well!










And finally.. battling some BBA algae on the right tank. I noticed that the sun comes perfectly between my two windows so the right tank is getting direct sunlight RIGHT on the sea urchin below. BBA starting to grow on it. Ordered excel and it should arrive by Wednesday. Hope the BBA doesn't get out of control by then. Doesn't seem to be anywhere else in the tank.










Thanks for looking! Open to suggestions


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## [email protected] (Apr 27, 2011)

Looks like your tanks are coming along nicely, and your plants are looking great.


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## crazstar (Sep 29, 2011)

nice setup, love the plants!  paraguard seems to have worked with my shrimps..well, at least it stopped the spreading. I also noticed males tend to get infected easily and now I'm down to 2-3 males with 10 females =P hope everything works out for you! ^_^


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

Thanks for looking. You got some lucky males as well! Did paraguard also make your plants grow a lot? How long did you treat paraguard for?


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## crazstar (Sep 29, 2011)

Yea, my java moss grew twice as fast! It's been 13 days since I first used it and I didn't see anymore get infected after day 4. I still continue to dose small amounts just to be safe and since I'm gonna move the shrimps to a bigger tank soon, it doesn't hurt to give my moss an extra boost


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

Did you have any infected ones die off? Do you dose the full amount or just a fraction of the total strength? I'm interested in other people's experience with dosing as there doesn't seem to be that much information online :]


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## chad320 (Mar 7, 2010)

Are you sure thats BBA and not Diatoms? It looks like brown diatoms and sunlight often causes them in tanks. It looks like your tanks coming along pretty good tho


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

chad320 said:


> Are you sure thats BBA and not Diatoms? It looks like brown diatoms and sunlight often causes them in tanks. It looks like your tanks coming along pretty good tho


Hm... could very well be diatoms. Would I treat that the same way as BBA (with excel?) since it's algae as well? It's pretty interesting how the sunlight is filtering PERFECTLY to ONLY hit the sea urchin...

And pretty interesting. I tried to take the anubias out of the sea urchin to attempt to scrub the algae off. Couldn't do it. The anubias's roots grew all around the inside and attached itself to the inside of sea urchin. Pretty cool, but inseparable unless I rip the roots off ! Guess it really does like the calcium :thumbsup:


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## chad320 (Mar 7, 2010)

I have never tried to battle diatoms with Excel so I cant say for sure but Otto cats LOVE diatoms.


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## crazstar (Sep 29, 2011)

diwu13 said:


> Did you have any infected ones die off? Do you dose the full amount or just a fraction of the total strength? I'm interested in other people's experience with dosing as there doesn't seem to be that much information online :]


First, I separated the all the severely infected ones and put them in another container. I dosed the full amount along with a 50-60% water change every other day for a week on both my main tank and the container. I had 2 deaths in my main tank day 2 and 3 of dosing paraguard; I knew one of them had a white speck but not sure about the other one =/ Surprisingly, those in the container still lived but they weren't getting any better, so in the end I annihilate them >.< After that I didn't see anymore get infected, so I continued a 25-50% dose just to be safe.


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

chad320 said:


> I have never tried to battle diatoms with Excel so I cant say for sure but Otto cats LOVE diatoms.


Did a bit of research and excel will clear up diatoms. Since I taped some white paper to cover where the sunlight streams in no new diatoms should form either ! Miracle cure excel! I'd rather keep it strictly a shrimp tank. If diatoms becomes a serious problem I'd probabily add in some amano shrimp.



crazstar said:


> First, I separated the all the severely infected ones and put them in another container. I dosed the full amount along with a 50-60% water change every other day for a week on both my main tank and the container. I had 2 deaths in my main tank day 2 and 3 of dosing paraguard; I knew one of them had a white speck but not sure about the other one =/ Surprisingly, those in the container still lived but they weren't getting any better, so in the end I annihilate them >.< After that I didn't see anymore get infected, so I continued a 25-50% dose just to be safe.


Wow my infected ones died on the 3rd day as well. At least paraguard is quite consistant. I just kept squirting the paraguard onto the sick shrimp haha... they didn't even flinch. But then the next day they died :X! How large is this shrimp tank?


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## doncityz (May 17, 2011)

Sorry to hear about more shrimp losses. It is sad....

Anyway, seeing your tank is starting to fill up nicely.
These two plants are awesome btw.. 









Im not so much a fan of those meshes.. but i think it will look better once the mosses cover them up... 

Do you have planaria in your tank? i started to see some in mine.. hate those things.. here in my country i've seen dog dewormer, but none with Flubendazole. Not sure if any old dog/cat dewormer could do the job?


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

The mosses are there really for the shrimp to play/eat on. The one you see in that picture is actually the first one I made haha. The more recent moss walls are much better. Like this one!








There's no excess mesh that can be seen. I want to remake the one you posted but I'll need more moss for that, so I'm putting it off for now!

I actually had several planaria outbreaks early on. Twice from over feeding (finally learned my lesson) and the 3rd was from hitch hikers on some plants I got (the two you like actually LOL). I think any dewormer should do the trick as long as it has fenbendazole or flubendazole. Both are shrimp safe, though fenbendazole might kill snails. As long as it has either of those ingredients you're good to go!


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

doncityz said:


> Do you have planaria in your tank? i started to see some in mine.. hate those things.. here in my country i've seen dog dewormer, but none with Flubendazole. Not sure if any old dog/cat dewormer could do the job?


Oh yea. If you need any help or have questions you can ask! Had to dose all three times


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## crazstar (Sep 29, 2011)

diwu13 said:


> Wow my infected ones died on the 3rd day as well. At least paraguard is quite consistant. I just kept squirting the paraguard onto the sick shrimp haha... they didn't even flinch. But then the next day they died :X! How large is this shrimp tank?


yup same here~ my shrimps are in a 5.5 gallon but they'll be soon in a 10 gallon once that finish cycling


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

Start a journal as well :]!


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

*One of the tigers is berried * :thumbsup:  :bounce: roud:!!!! Glad there are males and females, it really is hard to tell. Lets hope she keeps those eggs and gives me some more tigers! Fingers and toes crossed!


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## jkan0228 (Feb 6, 2011)

Congrats! Hopefully I can see some berries soon too!


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## [email protected] (Apr 27, 2011)

Congrats on the berried lady Hope everything goes well for you.


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

Picture of the berried mama 12/07/2011. She's really shy so this was really hard to take. She normally hides inside the cholla wood. Caught her in the open when I woke up ! Let's hope she holds the eggs and releases shrimplets! Received the tigers pretty much full grown so this shouldn't be her first batch.










Another shot. She's retreating to her hiding place already... light was only on under a minute.











And... also when I turned the lights on I found this random cute act








Male red cherry shrimp was riding around on one of the tiger shrimps. The tiger didn't seem to mind at all haha.


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

Found a second berried tiger!!!!


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## doncityz (May 17, 2011)

Wow... 2 berried tigers... congrats! hope they'll hatch!


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

So today was my last day of paraguard treatment. Don't see any more infected shrimps, or had any shrimp die other than the already heavily infected ones. In case anyone has to treat bacterial infection in shrimps in the future I'll list what I did.

Day 1: removed carbon from filter. 3mL of paraguard. no deaths
Day 2: 60% water change. 4mL of paraguard. no deaths
Day 3: 4mL of paraguard. no deaths (even though I unloaded ~1mL on top of the infected shrimps)
Day 4: 60% water change. 4mL of paraguard
Day 5: 4mL of paraguard. two infected males found dead
Day 6: 60% water change. 4mL of paraguard. last infected male dead
Day 7: 4mL of paraguard. no deaths. (even found two berried tigers)

I'll be stopping treatment after a week. Ideally I would've liked to treat another 3 days but I should have a shrimp shipment coming in from Johnny313 and don't want those guys/gals dying from the paraguard and stress due to shipment.


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

Just a few pictures taken this morning! Berried tiger mom with Big Betty (1.5 inches!!!!) She's my favorite RCS in the tank haha. Easiest to spot too!










Paparazzi shot of my one of the berried tigers. One of them always likes to stay inside the cholla wood. This one likes to water out and about. I can tell them apart since the one that stays inside the wood all the time has darker brown eggs while this one has like yolk colored eggs !


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## johnny313 (Apr 15, 2011)

nice! very impressive!!


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

I'll be uploading pictures with your shrimps tomorrow. I believe you gave me at least 3 painted fire reds. You can even see the red legs even though they're like 1cm!!!


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

Quick picture update. Anyone know if these two plants are the same?
















They have the same leaf shape/color but the second one is like 10x more bushy than the previous. So I thought they might be different species of the same type of plant? Also, I've noticed these are "closed" everyday when I first turn on the lights. At night the leaves are widely spread apart? Is anyone familiar with this? Also, does anyone know how to propagate it? Will it grow offshoots or something?


Also, yesterday I received tons of TFR/PFR from Johnny313! Thanks a lot! The largest specimen is definitely a painted fire red, looks like a mini lobster!










And a slightly smaller one. Also a PFR! ! :bounce:


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## [email protected] (Apr 27, 2011)

VERY nice PFR's, and good job on all the future baby shrimps.


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## dragonsong93 (Nov 25, 2011)

Nice PFR's!! I think I have the same plant as you (1st one)...been trying to ID it as it came in with the shrimp, it's just floating on the surface right now.


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

dragonsong93 said:


> Nice PFR's!! I think I have the same plant as you (1st one)...been trying to ID it as it came in with the shrimp, it's just floating on the surface right now.


Thanks for the compliments, though Johnny313 deserves all the praise! 

I found out what both those plants are. Turns out they aren't the same plant either. Interesting stuff. The first plant is Pogostemon stellatus 'Broad Leaf'. The second is Limnophila aromatica. I asked what they were here: http://www.plantedtank.net/forums/plants/157471-plant-questions-id.html Hope this helps you with your plant ID as well.


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

So crap, some bad/good news. Got some anacharius and ludwigia from someone here. Plants look SUPER healthy. But there's tons of snail eggs. Couldn't see them while I was letting them float in a empty container, only after I put them in my tanks with the lighst on. I sucked out as many as I could with a turkey baster but there seems to be two types of snail eggs there? One's like really loose and easy to suck up. The other is attached REALLY well onto the leaves and I can't get those off unless I rip the entire leaf off :[. Any thoughts? I'd rather not want to rip tons of leaves off since I just planted them.

Good news is that I added new plants haha. Always wanted to try anacharius again after my initial attempt when them when I first got into this hobby. Sadly those all died... but this time it'll be different! I hope! And more good news, I met someone who lives like 10mins away from me that sells bulk assassin snails. I'll probably hire two assassins of the same sex for the tank and let them clean out the pest snails. Then I'll probably return them to him . LOL.

Updated FTS of left tank with the really long anacharius planted. Shrimps love it!










Updated FTW of right tank. John says the yellows will be ready soon !










Shot of both tanks next to my desk :]










And... my mini lobster!


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## freph (Apr 4, 2011)

Loving the shrimp paradise you have going on here. Hopefully both you and I can avoid any more shrimp casualties at least before the new year...mine haven't even started breeding yet. Great tank. :thumbsup:


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

Thanks for looking :]! Any updates on your tank? I notice you have fish with your shrimp. Could they be stressing out the shrimp enough that they aren't breeding?


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

Quick picture update. Finally cleaned out my pantyhose + sponge over the intake. Almost fully clogged haha. Didn't want to clean it out at all during my paraguard treatment. Guess I should've cleaned it after I finished treating. But right after I cleaned it the shrimp SWARMED it! And if you look closely, that tiger shrimp is also a female ! Saddled!










Another shot of the berried tiger, this time on the feeding ring :]! Should be having babies within 2 weeks.


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## cableguy69846 (Dec 13, 2010)

OK. I am not sure how I missed this. But nice tanks and shrimp.:icon_smil


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

Hm... anyone else have a way to keep TDS low without using RO water? I've been doing 20% WC's every other day to keep my TDS low. I make sure to vacuum in the moss to suck up their poop. Here are some numbers...

- Before WC: ~257TDS
- After WC: ~210TDS (~99GH and ~87KH in ppm, so it's mostly good stuff)
- My tap: ~150TDS

Anyone have easy experience keeping TDS low? I will get a RO unit in the future, but for now my shrimp are pretty resilient so I don't need it as of yet. And doing so many WC's isn't a real problem as I don't pay for water in my apartment !


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## 150EH (Dec 6, 2004)

I was courious what this blue thing is and what are they eating, my guess says it looks like spinach.


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## 150EH (Dec 6, 2004)

I think most people will tell you those are pretty low numbers for TDS. Straight RO with a little bit of minerals to help plants and animals would quickly get you to that number.


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

150EH said:


> I was courious what this blue thing is and what are they eating, my guess says it looks like spinach.


That blue thing is a feeder ring. I read about it here: http://freshaquarium.about.com/od/feedingfis1/a/feedingrings.htm Not extremely useful for shrimp, but I leave the spinach there and wait until they swarm it. I also put my flake food there and sink it before it all floats away. They are eating blanched spinach in that picture there 



150EH said:


> I think most people will tell you those are pretty low numbers for TDS. Straight RO with a little bit of minerals to help plants and animals would quickly get you to that number.


I was just wondering if there was an easier way to keep those numbers low. I do my best to not vac up some baby shrimps but it adds like 30 or so minutes to the entire process. Thanks for looking !


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

Hm... my TDS is creeping ever higher haha. It's 259 now after a 2gallon water change!


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## freph (Apr 4, 2011)

diwu13 said:


> Thanks for looking :]! Any updates on your tank? I notice you have fish with your shrimp. Could they be stressing out the shrimp enough that they aren't breeding?


Who knows. I'm mainly focusing on growing out the HC right now, though. I set up a 10g Walstad today and I'll continually replant stems of L. repens, R. indica and Bacopa from both my 20g tall and the 10g itself to fill in the fast growing stems....the crypts will do fine on their own imo.

On topic, grats on the saddles! Those are some sexy tigers.


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

freph said:


> Who knows. I'm mainly focusing on growing out the HC right now, though. I set up a 10g Walstad today and I'll continually replant stems of L. repens, R. indica and Bacopa from both my 20g tall and the 10g itself to fill in the fast growing stems....the crypts will do fine on their own imo.
> 
> On topic, grats on the saddles! Those are some sexy tigers.


Hope your FRS don't all die out :[! Yo should start a new journal for that 10g Walstad ! Tigers should be releasing shrimplets in about one to two weeks! :bounce::bounce: And thanks for looking!


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

Hm... there really seems to be an issue with delivery dates around Christmas. Excepting some moss to start some moss grow out jars :]! Better come today!


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## Moe (Jan 22, 2004)

My first guess on your tds creeping up would be the sea urchins.


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

Hm.. really? I soaked those pretty well after boiling them. I figure it just provides a good source of calcium.


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## doncityz (May 17, 2011)

Any shrimplets yet? hehe


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

No... the tiger might release shrimplets when I go home for Christmas. Kinda wanted to see it but the 23rd will be exactly 1month since she's been berried.

I found a batch of RCS eggs that got dropped. Always breaks my heart seeing this.


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## doncityz (May 17, 2011)

Aw.. that's too bad. But at least you know she'll get berried again, and again, and again. hehe.

Hopefully the tiger keeps her eggs till shrimplets comes out! I love the little fellas.


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

It's funny. The berried tiger is easily one of the largest shrimps in my tank (save two 1.5" RCS) but she will literally CHARGE at other shrimps and scare them away when I feed them. I used to push food around right in front of her to make sure she got some to eat.. but now I just watch her push everything else out of the way for food haha


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## jkan0228 (Feb 6, 2011)

Sorry about the RCS Eggs. You could've hatched them artificially. But that's if you thought they were worth the time. Don't worry. In no time you'll have plenty of babies!


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

Well. Decided to do a major trim of the moss in my tanks today. Didn't know I'd end up with so much. Took a page out of this person's book http://www.plantedtank.net/forums/tank-journals-photo-album/156844-moss-jar-diaries.html and started a moss jar! This jar will be getting indirect sunlight, as well as ambient light from my tanks. I'll also be adding in some micro/macro nutrients probably once a week and see if it helps. So far that'll be API's Leaf Zone at 0.5mL strength.

For a size reference, this glass jar is 6 inches in diameter!


















If this goes well I'll have some up for sale at the SnS. Best part is this will be algae (hopefully) and hitchhiker (definitely) free!


And secondly... can anyone give me an ID on this plant? It's the one in the foreground next to the very sexy PFR !


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

AH. HAHAHA!?!?! I just saw two of my tiger shrimp breed. I was taking a picture of the fresh molt of the female when a male grabbed her, and starting vibrating haha. Entire mating must've lasted only 10 seconds before they broke apart.


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## mjbn (Dec 14, 2011)

I might just steal that jar idea when i get my mosses in Haha I like the tanks though!


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

You can copy the idea I copied from someone who copied from someone else ! Thanks for looking!


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## cableguy69846 (Dec 13, 2010)

Let me know how the Leaf Zone does in that jar. I was going to try some ferts, but for micros, I use Nutrafin PlantGro. So I am curious to see what happens. How long will it be getting light for? And the plant looks like hornwort or cabomba to me.:icon_smil


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

I believe the jar gets like ~8-10 hours of light. I'm sticking it in direct sunlight for now (predicting green water haha) and then it gets ambient light from my tanks. There's also a male RCS in the jar right now that has a bacteria infection. So the jar is getting paraguard AND Leaf zone lol... that'll really speed the moss up


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## cableguy69846 (Dec 13, 2010)

diwu13 said:


> I believe the jar gets like ~8-10 hours of light. I'm sticking it in direct sunlight for now (predicting green water haha) and then it gets ambient light from my tanks. There's also a male RCS in the jar right now that has a bacteria infection. So the jar is getting paraguard AND Leaf zone lol... that'll really speed the moss up


I think you are going to be right on the green water. But that is not bad. Better than BBA or something.:hihi: I hope he kicks the infection soon. That sucks.


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

diwu13 said:


> AH. HAHAHA!?!?! I just saw two of my tiger shrimp breed. I was taking a picture of the fresh molt of the female when a male grabbed her, and starting vibrating haha. Entire mating must've lasted only 10 seconds before they broke apart.


Posting a few pictures up from last night when I saw the two tigers mating :tongue: Last night I was watching a tiger bend up into a little ball, and a second later I saw her pop out of her skin.















You can see her freshly molted skin a few leaves under her. Moments later, at male grabbed her and mated haha. So it is definitely true the males will mate with females directly after molt.


Some bad news... found one of my tiger males with a bacterial infection. I don't know how this happens :[. Took him out and moved him into my empty 10 gallon tank and started treatment with paraguard. I hope it cures him or I just lost 1/3 of the male population.


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## mjbn (Dec 14, 2011)

So if they turn "whiteish" they have a bacterial infection? I needa know this stuff before i start my tank! haha I hope he gets better though!


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

Yes the insides will be turn white if there are a bacterial infection :[. I still have no idea why this comes up. :\

You'll need paraguard to treat this.


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

Wow the RCS are coloring up pretty nicely. John has great shrimp :]! Shot of feeding time. You can see "Big Betty" in the fray.










Different shot of feeding time. You can see the berried tiger on the way left. So many saddles on my RCS too :]










Top view of the front of my tank with the frogbit added. A bunch was damaged from the cold and being stuck in transit for 5 days so I hope at least some grow so I can propagate it into my second tank as well. There's really not that much left intact, only 4-5 plants that actually have stems. Hope the leaves can grow new stems or something. At least the shrimp have taken a liking to them right away.










Finally, the two shrimp I threw into my moss jar seems to be doing fine. It could just be me... but the tiger male looks like the cloudiness is clearing up.


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## FreedPenguin (Aug 2, 2011)

roud:
Very nice tanks!
Really liking what you did with the ss with the moss!


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

FreedPenguin said:


> roud:
> Very nice tanks!
> Really liking what you did with the ss with the moss!


! Thanks for looking!


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

*THREE* berried tigers now ! Will post pictures of all three tomorrow. Really easy to tell them apart actually.

And somewhat bad news. I just saw a ~1in tubiflex slither back into the substrate. Shocked me so much watching a blood red worm slowly crawl in that I didn't grab my turkey baster and suck that little **** up. I really should act faster if I ever see one again. Who knows how many are in there. Oh well, they're going to get starved. Going home Friday morning and won't feed the tank for 4 days. Shrimp should be fine. Hope the tigers don't drop their eggs though :[


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## [email protected] (Apr 27, 2011)

Congrats on the eggs. Hopefully they net you TONS of little shrimps:hihi: The tank and plants are looking nice and green, as always, and good find on the moss jars. Not sure how I missed that from Cable, we keep each others threads bumped up and i did miss it somehow. I used to keep my moss in jars, but never had any luck with it. Cables moss looks like it's growing though, and I hope yours does too.


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

Time for pictures of the berried tigers. There's three of them. Very easy to tell apart.


First berried tiger, should be due in around a week ! Notice the full carriage and brown colored eggs. This is such a great picture ! Gonna make it my profile.










Picture (sorry for bad quality, iPhone couldn't focus for some reason) of first and second berried tiger. First one is on the left, still on shell. You can see the second one on the anubias on the right.










Picture of the second berried tiger. Notice the full carriage and pink-ish eggs. Very easy to tell apart from the brown eggs of the first tiger.










Finally... the third berried tiger. I call this one *underachiever*... can anyone guess why?


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## cableguy69846 (Dec 13, 2010)

diwu13 said:


> *THREE* berried tigers now ! Will post pictures of all three tomorrow. Really easy to tell them apart actually.
> 
> And somewhat bad news. I just saw a ~1in tubiflex slither back into the substrate. Shocked me so much watching a blood red worm slowly crawl in that I didn't grab my turkey baster and suck that little **** up. I really should act faster if I ever see one again. Who knows how many are in there. Oh well, they're going to get starved. Going home Friday morning and won't feed the tank for 4 days. Shrimp should be fine. Hope the tigers don't drop their eggs though :[


I don't think the worms will bother them. I have a ton of them in my shrimp tank, and they really help clean up in there.



[email protected] said:


> Congrats on the eggs. Hopefully they net you TONS of little shrimps:hihi: The tank and plants are looking nice and green, as always, and good find on the moss jars. Not sure how I missed that from Cable, we keep each others threads bumped up and i did miss it somehow. I used to keep my moss in jars, but never had any luck with it. Cables moss looks like it's growing though, and I hope yours does too.


:biggrin:


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## cableguy69846 (Dec 13, 2010)

Haha, you ninjad me with the pics. Those shrimp look great. Hope they all do well for you.roud:


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

cableguy69846 said:


> I don't think the worms will bother them. I have a ton of them in my shrimp tank, and they really help clean up in there.


Honestly, I was freaked out when I saw it. Why was that thing like swimming around.. then it randomly went back into the substrate ! Stared at my tank for 1hr afterwards for the sucker to come back up. I even injected excel (lol) where he burrowed in hopes of flushing him out



cableguy69846 said:


> Haha, you ninjad me with the pics. Those shrimp look great. Hope they all do well for you.roud:


! They need a ninja emoticon haha. They have that random alien one. I hope the moms don't drop their eggs when I leave for Christmas :[


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## cableguy69846 (Dec 13, 2010)

diwu13 said:


> Honestly, I was freaked out when I saw it. Why was that thing like swimming around.. then it randomly went back into the substrate ! Stared at my tank for 1hr afterwards for the sucker to come back up. I even injected excel (lol) where he burrowed in hopes of flushing him out
> 
> 
> 
> ! They need a ninja emoticon haha. They have that random alien one. I hope the moms don't drop their eggs when I leave for Christmas :[


I don't think it is much to worry about. They are kind of cool to watch swimming around. They do that from time to time.

I hope they don't drop then either, but if they do, they should be ok.

Lol. Ninja emoticon. That would be sweet.


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

I'm particularly worried about the first berried tiger as she is due next week, could be when I'm gone. My TDS will also go up pretty high without the WC either :[


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## cableguy69846 (Dec 13, 2010)

diwu13 said:


> I'm particularly worried about the first berried tiger as she is due next week, could be when I'm gone. My TDS will also go up pretty high without the WC either :[


You could do a couple of water changes before you go, that would help out a lot.


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

cableguy69846 said:


> You could do a couple of water changes before you go, that would help out a lot.


Did one this morning. So far the tank TDS is 223. I'll be doing another one tonight. I plan on heading home at 3am haha. Avoid all traffic whatsoever!


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## cableguy69846 (Dec 13, 2010)

diwu13 said:


> Did one this morning. So far the tank TDS is 223. I'll be doing another one tonight. I plan on heading home at 3am haha. Avoid all traffic whatsoever!


That should help. If it comes down to it, you can probably get away with 2 more. One in a little bit, and one right before you walk out the door.


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## JessDay06 (Nov 6, 2011)

I may need some of those tigers too for my 10g ;-)


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

Then let's hope they all hold their eggs when I get back :[! So anxious. Probably gonna need to do a WC as soon as I get back.


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

Made something up fast haha! Have a Happy Holidays everyone!


CRS Santa asks: "Have you been good this year?"


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## cableguy69846 (Dec 13, 2010)

diwu13 said:


> Made something up fast haha! Have a Happy Holidays everyone!
> 
> 
> CRS Santa asks: "Have you been good this year?"


That santa shrimp is pretty cool. Merry Christmas.roud:


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

Thanks! Just got home, the two main berried tigers are still holding! "Underachiever" dropped her eggs lol.


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## cableguy69846 (Dec 13, 2010)

diwu13 said:


> Thanks! Just got home, the two main berried tigers are still holding! "Underachiever" dropped her eggs lol.


How long was she holding them for?


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

First one, 1 month exactly on Wednesday. Guess what... *I SEE EYES!!!* So those babies should be coming soon. Doubt my iPhone can capture the shrimplets, but we'll see ! The other one was only berried for like 4 days.


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## cableguy69846 (Dec 13, 2010)

diwu13 said:


> First one, 1 month exactly on Wednesday. Guess what... *I SEE EYES!!!* So those babies should be coming soon. Doubt my iPhone can capture the shrimplets, but we'll see ! The other one was only berried for like 4 days.


Hopefully the ones make it. And I am sure the other will be berried again soon.


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

Hopefully she'll carry more than 7 eggs next time around


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## jkan0228 (Feb 6, 2011)

I'm sure she will. Females at most of the times drop some if not all on their first time.  Just wait till her hormones kick in again and she'll have another batch.


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

Well. Both extremely pregnant tigers still holding eggs. When is that first one going to release @[email protected] I can feel my eyes getting more near sighted looking at the tank 2+ hours a day.

Added a flexible bubble curtain to each tank instead of the rigid one I had originally along the back. I noticed there was a dead spot at the front right of the tank. So, I bent the wand so it covered the right side of each tank. Now the filter outputs on the left and the entire back and right side has the bubble curtain. Watching the dust particles, I notice now there is definitely no dead spots! ! I took a picture... but there's really no noticeable difference lol. Also, the lone tubiflex wiggled out today. Caught it, killed it, problem solved (hopefully). Thing was nearly 1" long when stretched, gross. I'll take some new shots when I set up the 10g moss tank and when I trim the RCS/Tiger tank this weekend!

Anyone else notice that moss grows tons faster when there's shrimp picking at it? I guess the picking promotes growth much like trimming does.


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## outcast (Jul 4, 2007)

i cant wait to see your mosses grow out of the mesh, and i love the idea of the mesh tent.


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

Thanks for looking! Don't know if the moss will ever fully grow out of the mesh due to the fact I only had java on me when I made the moss walls. Fissidens, ricca, flame moss, or weeping moss do a much better job "covering" up the mesh . I can always trim and hope though!


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## DesmondTheMoonBear (Dec 19, 2011)

More pics!


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

Thanks for looking! Nothing really new... unless you count another tiger dying >:

I'll be doing some stuff this weekend so I'll upload more pictures then.


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

Happy New Years everyone


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

Ugh.. bad way to start off the new years. I saw one of my pregnant Tiger shrimps crawling around in a weird fashion. So I looked more carefully and see this white worm thing sticking out of what would be between its eyes. The worm thing is waving back and forth, clearly not due to the water movement. I then poked the shrimp with a chopstick and it didn't even budge. Poked it again, barely any movement. Finally I scooped the shrimp out and move it to an empty container. It didn't even "jump" once when it was exposed to air, just laid in the net. Finally, when I dumped it into the container it just sank to the bottom without even swimming. It did right itself when it was down there but something is definitely wrong with it. Well the tiger died soon after I dosed a tiny bit of fenbendazole into the gallon holding jar. The worm thing immediately stopped moving. Sadly so did the tiger shrimp. Soon after, the part of the worm that was sticking out broke off. Managed to remove the eggs and will try my hand at artificial hatching. R.I.P. berried tiger 










Random picture of feeding RCS. Their colors are all pretty much fully expressed. Mixed grades obviously...










Made a 10g moss tank. I figure the mosses will grow better with some water circulation as moss is generally found growing in streams and whatnot with good water movement.










Became:























Running a 10g air pump on a 48inch flexible bubble wand. It creates this circular motion and I can clearly see the dust particles moving in and out of the jars. I also confirmed by adding some blue food coloring into one of the jars and watched it slowly dissipate outwards. Lets hope the moss grows out well in there.


Ugh, still quite pissed about losing that tiger :\. Dosed my shrimp tank with fenbendazole in case there's more infected ones in there :\


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## xxbenjamminxx (Aug 8, 2011)

Sorry to hear about the Tiger passing but who knows might have been a freak thing? Have you seen any other worms like that at all? 

BTW ver nice looking tanks and shrimp! Will be following as well to see how the moss jars turn out. I tried it just in a jar in the window and it just turned to much as after a cpl months. Plus the jar water would get quite warm if the sun it hit. I think you have the right idea with it in the tank like that. 

Happy New Year!


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

Thanks for looking! And Happy New Year as well!

I don't see any other worms but I have no why the initial worm showed up anyway.

And thanks for the comments. I found the moss grew really well in the shrimp tanks as well, compared to my jars. So I figure the water circulation was key. Hopefully it works out ! Need more glass jars though :0


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## cableguy69846 (Dec 13, 2010)

That moss tank looks good. Maybe the water movement is the key. Now I need to play around a bit and see what I can come up with. Sorry to hear about the Tiger. Hopefully there are no more deaths for you.


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## cableguy69846 (Dec 13, 2010)

After reading your other post about the worm, I am wondering if you have something else in your tank. Hard to tell though.


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## jkan0228 (Feb 6, 2011)

Sorry to hear about your berried mama!  Rest assured, there will be plenty more in the future!


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

Can't be too sure about that. Somehow my tiger population is now reduced to 3 tigers. I hope this artificial hatching works or I'll need to restock.


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## tharsis (Oct 9, 2009)

just checked your tanks, they look really awesome! I am sorry to hear about the lost tiger, that is a real bummer. But your tanks look great, they are like a shrimp disneyland with all the fun things for them to climb over and under. I may try a moss carpet using the mesh, you seem to have it down to a science. 

Good idea on the moss growout tank as well. 

And good luck with hatching the eggs. You just gotta think like a tiger momma.


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

Thanks for looking! I still like your DW much better than mine. I just tried to make sure I utilize the height of the tank well so the shrimp would be more inclined to hang around the top of the tank as well.

But yea, I made so many moss tiles/walls I think I got the process down really well ! If you ever need help with anything like that let me know!

Honestly, I've been spraying water on the eggs every 15-20mins to make sure bacteria doesn't grow haha. I see some of the partially developed shrimp already, I hope they start moving around tomorrow or something!


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## tharsis (Oct 9, 2009)

that is really cool, try to get some pics of the wrigglers if you can. 

I am thinking I will definitely go with a moss carpet in my tank...what did you use for your mesh?


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

I doubt the iPhone can focus on something that small haha .

Sounds good on the moss carpet! I used stainless steel mesh on the bottom and cloth mesh on the top. The SS mesh is a must as the weight is really great to keep the moss down. The cloth mesh can be skipped and you can just use string, or the bath wash sponges to hold the moss down. The best moss to use is something like flame/weeping where there's bushy fronds. Sadly I used java/taiwan so those don't look that good.


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## tharsis (Oct 9, 2009)

Where can I get SS mesh? 

I was thinking of doing fissidens...not sure how that will grow out of the mesh. I have a ton of java as well in 75 gallon.


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

Let you know about the SS mesh !

Fissidens would grow out really well and cover the entire mesh. But java doesn't cover it that well unless you trim it constantly. Like my java moss wall is growing out really well but I had to trim it around 4-5 times to make the growth more consistent. I think fissidens, ficca, flame/weeping moss are your best bets!


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## h4n (Jan 4, 2006)

Nice Di,

What watt bulb is over the moss tank?


Btw- I always got SS mesh for sale!!'


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

15W 6500K CFL bulb haha. I don't get why the 10W bulbs cost more than 15W? Go figure.


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## h4n (Jan 4, 2006)

Why did you choice 15 watts?


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

No choice really . Walmart either sold 10W, 15W, 25W. :O 

Which would you have bought for a 10gallon haha?


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## h4n (Jan 4, 2006)

25watts,

Haha I put min. 26watt over everything lol!


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

Hm... If the moss doesn't grow well I'll switch to a higher W bulb, but from what I see it should be medium to medium-high light, which is more than enough for moss!


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## madness (Jul 31, 2011)

With java moss I seem to have much better growth if it is in the outflow of the HoB filter. Not sure how much of this is due to flow and how much might be due to waste coming out of the filter.

Every other moss that I have doesn't really grow so I don't have any advice to offer on other types. I don't really kill it but it just doesn't grow noticeably.


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## outcast (Jul 4, 2007)

java moss thrives practically everywhere, other mosses i've personally kept just didn't look nearly as good as they did with a carbon source, whether it was metricide or co2.


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

madness said:


> With java moss I seem to have much better growth if it is in the outflow of the HoB filter. Not sure how much of this is due to flow and how much might be due to waste coming out of the filter.
> 
> Every other moss that I have doesn't really grow so I don't have any advice to offer on other types. I don't really kill it but it just doesn't grow noticeably.





outcast said:


> java moss thrives practically everywhere, other mosses i've personally kept just didn't look nearly as good as they did with a carbon source, whether it was metricide or co2.


I had this issue earlier in my shrimp only tanks. Before dosing ferts the moss barely grew for two months. It didn't turn brown or anything, just didn't grow! Then when I finally started to dose Flourish I can definitely see tons of growth. I also notice moss in shrimp tanks seem to grow better. Whether that's due to the shrimp waste or the shrimp picking at the moss stimulating growth I can't be sure of.

For the moss tank I'm using 50% waste water from the shrimp tanks and 50% tap. Hopefully that'll provide enough nitrates and minerals respectively to promote good growth. Either way I have all bases covered then. Flow, nutrients, lighting.


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## cableguy69846 (Dec 13, 2010)

diwu13 said:


> I had this issue earlier in my shrimp only tanks. Before dosing ferts the moss barely grew for two months. It didn't turn brown or anything, just didn't grow! Then when I finally started to dose Flourish I can definitely see tons of growth. I also notice moss in shrimp tanks seem to grow better. Whether that's due to the shrimp waste or the shrimp picking at the moss stimulating growth I can't be sure of.
> 
> For the moss tank I'm using 50% waste water from the shrimp tanks and 50% tap. Hopefully that'll provide enough nitrates and minerals respectively to promote good growth. Either way I have all bases covered then. Flow, nutrients, lighting.


Any noticeable growth on the moss yet?


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

Lotta green everywhere. But very small buds. I still think the moss in my shrimp tanks are growing faster >.>


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## cableguy69846 (Dec 13, 2010)

diwu13 said:


> Lotta green everywhere. But very small buds. I still think the moss in my shrimp tanks are growing faster >.>


Hmmmm. Maybe playing with ferts would be in order now?


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

Hm... Kinda dosing the whole tank lol. I'm making dividers using plastic mesh as soon as the suction cups I order come. It was supposed to be here today but I don't know if the ebay person shipped it


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## cableguy69846 (Dec 13, 2010)

diwu13 said:


> Hm... Kinda dosing the whole tank lol. I'm making dividers using plastic mesh as soon as the suction cups I order come. It was supposed to be here today but I don't know if the ebay person shipped it


Are you going to divide it so you don't have to use the jars?


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

Yea I'm going to set up like 4-5 screens spanning the width of the tank! It should look pretty cool, if only the suction cups would come 

But then it makes playing with ferts impossible haha.


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## cableguy69846 (Dec 13, 2010)

diwu13 said:


> Yea I'm going to set up like 4-5 screens spanning the width of the tank! It should look pretty cool, if only the suction cups would come
> 
> But then it makes playing with ferts impossible haha.


Never thought of that. I am looking forward to how it works out. Might be easier than tons of jars. And you can play with the whole tank. The ideal setup would be 2 setups exactly the same so you can dose one and not the other to see what works. That is what I want to try with the jars at some point.


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

I think it'll be pretty hard to set up correctly because I have to complete two screens for one separation as I don't want to risk having flame moss mix with java moss and so on. So two screens as separation will be much better and safer. Argh, I might have to report that seller on ebay though because they still haven't confirmed shipment on the suction cups yet. :\

If I had anything less than 10g I would definitely try that to see the effect of ferts. Some people say dosing CO2 doesn't really speed up mosses either!


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## cableguy69846 (Dec 13, 2010)

diwu13 said:


> I think it'll be pretty hard to set up correctly because I have to complete two screens for one separation as I don't want to risk having flame moss mix with java moss and so on. So two screens as separation will be much better and safer. Argh, I might have to report that seller on ebay though because they still haven't confirmed shipment on the suction cups yet. :\
> 
> If I had anything less than 10g I would definitely try that to see the effect of ferts. Some people say dosing CO2 doesn't really speed up mosses either!


I know ferts do. I would imagine that CO2 would as well, but that would be a good test if you had two or more tanks to mess with.


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

*cough cough* like you?


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## cableguy69846 (Dec 13, 2010)

diwu13 said:


> *cough cough* like you?


Lol. My MTS is getting bad. Did I mention that I got a 20 long for Christmas from the fiancee and I plan on buying another really soon?:biggrin::hihi:


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

You mentioned the 20L but not ANOTHER tank after that haha.


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## cableguy69846 (Dec 13, 2010)

diwu13 said:


> You mentioned the 20L but not ANOTHER tank after that haha.


I am planning a reef tank in the near future, and I want to upgrade the shrimp tank. I am thinking a 20 long for that, but then again I may use the 55 for that once it is up and running in the basement. I do want to do a 20 long though as a show tank. I have wanted to for a while now. I may have to wait until the next PetCo dollar a gallon sale though.


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

Isn't the $1/gallon sale still going on now? Or you just don't wanna buy another tank until later on in the future?


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## cableguy69846 (Dec 13, 2010)

diwu13 said:


> Isn't the $1/gallon sale still going on now? Or you just don't wanna buy another tank until later on in the future?


It is going on until the 21st, but I don't get paid again until the 22nd. Can't afford it right now, and I need to start getting this 20 long up and running. Just way too much going on right now to worry about where to put another tank at the moment. But the minute the next one starts, I am going to be all over it.roud:


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## DesmondTheMoonBear (Dec 19, 2011)

The sale is still going on?! Darn it, I just spent the last of my money on an Eheim, lol. 

As far as the tanks go, it'd be cool to see a recent FTS or two, diwu.


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

You have until the end of January for the sale I believe! Enough time for another paycheck haha

I changed quite a bit in the 2nd tank, full rescape. But I'm waiting on plants from a plant trade with a good friend before updating ! Plants should be here Wednesday, so keep your eye out :0! Thanks for looking!


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## doncityz (May 17, 2011)

Sorry to hear about the loss of eggs...
so no shrimplets anytime soon??


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

One tiger is still carrying. My last tiger actually. Something is wrong that's killing the tigers off but not touching the RCS at all. There are always RCS shrimplets but my iPhone can't focus on them .

The last tiger should release young soon, but no promises. If she dies I'm not gonna keep anything besides neo's until I get my RO/DI unit.


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## h4n (Jan 4, 2006)

did you ever get your plants in Di?


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## cableguy69846 (Dec 13, 2010)

diwu13 said:


> One tiger is still carrying. My last tiger actually. Something is wrong that's killing the tigers off but not touching the RCS at all. There are always RCS shrimplets but my iPhone can't focus on them .
> 
> The last tiger should release young soon, but no promises. If she dies I'm not gonna keep anything besides neo's until I get my RO/DI unit.


I think when it comes to tigers, RO/DI is the way to go.roud:


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## HolyAngel (Oct 18, 2010)

GH/KH bro? what are they? 
That sucks you've lost most of the tigers


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

h4n said:


> did you ever get your plants in Di?


Yup! The post office screwed up or something and they came in 2 days late. Luckily, thanks to Jess's superb packing only the ricca died. Not a big loss haha. I'll post pictures soon.



cableguy69846 said:


> I think when it comes to tigers, RO/DI is the way to go.roud:


Yea... I could've sworn tigers did fine in tap though. At least my tap isn't THAT hard. Comes out at 150TDS.

I will be getting an RO/DI unit very very soon. If I ace the first test of the semester, it's getting bought lol.


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

HolyAngel said:


> GH/KH bro? what are they?
> That sucks you've lost most of the tigers


Damn, can't multiquote things on different pages . GH and KH are both ~4-5. and my total TDS is only low 200's. Which is pretty darn good for tap.

Yea.. sucks I did. Unless my last berried mom carries out. Then they'll be a inbreeding fest haha. If not... no more tigers


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

*Left tank update*

Well... long past due for an update. Got yellow shrimps from johnny313 (great shrimp seller!!) and some great plants from a trade with JessDay06 ! She included some great surprises with the trade (thanks a lot!)... so here we go..


First off... left tank with RCS and single Tiger shrimp . Past FTS...








and present...








Got rid of all the moss that wasn't tied down and made some moss tiles to make it much easier to view the shrimp. Added the ricca rock and moss rock from Jess as well! Can you spot them?


And a sequence of pictures during feeding time haha. Can you spot the berried tiger in there?


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

*Right tank update*

Now the right tank with the newly introduced yellow shrimp. This tank has undergone some huge changes. I'll show you a past picture:








and now present:








I made a ton of space by standing up the DW on the right side of the tank. This made a moss mountain that the shrimp love to play on. This allows me to see almost the entire bottom of the tank to view the shrimp. I also trimmed down the amazon sword so it's less... huge. Got rid of the moss not tied down to anything and made little tiles out of it. Also included the great moss tree Jess sent me , along with more stem plants and frogbit.


And, sequence of feeding time, this time with yellow shrimp.









































What can I say... John has great shrimp. Jess has great plants. I have great friends


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

*Moss tank update*

Also changed my moss tank to increase water circulation, which promotes moss growth (hopefully).

Old FTS.









And now...

















Made dividers using nylon mesh (found at the cloth department at Walmart) stretched between 3 suction cups per side. Each different compartment will contain different mosses. So far, I have...
- java/mixed moss on the way right
- ricca next to it (sad amount haha)
- peacock moss in the middle

Each of the dividers is made with 2 sheets of nylon mesh, to hopefully stop the moss from growing into each other. Obviously I'll have to make sure myself, by prying off moss that starts to grow onto the mesh.

I measured the length too perfectly (9.5 inches) and forgot to include extra as the suction cups take away from the total length due to the space needed to attach them. So the nylon mesh is SUPER SUPER stretched. I won't be surprised to find all the suction cups loose overnight. If that's the case I'll have to remake ALL the dividers. That'll teach me to not test one first before mass producing all of them


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## HolyAngel (Oct 18, 2010)

I'm not an expert at all on tiger shrimp as Ive never kept them, but since they are a caridina species, I would suspect the kh.. Pm GeToChKn and ask his params on his tigers..


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## h4n (Jan 4, 2006)

Nice update.
I like the new change in the 2nd tank!
Is it me or does te yellow look orange in the pictures?
How many did you get? They look good either way!


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

HolyAngel said:


> I'm not an expert at all on tiger shrimp as Ive never kept them, but since they are a caridina species, I would suspect the kh.. Pm GeToChKn and ask his params on his tigers..


Sites all have mixed info. According to this: http://www.shrimpkeeping.com/ the only issue is my TDS. But as always shrimp can survive and breed in higher TDS, at any rate they shouldn't all be dying . Getochkn has RO/DI water haha. Guess I'll need to switch.

What really puzzles me is that the tigers are holding eggs. Had three pregnant ones. One would think with crappy parameters they would've dropped their eggs right out. And the one remaining tiger is due any day now.



h4n said:


> Nice update.
> I like the new change in the 2nd tank!
> Is it me or does te yellow look orange in the pictures?
> How many did you get? They look good either way!


Thanks Han ! John sent me yellow/orange hybrids. Apparently those won't interbreed and turn brown like a yellow cross red. Yellow cross orange = yellow/orange !!! He sent me like 30! One painted fire yellow died, but it was really old/huge.

Like the moss tanks Han?


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## cableguy69846 (Dec 13, 2010)

Tanks look great.roud: Love the mass of red and yellow in the tanks. great lookin shrimp.

Are you planning on dosing the moss tank at all? Maybe a small amount of Nutrafin PlantGro would help. I used that stuff before with good results. I am thinking it would help the moss a bit, but wait on it to see what happens with growth over the next few weeks. What are your plans for water changes and all that over the next few weeks? And if you want more moss, let me know. I may need to trim some here pretty soon. If not, get a hold of Chad320 and get one of his moss packs. Sent me a good bit of like 6 or 7 mosses for 25 bucks. Including the shipping. Might be the way to go to get some more green in that tank.roud:


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## green_valley (Sep 14, 2011)

WOWWWWWW.........Those are nice and VERY RED shrimps.


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## knuggs (Mar 5, 2007)

Tanks and shrimp are looking good Diwu! Im interested to see how these dividers turn out


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## DesmondTheMoonBear (Dec 19, 2011)

<---- Jealous, lol

I need to pick up some tanks...gotta get a collection going again.


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

cableguy69846 said:


> Tanks look great.roud: Love the mass of red and yellow in the tanks. great lookin shrimp.
> 
> Are you planning on dosing the moss tank at all? Maybe a small amount of Nutrafin PlantGro would help. I used that stuff before with good results. I am thinking it would help the moss a bit, but wait on it to see what happens with growth over the next few weeks. What are your plans for water changes and all that over the next few weeks? And if you want more moss, let me know. I may need to trim some here pretty soon. If not, get a hold of Chad320 and get one of his moss packs. Sent me a good bit of like 6 or 7 mosses for 25 bucks. Including the shipping. Might be the way to go to get some more green in that tank.roud:


Thanks for the shrimp comments!

I'm dosing excel and API leaf zone. Hope to switch to flourish and excel later on. Dosing those twice a week at full strength, don't see anything dying at least. :icon_neut I'm currently *planning* on doing 1WC a week and mixing 50% water from my shrimp tanks (hopefully filled with nitrates) and 50% conditioned tap (hopefully with trace minerals). I'm probably changing around 80-90% of the water. What do you think about this?

Next time you trim let me know! I'd love to purchase some moss off you. If Chad's moss packs are really 6-7 types of moss I don't have enough dividers for it ! But yea, I'm definitely trying to get more types of moss to aid the funds!



green_valley said:


> WOWWWWWW.........Those are nice and VERY RED shrimps.


Thanks for looking!



knuggs said:


> Tanks and shrimp are looking good Diwu! Im interested to see how these dividers turn out


Those dividers were badly planned haha . I hope they turn out well too.



DesmondTheMoonBear said:


> <---- Jealous, lol
> 
> I need to pick up some tanks...gotta get a collection going again.


Thanks! I have tons of spare 10g tanks I got from CL near here. It was like $5 each but they were SUPER SUPER dirty. All leak free though. I have 3 more in my closet haha. No more room in apartment though


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## HolyAngel (Oct 18, 2010)

good luck on the dividers! i hope they work.. I bought the standard ones from petsmart but no matter what I did, the shrimp got through :/


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## freph (Apr 4, 2011)

Tanks are gorgeous. So jealous....I literally have 5 shrimp left. 3 saddles and 2 males so hopefully some Marvin Gay will help them along....



diwu13 said:


> Well... long past due for an update. Got yellow shrimps from johnny313 (great shrimp seller!!) and some great plants from a trade with JessDay06 ! She included some great surprises with the trade (thanks a lot!)... so here we go..
> 
> 
> First off... left tank with RCS and single Tiger shrimp . Past FTS...
> ...


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## JessDay06 (Nov 6, 2011)

I am so happy that you finally got the plants/ I was so worried they would die! I am proud to have my plants go into such beautiful tanks. You do a good job. I wish we lived closer so we could actually plan tanks together in person. That would be awesome! Going to put my pics up tomorrow of all the spectacular plants you sent me!


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

HolyAngel said:


> good luck on the dividers! i hope they work.. I bought the standard ones from petsmart but no matter what I did, the shrimp got through :/


The dividers aren't for my shrimp tanks so I have no worries about shrimp going through


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## HolyAngel (Oct 18, 2010)

ah ok lol, good deal


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

freph said:


> Tanks are gorgeous. So jealous....I literally have 5 shrimp left. 3 saddles and 2 males so hopefully some Marvin Gay will help them along....


Thanks for looking! Hope your shrimp make it so you'll gonna get a lot of inbreeding going on!



JessDay06 said:


> I am so happy that you finally got the plants/ I was so worried they would die! I am proud to have my plants go into such beautiful tanks. You do a good job. I wish we lived closer so we could actually plan tanks together in person. That would be awesome! Going to put my pics up tomorrow of all the spectacular plants you sent me!


I can't believe I didn't see the anubias petite. I got too excited with all the surprises I must've opened it too fast and missed it . Hope to see your updated tank pictures in a bit!


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## tharsis (Oct 9, 2009)

I love all the changes! You are officially experiencing moss madness  
Those yellows are sweet and I really like the rescape in their tank... it really opens it up alot. Same for the cleanup on the rcs tank, it looks alot more open with the trimmed plants. Can't wait to see all the mossy goodness spread. 

And thanks again for the ss mesh, I think I am going to play around with it today and add it to my 10 gallon. I will do some fissidens, weeping moss and java moss.


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

Thanks for looking ! I'm glad I made the tank much more open as well  Make sure to rinse the SS mesh again before using it! I should've cleaned most of all the oily coating off! Update your journal when you finish!


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## tharsis (Oct 9, 2009)

yeah I am soaking everything in soapy water right now. I just trimmed all my moss and am ready to seed the mesh as soon as I have some spare time.


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## johnny313 (Apr 15, 2011)

Di.... you go the set up!!!! Making me jealous!!! excellent job!


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

tharsis said:


> yeah I am soaking everything in soapy water right now. I just trimmed all my moss and am ready to seed the mesh as soon as I have some spare time.


Waiting for updates ! You didn't need to use soap again. I soaped those suckers down before hand. I wanted you to make sure you got MY soap off lol.



johnny313 said:


> Di.... you go the set up!!!! Making me jealous!!! excellent job!


Why are you jealous ? I'm the jealous one for your tanks!


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## xenxes (Dec 22, 2011)

Were your RCS always that red? 

Any moss jar updates? I just started one but was impatient and used them in the 20g lol. I did buy an air pump and some air stones, will put up some pics later. Have a duckweed, a riccia, and a xmas jar atm.


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

xenxes said:


> Were your RCS always that red?
> 
> Any moss jar updates? I just started one but was impatient and used them in the 20g lol. I did buy an air pump and some air stones, will put up some pics later. Have a duckweed, a riccia, and a xmas jar atm.


Some are, some aren't. John sent me some really nice red ones, the crappier ones are from my own personal stash lol!

Um... so pretty funny update for the moss tank. I bought a goldball of peacock moss from H4n. Now there's like 20-30 fry in my moss tank!!! So many tadpole-looking things!! It's crazy. Sadly, they'll all probably die from the cold water or the fact there's no filtration (besides the ton of moss). I can tell there's growth on the moss, just can't really see how much it is as I have floating balls of it. I made a little hangar thing to house some osmocote ferts for the moss. Hopefully that'll give them a kick start. Will post pictures tomorrow!

So where are your airstones going? Into your moss jars? Pictures of those as well!


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

New updates since I picked up more floaters from H4n on 01/15! Also added in a one nerite to each tank. New dual FTS:










And then I created this holder thing to place osmocote balls in for the moss tank. Can't bury them under the substrate as there isn't any haha.








Created with 1 piece of SS mesh, 2 pieces of nylon cloth mesh, and 1 suction cup

Here's a shot of it in action


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## cableguy69846 (Dec 13, 2010)

diwu13 said:


> Some are, some aren't. John sent me some really nice red ones, the crappier ones are from my own personal stash lol!
> 
> Um... so pretty funny update for the moss tank. I bought a goldball of peacock moss from H4n. Now there's like 20-30 fry in my moss tank!!! So many tadpole-looking things!! It's crazy. Sadly, they'll all probably die from the cold water or the fact there's no filtration (besides the ton of moss). I can tell there's growth on the moss, just can't really see how much it is as I have floating balls of it. I made a little hangar thing to house some osmocote ferts for the moss. Hopefully that'll give them a kick start. Will post pictures tomorrow!
> 
> So where are your airstones going? Into your moss jars? Pictures of those as well!


Nice on the fry. With all the moss in there, they should be good. If all else fails, you can add a sponge filter to the tank for them. And what is the temp on the tank usually?



diwu13 said:


> New updates since I picked up more floaters from H4n on 01/15! Also added in a one nerite to each tank. New dual FTS:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Another genius idea.roud:


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## tharsis (Oct 9, 2009)

Is there anything that mesh can't do??!


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

cableguy69846 said:


> Nice on the fry. With all the moss in there, they should be good. If all else fails, you can add a sponge filter to the tank for them. And what is the temp on the tank usually?
> 
> Another genius idea.roud:


Not a big fan of fish so if they die... more fertilizer for the moss :X! The temperature swings like crazy haha. I let the tank get direct sunlight in the morning for 2-5 hours (depending on weather). At that point the tank goes up to 74F. At night it'll drop to 67F. Not HUGE, but still pretty large temperature swings.

Thanks for the praise ! I keep getting these brown little balls of what looks like poop on the bottom of my moss tank. Does this happen to you cable? No idea where it comes from but I have to vac the bottom of the moss tank. Maybe because I mix 50% tank water? Or I woulda just chucked the osmocote balls everywhere.



tharsis said:


> Is there anything that mesh can't do??!


Can't get suction cups through the mesh . I tried melting one of my plastic hook suction cups but set it on fire... didn't really melt at all


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## shrimpnmoss (Apr 8, 2011)

I like the open look more for a shrimp tank....your tank looks like twins...


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

shrimpnmoss said:


> I like the open look more for a shrimp tank....your tank looks like twins...


Thanks for looking! Still need to get better filters, but for the most part they'll look alike


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## h4n (Jan 4, 2006)

Nice idea Di,

Crazy about the fry. I wonder what they are...
Lol... Talk about hitchikers haha


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## xenxes (Dec 22, 2011)

Poor fry  I want to see pics before you murder them!

Some mysterious fry just appeared in my new 20g, I think they're baby pandas but not sure. Hope they survive. The evil ghost shrimp got awfully close to one earlier, and the female betta and panda-blue-platy/sword hybrid are both always hunting on the bottom.

Can you take a look at my new "malaysian trumpet" snails (pic in 20g journal), they seem way too big.

Oh and the brown balls of poop in your moss tank is probably just dead curled up moss.


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

xenxes said:


> Poor fry  I want to see pics before you murder them!
> 
> Some mysterious fry just appeared in my new 20g, I think they're baby pandas but not sure. Hope they survive. The evil ghost shrimp got awfully close to one earlier, and the female betta and panda-blue-platy/sword hybrid are both always hunting on the bottom.


Yea I saw your mysterious fry. Mine look nothing like yours. They're literally like black tadpoles about this long -- and there's a TON! But you can barely make out the eyes, only if you look really hard.



xenxes said:


> Oh and the brown balls of poop in your moss tank is probably just dead curled up moss.


Is that what it is? Looks like poop . I wonder why they are dying. Crap.


----------



## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

h4n said:


> Nice idea Di,
> 
> Crazy about the fry. I wonder what they are...
> Lol... Talk about hitchikers haha


! If the fry live in your 2.5g we'll be able to see what it is LOL.


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## xenxes (Dec 22, 2011)

Hrm the ones on the bottom naturally die off. Black tadpoles? Frogs?  Can't wait to see what they are


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

xenxes said:


> Hrm the ones on the bottom naturally die off. Black tadpoles? Frogs?  Can't wait to see what they are


Really? I seriously though it was from something else. You've experienced the little brown bits in your moss jars as well?

They seriously look like tiny tadpoles! They have like gold colored eyes or something. I doubt we'll tell what it is from me. Maybe from h4n whom I got the fry from. 99% sure they'll die in that tank


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## xenxes (Dec 22, 2011)

Yeah, the yellow ones that came slowly turned brown, but some pieces have green specs and turned into new moss. I wouldn't worry about it. The xmas moss I got grows in a north-facing window jar with 0 filtration/water movement. I change the water maybe once a week if I remember to and dump out the black/brown ones.

I got an air pump for the jars but it's in the 20g (too lazy to drill holes in the jar lids). I don't really know what good it'll do, but it does move water from the stagnant part of the tank back towards the filter.


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

How were you planning to run the air pump into the jars? Just have it come in from the top with an airstone on the bottom?

How well did your moss grow in the stagnant part of your tank?


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

Well... All the little fry are gone from the moss tank . Probably froze to death those poor little guys


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## knuggs (Mar 5, 2007)

Aww, that stinks! How cold is that tank? I keep micro worms and crushed food for my fry. Feeding is usually the main cause of death in fry. How long has your moss tank been set up? There's usually smaller critters like seed shrimp and daphnia that live in moss and plants in a established tank.


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

knuggs said:


> Aww, that stinks! How cold is that tank? I keep micro worms and crushed food for my fry. Feeding is usually the main cause of death in fry. How long has your moss tank been set up? There's usually smaller critters like seed shrimp and daphnia that live in moss and plants in a established tank.


Gets to like 65-67F at night. I doubt there's anything in there for them to eat as the tank is strictly just moss. No substrate, no feeding, no filter, LOL. So really nothing for them to eat. Not a big fish guy either so I didn't really care enough about the fry to move them :icon_conf


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## cableguy69846 (Dec 13, 2010)

diwu13 said:


> Not a big fan of fish so if they die... more fertilizer for the moss :X! The temperature swings like crazy haha. I let the tank get direct sunlight in the morning for 2-5 hours (depending on weather). At that point the tank goes up to 74F. At night it'll drop to 67F. Not HUGE, but still pretty large temperature swings.
> 
> Thanks for the praise ! I keep getting these brown little balls of what looks like poop on the bottom of my moss tank. Does this happen to you cable? No idea where it comes from but I have to vac the bottom of the moss tank. Maybe because I mix 50% tank water? Or I woulda just chucked the osmocote balls everywhere.
> 
> ...


I get that in my jars as well. I wouldn't worry about it. It is the part of the moss that is expendable and will replace itself as it is growing. I also suspect it may be some small amount of dust in the air. The reason you are noticing it is cuz there really is no filter to pull it out, and there are no fish or shrimp to make waste. That is why it stands out so much. Just keep vacuuming it out and you should be good. As for the fry, don't count them out yet, unless you have found the bodies. They could be hiding really well. Try throwing a bit of food in there and see what happens.roud:


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

I'll be doing the weekly WC for the moss tank tomorrow so I'll search extra hard for little tadpole bodies :X

The little bits of brown is quite annoying though, forces you to clean extra thoroughly instead of just siphoning out like 50% of the water.


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## cableguy69846 (Dec 13, 2010)

diwu13 said:


> I'll be doing the weekly WC for the moss tank tomorrow so I'll search extra hard for little tadpole bodies :X
> 
> The little bits of brown is quite annoying though, forces you to clean extra thoroughly instead of just siphoning out like 50% of the water.


That is the downside to it. Although, running the tank bare bottom helps and makes it way easier to pull all that crap out. You can kill the airstone for about 30 min prior to cleaning the tank to let it all settle to the bottom, the vacuuming is a breeze.


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

Most of it actually is settled on the bottom of the tank. The problem is since I have to go siphon along the bottom I have to keep going in and out of the dividers. Instead of just sticking the hose in the center of the tank and draining if you know what I mean?


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## xenxes (Dec 22, 2011)

diwu13 said:


> How were you planning to run the air pump into the jars? Just have it come in from the top with an airstone on the bottom?
> 
> How well did your moss grow in the stagnant part of your tank?


I put some yellow moss over there, I think it's all dying off, should have used the healthy parts. The package I ordered came in a bag, and the top piece was dry by the time it got here, but some green was growing out, we'll see. I think I'm going to buy more, xmas moss grows too slow.

For the air pump I was planning just that, 1 air pump with multiple connectors and an air stone in each jar. But I got lazy and didn't want to drill a hole on my jar lid (have a cat, can't just leave it open). I'm running out of room and might just leave a few jars outside, but there's bugs :/


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

The more you trim moss the more it grows. Also, the more bits you rip it into the more areas can regrow as well! Trim those suckers up! I literally stick scissors and cut randomly every time I do a WC (once a week lol).

Yeah I think leaving the jars outside would be a terrible idea. Stagnant water would be perfect for mosquitos to breed (when it gets warmer). But you're in florida... so is it mosquito season year round?


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## knuggs (Mar 5, 2007)

Mmm mosquito larvae make for a great meal!


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## cableguy69846 (Dec 13, 2010)

diwu13 said:


> Most of it actually is settled on the bottom of the tank. The problem is since I have to go siphon along the bottom I have to keep going in and out of the dividers. Instead of just sticking the hose in the center of the tank and draining if you know what I mean?


I know exactly what you mean. You might try putting an under gravel filter plate with a powerhead in the tank. Then it will pull all the crud through the plate and into the foam on the powerhead. Not sure exactly how to set it up, but that may be something to look into.


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## xenxes (Dec 22, 2011)

diwu13 said:


> The more you trim moss the more it grows. Also, the more bits you rip it into the more areas can regrow as well! Trim those suckers up! I literally stick scissors and cut randomly every time I do a WC (once a week lol).
> 
> Yeah I think leaving the jars outside would be a terrible idea. Stagnant water would be perfect for mosquitos to breed (when it gets warmer). But you're in florida... so is it mosquito season year round?


I'm also on the 35th floor by the shore, no mosquitos, but I have a bunch of planters on my balcony that carry white flies, aphids, mealy bugs, etc etc. They get carried up by the wind, annoying as hell. I might do a test jar, it gets windy sometimes and water top-offs might take too much time. What if I just left the lid on but not sealed air tight? Temperature 60F at night 70F-ish during the day. Though we had a few nights that dropped to 40-50's. Will moss tolerate the temperature change?


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

knuggs said:


> Mmm mosquito larvae make for a great meal!


As in you eat them yourself? Or you feed them to fish? :confused1:



cableguy69846 said:


> I know exactly what you mean. You might try putting an under gravel filter plate with a powerhead in the tank. Then it will pull all the crud through the plate and into the foam on the powerhead. Not sure exactly how to set it up, but that may be something to look into.


I think for the UGF you'll need some type of substrate as well, or all the moss might get sucked up haha. If I got the UGF, it would make the moss tank better filtered than my shrimp tanks!!



xenxes said:


> I'm also on the 35th floor by the shore, no mosquitos, but I have a bunch of planters on my balcony that carry white flies, aphids, mealy bugs, etc etc. They get carried up by the wind, annoying as hell. I might do a test jar, it gets windy sometimes and water top-offs might take too much time. What if I just left the lid on but not sealed air tight? Temperature 60F at night 70F-ish during the day. Though we had a few nights that dropped to 40-50's. Will moss tolerate the temperature change?


Well according to a lot of sites from googling: http://www.plantedtank.net/forums/myplants/117-Java_Moss_Vesicularia_dubyana.html moss don't like temperatures under 60F. I think those nights portions of the moss will die?


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

So I did my weekly WC on moss tank and found little tadpoles still. Amazing how hardy they are ! In other news *MY LAST SURVIVING BERRIED TIGER RELEASED BABIES!!!!*  saw a bunch swimming around. Sadly, I have to go home to NJ this weekend to help my mother prepare for surgery (getting plica tendon on knee removed, has no effect on knee movement) so hopefully the shrimplets make it!

With them luck


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## xenxes (Dec 22, 2011)

Yeah I need some java moss, not xmas moss. Too impatient for the growth rate. Hope your mom's surgery goes well! Post shrimp babies when you get back.


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## biogenetic40379 (Jan 19, 2012)

Hope your mom's surgery goes fine. Good luck with the tiger shrimp! Glad to hear some made it to the next stage of life.


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## h4n (Jan 4, 2006)

Yay!!' tigers won the battle!!!


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

xenxes said:


> Yeah I need some java moss, not xmas moss. Too impatient for the growth rate. Hope your mom's surgery goes well! Post shrimp babies when you get back.


Really? I feel like xmas moss looks much better. I think java moss "looks" the worse (hence it being the cheapest).



biogenetic40379 said:


> Hope your mom's surgery goes fine. Good luck with the tiger shrimp! Glad to hear some made it to the next stage of life.


And thanks to both of you for wishing my mom well. Doubt anything will happen. Just need to move her bed downstairs as she won't be so mobile for a bit 



h4n said:


> Yay!!' tigers won the battle!!!


Not yet. I could return and not find any babies . I really don't know! I'm hoping they all make it!


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## knuggs (Mar 5, 2007)

Congrats on the baby tigers! Hope your mom has a speedy recovery! I meant the larvae for the fish not really my sort of dish :/


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

knuggs said:


> Congrats on the baby tigers! Hope your mom has a speedy recovery! I meant the larvae for the fish not really my sort of dish :/


Haha I had to ask. You just never know ! I'm chinese so people eat fried beetle larva ._.


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## xenxes (Dec 22, 2011)

Interesting, the xmas I got were the cheapest, I think eBay is flooded with them due to demand. By the way do you move shrimp between tanks? If so how do you catch them? I spent maybe 30 mins trying to coax 6 shrimp into a container filled with food, in the end I "chased" them into it with a finger, then slowly closed the lid.


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

Hm... I don't know but java/taiwan moss sells for $1.50-$2.50 per golfball. Peacock/flame/mini Xmas sell for like $6-$10 a golfball!

I had to transfer all my RCS from one tank to the other. Are you trying to move ALL the shrimp? Or just a few? If it's just several you should stick in a bamboo chopstick/skewer and 90% of the time shrimp will climb onto it. Then I slowly bring the stick up and put the shrimp net close to it.

If you wanted to catch ALL of it you have to remove everything in the tank and give it a good shake, includes plants, moss, decorations, everything! Then I drain the water so there's only one inch left. Then you just gotta keep grabbing them ._.


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## xenxes (Dec 22, 2011)

I thought Taiwan = Xmas. No idea, got my Xmas off eBay from a guy in Oregon. Have some Taiwan coming from Taiwan  still in the mail.

Bamboo chopstick of what? Just a chopstick? I was just thinking ahead of keeping the very red ones in a tank and selectively removing the lower grade ones. Sounds difficult  Think those telescopic (round) shrimp nets work well? 

I guess I should only keep carpet plants in the shrimp tank to make things easier.


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

Hm... maybe it is all the same then? I got like java/taiwan moss so I thought those two were the same. Very interesting stuff.

Bamboo chopstick... by itself haha. The shrimp should climb onto it. And then you net them out. I find it's easier to select which ones you want to remove than sticking a net in there and scaring all of them away. I just use brine shrimp nets. Nothing fancy but it works and won't harm the shrimp either. You can definitely buy the telescoping fluval net but the extension is pretty useless in small tanks.


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## xenxes (Dec 22, 2011)

Um, do you stick it in vertically or lay it horizontally? You net the entire chopstick out? My net isn't that big, should I cut the chopstick in half? Has to be bamboo? I think mine are painted, but I have bamboo stakes for the garden. Lol I need a video!


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

No no, you stick the chopstick in pointing TOWARDS the shrimp you wanna grab. When you stick the end of the chopstick close to the head of the shrimp 90% of the time the shrimp will climb onto the chopstick. Then you slowly, slowly, lift the chopstick out and then put the net under the shrimp and then keep lifting BOTH the chopstick and net out. The shrimp will then let go of the chopstick when that goes above the water, and fall into your net (if you've done it right). Does that make sense to you?

Doesn't have to be bamboo chopsticks. As long as it's clean, free of soap, wooden, the shrimp will climb on.


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## xenxes (Dec 22, 2011)

diwu13 said:


> No no, you stick the chopstick in pointing TOWARDS the shrimp you wanna grab. When you stick the end of the chopstick close to the head of the shrimp 90% of the time the shrimp will climb onto the chopstick. Then you slowly, slowly, lift the chopstick out and then put the net under the shrimp and then keep lifting BOTH the chopstick and net out. The shrimp will then let go of the chopstick when that goes above the water, and fall into your net (if you've done it right). Does that make sense to you?
> 
> Doesn't have to be bamboo chopsticks. As long as it's clean, free of soap, wooden, the shrimp will climb on.


Lol I get it, I thought bamboo chopsticks had magical powers and attracted 90% of the shrimp in the tank.


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

HAHA! That would be awesome! That might work if you rubbed like food all over it. Then you might get 90% of the tank on it


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## biogenetic40379 (Jan 19, 2012)

hey diwu, you should check out my shrimp tank setup and tell me what you think


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## xenxes (Dec 22, 2011)

Did I tell you your tank looks like a shrimp playground? 

I'm debating how much moss to put in the shrimp tank, is a 12x12 moss wall + a 12x12 moss carpet overkill? Oh, and there'll be a 4x4 square in the carpet to hold a 14" tall moss tree. Hmm, moss tank.

Maybe java on the carpet. Xmas on tree and wall. Requires too much trimming?


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

xenxes said:


> Did I tell you your tank looks like a shrimp playground?
> 
> I'm debating how much moss to put in the shrimp tank, is a 12x12 moss wall + a 12x12 moss carpet overkill? Oh, and there'll be a 4x4 square in the carpet to hold a 14" tall moss tree. Hmm, moss tank.
> 
> Maybe java on the carpet. Xmas on tree and wall. Requires too much trimming?


Haha nope. Because there's so many moss walls for them to climb on?

Hm.. that seems like a TON of moss. 12" x 12" is larger than the back wall of a 10g tank (10" x 12"). And ANOTHER 12"x12" carpet :O? What tank size are you doing this for? I have 4"x6" moss walls in my 10g tank, so you definitely don't need that much moss haha.

I like trimming the moss though, since that promotes growth! It's not a ton of trimming though. I trim maybe once a month?


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## xenxes (Dec 22, 2011)

The 9g :/ I have moss and mesh and everything ready to go but the replacement is still not here. It's 14.1x12.2x12.2. I tested my sheets with the broken tank. I'll need to trim down another sheet for carpet though, driftwood isn't here yet either.


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

I wouldn't cover 100% of your 9g tank with moss wall. You might risk some smaller shrimp finding their way back there, then growing and getting stuck. But it's really up to you, you could leave like 1" of room on either side. You have suction cups ready for the moss wall?

As for the moss carpet, also not needed to cover everything haha. But if you got the money and the moss I see no reason not to


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## xenxes (Dec 22, 2011)

Just read that, after I set it up. 

I actually have the piece against the wall. The corner filter holds one side in place. The other side has a slight gap. I'll see if I can straighten it out flat against the back. Trimming it is a pain, even with that clipper you suggested.


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

Uh oh, so you covered up an entire side?

So you made your moss walls with stainless steel mesh? Yeah.. cutting the SS mesh is a PITA because you have to bend the mesh in different directions to keep cutting down . A band saw or something would make cutting it easy peasy haha.

If you are using SS mesh for moss walls make sure you suction cup those suckers. If one of those gets dislodged that's a lot of weight and can smoosh little shrimps.


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## xenxes (Dec 22, 2011)

No suction cup needed, it's big enough that it's pressed up firmly against the back. I do have a lot of extra suction cups, and another large SS piece, maybe I'll do diagonal squares of moss patches on the side for a modern look, lol... nah 

Just noticed your pagoda, missed it in earlier pics. I just bought a buddha figure for the panda tank, figuring out if I should put it in the shrine or leave it lobsided for a ruins effect.


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## Bensr20det (Jul 27, 2011)

The tanks look great. I like all the moss. Where do you get your SS mesh? I cant seem to find it.


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

xenxes said:


> No suction cup needed, it's big enough that it's pressed up firmly against the back. I do have a lot of extra suction cups, and another large SS piece, maybe I'll do diagonal squares of moss patches on the side for a modern look, lol... nah
> 
> Just noticed your pagoda, missed it in earlier pics. I just bought a buddha figure for the panda tank, figuring out if I should put it in the shrine or leave it lobsided for a ruins effect.


Hm... I think inside the shrine would look pretty nice. It's in the dark anyway !



Bensr20det said:


> The tanks look great. I like all the moss. Where do you get your SS mesh? I cant seem to find it.


Thanks for looking! I got my SS mesh from H4n: http://www.plantedtank.net/forums/s...assortment-plants-osmocote-plus-capsules.html


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

AC20's arrived yesterday and I immediately went to Home Depot (since I had time) and bought what I needed to modify the intake to my liking! I went to Home Depot and bought *0.5inch* PVC pipe and a matching elbow joint.















The 0.5" PVC fits PERFECTLY into both the "U" intake and the extension tube of the AC20 filter. Pretty simple to put together, I super glued all the connections to be sure it doesn't all fall apart in the tank. It is all very snug though. Finished products (made one for each AC20) cost $1.50 each















Notice I the end is off at an angle. This was on purpose due to the fact I want to place the AC20 as close to the edge of the tank as possible. Thus, I didn't want the sponge getting pressed into the glass, making it hard to vac on it and what not. So the end is at a ~35 degree angle.


Tested with the AC20 motor and impeller, works like a charm! Can't really tell a decrease in suction, but then again I wasn't really worried about it and didn't test it without the bend :X.















On a different note, I didn't know the AC20 media cages were so small! I cut a whisper bag in half, filled it with carbon, and then sewn the sides closed to make my own little carbon bags! 

And if anyone is interested in how I made the little carbon packets that go into the AC20 lol...
1) What I start with









2) Finish product, you can see it's half the size...









3) Mass production


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## cableguy69846 (Dec 13, 2010)

Now that is slick.:biggrin:


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## tharsis (Oct 9, 2009)

Great job! Are you going to paint them?A little coat of krylon black would make them look super slick.


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

cableguy69846 said:


> Now that is slick.:biggrin:





tharsis said:


> Great job! Are you going to paint them?A little coat of krylon black would make them look super slick.


Thank you thank ewe ! I'll let the algae do the coating for me ! I would be tempted to paint it but then I'd have to buy a rather large thing of paint and only use a tiny bit


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## xenxes (Dec 22, 2011)

Are those going to be undergravel intakes? I have mine just hanging with a sponge cover in the dark side of the tank. Did you also get an oversized carbon pack with your AC20? I had to jam mine in.


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

xenxes said:


> Are those going to be undergravel intakes? I have mine just hanging with a sponge cover in the dark side of the tank. Did you also get an oversized carbon pack with your AC20? I had to jam mine in.


No haha. I wish I had a UGF but I heard from Liam that with a 10g you shouldn't do it. Too much work for such a small tank. A 20L is perfect for UGF though. I modded it so it draws water from the middle of the 10g tank instead of near the back like the default configuration. Also, it'll be easier to remove the sponge as I can just slip it out instead of pulling it down.

I bought two used AC20's so no media included. If you look at the picture earlier I made my own carbon packs ! Cut the whisper internal bag into two, sewn the edges closed and viola!


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## knuggs (Mar 5, 2007)

Cool, I like what you did to your AC! roud: Thats all I run besides my main tank that has a canister filter. But now that you have done this Im thinking what about the output, maybe a lil rain tray or something of the nature


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

knuggs said:


> Cool, I like what you did to your AC! roud: Thats all I run besides my main tank that has a canister filter. But now that you have done this Im thinking what about the output, maybe a lil rain tray or something of the nature


Thanks! Rain tray to diffuse the output through a mesh or something? The force right now is pretty strong haha. Blows baby shrimps around, the adults can still swim against the current.


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## xenxes (Dec 22, 2011)

diwu13 said:


> Thanks! Rain tray to diffuse the output through a mesh or something? The force right now is pretty strong haha. Blows baby shrimps around, the adults can still swim against the current.


You're on the lowest output setting?


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

On the highest >! It's not SUPER strong to the point they are all hiding in fear (you can tell since they still swim through the stream instead of avoiding it altogether). But it's definitely much stronger than the original filter I had


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## GDP (Mar 12, 2011)

I think this thread just convinced me to go to petsmart on pickup an AC20 for my 20G to suppliment my two sponge filters lol. Also I like your use of the PVC pipe to modify the filter.


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

GDP said:


> I think this thread just convinced me to go to petsmart on pickup an AC20 for my 20G to suppliment my two sponge filters lol. Also I like your use of the PVC pipe to modify the filter.


roud: Thanks! You should go get the AC30 for your 20g. You can never have enough filtration  The mod was really easy as well, I still have enough PVC left over for 2 more intakes if I wanted! Granted, I would need to buy more elbow bends.


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## GDP (Mar 12, 2011)

Yeah I was wondering if my bag of purigen would even fit in an AC20. Probably will have to get the 30.


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

GDP said:


> Yeah I was wondering if my bag of purigen would even fit in an AC20. Probably will have to get the 30.


Hm... if you got the 100mL purigen that comes with the bag I think you're outta luck a bit as you're forced to stand the bag up, which might mess up the circulation inside the pump. That's why I made my own baggies of carbon to fit laying flat in the AC20 back. You could do the same if you bought the loose purigen, you could just stick them in pantyhose!


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## GDP (Mar 12, 2011)

diwu13 said:


> Hm... if you got the 100mL purigen that comes with the bag I think you're outta luck a bit as you're forced to stand the bag up, which might mess up the circulation inside the pump. That's why I made my own baggies of carbon to fit laying flat in the AC20 back. You could do the same if you bought the loose purigen, you could just stick them in pantyhose!


Ah ok that answers my purigen bag question lol.


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## xenxes (Dec 22, 2011)

30 isn't much bigger than the 20. And I think Amazon's cheaper than Petco/smart last I checked, by about $10+tax, but factor in shipping.

30 -- 4.5 x 8.2 x 6.7 inches
20 -- 4.5 x 7 x 6.5 inches

You basically get 1". But if it's only a few $ diff get the 30  

I have my 20 on a medium setting, otherwise it blows my plants and they bend too much :/


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

xenxes said:


> 30 isn't much bigger than the 20. And I think Amazon's cheaper than Petco/smart last I checked, by about $10+tax, but factor in shipping.
> 
> 30 -- 4.5 x 8.2 x 6.7 inches
> 20 -- 4.5 x 7 x 6.5 inches
> ...


LMAO xenxes you're pulling out amazon links like crazy! Yea the 30 only gives you like 2 square inches more of area lol. I'd stick with the 20's though just to have the same thing for all tanks. 

And you have your AC20 on medium? I have my AC20 on full blast in my 10g shrimp tank ._.!!


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

A few updates since I never showed the monstrous sponge prefilter I put on the modded intake lol. I used the foam that is supposed to go inside an AC50 filter, but cut a hole in the center to be able to shove the intake down. The pores are pretty coarse so by adding a larger surface area it will diminish the suction at each pore. So hopefully baby shrimps won't get sucked in. Here they are in the tanks:

Red Cherry Shrimp Tank

















Yellow Shrimp Tank










And if anyone is interested in how I made the little carbon packets that go into the AC20 lol...
1) What I start with









2) Finish product, you can see it's half the size...









3) Mass production


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## h4n (Jan 4, 2006)

Looking good Di!


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## knuggs (Mar 5, 2007)

diwu13 said:


> Thanks! Rain tray to diffuse the output through a mesh or something? The force right now is pretty strong haha. Blows baby shrimps around, the adults can still swim against the current.


If I get some time to draft it up I will show you, I have a few designs in mind but the question is how and whats available to make it feasible. More of less a extension that allows water to flow and trickle out in more directions and along the lines of a plank with walls, flaps, and holes. To direct and avert the water to a desired direction.

and dam you guys talk alot on here lol everytime I check back its a new page


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

knuggs said:


> If I get some time to draft it up I will show you, I have a few designs in mind but the question is how and whats available to make it feasible. More of less a extension that allows water to flow and trickle out in more directions and along the lines of a plank with walls, flaps, and holes. To direct and avert the water to a desired direction.
> 
> and dam you guys talk alot on here lol everytime I check back its a new page


Something like the outflow of a canister filter I guess? It would be cool having it trickle out along the entire back of the tank though. Would save you time having to figure out ways to create water movement in your tank.

I don't mind the talking !


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## knuggs (Mar 5, 2007)

I was thinking of something like that as well that you could jus clip on a plastic tray with holes and grooves along the back wall to create a more rain and spreaded trickle effect.


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## xenxes (Dec 22, 2011)

Wow everything's growing really well, but where did the shrimp go? Your moss is so much lusher, the ones I have on the wall are dying / turning yellow  Maybe they were also grown emersed. 

I have a couple tall plants on the front right corner of the tank, if I turn the AC20 all the way up they get blown in half :/

Also the otos hang out there, their tails get all bent out of shape when it's on full. No they won't relocate.


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

knuggs said:


> I was thinking of something like that as well that you could jus clip on a plastic tray with holes and grooves along the back wall to create a more rain and spreaded trickle effect.


Hm... I might consider doing this too. Could be a little tricky to attach but it would be pretty easy to make. Have you heard of "Swifter" cleaning thing? The lid to their "wet ones" is really hard plastic. You could easily punch some holes in that and it'll be strong, but attaching that to the HOB filter will be tricky tricky.



xenxes said:


> Wow everything's growing really well, but where did the shrimp go? Your moss is so much lusher, the ones I have on the wall are dying / turning yellow  Maybe they were also grown emersed.
> 
> I have a couple tall plants on the front right corner of the tank, if I turn the AC20 all the way up they get blown in half :/
> 
> Also the otos hang out there, their tails get all bent out of shape when it's on full. No they won't relocate.


The shrimp are just there, I doubt my iPhone camera are able to capture them when I stand that far away to take pictures of. There's also not THAT many shrimp in each tank. Only ~50 RCS and ~30 yellows. So they will definitely be hard to pick out. You know.. a lot of my moss started out brown too. I thought they might recover and put them in the walls as well but I have to redo one wall in the RCS tank, and one wall + 3 tiles in the yellow tank . I think you'll always end up with moss ends that die off (brown crap you told me what it was lol) but as long as you keep trimming the growth turns out good after a while!

How low is your water level from the AC20 output? Mine's like 1cm below it so it's not like a waterfall.


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## xenxes (Dec 22, 2011)

Yeah it's a low waterfall, I can't get it any lower, it's resting on the edge of the tank. You submerged your output?

I can't wait until my red root floaters turn red  that'll give the shrimp tank a nice contrast.


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## shrimpnmoss (Apr 8, 2011)

sweet looking mod...that tanks looks like shrimp heaven.....floaters..moss everywhere...


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## cableguy69846 (Dec 13, 2010)

That mod looks good. You should wrap the sponge in moss or java fern now.


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

xenxes said:


> Yeah it's a low waterfall, I can't get it any lower, it's resting on the edge of the tank. You submerged your output?
> 
> I can't wait until my red root floaters turn red  that'll give the shrimp tank a nice contrast.


No the output is like 1cm from the water line. The current isn't bad at all. The babies get blown around a bit but the adults can easily swim against the current. The babies can crawl against the current :hihi:

Hm.. how big are the red root floaters?



shrimpnmoss said:


> sweet looking mod...that tanks looks like shrimp heaven.....floaters..moss everywhere...


Thanks ! Now I need a tank in my bathroom like you too haha


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

cableguy69846 said:


> That mod looks good. You should wrap the sponge in moss or java fern now.


That might just end up happening as bits of moss are getting stuck onto the sponge anyway. I figure it won't look at bad when the sponge gets dirtier and not as white haha


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## cableguy69846 (Dec 13, 2010)

diwu13 said:


> That might just end up happening as bits of moss are getting stuck onto the sponge anyway. I figure it won't look at bad when the sponge gets dirtier and not as white haha


That is gonna look cool.:icon_smil


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## xenxes (Dec 22, 2011)

Not sure yet, just got the floaters, hope they live. They are VERY delicate (much more so than frogbits). I added maybe another gallon of water (close to overflowing) in the 20g (now with 6 otos! :O). The output is near the water line and it's not blowing the plants in half anymore.

Also I got a Walmart bowl today and don't know what to do with it  I picked up a 5g tank to use as a QT but think I'm going to plant it too. *Sigh* I'm running out of room.


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

LOL. I find out you added more ottos in YOUR tank on MY thread... and I just asked you a question about it on YOUR thread haha. Yea I increased my water line a ton (just above the black rim, so viewing the tank from the side you don't see the top of the water line) so the AC20 output doesn't shoot everything around. I also covered the substrate with moss tiles where the main force of the output would hit anyway.

Careful with those walmart bowls, the glass isn't rated for aquarium use so some people have had it shatter.


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## xenxes (Dec 22, 2011)

Lol yes the back and forth is weird. I get an email notice and just reply 

I got the bowl in the vase section, it's actually one of my main concerns. I checked to make sure I got one with thicker glass all around (some were really badly made with thin glass on one side and thick on the other). Guess I'll have to try not to fill it too full.


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## GDP (Mar 12, 2011)

I like the rain tray idea. Shouldnt be hard to do I wouldnt think. And yeah I find I have to raise the water level pretty high with the AC20. Pretty annoying.


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

GDP said:


> I like the rain tray idea. Shouldnt be hard to do I wouldnt think. And yeah I find I have to raise the water level pretty high with the AC20. Pretty annoying.


What do you find annoying about raising the water level? I thought it was nice getting almost 2 extra gallons into my tank switching from internal filter to HOB!


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## GDP (Mar 12, 2011)

diwu13 said:


> What do you find annoying about raising the water level? I thought it was nice getting almost 2 extra gallons into my tank switching from internal filter to HOB!


I mean I dont like having to raise it because otherwise HOBs usually have too much current in the tank. Plus I dont like my water level really high in case of a shrimp jumping or crawling out. Doesnt normally happen to me, but like to play it safe considering thats a $20 bill that just died LOL.


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

GDP said:


> I mean I dont like having to raise it because otherwise HOBs usually have too much current in the tank. Plus I dont like my water level really high in case of a shrimp jumping or crawling out. Doesnt normally happen to me, but like to play it safe considering thats a $20 bill that just died LOL.


Ahh haha. I would normally get a lid or something (glass lid?) and I don't have expensive shrimps either


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## xenxes (Dec 22, 2011)

Can't wait to see the nerites, where did you get them? I'm starting to get a nice supply of pond, ramshorn, and something else to supplement my fish/shrimp diets. The panda platies go crazy over smooshed snail!

Can't wait till my fairy shrimp are large enough to try out. I wonder if RCS will eat them, will probably have to be dead first (it's not cannibalism even if they're both "shrimp").


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

I bought the olive nerites from H4n who buys them from his LFS. If you want more colorful nerites mcgammer2000 or mjinkzd carries those. I just wanted snails that wouldn't breed so nerites fit the bill. You wouldn't wanna feed these to your panda's though!

Yea I doubt the RCS will touch the fairy shrimp if they are alive. Not sure if dwarf shrimp will eat anything that's 100% alive and well :\


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

Time for some nerite pictures from the ones I got from H4n ! These are plain ol' olive nerites you can get for $1 from like the LFS. Nothing fancy like them horned nerites or whatever . But these babies will get the job done and make it so I can be lazy and not clean the glass surfaces haha.

Nerites in the yellow shrimp tank:










Nerites in the RCS tank. H4n even sent me a baby japanese trapdoor snail! It's on the wayy left.










Nerites like to hang out on the pagoda 









and on the thermometer haha










Oh yea.. and my prefilter sponges are working I guess. I spotted a RCS this big "o-" chilling on it without getting sucked in. They are slowly getting less white too


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## tharsis (Oct 9, 2009)

nice adds! Nerites are awesome, like little algae bulldozers!


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

Yea! Since I added a bunch I wont' ever have to clean my front glass again (hopefully)! I'm worried some will get stuck inside the cholla wood and die lol. Hopefully they aren't that dumb :\


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## cableguy69846 (Dec 13, 2010)

Those snails are huge. Nice though.


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## xenxes (Dec 22, 2011)

How big do nerites get? My pearl mysteries won't stop growing and they bulldoze over everything!


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

The olive nerites will only get as large as a dime. Some of the ones you see in the pictures are about that size. These guys aren't like "heavy". I see them crawling over my stem plants without any issues ._.! Some nerites like bumblebee or horned are even smaller! Honestly these nerites are so cute ! It's funny though, unlike other snails a nerite cannot right itself. So if you see one on it's back you gotta flip it back up.


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

Oh yea. and nerites will sleep clinging to walls and stuff. If you don't see their mouths then they are resting!


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## xenxes (Dec 22, 2011)

Yeah my mysteries leave thread marks all over the tank when I wake up. I need to find some nerites. Or should I just let the pond and ramshorn get larger?


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

I don't like pond and ramshorns as they are pests . Go for some nerites


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## DesmondTheMoonBear (Dec 19, 2011)

Wish I could find some local nerites around here!


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## h4n (Jan 4, 2006)

ya... locally is best so you dont have to pay for shipping.


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

There are definitely local nerites in FL. I believe you guys have the zebra ones local.


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## moonwasaloon (May 24, 2011)

we only get apple snails here =/


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## moonwasaloon (May 24, 2011)

Hey, 

Have you thought about putting a black background on your tank?


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## h4n (Jan 4, 2006)

moonwasaloon said:


> Hey,
> 
> Have you thought about putting a black background on your tank?


That's what I told him haha


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## moonwasaloon (May 24, 2011)

If you look at my journal, I bought a black poster board from target for 54 cents. Trims, and put behind my tank. I think it looks pretty good.


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## h4n (Jan 4, 2006)

I usually spray paint tank. If I remeber to do it before setting up. But I use thick black fabric instead of post board as if it gets wet you have to do it again.


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## moonwasaloon (May 24, 2011)

Yeah, I used krylon fusion on my 30 Gallon tall tank. Turned out beautiful


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

Does a black background really make it that much better?

And.. how would I go about adding one since the tank is already up and running. The black paper idea would work, but then if that gets wet


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## moonwasaloon (May 24, 2011)

Look at my journal, and you can see a before and after. It's makes the color of your tank stick out more.


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## tharsis (Oct 9, 2009)

Yeah it is pretty much impossible to paint the tank once it is set-up, unless you have alot of room behind it. 

The cardboard works but if it gets wet it will run and you will have to replace it, i also find that you get a bit of a reflection with it because it never is truly flush with the back of the tank...same for cloth. 

The plastic backgrounds they sell at petco work well as well, you can get straight black and if you grease it up with some vegetable oil and then apply it, you can get it so that you don't have any air bubbles. You can also buy some vinyl on ebay which works really well.


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## xenxes (Dec 22, 2011)

diwu13 said:


> There are definitely local nerites in FL. I believe you guys have the zebra ones local.


I don't see any @ the LFS  I'll have to go scuba diving to catch some, not sure if I need a permit or if it's entirely legal.


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

moonwasaloon said:


> Look at my journal, and you can see a before and after. It's makes the color of your tank stick out more.


Yea I saw (and commented ). It is noticeable but I'm not sure how to go about making it black.



tharsis said:


> Yeah it is pretty much impossible to paint the tank once it is set-up, unless you have alot of room behind it.
> 
> The cardboard works but if it gets wet it will run and you will have to replace it, i also find that you get a bit of a reflection with it because it never is truly flush with the back of the tank...same for cloth.
> 
> The plastic backgrounds they sell at petco work well as well, you can get straight black and if you grease it up with some vegetable oil and then apply it, you can get it so that you don't have any air bubbles. You can also buy some vinyl on ebay which works really well.


Thanks for the explanation tharsis. I think I may go with the vinyl since I have no Petco/Petsmart anywhere close to me. Would this work off of amazon? I'm assuming both sides of the black vinyl are black? Not very familiar with this but I should be able to move the tanks a bit to apply it.



xenxes said:


> I don't see any @ the LFS  I'll have to go scuba diving to catch some, not sure if I need a permit or if it's entirely legal.


Honestly, if you want olive nerites you can ask H4n. He can buy a few, keep them in his tanks ~1week to destress them, and then ship them to you? They are quite cheap as well! And shipping will be ~$5 or less


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

Well, took a few macro shots with my new iPhone lens . Works pretty darn well, except that the shrimp I want to take pictures of has to be ~1in from the glass or the camera can't focus on it.

















You can see the lens reflection because I'm that close to the glass :\









Berried yellow/orange mom. As you can tell her upper body is too far to focus on lol :\









None of the RCS wanted to get close enough for some pictures


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## h4n (Jan 4, 2006)

not bad Di.


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## xenxes (Dec 22, 2011)

diwu13 said:


>


Minor contrast adjustment... selectively bred shrimp!  I dub thee "Painted Banana Yellow," with red rili tail markings.


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## cableguy69846 (Dec 13, 2010)

Nice yellows man.:icon_smil


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

xenxes said:


> Minor contrast adjustment... selectively bred shrimp!  I dub thee "Painted Banana Yellow," with red rili tail markings.


Haha nice ! If I had for realz it would make me lots of money! Especially if the males looked that nice haha



cableguy69846 said:


> Nice yellows man.:icon_smil


thank you sir!

Btw... Anyone know if I can use the vinyl background I linked here? http://www.plantedtank.net/forums/t...twin-10g-shrimp-tanks-10g-22.html#post1705607


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## cableguy69846 (Dec 13, 2010)

diwu13 said:


> Haha nice ! If I had for realz it would make me lots of money! Especially if the males looked that nice haha
> 
> 
> 
> ...


I think you should be able to, but applying it is going to be a pain. Unless you don't stick it on and just tape it on the edges. You can also paint it. Look for some Krylon Fusion spray paint, or brushable paint and you will be good.


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## xenxes (Dec 22, 2011)

I didn't like the self adhesive type, because you could see some of the adhesive, and unless you are very very very careful, there will be air bubbles in there (then again 10g might be easier with two people, I tried to do the 20 long myself). I ended up just taping the non-sticky side to the edges of my tank. After cleaning that side thoroughly and wiping it off. I really don't want to move my tank and it's a temporary fix until I have to move. 

If the back is pretty much against a wall anyway, just tape some black paper and cut to shape  Otherwise spray paint is probably best.


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

cableguy69846 said:


> I think you should be able to, but applying it is going to be a pain. Unless you don't stick it on and just tape it on the edges. You can also paint it. Look for some Krylon Fusion spray paint, or brushable paint and you will be good.





xenxes said:


> I didn't like the self adhesive type, because you could see some of the adhesive, and unless you are very very very careful, there will be air bubbles in there (then again 10g might be easier with two people, I tried to do the 20 long myself). I ended up just taping the non-sticky side to the edges of my tank. After cleaning that side thoroughly and wiping it off. I really don't want to move my tank and it's a temporary fix until I have to move.
> 
> If the back is pretty much against a wall anyway, just tape some black paper and cut to shape  Otherwise spray paint is probably best.


I'm really good applying those cell screen covers with no bubbles lol. Hopefully going 20x that size I'll be good too haha! The only reason I wouldn't want to tape paper is because I sometimes get water behind the tank. Happens quite often if I have to mess with the filters. Paint is out because the tanks are already set up so I can't pick it up to cover walls and carpet .


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## xenxes (Dec 22, 2011)

It's hard, can't compare it to a cell screen cover. Clean the back thoroughly with windex so there's no dust or streaks, then very carefully unpeel it and get your gf to help you. You can probably edge out any air bubbles with a ruler. Re-sticking it may cause unsightly adhesive-marks on the glass.


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## h4n (Jan 4, 2006)

I like my thick fabic, thats what I have on my 30g, and ada tank Di. Bet you couldnt even tell.


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

xenxes said:


> It's hard, can't compare it to a cell screen cover. Clean the back thoroughly with windex so there's no dust or streaks, then very carefully unpeel it and get your gf to help you. You can probably edge out any air bubbles with a ruler. Re-sticking it may cause unsightly adhesive-marks on the glass.


I accept your challenge! Even if I fail at least the background will be more black than before haha. I'll do a practice run on the 10g moss tank first. So would you recommend the black matte or shiny black? Or does it not matter since you can't see that side anyway?


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## xenxes (Dec 22, 2011)

Lol I ended up getting this cause it was the cheapest I found, did NOT realize it was CHALKBOARD PAPER. It looks fine, it's a little shiny. 

I think I would recommend matte because there's less reflection in photos.


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## cableguy69846 (Dec 13, 2010)

diwu13 said:


> I'm really good applying those cell screen covers with no bubbles lol. Hopefully going 20x that size I'll be good too haha! The only reason I wouldn't want to tape paper is because I sometimes get water behind the tank. Happens quite often if I have to mess with the filters. Paint is out because the tanks are already set up so I can't pick it up to cover walls and carpet .


If you were to brush it on, you wouldn't have to worry so much. Just about the floor under it. You could solve that easily though with a tarp.


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

xenxes said:


> Lol I ended up getting this cause it was the cheapest I found, did NOT realize it was CHALKBOARD PAPER. It looks fine, it's a little shiny.
> 
> I think I would recommend matte because there's less reflection in photos.


I'd have to buy 4-5 of those ._.! And that price will add up! The other one I posted is 6 sheets for $15, and one sheet covers one tank with some extra. The thing is... the adhesive side is not supposed to be seen. Which is what will be seen in the fish tank? So I hope that doesn't turn out too ugly.



cableguy69846 said:


> If you were to brush it on, you wouldn't have to worry so much. Just about the floor under it. You could solve that easily though with a tarp.


I don't think I can rotate the entire tank 180 degrees. The paint does seem expensive compared to the adhesive matte.


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## cableguy69846 (Dec 13, 2010)

diwu13 said:


> I'd have to buy 4-5 of those ._.! And that price will add up! The other one I posted is 6 sheets for $15, and one sheet covers one tank with some extra. The thing is... the adhesive side is not supposed to be seen. Which is what will be seen in the fish tank? So I hope that doesn't turn out too ugly.
> 
> 
> 
> I don't think I can rotate the entire tank 180 degrees. The paint does seem expensive compared to the adhesive matte.


If you can drain half of it, it should be pretty easy to slide around. And you shouldn't have to rotate it much, just move it out a little bit.


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## xenxes (Dec 22, 2011)

Hmm it was 18" by 6 feet. I had enough for my 20L twice (screwed up and trashed it off the first time), then enough for my 5g. You could probably cover a 10 gallon 5 times over with it.


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

xenxes said:


> Hmm it was 18" by 6 feet. I had enough for my 20L twice (screwed up and trashed it off the first time), then enough for my 5g. You could probably cover a 10 gallon 5 times over with it.


Wow I totally read the dimensions as 18" by 6 INCHES. Didn't notice that extra ' haha. Yea that's much cheaper than. Is that chalkboard material kinda waterproof? Does it get scratched off like regular chalkboard does?


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## xenxes (Dec 22, 2011)

I think the chalkboard side is pretty waterproof, I accidently got the back area wet and wiped it off. It's still pretty clear and glossy. If you decide to get that instead I wouldn't use the adhesive side for the tank, you can sort of see the adhesive, unless you want a grainy patterned black look. I just taped the 4 corners, and then some, so I could always readjust / clean the glass etc. I also need to peel the corner so I can see if anything got trapped behind my corner filter. 

I just remembered, Petsmart has huge rolls of black waterproof aquarium background. Backgrounds are definitely just a quick fix, you should get out 2 of your extra tanks, paint the back, and move stuff over 

You could always add more moss walls too?


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

Ugh, decisions. Now I might get the vinyl again :\. The vinyl seems to be a uniform black on both sides. I can't be too sure how the adhesive will look though.

I actually though about that, but moving the substrate will be a HUGE pain. I think I'll just get the vinyl, stick it on the moss tank and see what happens. If it really looks like crap I'll have 5 extra sheets lol. Maybe make some wallpaper with it!


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## xenxes (Dec 22, 2011)

How about new substrate, and just top off with the old? Then you'll want to setup 4 tanks 

I'd suggest the matte version, you don't want anything too reflective.


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

I wish man haha. I have enough substrate left for one more tank with 2-3" depth. Saving that for when my GF moves in with me so she can set up her own tank haha. Honestly, electricity in CT is so cheap. Setting up a second shrimp tank AND a moss tank only increases my electricity usage by under $1!!

I'll be ordering the matte version then . Gonna have to wait two weeks for me to set it up. I'll take your advice and wait until my GF is here to help me. I feel if I do it alone it'll be trapped-bubble-city :\


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## biogenetic40379 (Jan 19, 2012)

any updates on the tanks?


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

biogenetic40379 said:


> any updates on the tanks?


Not much besides the addition of nerites here: http://www.plantedtank.net/forums/t...twin-10g-shrimp-tanks-10g-20.html#post1703612

And then a few pictures with my macro iPhone lens here: http://www.plantedtank.net/forums/t...twin-10g-shrimp-tanks-10g-22.html#post1706031


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## tharsis (Oct 9, 2009)

Get a small squeegee (~$3) to help with the application for the vinyl, that will get rid of any bubbles.

or if you can find some with non adhesive that would be the best. You just apply a little oil to one side and apply it with the squeegee. It stays permanently but is easy to remove and the bubbles are easily eliminated.


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

tharsis said:


> Get a small squeegee (~$3) to help with the application for the vinyl, that will get rid of any bubbles.
> 
> or if you can find some with non adhesive that would be the best. You just apply a little oil to one side and apply it with the squeegee. It stays permanently but is easy to remove and the bubbles are easily eliminated.


So you think I linked to amazon would work well?


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## tharsis (Oct 9, 2009)

It should if it is black on both sides (can't see why it wouldn't be). You will just have to be careful with the application, and get the squeegee! It is good to use in the shower too to get rid of water stains...so my wife tells me.


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

My mom uses a squeegee at home for the showers there too haha. But yea I know what you mean. I think a piece of hard plastic will work just as well for applying the vinyl though! Thanks for your help


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## Sluuuder (Feb 7, 2012)

Beautiful shrimp, plants, and tanks overall!!! Just amazing! I cant wait until my dwarf hairgrass starts running then im going to get some shrimp :]

Do you run any co2 in your tanks?


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

Sluuuder said:


> Beautiful shrimp, plants, and tanks overall!!! Just amazing! I cant wait until my dwarf hairgrass starts running then im going to get some shrimp :]
> 
> Do you run any co2 in your tanks?


Thanks for looking! But there are many other people with much better scapes than mine haha. And oooOOoo sounds fancy with the HG. Are you running CO2 for now while propagating it? Gonna turn it off when the shrimpies come?

No CO2 in my tanks. Only what's there when I breathe into my tanks (ｱ ﾟ∀ﾟ)ｱ haha.


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

Few more macro shots... and baby shrimp 

Eh.. focusing well is so hard










Found this really small baby yellow shrimp while feeding. Can you spot it in the 3rd picture?


























Baby RCS . Note it's size compared to the flourite substrate it's on










Why are all the yellow shrimp looking off to the right?


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## h4n (Jan 4, 2006)

DI any sighs of the baby tigers?


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

No . Sole surviving mom


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## tharsis (Oct 9, 2009)

sorry to hear that


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## biogenetic40379 (Jan 19, 2012)

bummer, maybe some made it and are just being elusive.


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## doncityz (May 17, 2011)

diwu13 said:


> Few more macro shots... and baby shrimp
> Baby RCS . Note it's size compared to the flourite substrate it's on


AWWWWWW... so cute shmallie shwimpee... awww....



diwu13 said:


> Why are all the yellow shrimp looking off to the right?


They're doin synchronized swim what else.. lol


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## h4n (Jan 4, 2006)

Ya maybe some are hiding!
Are you going buy some more Di? Or forget about tigers for now?
Buy the Ro unit yet?


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## biogenetic40379 (Jan 19, 2012)

i am curious to know what your plans are too. If i did a tank with specific parameters i would have to do it small and buy the r/o water by the gallon.


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

h4n said:


> Ya maybe some are hiding!
> Are you going buy some more Di? Or forget about tigers for now?
> Buy the Ro unit yet?


Haven't gotten the RO/DI unit yet. I'm really debating if it is worth getting it since my tap does come out at 150ppm. Which is pretty decent haha. I think I will buy the RO/DI unit next month.

And I'll start tigers again if you get some for me cheap !



biogenetic40379 said:


> i am curious to know what your plans are too. If i did a tank with specific parameters i would have to do it small and buy the r/o water by the gallon.


Do you have your own house? If so I'd recommend getting a ~$200 RO/DI unit as the filter replacements will only cost $20 each. With the portable unit, it costs only $75 but then the filter replacements cost $50 each.


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## biogenetic40379 (Jan 19, 2012)

its good food for thought. got alot on my plate with college and fire school


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## biogenetic40379 (Jan 19, 2012)

bump for updates!


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

Wait until next weekend ! There will be a lot of changes. I just need an extra pair of hands for the work i'll be doing. Possible rescape at well. But just wait a bit! Thanks for looking again btw.


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## xenxes (Dec 22, 2011)

diwu13 said:


> Haven't gotten the RO/DI unit yet. I'm really debating if it is worth getting it since my tap does come out at 150ppm. Which is pretty decent haha. I think I will buy the RO/DI unit next month.


You're getting an RO/DI unit? Wow! Lol I still haven't bought a TDS tester! Oh, found a fat cherry in my 20g with a TON of eggs! 

Would like to see what you're doing with those extra filters. I don't like my ACs on the side, they don't stand up straight even with the leveler out all the way -- which causes the sponge to be squished up against the glass.

My electric bill went up about $20 last month, but that's probably mostly from the light. Will get worse.


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

xenxes said:


> You're getting an RO/DI unit? Wow! Lol I still haven't bought a TDS tester! Oh, found a fat cherry in my 20g with a TON of eggs!
> 
> Would like to see what you're doing with those extra filters. I don't like my ACs on the side, they don't stand up straight even with the leveler out all the way -- which causes the sponge to be squished up against the glass.
> 
> My electric bill went up about $20 last month, but that's probably mostly from the light. Will get worse.


I was planning to and giving another shot at tiger shrimp. But still debating lol. H4n might become licensed to sell shrimp and if that happens, I will haha. Since H4n lives like ~30mins from me!

And congrats on the non-two-egg-berry! !

You wanna know how I leveled my AC20's? I put suction cups behind that flat part which gives it ~.75cm increase in space. I put two there so it's stable. Let me know if you want a picture, but it makes it really level. Good news is, the vinyl that I'll be putting on the rear of the tank is very smooth so I can still use those suction cups! But what do you mean by extra filters? The sponge filters?

Dang... $20 is a TON. My total electric bill is $28 lol. But the electricity here is super cheap :\. When my GF stayed over for a month it went up by $2... And that's like almost twice as much electricity use haha.


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## xenxes (Dec 22, 2011)

I'd like a pic of the suction cups. Not getting it, you suction the outside or inside? Double sided suction cup? 

Electricity is $40-50 in the winter, $70-80 in the summer (AC). Which is very good. In my old 2br facing west, it went up to about $200 in the summer. Sun scorched the apartment, the rooms here all have huge glass doors -- it's like an entire wall of glass/window, had to remember to close the blinds in the afternoon.

I'm a little confused about TDS, I thought I only had to do water changes if Nitrates went too high / 20ppm+? TDS = calcium, magnesium, potassium, trace minerals etc that plants need? It's not bad for fish/shrimp?


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## xenxes (Dec 22, 2011)

Wait.. you have a sea urchin in there? Alive? Fresh water?


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

xenxes said:


> I'd like a pic of the suction cups. Not getting it, you suction the outside or inside? Double sided suction cup?
> 
> Electricity is $40-50 in the winter, $70-80 in the summer (AC). Which is very good. In my old 2br facing west, it went up to about $200 in the summer. Sun scorched the apartment, the rooms here all have huge glass doors -- it's like an entire wall of glass/window, had to remember to close the blinds in the afternoon.
> 
> I'm a little confused about TDS, I thought I only had to do water changes if Nitrates went too high / 20ppm+? TDS = calcium, magnesium, potassium, trace minerals etc that plants need? It's not bad for fish/shrimp?


Alrighty I'll snap you a picture tomorrow morning. I put suction cups on the outside of the glass and the AC20 just rests on them.

Um... if I leave the tank alone the TDS will go up. Partially because I have seashells in my tank, but also because the shrimp and snails are pooping. You don't want those nitrate levels too high, which is what I assume majority of the increase in TDS is. I know the calcium will slowly increase as well, but definitely not 50 in 3 days.



xenxes said:


> Wait.. you have a sea urchin in there? Alive? Fresh water?


Like a sea urchin shell. Dead haha. I have one in both tanks.


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## xenxes (Dec 22, 2011)

Ah, shells as a calcium supplement? Does it help, and is it upping your pH a lot? I thought jake's veggie sticks had calcium in them. Thx for the pics!


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

xenxes said:


> Ah, shells as a calcium supplement? Does it help, and is it upping your pH a lot? I thought jake's veggie sticks had calcium in them. Thx for the pics!


Calcium and decorative purposes haha. It is slowly slowly raising my TDS, but probably at like +10 every 3 months or so. Meh, whatever haha. And yes, the veggie sticks should contains calcium. I'm pretty sure if they get too much calcium they'll just poop it out. Or they won't nibble on the shells at all :\


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## biogenetic40379 (Jan 19, 2012)

i demand an update


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

Tomorrow! ! And my girlfriend will even be helping me!!


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## xenxes (Dec 22, 2011)

Where did you get your cholla wood diwu? Best I found was aqbid for 12/$18. Think I need some in my 9g for baby shrimp to hide. Not much cover besides the mosses.


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

Got my cholla wood from NeoShrimp. If you wait a bit for the weather to get warmer there's like 4-5 sellers that are able to locally find colla wood (in CA) and sell them for really cheap. Unless you need them ASAP I would definitely suggest waiting.

And updates to come in ~1 hour


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## h4n (Jan 4, 2006)

1 hour......?
Haha


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

*Huge Sponge Filter Mod...*

LOL. So I ended up falling asleep. Guess time to post the updates. Will the first major major change was that I took out both bubble curtains. While they did promote water circulation in my tanks the bubbles popping near the surface of the water would cause splashing, which was a pain to clean. It would get on the rim, on the hood, through the crack in the hood, onto my wall, onto the stand, etc. So, I took those out. This mean that since the AC20 filters were only on one side of the tank, I didn't want the water to get stagnant on the back right of the tank. I figured I would put in a sponge filter in the back corner to get rid of any dead areas, and have the output facing towards the AC20. Sounds good in practice right? Ordered cheap sponge filters on amazon.com... and when they arrived they were HUGE








To be exact, they would take up the entire SIDE of a 10G tank O_O!!!


So I knew I would have modify it a bit to save some room. No way I could fit this giant in my tank without having to redo everything completely. I figured one sponge would be enough, so I had to just get rid of the "T" joint after I separated all the pieces.










Well, I went to Home Depot and turns out these pieces aren't a regular size. Couldn't find an elbow joint that would fit both the air pipe area and the sponge area. So ultimately I had to do something like this:








Which is pretty much cutting a second off the "T" and super gluing an 1/2" endcap on. The fit was pretty good so I wouldn't be worried about it falling off. Also, the sponge filter would be sucking it on tighter as well.


So the final product looks like this








Not extremely aesthetically pleasing, but I will be hiding it so you won't really see the white end cap that sticks out like a sore thumb.


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

And now for the updates FTS.


RCS tank first. Top is past picture, bottom is most recent:
















Added the black background, some more moss walls, and the sponge filter hidden in the back. Other besides that I trimmed moss on the cholla wood and on my triangle thing.


Changes in the yellow shrimp tank. Top is past picture, bottom is most recent:
















As with the RCS tank, added black background and the sponge filter. But this tank got way more changes. The original long moss wall had lots of areas where the moss was turning brown. So I trashed that and remade it into several smaller moss walls. Easier to trim and make sure nothing dies on it. You can see how much greener the smaller ones are from the larger one. I also moved the amazon sword (was tempted to chuck it but it was so healthy) and the wooden egg. Also moved the driftwood towards the front of the tank a lot more. The sponge filter is hidden BEHIND the driftwood !








That picture is from under my desk, showing the side of the tank. You can see how you can't see the sponge filter at all from the front of the tank !


@ Xenxes and Tharsis, yes there's tons of bubbles in the background and yes, it was hard as hell to do well even with two people ! Whatever, I'm quite pleased with the change and how much more the plants and shrimp pop out!!!


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## h4n (Jan 4, 2006)

Looks good Di!!

Much better with a black background!


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## cableguy69846 (Dec 13, 2010)

Looks so much better with the black backgrounds. Nice job.:icon_bigg


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## xenxes (Dec 22, 2011)

Good job with the sponge intake, you can use a ruler and flatten out the sheet to get rid of some air bubbles, but looks good! I get the feeling you're eventually going to spray paint the back like I did  It really wasn't hard with the top and sides taped down with trash bags. 

Got a question for you, generally how long does it take between berried to hatching? I think all my berried females failed @ hatching, eggs disappeared, that or the platy ate all the babies. Or my water parameters are bad, I've been lazy with w/cs.

I have half a mind to start a small 10-20g tub-pond on my balcony to breed RCS as it gets warmer. Well, guess it's already warmer, high's 85s during the day and lows 65s at night.


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## jkan0228 (Feb 6, 2011)

That's some decent moss growth on the ceramic pipes. But it seems like you're just like me. Not much growth in the moss walls.


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

h4n said:


> Looks good Di!!
> 
> Much better with a black background!





cableguy69846 said:


> Looks so much better with the black backgrounds. Nice job.:icon_bigg


Thank you sirs!



xenxes said:


> Good job with the sponge intake, you can use a ruler and flatten out the sheet to get rid of some air bubbles, but looks good! I get the feeling you're eventually going to spray paint the back like I did  It really wasn't hard with the top and sides taped down with trash bags.
> 
> Got a question for you, generally how long does it take between berried to hatching? I think all my berried females failed @ hatching, eggs disappeared, that or the platy ate all the babies. Or my water parameters are bad, I've been lazy with w/cs.
> 
> I have half a mind to start a small 10-20g tub-pond on my balcony to breed RCS as it gets warmer. Well, guess it's already warmer, high's 85s during the day and lows 65s at night.


Yea.. painting it would give it a much more even color. I am tempted but if I do I would paint the empty tanks and then transfer EVERYTHING over. I think I will 100% do that if my GF will go to UConn as well, since I have to set up a tank for her at that point 

Berried to hatching will take ~1month, give or take 1 week. Sometimes, the females will drop eggs as they are getting used to your tank. This can occur for up to 3 months. Too my RCS ~3 months to start making babies. For yellows it took like a few weeks.

What will you do with the RCS breeding tub? Sell those babies for profit ?



jkan0228 said:


> That's some decent moss growth on the ceramic pipes. But it seems like you're just like me. Not much growth in the moss walls.


Actually, I have good growth on the moss walls ! If you look on the left side of either tank the moss is completely covering the nylon. The moss walls on the back of both tanks are relatively new, with the yellow tank walls being made today. So little to no growth yet.


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## jkan0228 (Feb 6, 2011)

Lol looks like I wasn't looking at the pics while replying to your thread! I think my moss wall has little growth just cuz it doesn't have direct lighting.


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## biogenetic40379 (Jan 19, 2012)

looking great man. I may black my back wall and add a sponge filter. Any tips. What vinyl did you end up using?


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

jkan0228 said:


> Lol looks like I wasn't looking at the pics while replying to your thread! I think my moss wall has little growth just cuz it doesn't have direct lighting.


Hm.. yea. I have too much light. Getting algae issues. Walmart ran out of the 10W 6500K lights so I'll have to battle algae a bit longer.




biogenetic40379 said:


> looking great man. I may black my back wall and add a sponge filter. Any tips. What vinyl did you end up using?


Yea.. paint it lol. Do not use vinyl like I did. I posted the brand a while back but I wouldn't recommend it :\


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## xenxes (Dec 22, 2011)

Not selling, I don't have enough RCS to fill my tanks :/


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

xenxes said:


> Not selling, I don't have enough RCS to fill my tanks :/


When my RCS population peaks back up I can definitely send you a couple... hundred.


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## biogenetic40379 (Jan 19, 2012)

What ro did you get?


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

Still no RO. I don't know if I will yet haha. I'm more worried about the nemotode issue.

But if you're wondering which RO unit I'm looking at: http://www.purewaterclub.com/catalog/product_info.php?cPath=95&products_id=399


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## doncityz (May 17, 2011)

Nice... once those mosses grow more it will be awesome.

What's that white thing on the left side?


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

doncityz said:


> Nice... once those mosses grow more it will be awesome.
> 
> What's that white thing on the left side?


Of which tank ? Probably some shell, but I can tell you exactly if you tell me which tank !


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## biogenetic40379 (Jan 19, 2012)

nice, i got the 5stage from them. should be in by monday


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

Oh wow, that one is expensive ! Take some pictures of the setup!


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## doncityz (May 17, 2011)

diwu13 said:


> Of which tank ? Probably some shell, but I can tell you exactly if you tell me which tank !


both tanks have it. is it an aerator something?


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## biogenetic40379 (Jan 19, 2012)

yea, i shelled out some cash for the fish tanks.... gettin my taxes in soon


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

doncityz said:


> both tanks have it. is it an aerator something?


I think you mean the sea urchin shell? Do you wanna copy a picture I posted and point out which one?



biogenetic40379 said:


> yea, i shelled out some cash for the fish tanks.... gettin my taxes in soon


Oh man! Not spending money on this hobby is really hard :X


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## doncityz (May 17, 2011)

diwu13 said:


> I think you mean the sea urchin shell? Do you wanna copy a picture I posted and point out which one?


I'll just point it to ya, easier...


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## xenxes (Dec 22, 2011)

Isn't that foam covering an intake tube?


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

doncityz said:


> I'll just point it to ya, easier...


HAHA! You over achiever. You took a picture of you pointing to the journal?!!? I thought you would just post a link of the image 



xenxes said:


> Isn't that foam covering an intake tube?


But yes, xenxes is correct. That's the foam when I just stuck it on. It's more of a shade of grey now


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## doncityz (May 17, 2011)

What a sec, so the white thing is the foam for your intake for your filter, then what is the black sponge filter for? u got 2 intakes? sorry i'm confused right now.


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## xenxes (Dec 22, 2011)

Lol, guess what. I just bought some nematode cultures online to use as fish/fry-food.

Check this out -- http://www.aquaticquotient.com/foru...-eats-nematodes-and-can-co-exist-with-shrimps

Platies may be too big, a 0.7" rasbora may be better. I'll have to see what happens when my shrimp starts giving birth. I'm tempted to get some oryzias woworae eggs off evilbay.

Or boraras brigittae? CPDs? I don't know


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

doncityz said:


> What a sec, so the white thing is the foam for your intake for your filter, then what is the black sponge filter for? u got 2 intakes? sorry i'm confused right now.


There's only one intake on the AC20 and that's covered by that huge white sponge you see haha. Since the AC20 is on the left side of the tank the back right of the tank gets some stagnant water. You can see the particles drift slowly and settle in that corner. So to promote better circulation I used to have a bubble curtain along the entire back and right side of the tank. This definitely helped but the bubbles popping at the surface of my tank kept getting the sides and wall dirty . So I was getting annoyed haha. Long story short I put in a sponge filter to get rid of the stagnant water in the back, and have the output above the water line so there's no bubbles. Same airpump drives the sponge filters that drove the bubble curtains before.

This was probably too much information for you 



xenxes said:


> Lol, guess what. I just bought some nematode cultures online to use as fish/fry-food.
> 
> Check this out -- http://www.aquaticquotient.com/foru...-eats-nematodes-and-can-co-exist-with-shrimps
> 
> ...


Great read man. Exactly what I was looking for. I think I'll get 2 boraras brigittae for each tank. Those look pretty nice as well.


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

Hey xenxes which and how many fish should I get per tank?

Boraras naevus (strawberry rasbora)
Boraras brigitta (chili rasbora)

Both are tiny, cost the same, and are the same genus haha. It says you want a few to just control the nemotode population but I'd be ok having little red fishies to match the shrimp . How many per tank do you think I should get?


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## xenxes (Dec 22, 2011)

I read they will also eat shrimplets no? Where are you planning to order yours from? 

I'd say our choices; sizes are largest recorded, 0.5-0.8":









Danio margaritatus - 21mm
Habitat: flooded grasslands (pH 6.5-7.5)









Boraras naevus - 22mm
Habitat: clear shallow swamps/marshes/rice paddies (pH 6-7)









Boraras brigitta - 20mm
Habitat: black water rivers (pH 5-7)









Boraras micros - 13mm (half inch!)
Habitat: shallow water/marshes/rice paddies (pH 6-7)









Danionella dracula - 16.7mm 
Habitat: soft sluggish streams or pools (pH 6.5-7.5)

Problem is most of these fish are schooling/shoaling. I did read CPDs aren't true schooling and will do fine in a pair. Not certain about others, many recommend getting 10 or 12+. I'm going to watch my platy behavior, they are 2-3" full grown but they seem lazy and dumb, and very peaceful. My largest females could easily bully the corys and otos for food, but they just sit back and wait their turn, or wait for surface flakes. They fry however are constantly prowling the moss and substrate for food, I'm hoping it's just worms and small ostracods I can't see, and not baby shrimp (what's a size of a shrimplet at birth--I can see them right?)


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

All the picture links don't work for me for some reason. But I just googled them anyway so it's ok haha. I was planning on ordering them from msjinkzd, since she's the only one that seems to carry them (unless you know someone else)! I know h4n has some as well, and he's much closer so I'll ask him.

It's weird since the article you posted said that many people had ONE of these boraras fish in their shrimp tanks to eat the worms and what not... a single one. And I'm sure they will eat some babies, but I think I have enough cover / worms to discourage it.


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## xenxes (Dec 22, 2011)

That's weird, if you copy paste the image url it works.

Do you want to hold off on ordering and test some platies out first?


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

Yea... interesting about those links.

Here's the conflict. The platties get quite large and I did a quick google search with multiple results. Some people say they eat shrimp, others (like you) find they get along well. While the boraras fish will eat some shrimplets, they 100% can't eat any juvi's or adults as they will be the same size.


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## xenxes (Dec 22, 2011)

Well, platies are hardy if nothing else. One of the fry was missing in the 9g (thought it dead and eaten). 3 days later I just found it behind the moss wall in a corner I didn't see before. I was ready to net it out and flush it, but it sprung back to life and is happily eating and swimming around again.


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

Haha dang! We'll see how the boraras fish do. I went ahead and ordered 10 on an impulse buy like you . Learn from the best man!

They should be TINY so if they don't do a good job on the worm population I might be interested in some platties as well. Maybe trade you some of the boraras for the platties


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## biogenetic40379 (Jan 19, 2012)

off subject, but i think one of my endlers is carrying babies. And i saw the first saddles on my RCS


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## xenxes (Dec 22, 2011)

diwu13 said:


> Haha dang! We'll see how the boraras fish do. I went ahead and ordered 10 on an impulse buy like you . Learn from the best man!
> 
> They should be TINY so if they don't do a good job on the worm population I might be interested in some platties as well. Maybe trade you some of the boraras for the platties


You got the red ones? Good choice, they really pop against black and green  10 is more than enough for worm control in two tanks, a pair will usually suffice. But let me know if you want to setup a platy tank with one of your spare, you could breed them and.. I don't know, eat them, given how fast they give birth.

Haha, not all my impulse buys turn out well. I went on a gardening impulse buy today. My 20g tank area now looks ridiculous with a huge gardenia bush sticking out behind the tank in a container that's way too small (but it sure smells good). Contemplating upgrading the light and adding another layer of IKEA tables. AGH! 

Oh I got a 24g Walmart planter to use as a balcony pond (because my water lily is getting too big and I really didn't want to toss it), filled it with some dirt, rocks, and flooded it. Funny how I give you my news on your thread and vice versa.


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

LMAO eat them? I asked msjinkzd and she said that the mosquito rasboras prefer larger schools to be happy. And I did a little researching and it seemed to agree. Having just a pair might make them stressed. Since they are so small I figured why not . Haven't spent any money on the shrimp tank this money either, so thought I could splurge a little haha.

So adding another ikea table on the side? Or what do you mean? You could DIY the light on the 20L now.

Yea lol. It really depends what we read first so we answer that first. Gonna sub to your balcony planter now.


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## xenxes (Dec 22, 2011)

diwu13 said:


> LMAO eat them? I asked msjinkzd and she said that the mosquito rasboras prefer larger schools to be happy. And I did a little researching and it seemed to agree. Having just a pair might make them stressed. Since they are so small I figured why not . Haven't spent any money on the shrimp tank this money either, so thought I could splurge a little haha.
> 
> So adding another ikea table on the side? Or what do you mean? You could DIY the light on the 20L now.
> 
> Yea lol. It really depends what we read first so we answer that first. Gonna sub to your balcony planter now.


I don't even know why I posted it, I want to start a nano-pond trend (?). It really is just a bucket of mud right now, but I guess that'll add more dramatic before/after flare.

Can't wait to see your fish. Oh they also need pH <7. Isn't your shrimp tanks buffered with calcium / shells?


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

I'll subscribe to your bucket of mud anyway haha. And my tank has a pH of ~6.8. It never goes above 7.1 so the fish should be able to survive. Hopefully. I think my shells just raise the TDS level lol. I see no impact on the pH. Maybe because the pieces of dwiftwood are huge and lower the pH?

*And a minor update*.

All my frogbit is dying off. No idea why but all the roots are gone from closer inspection. However, all the hygroryza aristata is super healthy with tons of new growth. The hygroryza also has large root networks... so I have no idea what's going on.


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## xenxes (Dec 22, 2011)

Don't know about the frogbits, is your current too strong? My roots come off too but new ones grow in. Wood will lower the pH, the rock I threw in my 5g didn't do anything either.


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## biogenetic40379 (Jan 19, 2012)

i would like to see a bucket of mud journal, that would be pretty cool. I can't keep my tanks outside cause i'm in missouri


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## dragonsong93 (Nov 25, 2011)

I can't keep frogbit in tanks with even moderately high flow, the roots are very touchy, so if you have a HOB filter you might want to put a sponge or something over the outlet to lessen the flow, did that on my 10g plant tank and now the frogbit is back to normal.


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## xenxes (Dec 22, 2011)

How much growth have you had in your moss tank?


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

xenxes said:


> Don't know about the frogbits, is your current too strong? My roots come off too but new ones grow in. Wood will lower the pH, the rock I threw in my 5g didn't do anything either.





dragonsong93 said:


> I can't keep frogbit in tanks with even moderately high flow, the roots are very touchy, so if you have a HOB filter you might want to put a sponge or something over the outlet to lessen the flow, did that on my 10g plant tank and now the frogbit is back to normal.


Current could be doing it. There was a good amount of current on the tops of my tanks. But the hygroryza aristata is also a floater and it did really really well. Go figure. The shrimps are eating through the frogbit like mad, and they only eat dying plants... so it must by dying on it's own.



xenxes said:


> How much growth have you had in your moss tank?


Yea tons of green bits! I can take a picture but I doubt you would be able to tell lol. Since I've been making a few moss tiles and what not so the amount is roughly the same. At least it's not dying.


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## xenxes (Dec 22, 2011)

What substrate are you using now that you get brown stuff? Or is it shrimp poo.

My good water smells like garden soil. Lol I can estimate ammonia and nitrite levels now from the smell. My 20g smells like garden soil + minty flowers (from the aromatica). My brackish water setup sort of smells like sewage though, it's.. unique, but it's still unstable. Good thing opae are hardy. Once the mangrove roots it will provide more than enough filtration.


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

xenxes said:


> What substrate are you using now that you get brown stuff? Or is it shrimp poo.
> 
> My good water smells like garden soil. Lol I can estimate ammonia and nitrite levels now from the smell. My 20g smells like garden soil + minty flowers (from the aromatica). My brackish water setup sort of smells like sewage though, it's.. unique, but it's still unstable. Good thing opae are hardy. Once the mangrove roots it will provide more than enough filtration.


I think the brown crusty water is all the poop or whatever that is dissolved in the water. Even though the water is crystal clear in the tank when it dries it's not pleasant at all. 

Haha. You should test your nose against a nitrate test ! After a WC today my hands and tank barely smell like anything. My moss tank that doesn't have a filter smells a little funky. But everything is growing fine so I'm not too sure. After I stick my hands in that water it comes out funky smelling as well.


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

The mosquito rasboras come tomorrow! Thanks again to msjinkzd for express shipping! I'll be picking it up tomorrow morning and acclimating them!!! Hope no DOA or anythings.


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## xenxes (Dec 22, 2011)

Bet the shipping cost you a pretty penny! More than the fish?


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## h4n (Jan 4, 2006)

Not that bad as she in PA and he's in CT.
A little better then from let's say CA


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

xenxes said:


> Bet the shipping cost you a pretty penny! More than the fish?


Shipping was ~half the cost of the total :\. Total was $43, shipping was $18. But with express it's not as bad since it's usually $11? Woulda been bad if it was priority !



h4n said:


> Not that bad as she in PA and he's in CT.
> A little better then from let's say CA


Yup Yup. Can't wait to see them tomorrow!!!


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

They came! Stupid USPS was late though so I wasted a trip there, and then I had to wait at home until now for the fish. Now I'm acclimating them, will introduce them after 1 hour and then I have to head to work :\.

Took a few pictures or how tiny they are! Like ____ ! Definitely won't bother juvi or adult shrimps. Baby shrimps can maybe fit in their mouths.


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## xenxes (Dec 22, 2011)

I thought Express min was 35?


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## h4n (Jan 4, 2006)

xenxes said:


> I thought Express min was 35?


No I think it by actual weight.
People use $35 because that usually the most it cost from east to west coast under certain lbs.


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

xenxes said:


> I thought Express min was 35?


I have no idea but she only charged $18.



h4n said:


> No I think it by actual weight.
> People use $35 because that usually the most it cost from east to west coast under certain lbs.


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

*Updates with the Mosquito Rasboras added in!!!*

So before the fish came I noticed this near perfect molt in the corner of my RCS tank and decided to snap a picture of it.










And in other news one of the hygroryza aristata has a shoot growing out of my tank lol.








Probably going to trim it if it gets out of hand, but I'm gonna try just turning the shoot when it gets longer.


So picture of how small the fish are in the acclimating container (~1G) with my hand as reference. These are TINY !










After acclimating it for 1 hour I introduced them into the tank. Here's some photos with the size comparison between the mosquito rasboras and the shrimp. Sorry for the crappy pictures but the fish are much much more active/quick than shrimp, and it was really bright in the room :\
















I'll get some better photos tonight when it's dark and hopefully when the fish are less jittery in my tank.


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## xenxes (Dec 22, 2011)

What are you going to feed them after the worms are gone?


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

I have some flake food from the fish I had back in the day. I feed the shrimp the flake food maybe once a month haha. Give them lots of protein!


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

Yea... pictures aren't working. They are too fast lol.


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## xenxes (Dec 22, 2011)

Add tranquilizer!


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

Any idea how often I should feed these babies (the fish)? Once a day? Twice a day? Less frequent?


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## knuggs (Mar 5, 2007)

Baby fish need to eat more frequently. Do you know what kind of fish they are? ( on my phone, so harder to revert back pgs)


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

They are mosquito rasboras, and I don't know if they are babies as the fish themselves are super tiny.


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

"Big Betty" died . She was the RCS that was over 1.5inches.


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## GMYukonon24s (May 3, 2009)

I'm sorry about your lose of "Big Betty".


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## doncityz (May 17, 2011)

Sorry to hear about Big Betty.
Cool fish btw... i'd like to find some of those tiny fish myself.


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## knuggs (Mar 5, 2007)

Aww poor Betty. Im sure she lived a long happy life in you tank though! I lost a Flagfish and Golden Wonder Killie and my gf lost a Galaxy Rasbora and a Venezualan Pygmy Cory today. Must be something in the water....

I would say try and feed them a few times a day. Smaller fish digest faster but can also pick through the water better as well for small organism like seed shrimp and daphnia. Do you have microworms? They would love those and be more healthier eating live foods. Microworms are awesome to cause they last forever and are like a never ending supply of food.


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## xenxes (Dec 22, 2011)

How did big betty die? 

Lol microworms/nematodes are the reason he got the fish


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

Pretty sure big betty died of old age since she was nearly 2 years old. She was so large and majestic . She will be missed.

Haha yea... still hoping all the fish are alive and not starved to death when I return home tomorrow.


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

Well just got back and all the fishes are alive and well. Seems they do fine not having any additional food for ~3 days. Can't see any nemotodes in the water column anymore!


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## GDP (Mar 12, 2011)

Sorry to hear about big betty. I too actually have a big betty PFR and it would suck a lot to lose her. Glad to hear your nematodes are gone though. Annoying little buggers, ive got em in all my tanks.


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

Well they might not be fully "gone". But there aren't any visible ones in the water column and that's good


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

Guess I haven't updated with pictures in a while so I thought I would post a few!

Feeding time for yellow shrimp with the mosquito rasbora in the background! You can see how they're pretty much the same exact size. Good coloring on the fish as well. All nemotodes are gone from the water column!









School of mosquito rasboras chilling where there's little water movement.









Feeding time in RCS tank. That long tiger is still alive and going strong. I'm gonna try my hand at tigers again when h4n starts getting them in.









One of my painted fire yellows with the mosquito rasbora in the background again haha.









In random news... I think I have a RCS in my yellow shrimp tank. Can't be too sure as it's only ___ big but it does look completely red. Might have transferred over when I was swapping around the floating plants.


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## xenxes (Dec 22, 2011)

Those are good looking fish


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## doncityz (May 17, 2011)

But aren't you worried that later those fish gonna eat the baby shrimps?
i mean, surely they will eat baby shrimps, right?


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

doncityz said:


> But aren't you worried that later those fish gonna eat the baby shrimps?
> i mean, surely they will eat baby shrimps, right?


Yea they probably will eat some baby shrimps. But I figure I have enough hiding places for the babies that some will make it. I mean.. these fish can really only eat things "o" that small. They have a hard time with the flake food I drop in. They literally wait for the shrimp to tear it into smaller pieces before going into eat haha


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## doncityz (May 17, 2011)

diwu13 said:


> Yea they probably will eat some baby shrimps. But I figure I have enough hiding places for the babies that some will make it. I mean.. these fish can really only eat things "o" that small. They have a hard time with the flake food I drop in. They literally wait for the shrimp to tear it into smaller pieces before going into eat haha


Yeah, your tanks both have lots of hiding places. Not sure if baby shrimps are smart enough to stay in them though. How about harassment by the fish? Do they harass the shrimps? Like nipping at the shrimp's antennas and so on?


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

I've seen some really small juvi shrimp everytime I feed the tanks so those seem to be surviving fine. Those are like 'o-' small and don't get bothered.

The fish also don't bother any of the larger shrimps at all. I've watched a lot and they will actually school around some of the larger shrimp as they swim around the tank. I'm nearly 100% sure they don't bother the shrimp at all because I used to have some tetras with the shrimp. And I noticed that the shrimp would constantly hide and not swim around the tank. Now, with the mosquito rasboras I still see shrimp of all sizes swimming around and what not.


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

Thought I'd post an update with how well the moss was growing in the tanks. Just in case anyone was wondering I'm running 2x 15W 6500K bulbs over each tank at 6 hours a day. I'm dosing Seachem Excel and Flourish twice a week after water changes, at 50% the recommended amount.

































This little shrimp :angel:










Shots of feeding time. You can see how close the mosquito rasboras come to the shrimp pellets. They'll hover over the shrimp as they eat and pick of any of the food that breaks off and floats around.










And the RCS shrimp ball. That last tiger shrimp is doing very well :O


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## doncityz (May 17, 2011)

Mosses are looking great.


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

TY sir . Some stem plants are dying for some reason. Can't figure out exactly why for some reason >.>


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## xenxes (Dec 22, 2011)

Are the mosses just coming out? Or is this after a trim? What variety?


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

xenxes said:


> Are the mosses just coming out? Or is this after a trim? What variety?


Trimmed it a bit so it comes out more even. A few strands were like 5" long while majority were the length you see lol. But yeah, the moss is growing out of the cloth mesh. Can't even see the cloth mesh on some of the moss walls!


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

Quick update.

I ordered 6x amano shrimp and 10x babaulti 'black' shrimp from Rachael. The first to help cut down my hair algae and the 2nd because more shrimp is always better :flick:! Picked them up at 8:30am today and DANG do amanos poop a lot. The water they came in was ~500TDS so I drip acclimated them very slowly. The babaulti's came in ~250TDS water so it was a pretty fast drip acclimation to match my tank parameters. What surprised me were how "orange" the black shrimp were upon arrival. Most likely due to stress. Not disappointed if they stay orange or turn black, either way is fine by me !

Amanos being drip acclimated. Three of them were easily 1.5in!









The orange babaulti 'black' shrimp


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## knuggs (Mar 5, 2007)

Congrats on the new shrimp! Never heard of those orange and black shrimp. Do they change colors? Can't wait to see pics of them when they are all settled


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

knuggs said:


> Congrats on the new shrimp! Never heard of those orange and black shrimp. Do they change colors? Can't wait to see pics of them when they are all settled


I think they are a new type of babaulti out. Rachael is carrying four different types now! I think they are orange when stressed. I messaged another member that bought them off of her and he also said they were orange upon arrival. A week later they are showing off their black coloration.

Here's a picture of the shrimp joon got initially (photo credit goes to joon):









And the same shrimp one week later:


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## knuggs (Mar 5, 2007)

Those are pretty wild  Wish I had room!


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## cableguy69846 (Dec 13, 2010)

Nice shrimp man. Once they go all black, they should look good next to the cherries.


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

knuggs said:


> Those are pretty wild  Wish I had room!


You have tons of tanks. Make some room 



cableguy69846 said:


> Nice shrimp man. Once they go all black, they should look good next to the cherries.


They are in the tank with the yellows. I was thinking of some green babaulti's later on down the line to go with the RCS


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## knuggs (Mar 5, 2007)

They don't cross with cherries?


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

Nope! The babaulti shrimp are caridina! They don't cross with tigers, CBS, CRS either.


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## cableguy69846 (Dec 13, 2010)

diwu13 said:


> They are in the tank with the yellows. I was thinking of some green babaulti's later on down the line to go with the RCS


Even better.:icon_smil


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## knuggs (Mar 5, 2007)

Interesting, that leaves the door wide open  Mayb I can find some room....hmmm


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## xenxes (Dec 22, 2011)

Love the new shrimp, did you setup a 3rd tank? Or did they go in the red/yellow?


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

My 3rd tank is just the moss tank for now . I have a nice healthy population of bladder snails and mini ramshorn snails in there though lol. Really helps the moss grow out !

I put the babaulti black shrimp in with the yellows.


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## doncityz (May 17, 2011)

Cool.. any pics of the moss tanks now?


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

Um.. I can snap a picture but it's not pretty or anything . Just moss, snails, and moss tiles. Just look at the first moss tank picture... and imagine it dirtier looking lol


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## knuggs (Mar 5, 2007)

Have you tried one of Liams mesh filter strainers?


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

knuggs said:


> Have you tried one of Liams mesh filter strainers?


No, I've seen someone who has (H4n) and it does look nice. Are you thinking of getting some?


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## knuggs (Mar 5, 2007)

I was thinking about it cause The only issue with the filter floss is that it may keep to much out and end up affecting the water quality. I'm not sure which one I would need though, that's why I was wondering g if you have since you use AquaClear HOBs.


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

Oh you can totally browse on Liam's sale thread. A lot of people listed the sizes you need for specific filters and what not. If they don't you can definitely post it up and people will get back to you. If I remember correctly the AC20 needs the 14mm prefilter.

I am either going to buy some or make my own prefilters (same way you did, only use SS mesh instead of filter floss). But this will be after I get an RO/DI unit. I'm suffering some babaulti casualties right now


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## knuggs (Mar 5, 2007)

Dang, sorry to hear about the new shrimpies  

I'll have to do some searching for that filter mesh size, thanks!


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

Yea good luck! Updating coming soon. Did a major makeover on the moss tank. It was getting really messy and out of hand


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

*Moss tank update!*

So if you remember the moss tank used to look like this when newly set up:








I thought that mesh could stretch a lot more and I measured the width of the tank too perfectly. So what ended up happening was the suction cups kept popping out .


Now it looks like...








Boundaries started to degrade or something. The entire tank smelled weird :\. Bowls contain peacock moss, java moss, mini xmass moss, and hygroryza aristata.


Look how dirty the bottom is from the snail poop and dead moss!










New dividers made with cut up ziplock freezer bags (thicker). Also cut holes in them to allow for water circulation. For those wondering, a ziplock freezer bag is the PERFECT size for a divider in a 10g tank 










How the tank looks after I cleaned the tank, drained most of the water, and put the new dividers in.










Put the moss back in as well as the floaters.










Look at all the peacock moss !!! Want to buy some 










Giant bladder snail in the tank. I have like 4 or so really huge ones (this is by far the largest). They do a great job fertilizing the tank haha.


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

And a random shrimp update...

Babaulti blacks finally deepening in color.










You can see how some of the babaulti blacks colored up nicely while others are taking their time.










One of the huge amanos I got. 1.5 inches!










Range of colors of yellow/orange shrimp. I really need to cull out that really dark red one lol :X. Almost looks like a RCS doesn't it?


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## xenxes (Dec 22, 2011)

Would soil + malaysian trumpets, worms, other inverts alleviate the problem in the moss tank? That way waste just gets liquefied back down into the dirt. 

Cause it seems like you would have to keep cleaning snail poo by keeping it bare.


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

Yea I don't really have problems cleaning the snail poo . There's no filtration so the moss is getting plenty of nitrates from the poop, and growing extremely well because of it!


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## knuggs (Mar 5, 2007)

I couldn't find that thread or info on wether it would fit a AQ filter.


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## doncityz (May 17, 2011)

Pretty cool DIY job, diwu!


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

knuggs said:


> I couldn't find that thread or info on wether it would fit a AQ filter.


Here it is Knuggs: http://www.plantedtank.net/forums/s...fs-stainless-steel-mesh-prefilter-shrimp.html and then do a search for "aquaclear" in it and you should get some numbers . Or you can measure the width of the intake tube as well if you got a filter handy



doncityz said:


> Pretty cool DIY job, diwu!


Thanks man . Hope it doesn't stink up this time haha


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## tharsis (Oct 9, 2009)

^looks good, nice idea! Do you have any water movement in this tank? Adding in a small power head like a koralia 240 could help oxygenate the water, even a bubble wand would help IMO. 

I like the changes and the new additions to the other tanks as well, good stuff!


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

tharsis said:


> ^looks good, nice idea! Do you have any water movement in this tank? Adding in a small power head like a koralia 240 could help oxygenate the water, even a bubble wand would help IMO.
> 
> I like the changes and the new additions to the other tanks as well, good stuff!


I have a 48" long bubble curtain in the moss tank ! A simple 10G air pump is actually able to drive air throughout the whole thing haha. But yea no filter at all.


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## tharsis (Oct 9, 2009)

oh yeah, now I see it there. I always liked my bubble wand when I first got into the hobby, I found them very soothing. I eventually got rid of it though when i got rid of my clown puke gravel haha.


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## xenxes (Dec 22, 2011)

I want a bubble wand  don't know where to put it though.

I'm breeding bettas again, 2nd try :/


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

tharsis said:


> oh yeah, now I see it there. I always liked my bubble wand when I first got into the hobby, I found them very soothing. I eventually got rid of it though when i got rid of my clown puke gravel haha.


The bubble sound is very soothing haha. I ended up getting a sponge filter so the ambient sound would stay. Since the tanks are in my bedroom I found it would help me sleep . The humidity from evaporation is also very nice. Like.. when I sleep over at my friends place I notice how much drier it is there.



xenxes said:


> I want a bubble wand  don't know where to put it though.
> 
> I'm breeding bettas again, 2nd try :/


The kind I got you can bury it in the substrate and it still works!


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

moved progression post to 2nd post


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

used to be progression


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## knuggs (Mar 5, 2007)

Love all the progression pics roud:


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## xenxes (Dec 22, 2011)

+1 on the progression pics, everyone needs one in their journal!


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

xenxes said:


> +1 on the progression pics, everyone needs one in their journal!





knuggs said:


> Love all the progression pics roud:


Thank you thank you . I linked it to the first page so I can go back and update if needed


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## cableguy69846 (Dec 13, 2010)

Nice progression pics man. The tanks look great. How is the moss experiment working out?


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

cableguy69846 said:


> Nice progression pics man. The tanks look great. How is the moss experiment working out?


Thanks! The moss tank is doing very well. The moss is growing a ton. I switched up the dividers on it to plastic ziplock bags instead of the mesh. The moss kept growing into the mesh and it got all gross haha.

Did you take down all your moss jars when you simplified your tanks to just the 2x 20G?


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## cableguy69846 (Dec 13, 2010)

diwu13 said:


> Thanks! The moss tank is doing very well. The moss is growing a ton. I switched up the dividers on it to plastic ziplock bags instead of the mesh. The moss kept growing into the mesh and it got all gross haha.
> 
> Did you take down all your moss jars when you simplified your tanks to just the 2x 20G?


For the most part. I have 2 up still, but they are the ones with the dirt in them. I may try doing a tank like yours in a few months though, or, I have another idea.:icon_twis


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

cableguy69846 said:


> For the most part. I have 2 up still, but they are the ones with the dirt in them. I may try doing a tank like yours in a few months though, or, I have another idea.:icon_twis



Ohhh What kinda Idea? I wanna copy it !!!


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## Bananariot (Feb 28, 2012)

What kind of mesh are you using for those vertical pieces.....and how do you get your growth so even even with frogbit?

My fontanus stuff looks so ugly


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

Bananariot said:


> What kind of mesh are you using for those vertical pieces.....and how do you get your growth so even even with frogbit?
> 
> My fontanus stuff looks so ugly


What do you mean vertical pieces? Are you talking about the moss walls or that little /\ shape thing I made haha?

All my frogbit died actually . I only have tons of hygroryza aristata from h4n! But yea.. I have wayyy too much lighting over my tank. 2x 15W bulbs like 1" from the water surface. So I had INSANELY high light near the top of my tank. Which was blocked out perfectly by the floating plants 

Oh.. yea those moss walls only look nice and fuzzy since it's been like 3-4 months already.


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## cableguy69846 (Dec 13, 2010)

diwu13 said:


> Ohhh What kinda Idea? I wanna copy it !!!


Something involving a shallow basin and not much water. I saw someone else doing it (I think) and I wanna try it.


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

So it's like semi-emersed kinda thing?


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## cableguy69846 (Dec 13, 2010)

diwu13 said:


> So it's like semi-emersed kinda thing?


I guess you could say that. I am thinking with less water, maybe less chance for algae. But, I will have to play a bit with it.


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

Hm.. I haven't had any problems with algae in my moss tank. No filtration, only a 40" long bubble curtain. Tons of snails in there to eat any algae though. I do see some algae spots but they go away very quickly


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## knuggs (Mar 5, 2007)

Moss is great for keeping algae out of a tank. Usually soaks up all the excess nutrients and starves out the algae. Algae will always be in the water, unless you have a nice clean RO system, but then you have to fert more cause theres no minerals left in the water. Majority of algae issues is overlighting. I think 2wpg is almost too much for most plants and tanks, depending on depth and such.


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## cableguy69846 (Dec 13, 2010)

diwu13 said:


> Hm.. I haven't had any problems with algae in my moss tank. No filtration, only a 40" long bubble curtain. Tons of snails in there to eat any algae though. I do see some algae spots but they go away very quickly


The jars I had in the window were taken over by hair algae, that is why I am looking at something else. I am also going to be using a shorter light period. Maybe 8 or 10 hours as opposed to the 12 I usually run.


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## knuggs (Mar 5, 2007)

cableguy69846 said:


> The jars I had in the window were taken over by hair algae, that is why I am looking at something else. I am also going to be using a shorter light period. Maybe 8 or 10 hours as opposed to the 12 I usually run.


Yeah sunlight, especially now since the photoperiod is longer, is great for algae especially in a small jar cause the way it magnifies and reflects the light. A lil jar would jus soak it all up. Maybe try a spot where its a lil less direct light. 

How do you keep the surface of your water from getting film and such on it? Do you change the water everyday? That was my biggest issue when I try and keep something in a jar.


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## cableguy69846 (Dec 13, 2010)

knuggs said:


> Yeah sunlight, especially now since the photoperiod is longer, is great for algae especially in a small jar cause the way it magnifies and reflects the light. A lil jar would jus soak it all up. Maybe try a spot where its a lil less direct light.
> 
> How do you keep the surface of your water from getting film and such on it? Do you change the water everyday? That was my biggest issue when I try and keep something in a jar.


I am going to try some artificial light when I do it again. I used to change the water at least once a week. As for film, I didn't really do anything about it. I just let the jars do their thing. Maybe that is why the failed. Lol. I need to pay a bit more attention to them next time.


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## knuggs (Mar 5, 2007)

Yeah that films allows zero air exchange

Srry if were hijacking you thread Diwu


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## cableguy69846 (Dec 13, 2010)

knuggs said:


> Yeah that films allows zero air exchange
> 
> Srry if were hijacking you thread Diwu


Got ya. I am thinking of putting about an inch of water in a tub and letting most of the moss grow emergent in it. That should take care of the film and algae all in one go.


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

Hm... yea the problem is I had*** tons of hair algae in my tank from lighting even though I was dosing ferts. Bought amanos and nerites to alleviate the problem and they did an awesome job !

Yea I think the film was definitely limiting the oxygen/CO2 exchange in your little moss jars. Throw in a little bubble curtain in the inch of water?


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## xenxes (Dec 22, 2011)

Ramshorn and bladderwort (pond) snails seem to eat surface scum, I see the small ones always skimming the surface, sucking it away. I'm sure smaller/baby snails of other varieties will work too, so long as they are light enough to float on the surface.


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## knuggs (Mar 5, 2007)

xenxes said:


> Ramshorn and bladderwort (pond) snails seem to eat surface scum, I see the small ones always skimming the surface, sucking it away. I'm sure smaller/baby snails of other varieties will work too, so long as they are light enough to float on the surface.


I've seen them do that do. Even get tiny MTS that do that but not as often.


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

My nerites just go onto the hygroryza and because they are so heavy they sink it lol :\


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## knuggs (Mar 5, 2007)

I need to get some nerites! Like 50+ of them.


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

Wow! WHy so many? You should probably get olive nerites then since they only cost like $1 each


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## knuggs (Mar 5, 2007)

I figd 50 of them would get me about 5 per tank, give or take a few for smaller and bigger tanks. Wonder how long they live...


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## xenxes (Dec 22, 2011)

Pretty long time if they have enough food. I wouldn't get so many, 1 can keep a 5 gallon tank pretty clean, depending on how much light you're getting. 

I have 1 small horned in my 2gs, 5g, 6g. 2 in the 9g, 4 in the 20g.

They mainly keep the glass clean of gsa, and also eat the bbas. For some others you may need some amanos too. Otos don't really do much, that I can tell.


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

Yea I think 3 per 10G would be a good number. I have 6x in each 10g lol. None have died so far.


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## knuggs (Mar 5, 2007)

xenxes said:


> Pretty long time if they have enough food. I wouldn't get so many, 1 can keep a 5 gallon tank pretty clean, depending on how much light you're getting.
> 
> They mainly keep the glass clean of gsa, and also eat the bbas. For some others you may need some amanos too. Otos don't really do much, that I can tell.


Like years? I need to do some more research on them. I know they dont breed, I believe they need saltwater to do so.

Yeah, otos are really only good for diatoms and film. Algae isnt really a big issue now but would like some to eat the small amounts and excess food over MTS, Ponds, and Ramshorn.



diwu13 said:


> Yea I think 3 per 10G would be a good number. I have 6x in each 10g lol. None have died so far.


I have 357gal of water. But broken down per tank per 10g would still need about 42 of them. My divided could use a couple extra since it has more wall space.

I surprised theres not a snail section yet with all kinds of crazy snails you can get, like there is shrimp. Prolly not enough variety or interest, since alot of general hobbyist frown open them, planted members understand there role a lil better.


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

I think nerites can live for years. Or there's just HUGE HUGE size differences in the snails. I have one nerite that is only as large as this -> O

And then I have another that's like -> O (even larger actually)

I'm gonna assume that's due to age.


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## xenxes (Dec 22, 2011)

I got another big olive and huge zebra today, imo olives are the hardiest and least picky eaters, but not so pretty to look at.


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

You're lucky you can get nerites from a LFS. Nothing near me has them. I ask H4n nicely to buy them for me and then pick them up from him lol. But I live in a college town. And the LFS here doesn't even know people keep dwarf shrimp strictly :\.


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## knuggs (Mar 5, 2007)

Congrats on your new pick ups  We have them at the lfs here but they want too much for them.


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## xenxes (Dec 22, 2011)

This store just opened up  $1-2 for nerites is awesome.


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

xenxes said:


> This store just opened up  $1-2 for nerites is awesome.


Even the zebra?!?!?


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## knuggs (Mar 5, 2007)

Wow that's a good price!! They want around $5 here.


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## xenxes (Dec 22, 2011)

All the snails, I think the horned (clithon) is $1.29 (?), other assorted 1.49-1.69. Galaxy rasboras were $3  otos $1.something, her shrimp are a little pricey though.


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

Super cheap ottos as well.  (jealously)


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## Studman0143 (Mar 20, 2011)

Shoot my LFS always has Nerite's. They go for $1.99. I have a horned tri-colored tracked and a horned zebra one I believe. Bummer you can't get any.


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## Bananariot (Feb 28, 2012)

I think I saw somewhere you're gettin an R/O unit?


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

Yup. Ordered one today


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## h4n (Jan 4, 2006)

diwu13 said:


> Yup. Ordered one today


Got the same one as mine?

-Sent from my Samsung Note, A "Phablet "


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

h4n said:


> Got the same one as mine?
> 
> -Sent from my Samsung Note, A "Phablet "


Of course man . Will have questions about hook up I bet haha.


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## Bananariot (Feb 28, 2012)

Lemme know how complicated the hookup is.....I may just be tempted to take apart my school's sink next semester lol xD

Yeah my LFS at school offers Nerites for $2-3. You should ask your LFS to order you some. I would imagine ordering some from this forum with a shrimp order shoudln't be too bad in price either.


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

Yea sure. I'll take some pictures for you. Should be coming like tomorrow or Thursday!


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

Minor update. RO/DI unit should arrive later today!!! So I will start topping off with RO/DI water until the TDS of my tank drops to ~180 (it's currently at ~250). At that point I will be using remineralizer with the RO/DI water during water changes!

Some random pictures. Nerites are going to TOWN laying eggs everywhere ._.!!! Surprisingly there are ZERO eggs on the glass. Just everywhere on plants and moss haha.










The culprits










Shrimp climbing out of the water during a water change!!










Closeup of one of the babaulti 'black' shrimps!










Few shots of pregnant amano shrimp. These things carry TONS of eggs. Holy moly.


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## toofazt (Jun 18, 2005)

That's a ton of eggs on the Amano! Too bad they're not easier to hatch. If they were, Amanos would probably be cheaper than Cherry's.


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

toofazt said:


> That's a ton of eggs on the Amano! Too bad they're not easier to hatch. If they were, Amanos would probably be cheaper than Cherry's.


Haha yea totally. I've never kept amanos before so I never would have though their clutch of eggs would be THAT huge!

I just tested the RO/DI unit and it sprayed water everywhere from a loose connection ._.!! [censored][censored][censored][censored] haha. Made a total mess everywhere haha. I tested the fill rate and it's like 4gallons in 45mins. I can't use my bathroom sink though, because it doesn't connect all the way to the sink outlet. I have to use the kitchen sink for this haha.

Pictures to come!


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

Update!

New additions in right tank include:
(1) stainless steel prefilter thanks to maxsunny
(2) various anubias thanks to a local !

















Similar new things in the left tank!

















I am now using RO/DI in both of these tanks. How I transitioned to the RO/DI water is as follows.
(1) Tanks were originally around 250TDS, I began topping off with RO/DI water until the TDS dropped to ~200 or so. ZERO water changes during this period, only top offs
(2) Reconstituted water to gH ~4-5, which results in a TDS of around ~150. Then I do 1G WC per week.
- Both tanks are now hovering at ~180TDS


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## xenxes (Dec 22, 2011)

Wow at the amano eggs. Amazing you got your TDS so low. I decided to hold off on the RO/DI, no room for it.

Also been neglecting my tanks, busy with some consulting work, and Diablo 3


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

Haha D3. Did you get level 60 yet? How many hours you put in?


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## xenxes (Dec 22, 2011)

Not too bad, 57 hours, I got to 60 a while ago, stuck on Belial, got him to 10% then wiped, ugh. Inferno is much easier on solo.


----------



## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

Haha I don't play myself but I was watching streams of people getting 60 in the first day of release. You're trying to solo the game? I heard it's much easier with a party


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## Bananariot (Feb 28, 2012)

I promised my gf I wouldn't buy it till august.....lmao it's SO hard to resist the urge.....D3.....the beta was amazing. I;m gonna get a demon hunter when I start playing,


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

I didn't buy it. I'm holding myself back. I wasted like my highschool sophmore year away with D2 :\


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## Bananariot (Feb 28, 2012)

College Freshy + Soph year = WoW

I had dial up internet till 11th grade. My dad isn't up to date with tech. lol

So what shrimp are you keepin now?


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

LOL. During those two years no games for me. And then junior and senior year of college I started to play League of Legends (such a time killer, but so addicting... ugh).

In the left tank its RCS, 1 tiger shrimp, 3 amanos, nerites, and mosquito rasboras.

In the right tank its yellow/orange shrimp, malawas, babaulti's blacks (i think only 3 left alive  ), 3 amanos, nerites, and mosquito rasboras.


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## kwheeler91 (May 26, 2009)

Ahh diablo... Lost more sleep than I care to count because of d2. Resisting buying d3 so im not tired broke and homeless lol


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## h4n (Jan 4, 2006)

How the Malwas doing Di?

-Sent from my Samsung Note, a "Phablet"


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

kwheeler91 said:


> Ahh diablo... Lost more sleep than I care to count because of d2. Resisting buying d3 so im not tired broke and homeless lol


Exactly man... too addicting @[email protected]



h4n said:


> How the Malwas doing Di?
> 
> -Sent from my Samsung Note, a "Phablet"


I see little babies in the tank. They are clearish so I have no idea if they are yellow or malawa babies


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## madness (Jul 31, 2011)

diwu13 said:


> Exactly man... too addicting @[email protected]
> 
> 
> 
> I see little babies in the tank. They are clearish so I have no idea if they are yellow or malawa babies


Malawas don't seem to drop as many babies at once as neos do but they breed really readily and rapidly.

I see them dropping babies all year round, non-stop.


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## h4n (Jan 4, 2006)

Nice either way there babies!!


-Sent from my Samsung Note, a "Phablet"


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

I noticed their berried egg clutches are much smaller than neos as you asid. Still no idea what the babies are


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## h4n (Jan 4, 2006)

diwu13 said:


> I noticed their berried egg clutches are much smaller than neos as you asid. Still no idea what the babies are


Ya i noticed that to. But i have a few that habeas huge cluthes.

-Sent from my Samsung Note, a "Phablet"


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

*Update woo hoo!!!*

Hygroryza aristata really taking off now that I'm dosing Root Medic's macro and micro solution 










Baby shrimp pictures! Using the macro lens attachment to iphone! Definitely something was wrong with my water before using RO/DI water.









As reference that suction cup is 1.5cm diameter. Look how tiny these babies are !









Different shrimp baby shot with a strand of java moss as comparison.









And another baby shrimp on a HUGE moss ball. So many babies in both tanks haha!










And now.. some pictures of the S grade CRS I won from H4n in hiw nice RAOK! Thanks a lot man!

































And to end this update off, close up macro shot of the CRS


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## xenxes (Dec 22, 2011)

Hygroryza aristata -- when did you get this?? That's a cool plant, one of the few aquatic grass plants out there.

Honestly I don't think you need to dose nutrients with your shrimp & fish. I stopped dosing, whenever I dosed I'd get a little hair algae bloom, been months without dosing Flourish. Only going to use root tabs every 6 months from now on.

I think my corydoras had babies, I saw some tiny ones earlier, but the 20g is so overgrown I can rarely see anything lol.


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

I got the hygroryza aristata from h4n originally. If you need some I don't mind sending you a bunch! Wanna trade some plants since you got tons of nice stems that make me jealous ?

I think I do need to dose... when I didn't dose Rootmedic fertz (only dosed Seachem Excel and Flourish) all my plants were dying. Hygroryza was melting as well. Ever since I started to dose everything is growing much better and healthier.


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## xenxes (Dec 22, 2011)

Which stems do you want? I've been throwing out about a pound every other week :/ Let me know and I'll ship some your way.

Also have a lot of all-blue shrimp (rili strain with 0 red markings) if you want to start a blue shrimp tank


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

Any stems really! I don't have a lot of variety. Whatever grows well in medium-low light.

I really want to start a 3rd tank ! I'm waiting to see if I get an additional 3K from the NSF !


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## h4n (Jan 4, 2006)

diwu13 said:


> Any stems really! I don't have a lot of variety. Whatever grows well in medium-low light.
> 
> I really want to start a 3rd tank ! I'm waiting to see if I get an additional 3K from the NSF !


Let me know if you start a 3rd tank!

-Sent from my Samsung Note, a "Phablet"


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## Bananariot (Feb 28, 2012)

Oh nice, what macro lens did you get for your iphone? I've been looking, but I dont have any solid leads on which one works well. 

Do you know what made my hygroryza start growing more? Paraguard lol......


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

Bananariot said:


> Oh nice, what macro lens did you get for your iphone? I've been looking, but I dont have any solid leads on which one works well.
> 
> Do you know what made my hygroryza start growing more? Paraguard lol......


I use this one: http://www.amazon.com/Detachable-iP...F8&qid=1340138178&sr=8-6&keywords=iphone+lens which is the cheapest one that seems to have good reviews haha. My only issue with it is that, depending on what case you use for your iphone, it won't work. I had to cut my iphone case to fit the magnetic ring on, but that didn't bother me that much. I like how it works, the wide angle lens is pretty good as well, but I just use photosynth for panorama pictures anyway haha.

That makes sense. Paraguard has similar ingredients to excel haha.


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## knuggs (Mar 5, 2007)

Wow didn't know you could get lenses for the IPhone.


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

Well the lenses are for any phone really. The droid phones come with a magnetic ring built in, iphones don't. So for $9 you can take some decent macro shots without having to buy expensive cameras


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## knuggs (Mar 5, 2007)

Interesting! I got some more Aura Blues, Super Tigers, and Golden Bees from Liam today


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

knuggs said:


> Interesting! I got some more Aura Blues, Super Tigers, and Golden Bees from Liam today


Hm... to join your old stock?


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## Bananariot (Feb 28, 2012)

Aura blues? How much were they I'm getting TT's. I hear these guys are as hardy as tigers but twice as feisty  

You should get some di! Start another tank!


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## xenxes (Dec 22, 2011)

I'll give you ~20 of my blue heteropoda when you're ready  Stick with n. heteropoda imo, hardy as roaches, and if you ever wanted to, you could experiment breeding the blues with your red and yellows in another container.

Sigh, how cool would tri-colored rili be? If only they worked this way:


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## knuggs (Mar 5, 2007)

diwu13 said:


> Hm... to join your old stock?


Yeah since I only had a couple of each. Hopefully they will start to breed now.



Bananariot said:


> Aura blues? How much were they I'm getting TT's. I hear these guys are as hardy as tigers but twice as feisty
> 
> You should get some di! Start another tank!


They were only $20 this time. Those TT's are cool shrimp. Im still not sure how well the Tigers like my water. They live in it but havent seen any breeding.



xenxes said:


> I'll give you ~20 of my blue heteropoda when you're ready  Stick with n. heteropoda imo, hardy as roaches, and if you ever wanted to, you could experiment breeding the blues with your red and yellows in another container.
> 
> Sigh, how cool would tri-colored rili be? If only they worked this way:


That would be sweet but just another thing I would have to buy  and after my shrimp shipment Im broke.


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## Bananariot (Feb 28, 2012)

xenxes said:


> I'll give you ~20 of my blue heteropoda when you're ready  Stick with n. heteropoda imo, hardy as roaches, and if you ever wanted to, you could experiment breeding the blues with your red and yellows in another container.
> 
> Sigh, how cool would tri-colored rili be? If only they worked this way:


I heard all the mixes would just give wild type shrimp. If only the colors worked like mixing paint.


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

xenxes said:


> I'll give you ~20 of my blue heteropoda when you're ready  Stick with n. heteropoda imo, hardy as roaches, and if you ever wanted to, you could experiment breeding the blues with your red and yellows in another container.
> 
> Sigh, how cool would tri-colored rili be? If only they worked this way:


Oh snap! Free shrimp makes me want up to set another tank even more ._.! The only problem is it's not as "easy" as saying I want another tank lol. I have to keep all tanks in my room since that's where the portable AC is in my apartment. And I don't have a lot of room so I need to set up a rack ! So another tank would consist of
1) buying the rack
2) getting strip lightening to save electricity (instead of 2x CFL per tank I would use like a 4ft tube)
3) moving furniture around haha

And if I were to set up the rack I'd set up TWO more tanks hah. And I would totally use my moss tank as a culling tank and throw in reds, yellows, and blues


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## xenxes (Dec 22, 2011)

1. Problem Solved

2. Not sure about strip lighting, Marine Depot? I think CFL is cheaper...

3. That's what the GF is for


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

xenxes said:


> 1. Problem Solved
> 
> 2. Not sure about strip lighting, Marine Depot? I think CFL is cheaper...
> 
> 3. That's what the GF is for


Haha that rack you showed only holds 100lbs per shelf :X Which is cutting it close for a 10G tank with substrate!!

Lighting I would pick up this cheap 4ft light ($20 for light and double bulb) double light from Flushing, NY haha. Can't ask GF to help now though.. she's back at her family's home for the summer and won't be up to my apartment as much


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## Bananariot (Feb 28, 2012)

diwu13 said:


> Haha that rack you showed only holds 100lbs per shelf :X Which is cutting it close for a 10G tank with substrate!!
> 
> Lighting I would pick up this cheap 4ft light ($20 for light and double bulb) double light from Flushing, NY haha. Can't ask GF to help now though.. she's back at her family's home for the summer and won't be up to my apartment as much


Them hips support the weight. The carrying capacity of those womanly hips are something that never ceases to amaze me. While I'm like  asdf my fingers feel liek they're gonna tear off, women just prop all the weight there. 

Where is this $20 double light from flushing.......I may need one lol


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## xenxes (Dec 22, 2011)

10 gallon water weight = 83lbs? I guess tank filled weight would be a little over 100, definitely over with substrate. Hmm not sure about shelves then, just did a search for "utility shelf" on Google and that was the cheapest. You got a link for that light? Interested too...


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## cableguy69846 (Dec 13, 2010)

If you build it...... they will come.......










:hihi:


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

Bananariot said:


> Them hips support the weight. The carrying capacity of those womanly hips are something that never ceases to amaze me. While I'm like  asdf my fingers feel liek they're gonna tear off, women just prop all the weight there.
> 
> Where is this $20 double light from flushing.......I may need one lol


Lol are you talking about hips or racks ! HUE HUE HUE.

So about the light, I can get you guys a name of the store when I go down to visit my GF. It's a korean light store, not chain or anything haha. My GF's dad knew the owner so he bargained the price down. It wasn't that expensive either way, like $40 for the entire set up. I just stood there and listened haha!



xenxes said:


> 10 gallon water weight = 83lbs? I guess tank filled weight would be a little over 100, definitely over with substrate. Hmm not sure about shelves then, just did a search for "utility shelf" on Google and that was the cheapest. You got a link for that light? Interested too...


Yea, so 10 gallon = 83lbs. Then the tank, substrate, driftwood, filter, lights, and I think you're looking at easily 150lbs. I was looking at this shelf: http://www.homedepot.com/webapp/wcs...H=REC-_-product-5-_-100095394-_-202251083-_-N and for $129 it's not bad. It's perfect in width (2x 10G per shelf) and enough room between shelves . Then I can easily hook up the tube lights on the shelf above it 

And wrote a bit about the light shop above. I don't think they ship haha. It's like a small family store.



cableguy69846 said:


> If you build it...... they will come.......
> :hihi:


I wish man... she's 100% staying with her family. Who am I to ask her to leave (though.. I would like to).


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## xenxes (Dec 22, 2011)

That's a sturdy looking shelf, but only 2 levels? Come on


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

xenxes said:


> That's a sturdy looking shelf, but only 2 levels? Come on


I feel like anything past 6ft would be a pain to do water changes with lol. That 2 level shelf is 5.5ft already!


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## theericafish (Apr 27, 2012)

Hello, my apologies if you have already answered this question (I tried searching through your thread and couldn't find a definite answer): What type of mesh are you using for your moss walls and that /\ formation you made. 

I'm contemplating making a moss wall backdrop. Not sure where to purchase a safe type of material for moss wall mesh. Also, how are you securing them to the back of your tank?


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

theericafish said:


> Hello, my apologies if you have already answered this question (I tried searching through your thread and couldn't find a definite answer): What type of mesh are you using for your moss walls and that /\ formation you made.
> 
> I'm contemplating making a moss wall backdrop. Not sure where to purchase a safe type of material for moss wall mesh. Also, how are you securing them to the back of your tank?


Hey, thanks for checking out my journal ! For the /\ formation I used stainless steel mesh that I purchased from the user 'h4n' (hit him up if you want some, but then you need to buy SS mesh cutters as well which is like $10 on amazon.com). To secure the moss to the SS, I used cloth mesh from the fabric section from Walmart. As long as you buy the nylon it's safe to use in the tank. I would recommend getting green or black mesh coloring, not white.

For moss walls, I recommend using rigid plastic meshing found in the crafts section of Walmart. Then to secure the moss I use the same nylon cloth mesh as with the /\ structure. Then, to secure the wall to the back of my tank I use suction cups !


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## Bananariot (Feb 28, 2012)

http://www.homedepot.com/Storage-Or...splay?catalogId=10053&langId=-1&storeId=10051

If you're looking to hold less than 250 lbs per shelf, this cheap baddie at $20 will do the trick. Tried and tested.


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

Bananariot said:


> http://www.homedepot.com/Storage-Or...splay?catalogId=10053&langId=-1&storeId=10051
> 
> If you're looking to hold less than 250 lbs per shelf, this cheap baddie at $20 will do the trick. Tried and tested.


Yea I actually looked into that. But then I'd have to attach particle board or something for an even surface. Might as well spend a little extra and be able to have 4 tanks . I'm so tempted to get the rack I posted, but shipping costs $50 :\


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## Bananariot (Feb 28, 2012)

diwu13 said:


> Yea I actually looked into that. But then I'd have to attach particle board or something for an even surface. Might as well spend a little extra and be able to have 4 tanks . I'm so tempted to get the rack I posted, but shipping costs $50 :\


They sell fitted wood panels for them which I think aren't too bad or you could just do without and put the tanks right on top (it's what I did with my 10 gal). This works for rimmed tanks, wouldn't try it with rimless.


Can you ask home depot or wherever to ship to store so it costs no money for you?


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## xenxes (Dec 22, 2011)

diwu13 said:


> Yea I actually looked into that. But then I'd have to attach particle board or something for an even surface. Might as well spend a little extra and be able to have 4 tanks . I'm so tempted to get the rack I posted, but shipping costs $50 :\


That home depot rack looks really flimsy, but "Each shelf holds 250 lb. of evenly distributed weight" Wow really?

$20 is a steal.

You should get this tho http://www.homedepot.com/webapp/wcs...H=REC-_-product-3-_-202518506-_-202545421-_-N

7 Shelves


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## Bananariot (Feb 28, 2012)

xenxes said:


> That home depot rack looks really flimsy, but "Each shelf holds 250 lb. of evenly distributed weight" Wow really?
> 
> $20 is a steal.
> 
> ...


It's actually pretty strong. The link you posted has some concerning reviews. Mostly annoying screws. I hate stripping the screw track.....I always end up doing it >.>


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

xenxes said:


> That home depot rack looks really flimsy, but "Each shelf holds 250 lb. of evenly distributed weight" Wow really?
> 
> $20 is a steal.
> 
> ...


Unless you have really long, short tanks, it won't work as well lol. I honestly think the best racks would have 3 levels. 1 level for storage, and 2 for tanks. Unless you have automated water changer it'd be so annoying to drain/fill the top row tanks.

Btw.. Xenxes, did you check out the link I posted for the 3 tier $129 home depot rack? That one looks insanely sturdy with cross bracings. But shipping is $50



Bananariot said:


> It's actually pretty strong. The link you posted has some concerning reviews. Mostly annoying screws. I hate stripping the screw track.....I always end up doing it >.>


Hm... yea it seems so flimsy to me as well :X! I bought something similar to that for my mom's condo in china and after putting potted plants on it, the wire frames started to bow. Had to put in wooden panels as well.

I think if I call in and ask, they might be able to ship the rack I linked to stores for free. But I'm still 50-50 on whether I want to set up a rack haha! I want to, but I want to make sure I get the additional 3k from NSF before I do


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## Bananariot (Feb 28, 2012)

3k from NSF..?


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## xenxes (Dec 22, 2011)

Yeah I saw that one, but it doesn't seem to justify $129. I'm interested since I'm planning my future shrimp room. I'd like shelves with sliding units and embedded LED strips *drool* but it'll probably end up being a few thousand.


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## xenxes (Dec 22, 2011)

Bananariot said:


> 3k from NSF..?


National Science Foundation, for shrimp research?


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## Bananariot (Feb 28, 2012)

hmm just wondering but howcome when we make moss walls with plastic mesh, howcome we sandwich the moss in b/w 2 mesh sheets. How come we don't just do it like ss mesh and tie the moss onto one side and call it a day?


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## xenxes (Dec 22, 2011)

Bananariot said:


> hmm just wondering but howcome when we make moss walls with plastic mesh, howcome we sandwich the moss in b/w 2 mesh sheets. How come we don't just do it like ss mesh and tie the moss onto one side and call it a day?


I don't know, this is what I do.


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

Bananariot said:


> 3k from NSF..?





xenxes said:


> National Science Foundation, for shrimp research?


What Xenxes said. Not for shrimp research though lol. Boy do I wish :bounce: It's for my environmental engineering research.



xenxes said:


> Yeah I saw that one, but it doesn't seem to justify $129. I'm interested since I'm planning my future shrimp room. I'd like shelves with sliding units and embedded LED strips *drool* but it'll probably end up being a few thousand.


Yea it doesn't justify $129. But it definitely is SUPER sturdy.



Bananariot said:


> hmm just wondering but howcome when we make moss walls with plastic mesh, howcome we sandwich the moss in b/w 2 mesh sheets. How come we don't just do it like ss mesh and tie the moss onto one side and call it a day?


You can. I choose to make it plastic/SS mesh + moss + cloth mesh to just hold everything together better.


----------



## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

Well... came to my rack decision. It will wait until winter break (sometime in December-January). This summer I'll be focusing on my studying for the Fundamental Engineering exam in October, as well as research . I really want to set up the rack (estimated cost to be ~$300 for everything) but I don't have enough time and I want to set it up correctly.

Anyway.. onto the update. Xenxes was nice enough to do a plant trade with me and sent me TONS of plants (most of which I don't know what they are ) as well as platy fry and RCS. Added a bunch of stem plants along the back of both tanks. Took down a few moss walls for the stem plants!

Updated shot of left tank containing: PFR, 5x CRS, 1x Tiger shrimp, 3x Amano shrimp, 3x Mosquito rasbora, and 4x panda platty fry.









Updated shot of right tank containing: yello shrimp, malawa shrimp, 3x amano shrimp, 6x mosquito rasbora, and 3x planda platty fry.


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## Bananariot (Feb 28, 2012)

Do you have a tank for those platties when they grow up? Mine are super aggressive for any food so they might make a snack outta your shrimp when they grow up


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## xenxes (Dec 22, 2011)

Bananariot said:


> Do you have a tank for those platties when they grow up? Mine are super aggressive for any food so they might make a snack outta your shrimp when they grow up


Vodka dip


----------



## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

Bananariot said:


> Do you have a tank for those platties when they grow up? Mine are super aggressive for any food so they might make a snack outta your shrimp when they grow up


LOL nice new profile picture man. I hope xenxes has bred the platties to be extra tame :X. If not they are going into the moss tank with the cull cherries. Lots of nemotodes and copepods in there though. So it'll be like heaven. An unfiltered, moss covered, heaven.



xenxes said:


> Vodka dip


Of course... this is also a option


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## bitFUUL (May 14, 2010)

Tanks are looking GREEN! Very nice.


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## xenxes (Dec 22, 2011)

Your moss meshes look so much better (I just redid and inverted my 9g so now it's all metallic), are you trimming them or they just won't cover the corners? I hate the look of SS steel in a tank.


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

xenxes said:


> Your moss meshes look so much better (I just redid and inverted my 9g so now it's all metallic), are you trimming them or they just won't cover the corners? I hate the look of SS steel in a tank.


Which moss messes? Moss is kinda dying in my tanks for no reason lol. I swapped out a few messy tiles to round pella now. That seems to take off like crazy in my tanks without dying. I also like how the bottom of round pella doesn't die. Whereas with moss, the ends die off if your mesh gets too thick.

I don't trim tiles, just let them grow out. The walls and that /\ shape thing I do trim. The moss won't cover the corners on the /\. THey do on the walls and tiles though.


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## xenxes (Dec 22, 2011)

All the tiles  I think I like the varieties you have on the wall much better than java, which gets all stringy. Is that flame moss hanging on the left side? Or is that pellias? Do you think shrimp do well with pellias as they do in moss (find microfauna to eat especially for the babies)?


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

xenxes said:


> All the tiles  I think I like the varieties you have on the wall much better than java, which gets all stringy. Is that flame moss hanging on the left side? Or is that pellias? Do you think shrimp do well with pellias as they do in moss (find microfauna to eat especially for the babies)?


Oh really ! Thanks! All the tiles pretty much turned into 100% round pella. The moss that was originally made in them died off and the shrimp ate all of it. Same goes for my /\ structures, all the moss died off, only pella left. Same thing for the wall too haha @[email protected]!

I think shrimp babies do very well in the round pella as they do with the mosses. Lots of surface area for biofilm growth. I see babies hiding out there all the time. And as for the moss that's left.. only in one place in each tank lol. In the left tank its in the middle of the driftwood. In the right tank its all over the driftwood and that's it.

Long time no posting or replying here haha. I just started to play Diablo 3 :X


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## Bananariot (Feb 28, 2012)

diwu13 said:


> oh really :d! Thanks! All the tiles pretty much turned into 100% round pella. The moss that was originally made in them died off and the shrimp ate all of it. Same goes for my /\ structures, all the moss died off, only pella left. Same thing for the wall too haha @[email protected]!
> 
> I think shrimp babies do very well in the round pella as they do with the mosses. Lots of surface area for biofilm growth. I see babies hiding out there all the time. And as for the moss that's left.. Only in one place in each tank lol. In the left tank its in the middle of the driftwood. In the right tank its all over the driftwood and that's it.
> 
> Long time no posting or replying here haha. I just started to play diablo 3 :x


dude gimme your id, i"m getting the game on tuesday. Me and pandamonium are gonna go at it.


----------



## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

Bananariot said:


> dude gimme your id, i"m getting the game on tuesday. Me and pandamonium are gonna go at it.


YOU GOT A PM BUDDY lol.


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## xenxes (Dec 22, 2011)

Stop playing Diablo 3 and update your moss tank


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

YO! I'm actually waiting to redo it before updating ._.

AC20 should arrive next Tuesday. So I'll add the flourite in Monday.


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## h4n (Jan 4, 2006)

diwu13 said:


> YO! I'm actually waiting to redo it before updating ._.
> 
> AC20 should arrive next Tuesday. So I'll add the flourite in Monday.


What! Your making your moss tank and actually tank?

-Sent from my Samsung Note, a "Phablet"


----------



## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

h4n said:


> What! Your making your moss tank and actually tank?
> 
> -Sent from my Samsung Note, a "Phablet"


Not really. Throwing in some substrate so I don't have to vac the bottom all the time ! And throwing in a filter because it's so dirty . All the RCS culls I'm throwing in are dying off :\. So it's kinda a tank. With nothing in it except moss ._.


----------



## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

Hm.. why did all the posts in August disappear :O


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

Updates and reposting pictures that somehow got deleted...

Gathering of the PFRs on the anubias leaf










Malawa, yellow, 2x babaulti black, shrimp ball 


















Shots of some of the color variation found in malawas 










































Malawa shrimpies swarming my wooden egg. Not many yellows left after giving 11 to xenxes haha. Malawas are now the dominant genus! Look at all of them 


























Anubias nana petite farm growing quite well!


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## doncityz (May 17, 2011)

diwu13 said:


> Well... came to my rack decision. It will wait until winter break (sometime in December-January). This summer I'll be focusing on my studying for the Fundamental Engineering exam in October, as well as research . I really want to set up the rack (estimated cost to be ~$300 for everything) but I don't have enough time and I want to set it up correctly.
> 
> Anyway.. onto the update. Xenxes was nice enough to do a plant trade with me and sent me TONS of plants (most of which I don't know what they are ) as well as platy fry and RCS. Added a bunch of stem plants along the back of both tanks. Took down a few moss walls for the stem plants!
> 
> ...


Wow!! Your tanks doing very well! I love how the anubias grows wildly in there. mine still about the same size lol.


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

Yea haha. Sadly this forum has quieted down a ton after the swap and shop change :\. Btw, I now have a new 20L tank :3


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## tharsis (Oct 9, 2009)

looks great! love the anubias. Lets see the 20L!


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

It's in my link Tharsis :3. No where as good as yours though. Mine's a growout tank


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## tharsis (Oct 9, 2009)

lol oops :icon_redf

Just call me Mr. Observant

I will check it out now!


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

Yea no one checks this anymore :O haha. Black diamond blasting sand is really really nice. If you ever consider something less natural (since you seem to like your riverbed-look sand)


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## tharsis (Oct 9, 2009)

haha I do like my white playsand  

I may try the black next time though. Time to step out of the comfort zone...


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