# jeri's cherry bowl



## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

Has this been cycled or stabilized long enough before adding the shrimp?

I like how it looks like a HUGE wineglass. And nice driftwood layout


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## jerilovesfrogs (Oct 22, 2010)

it's been set up for a few days....without the shrimp, which i added today. cycling wise....in a NPT, the plants are supposed to act as the filters, so it doesn't have a filter or media..as you can see. i'm sure the plants have good bacteria on them, as the've been established for quite a bit (in the other tank) but i might put some bio media i have in my other tanks, on the bottom of the bowl, so the BB will transfer faster to the gravel. 

yes a huuuuuge wine glass ;D


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## rikardob (Aug 13, 2011)

Looks good. I agree about the cycle thing. Walstad even suggests throwing in fauna right from the start. Shrimp would probably prefer a smaller substrate they could sift through.


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## jerilovesfrogs (Oct 22, 2010)

rikardob: well i tried to get the smallest pieces out of the gravel i could. but then had to throw some bigger pieces on top cos i felt like the soil was too close to the top. i might take some of the bigger pieces out though....as the soil is packing down. =]


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## rikardob (Aug 13, 2011)

Haha. Be careful man. If the soil gets out in the open its a pain to get rid of. I'm sure its fine. Maybe just add play sand or something if you ever have a chance.


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## jerilovesfrogs (Oct 22, 2010)

i'ma chic, but you can call me man.  ohhhh no, i wouldn't let the soil out. i started another dirty tank about a month ago...and that is going well...so i hope this bowl will be the same.


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## rikardob (Aug 13, 2011)

Lol. Sorry Ohio. Good luck with the bowl and your famous shrimps.


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## Newman (Jul 3, 2010)

looking nice!
the thing about not being cycled is slightly worrying me. if you have a good test kit, be testing this thing every 3 days or so for ammonia and nitrites. if you see anything, do a big water change to dilute it. Also i recommend doing weekly 50% water changes on it just in case. 
Glad all shrimp are fine! looks like the females will color up even more when they live there for a few more weeks.


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## jerilovesfrogs (Oct 22, 2010)

but how can you cycle a tank that is supposed to be filterless? i put in a couple pieces of bio media to help seed the gravel though. i'll pick up an ammonia test tomorrow at the very least....as i haven't tested my water(s) in over a year...so they are expired. i'm kind of used to just not testing them, if i know they're cycled.


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## Newman (Jul 3, 2010)

bacteria do live on all surfaces in a tank, especially the things like substrate and DW. w/e little water flow is in there (even from air moving over the bowl surface that you don't notice) the bacteria can use. even more so when shrimp are swimming around and breathing in there (as they move water when they breathe and create a tiny current)
Yes do get an ammonia test, and a nitrite test couldn't hurt either.

whether or not you get anything, I'd still do the 50% water changes weekly. at least while your plants aren't taking over the tank. once they do, you will be able to tone down the water changes or eventually not change at all.


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## madness (Jul 31, 2011)

If you get nervous about the water quality you can always take fast growing plants that can adapt to floating (anacharis, hornwort, watersprite) and toss a good chunk of them into the tank at the start. It will ugly the tank up a bit but this will allow you to add quite a bit of fast growing plant mass and still be able to easily and cleanly remove it at a later date when you feel like the bowl is more stable and mature.


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## jerilovesfrogs (Oct 22, 2010)

thanks newman and madness. what about najas? it's pretty fast growing. but i'm going into a large lfs tomorrow, so i'll try to find some hornwort or watersprite. 

so the fast growing plants, plus the couple little bio balls i put on the bottom, should help this little bowl, and shrimp


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## Newman (Jul 3, 2010)

if the bio balls came from an established tank, then definitely.


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## madness (Jul 31, 2011)

jerilovesfrogs said:


> thanks newman and madness. what about najas? it's pretty fast growing. but i'm going into a large lfs tomorrow, so i'll try to find some hornwort or watersprite.
> 
> so the fast growing plants, plus the couple little bio balls i put on the bottom, should help this little bowl, and shrimp


I think that Najas should work - if I remember correctly it is considered a fast growing nitrate sucker (what you want). I also seem to remember that fry love it - is this the guppy grass plant?

I haven't actually seen/used this plant but if it is the one that I am thinking of it sounds like it is the exact _type_ of plant that I am talking about - fast growing, nitrate and nutrient hogging plant that can handle being floated.


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## jerilovesfrogs (Oct 22, 2010)

newman: yes well established.

madness: yes najas is guppy grass. i have some of that i can pull from another tank...which is good =]


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## madness (Jul 31, 2011)

jerilovesfrogs said:


> newman: yes well established.
> 
> madness: yes najas is guppy grass. i have some of that i can pull from another tank...which is good =]


I would go with that - it is probably a better choice anyways. I only mentioned hornwort and anacharis because they seem to be more readily available.


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## jerilovesfrogs (Oct 22, 2010)

madness: i was looking on your bowl thread...it looks like we have similar styles! dwarf sag and java moss haha. love those two plants. =] so how are you cherries doing? i actually had no idea there were 'grades' of cherry shrimp. who knew!? 

recently i've become a little confused about topoffs though. like i have been topping off several of my tanks with just decorinated tapwater....and didn't think anything of it. but now reading on here....they can get too many minerals this way. should i be using distilled? or.....i'm just confused!


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## Newman (Jul 3, 2010)

RO is ideal, but your livestock probably wont be affected if you continue to use tap water...but just in case test your GH and KH and TDS of you tanks and compare to those of the tap water you use. if they are close, you're fine...


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## somewhatshocked (Aug 8, 2011)

This looks great.

Once all that moss grows out, it'll be even better.


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## madness (Jul 31, 2011)

jerilovesfrogs said:


> madness: i was looking on your bowl thread...it looks like we have similar styles! dwarf sag and java moss haha. love those two plants. =] so how are you cherries doing? i actually had no idea there were 'grades' of cherry shrimp. who knew!?
> 
> recently i've become a little confused about topoffs though. like i have been topping off several of my tanks with just decorinated tapwater....and didn't think anything of it. but now reading on here....they can get too many minerals this way. should i be using distilled? or.....i'm just confused!


What it comes down to is that you keep adding minerals along with the tap water and those minerals become concentrated in the water over time. Actual water changes can help to dilute the minerals back out (by taking out water with high concentrations of minerals and replacing it with tap water with a normal concentration). If you are not doing any water changes (or really infrequent water changes) you should probably try to aim for distilled or R/O water for top-offs.

The build-up will take a while (I have no idea how long but as long as you don't have soft water shrimp it will probably take quite a while for it to be a problem) and the plants sucking some of the minerals (whichever minerals the plants need and are in an available form) out of the water will help minimize this as well but mostly it is something that you just need to keep in mind as you go forward.

You can probably top-off with tap water for a couple of months and then do a big water change to mostly 'reset' the water back towards normal tap levels.


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## Ozydego (Aug 29, 2011)

right, if you are going for "hands off" with only topoffs, best to use RO or distilled water, if you dont mind a periodic pwc, then tap is fine... I will be using tap, because I do periodically change the water out... helps with oxygen levels in the bowl while it is still establishing, eventually down the road and the bowl is going strong, after a month of "top offs" I will be doing a larger pwc to exchange the somewhat stagnant water...


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## jerilovesfrogs (Oct 22, 2010)

thanks everyone  i do understand what you are saying. i guess the only shrimp i have known that is softer water, is CRS. other than that i don't know. right now i have cherries and tiger shirmp. are the tigers soft water? if so, maybe i should be using distilled to top off their water. that one has been set up for several months...and does get maybe a 40% water change every month or so. though i've only had the tigers in there for maybe 3-4 weeks. but being a 2g, the water gets low pretty fast. 

so i guess unless i'm doing semi-frequent water changes, i should be using distilled h2o for my top offs. yes?


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## madness (Jul 31, 2011)

jerilovesfrogs said:


> thanks everyone  i do understand what you are saying. i guess the only shrimp i have known that is softer water, is CRS. other than that i don't know. right now i have cherries and tiger shirmp. are the tigers soft water? if so, maybe i should be using distilled to top off their water. that one has been set up for several months...and does get maybe a 40% water change every month or so. though i've only had the tigers in there for maybe 3-4 weeks. but being a 2g, the water gets low pretty fast.
> 
> so i guess unless i'm doing semi-frequent water changes, i should be using distilled h2o for my top offs. yes?


The cherry shrimp can probably handle it but the tiger shrimp probably won't do that well with it.

I have tigers in a tap water tank (tap water top-offs, infrequent water changes) and the tigers don't seem sick or anything but they don't grow much and none have bred whereas the fire red shrimp seem to do both just fine.

Tigers will breed in harder and higher pH water than CRS (reportedly) and are more hardy but since they do have SOME water quality requirements that require special attention (rather than Neos where you just dump in tap and don't have to do anything special) many people end up keeping the tigers in CRS type tanks/water. If you already have aqua soil in the tanks and have R/O water as part of your CRS breeding tanks then doing similar tanks for the tigers isn't much of a hassle.

The Germans especially seem to have good luck with tiger shrimp in harder water but again it seems to be carefully created/maintained water rather than lazy neo tap water.


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## madness (Jul 31, 2011)

There are pretty nice 5 gallon bottled water (for drinking water) containers at Wal-Mart that are $7. They have a built in handle (carved into the side) and a lid.

With two very small tanks you could pick one of these up and it would probably last you all month doing only top-offs. A LFS should be able to provide close to zero TDS (very pure - indicating a well maintained R/O system) R/O water from somewhere under $1 per gallon. The one that I go to charges .50 per gallon for freshwater R/O.

For larger tanks this would get expensive enough (and be a big enough hassle) to make having an R/O filtration system a must have but a couple of bucks a month for a 5 gallon jug of R/O is a lot more feasible.


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## jerilovesfrogs (Oct 22, 2010)

yes i think i've seen those water jugs at walmart. though it would be tricky for me to lift 5g's by myself i think. just judging by the bucket i use for water changes sometimes...and it's supposed to be 5g's. but at the least, i could just buy those 1g jugs and see how it goes. 

so do you top your shrimp tanks off with tap water? for how long have you been doing this?


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