# Newman's Shrimp Bowl



## Newman

*Newman's Shrimp Bowl*








I started this 1 gal bowl on November 5, 2010.
*Equipment:*
1 Gallon Glass Bowl
1" layer of Miracle Gro's Organic Choice Potting Mix
0.5" layer of white playsand.
Ikea LED Light

*Plants:*
Dwarf Sag
Pygmy Chain Sword
Dwarf Hairgrass
Java Fern
Duckweed
Water Lettuce
Taiwan moss

*Inverts:*
Yellow Shrimp

Current FTS:









*Updated Video*: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lb47C5IJI9w

*A Look Into The Past:*
Pics from Nov 5. It was very cloudy from the soil and sand. The bowl sits next to my 10 gal reef. Once the bowl gets an actual light fixture and shrimp, it will be moved to a coffee table where it will look nicer.

The next day I did a few water changes to clear it all up. That next set of pics was on Nov 6.


On Nov 12 I did my weekly water change and added some hornwort and removed the bulky java fern. later I replaced it with a few smaller ones. The last picture is the update of Nov 12.

I moved one male cherry shrimp into this tank to test whether the bowl was yet habitable by animals (the plants were growing well). This happened on Nov 14. I originally planned adding the shrimp much later, after the tank was full with plants, but I guess my curiosity got the better of me. He's been in there for 4 days now. seems ok.

Tomorrow is water change day again, so I'll snap another weekly update pic after the water change.

My current goal is to find some sort of small but vertical DW piece that can accommodate the mosses and the java ferns in this bowl (I do not like having the moss clump loose like that and the java ferns planted in the sand.)

Any feed back is greatly appreciated!


----------



## Newman

Update shot from week #2. I tied the hornwort together in a bunch with a plant weight (careful not to crush the stems or needles). It looks much better this way.
I will be looking for a DW piece tomorrow for the moss and ferns to grow on.


----------



## Cottagewitch

Personally I think its pretty neat.


----------



## v369

great start!


----------



## wendyjo

The title of this sounds like a new type of Ramen Noodles!


----------



## Newman

wendyjo said:


> The title of this sounds like a new type of Ramen Noodles!


haha, nice.



Thank you for stopping by :icon_wink


----------



## Newman

Thinking about using just tap water to do water changes instead of the water from my bigger planted tank. I don't think i need all that extra nutrient floating in the bowl water cuz the soil substrate already has everything the plants in the bowl need.

Also I couldn't find a small enough DW piece in the LFS. going to search around my property for some DW then...


----------



## Newman

Found a decent DW piece in my yard, soaking it right now to get it to sink.
also added a female shrimp into the bowl, we will see how they do.
I ditched the hornwort and I started to use tap water for water changes.


----------



## Newman

An update on the shrimp bowl. DW finally got water logged after i boiled it so i tied some moss and java fern to it and put it into the tank. shrimp love it. you can see both shrimp in this photo.


----------



## sarajean80

It looks so neat! I bet it will look even better once the moss and everything gets established.

I kinda want one now.


----------



## Newman

Thanks! i have high hopes for this not getting taken over by algae and looking lush and green one day!


----------



## Newman

I added another pair of shrimp to his bowl today. I hope they do well!


----------



## Newman

update pictures. getting slammed by algae but I have been tring to keep it at bay. I can no longer do a good cleaning of the tank because recently one female shrimp gave birth so I will wait until the babies are grown to start syphoning off debris as part of my cleaning. going to get a lot worse before it can get better i guess  Oh and that female shrimp arrived already berried into this tank. I got to see how the babies are born.

the substrate plants are growing nicely. shey should eventually cover the entire floor.


----------



## crimsonbull57

This thing is awesome!


----------



## Newman

you think so even with the algae? thanks!


----------



## crimsonbull57

deffinately! Very inspiring, I think I may start my own!


----------



## Newman

thanks. shrimp babies are growing and getting more red. unfortunately cyano is also growing. itching to syphon it all out but cant for fear of getting the babies. can only really clean up the bowl once the babies grow up to be adults.


----------



## Newman

more cyano, but as always the babies prevent me from getting to most of it. babies are growing well now, there are at least 15 of them in there. plus the 4 adults.


----------



## moonshinetheslacker

This looks pretty cool, you're doing a good job man.


----------



## Newman

thank you moon


----------



## Euroamg

Nice bowl tank.. :icon_smil I should get one sometime...


----------



## yoshii

Hey Newman! It's yoshii from NR 

I've been thinking about setting up a FW again..this time one with live plants, so I'm researching 
Your little shrimp bowl is really neat, and those shrimp are very colorful!


----------



## Newman

Hello Yoshi,

Glad to see you here. Thanks, this bowl will eventually house crystal red shrimp if everything goes according to plan. But for now I will rear a few generations of cherry shrimp to test out the possibilities of this bowl =)

I got some free Shirakura shrimp food in the mail today (donated a photo of one of my corals to a seller, and he was kind enough to send me some food.) Received two packs of Ebi Dama (80g of regular food), one pack of Ebi Dama Special (30g of vegetable-based food) and one pack of Chi Ebi (20g of baby shrimp food.)
The baby shrimp and adults really like this type of food; i've never seen them gravitate to any other food quite like this shirakura stuff


----------



## yoshii

Cool  They remind me of pistol shrimp lol

Will the shrimp eat just about anything? Like regular flake food or pellets or something?


----------



## Newman

they're supposed to eat anything, and I've been feeding mine various pellet and flake foods for fish, but they never really respond well and dont swarm over them like they did when they found the shirakura food lol. i can tell they really like the ingredients in that one.

But the dwarf shrimp's foods are supposed to be blanched vegetables, algae disks, and other fish foods you can think of. vegetables are very important though. Plus the shrimp can survive for a long time in a tank (or bowl) just by eating various deposits, microfauna, algae, and even decaying plant material.


----------



## Newman

So Update on the Shrimp bowl:

There are well over 20 shrimp in here now. I do not know at what point I will move some back to the 40 gal, but I'm thinking after the little guys grow up a bit more. Then one of the big females and a big male are going back, and I will let the little ones grow more yet, before i move some of them over to the 40 gal. The max number of shrimp I intend to leave in this tank for breeding is around 5.
However this is going to be very difficult because the female that gave birth last time has been berried for the last week again, and may give birth yet again, before these little ones make it to being juveniles...These things really like to over populate lol.
I am feeding them the shirakura foods, they are liking them very much.
I am now able to take care of the cyano during each water change by syphoning it out. Any shrimp babies that I syphon out are now very visible and easily transported back to the bowl. With this method I was able to somewhat clean up the cyano in the tank.
I have decided to do water changes on this tank twice weekly. Will likely move that to maybe more frequently in the future.
I could really use some Amazon frogbit in here to shade the plants, but I will only have access to the plant in late spring.
The baby shrimp are now visible on the photo.


----------



## Newman

I moved out one male and one female adult out of the tank today. should make some space for the little ones.


----------



## shoteh

Wow looking nice so far. That bowl looks awefully close to the edge IMO. Also any more pix of the SW setup. I see some clowns.


----------



## Newman

yes the bowl is a bit close to the edge, but dont worry nobody but me ever goes near that corner of the room and the bowl is balanced well. Eventually it will be moved to another room to sit on a coffee table.

The clowns are living here right now:








Its kind of serving as my "frag tank with a scape" type of thing. it sits next to the shrimp bowl.


----------



## Newman

Doing water changes twice a week now. different angle of the bowl, all clean after a WC last night.


----------



## seadreamer

That's really gorgeous. I have a bowl just like this sitting in my storage closet.


----------



## Newman

thanks sea!


----------



## yoshii

Wow this bowl looks great! 

Lovin those acans too haha


----------



## Newman

Thanks Yoshi =)

Nothing new, a water change is scheduled for tomorrow. female shrimp still berried, juvenile shrimp are growing great. more than 20 of them in there for sure. one adult male shrimp is in there still.

After the female gives birth to her brood, I will begin to slowly convert this tank to soft water. What i will do is mix RO/DI water with some Seachem Equilibrium to get the KH and GH down. then ill use this soft water mix in conjunction to my tap water (which is solid rock) to slowly make the tank into softwater over the course of many water changes.

The soft water is to see how shrimp are able to live in the environment, how it will all effect plant growth, and the ultimate goal is, once I am successful I will be able to order a group of 5 Crystal shrimp to try and grow a colony in this bowl. Will probably get the CRS from someone on this forum.


----------



## Newman

This is before the water change. juveniles make the DW look like a cherry tree lol.


----------



## Newman

The female gave birth to her second litter. they look so tiny compared to the juveniles now.


----------



## seadreamer

This is just such a charming set-up. I'm really enjoying it.


----------



## Newman

Thanks again sea, here are some pictures of the female and the juveniles. The scale is provided that the female is 1" .


----------



## seadreamer

Those shots are absolutely gorgeous. Everything and everyone looks so healthy.


----------



## Newman

Bowl was moved to the living room
Quick vid:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ImjZUZa8jkU


----------



## Newman

female is saddled again, we'll see if we get more.
oh yes, and i moved more than 25 juveniles out to my 40 gal the other day. there are still around 10 juveniles left in the bowl that i could catch, and about 20+ babies who are growing well too. and of course the adult pair.


----------



## Wolfgang

This bowl is bad to the bone man!!!!!!! 4 thumbs up!!!


----------



## elliebellie

Wow! This is such a cute idea! I'd love to do something like it in the future, but I'm pretty new to this whole fish thing so I'm wondering, is it heated? Filtration? Can a tank this small be cycled? 

It's just a REALLY cool bowl, sorry for all the questions, lol


----------



## Newman

Thanks all!
The bowl is not heated, the house heat keeps it in the 70Fs, and shrimp generally accept cooler water (especially the crystal shrimp with will eventually go into here). No filtration or water movement. The plants filter out all the dissolved waste, and w/e is left over gets changed out with my 2x a week water changes of about 90%. Parameters all stay at 0. 

YES even a tank this small must be cycled. If you start with just plants like i did, and let them grow a lot before adding shrimp, your job will be a lot easier since the plants would already be growing fast enough to absorb any waste that the shrimp produce. then from that point on the tank will cycle little by little in an undetectable way. However right before and from the point you add the shrimp to the tank I advise you to start testing every 3 days or so to prevent any sort of spike killing your shrimp.

Back when i started this, I put the one male shrimp in here to test the tank and I got a 1ppm Nitrite spike after a week! as soon as i saw that I immediately did the water change to drop it down to about 0. Then the plants took over again, and i haven't seen any param issues from that point on. that male shrimp is btw still alive and well in this tank, breeding with the female.

So yes, read up on cycling, use live plants first, and tons of testing and doing this slowly will ensure that you will succeed.


----------



## elliebellie

Ok thanks, that's really helpful! I remember you from nano reefs, I was trolling on there for a while but decided to go freshwater instead although someday when I really get the hang of this fish thing then I'll try a reef tank for sure.

Subscribed!


----------



## Newman

Sweet, if you do start something up, let me know, I'd help out along with the others on here too =)
You must have seen my 3 gal pico reef then? I love that little tank


----------



## Newman

bowl FTS as of today:









Youngest generation:









Juvenile Generation:









Parent:


----------



## Hyzer

That is a very cool little bowl. Nice choices with the wood and moss.


----------



## Newman

thanks! although if I could use a dead bonsai tree, I'd have used that instead of this awkward linear wood that i sawed off some dead bush in my yard lol.


----------



## weluvbettas

I love this little bowl!  You have inspired me to set up one of these using a little vase! I have added a berried red cherry shrimp and a male shrimp . Time to set up colony number 2! Lol


----------



## Newman

Awesome! These setups are so easy to keep =)


----------



## HighLo

Fantastic Shrimp Bowl, how many hours of light does your bowl get?


----------



## justin182

Nice easy setup!!!


----------



## Newman

The bowl gets variable hours of light. i turn the light on whenever i wake up and off when around 10-12 hours have passed and i get back home. usually i dont let it go over 12 hours of light though. sometimes it does get less.

thanks justin, it really is.


----------



## Kayen

Absolutely love this little bowl. Seems to be fairly well payoff given the maintenance.


----------



## Squared

Very nice bowl. Thinking of starting my own 1G shrimp tank. How often and how big are water changes? 

Also, you have a very nice reef. You reffered to it as a frag tank; do you have a bigger reef?


----------



## PinoyBoy

Nice [STRIKE]nano tank[/STRIKE] bowl. Like what others have said, it's an inspiration knowing you can keep the plants and shrimps thriving.

By the way, how many shrimps are in there now do you think? And do you have any way to circulate the water?


----------



## Newman

@Kayen: yes, the maintenance is fairly little, tho its more than i'd like haha. it would be much less if there wer no shrimp.

@Squared: Water changes on this are 95% twice a week. The funny thing is about my reef, its the frag tank, but my main reef is actually smaller by 7 gallons  The main reef is a 3 gal pico. You can find it on nano reef forums.

@Pinoy: Right now I am back to more than 20 shrimp, most are the smaller youngest generation, though a fair amount of the juveniles still remain (I have to catch those out of there soon) No water circulation, during water changes it gets lots of mixing but otherwise the shrimp can create their own currents for respiration.


----------



## misfit36

Awesome bowl- do you do any trimming of the moss to keep it "in check"?


----------



## Newman

I havent done any trimming at all. now it looks much more messy than in that picture, so yes I'll have to do a trim soon. but i think the moss can look awesome regardless of whether i trim, its moss =D


----------



## MarkPeggie

Thats one of coolest things iv seen ,it looks fantastc ..nice one .


----------



## Newman

Thanks! it turned out better than i expected, even if it can't compare to some of the awesome iwagumi/planted bowls out there. but it shouldn't really compare lol, it's just a casual setup with a mash of plants xD


----------



## malaybiswas

Very cute.


----------



## Newman

xD .


----------



## Newman

The female is now berried. I notice that some of the juveniles are getting saddled now o_o
there are so many shrimp in here right now, I seriously need to move the majority out ASAP. idc anymore what generation they are, they're moving out x_x We gotta make room for the newest gen on that female.


----------



## schg

Newman said:


> The female is now berried. I notice that some of the juveniles are getting saddled now o_o
> there are so many shrimp in here right now, I seriously need to move the majority out ASAP. idc anymore what generation they are, they're moving out x_x We gotta make room for the newest gen on that female.


 You can send some my way, I need to diversify my shrimps gene pool lol. The bowl looks awesome, I love it. Is this the same newman on nano-reef btw?


----------



## Newman

yep i am the same .Newman.

The shrimp are moving to my 40 gallon planted tank as usual. I've never actually thought of sending them to anybody yet, partly because nobody wants cherry shrimp these days lol. If you're still in need of them, I can send you some this summer, when the temps get warmer.


----------



## Newman

I am slowly softening the water and lowering the pH in this tank. each water change I use a larger % of RO/DI water in my water change water. My goal is to get to about 2-4 dKH. To do that, as the final step I'll be using 100% RO/DI with a little dose of Seachem Equilibrium to get that KH up. Shrimp are doing ok so far.. I moved even more out today.


----------



## Geniusdudekiran

What CO2 are you using (Sorry if you already said)


----------



## Newman

No CO2 on this tank! lol I wanted to keep it very low on the maintenance, and back when i was running DIY CO2 on my 10 gal iwagumi, I always hated replacing the reactors and evetually ruined the tank by waiting too long to replace them one time. For that reason i skipped CO2 on this tank.
Carbon source is not supplied by Excel since i dose nothing in this tank. It comes from the soil under the sand. Miracle gro for all my fert and carbon needs lol.


Side note: I should not have put my marimo into this tank because now everything gets covered in nice green fuzz. looks cool though, and the marimo ball itself has reformed from a little clump and is growing fine.

Shrimp are doing ok. more females saddled, the main female has been berried for a while now. I need to get more of them out but its hard to do w/o wrecking all the plants lol!


----------



## Newman

I removed about 30 more shrimp from this tank the other day...I removed all i could catch, including any tiny baby shrimp that accidentally went into the net. majority were smaller adult shrimp though.
The water is now real soft and pH is around 6.7 or so. The tank is just about ready.


----------



## PinoyBoy

Any recent pictures of your bowl?


----------



## Geniusdudekiran

Hey Newman, did you ever consider replacing the RCS with CPOs? I've always wondered how they would fare in such a setup. That would be really neat.


----------



## Newman

CPOs are crayfish right? those get slightly bigger than these shrimp and i think would strain the system much more. they are cool little crustaceans but probably best for 10 gals or so.

I'll try to take a recent picture of the tank tomorrow after a water change and glass cleaning. the cladophora algae is very prominent on the glass and plants so it clouds the glass a bit. still a much much cooler algae than other lame types like the previous bloom of cyano.
The top of the moss was taken over by the lighter green colored cladophora but IMO it still looks cool and creates a contrast to the darker green moss.


----------



## Newman

here are two pics taken a few minutes ago to get an idea of what it looks like now. there's the marimo ball in the center of the bowl, but its hard to see it. its hard to see detail with this camera lol. but the glass also really does blur. both the cladophora and the imperfections in the glass.


----------



## Ben.

the green fuzz looks awesome, keep the updates coming!


----------



## Newman

Crystal shrimp arrived today so I am planning another bowl project for the remaining cherry shrimp in this tank (later this second bowl will also become a crystal shrimp tank, possibly for selective purposes)

The second bowl will have its own thread and will be a wide and more shallow bowl than this one. still going to be at 1 gallon though.
Probably will not have plants, just rocks and sticks lol.


----------



## demonr6

Those little nano projects can lead into an obsession as I am finding out..


----------



## Newman

certainly, considering all one needs to do for a water change is to empty out a gallon and refill fairly quickly. one gallon of water is nothing compared to 10+ gals that are used per WC in a larger aquarium.


----------



## MaStErFiShKeEps

Sorry if I asked before, but do you fertilize?


----------



## Newman

no, the soil does that for the root feeding plants on the bottom. w/e is dissolved will reach the moss.


----------



## MaStErFiShKeEps

Wow! I have the same tank, 18w 6500K CFL, Soil with Cap, and same light fixture and your mini tank seems to be doing much better than mines. Green thumb eh?


----------



## Newman

I think i need to take a look at yours 
can you please provide a link to your tank?

o and [email protected] my light fixture, its from the 2.5 plastic tank i use for my betta right now. i've had the 2.5 for a long time now, but i dont always use the fixture, so i figured I'd use it for the bowl. haven't bought a replacement yet lol.


----------



## MaStErFiShKeEps

I'll post some pictures tomorrow, and pm you the link


----------



## Newman

Thanks, excited to see something similar to my setup =)


----------



## Newman

since I moved out most of my cherry shrimp, the bowl was finally ready for crystal shrimp which arrived a day ago. they are very young and extremely difficult to find for a picture. they tend to hide out in the plants and under the moss. I managed to get a picture of one of them though.


----------



## Newman

FTS is being updated


----------



## sugarbyte

I absolutely love this!! I'm tempted to try one out myself but I'm worried about water parameters.. How long did you cycle yours for?

Also, would a tall vase be a bad idea for shrimps? (maybe with 1 or 2 endlers)


----------



## Newman

I cycled for a few weeks, but after i added a shrimp i realized that that wasn't even enough because my nitrites spiked to 1ppm.

You must treat small tanks like this with the same patience as large tanks with regard to the cycle. Established media floating in the bowl will help transfer bacteria to your substrate. So a quicker way to cycle is to put some sponge from the filter of an established tank into your bowl and add a shrimp to the bowl the same day. then watch the parameters like a hawk and do water changes if ammonia or nitrites get around .5ppm to keep the stress level lower.

Tall vase will be fine for shrimp as long as you incorporate an equally tall driftwood piece to that the shrimp are not limited to horizontal traveling room. However unless you get a 5+gal vase I do not recommend putting fish in there even if it is endlers. Those will eat baby shrimp btw if you dont provide ample cover.


----------



## sugarbyte

Great! Thanks for the fast response  There is a tall vase in my kitchen that I'm feeling totally inspired to turn into a mini tank.. and it's tall enough that hopefully my cats won't stick their paws in it lol! 

Would you recommend adding a bubbler for some extra oxygen? I haven't really kept shrimp before so I'm not sure how sensitive they are.

And for your sponge suggestion.. The only aquarium I have at the moment is my fluval edge.. should I use that filter sponge temporarily or should i only use it when I plan on replacing it with a new sponge?

Keep up the awesome work!


----------



## Newman

Thanks!

if you can add the bubbler and dont mind it in the vase, that would be just fine, but cherry shrimp will do ok w/o one as long as you have established, fast growing plants in the tank providing oxygen.

As for the sponge you shouldn't replace the sponge in the fluval for any other reason than having it fall apart from old age. Just rinse it for weekly maintenance and put it back in. it is vital to you edge's filtration. what you could do is either use some substrate or a decoration from your fluval edge in the vase for a while so the bacteria transfer over, or you could clip a piece of the filter sponge off and use that in the vase instead to establish the bacteria.


----------



## Bree

That actually looks very cool!! Very good job with what little space to work with!!


----------



## sugarbyte

Great! I'll make sure to pm you with pictures when I get started  Thanks for sharing this amazing little gem.


----------



## Newman

Thanks guys.

My second bowl arrived today and i have made my first attempt to scape it. pictures will be up soon. It looks real funky, almost reminds one of a chocolate chip cookie when viewed from above 

EDIT: I will make a separate thread for it.


----------



## Newman

Crystal shrimp are getting less secretive and are readily found in the bowl if i look at it.

also the female cherry shrimp is berried again.


----------



## Newman

Update time.

Updated FTS(the roots belong to a water lettuce)









and two crystal pictures, the best pics i could get


----------



## TwoStrokeKing

U sir are a genius


----------



## Newman

Haha, thanks; I take it you liked the bowl =)


----------



## Geniusdudekiran

Hey newman, sorry if I missed it, but how many CRS did you get? And what are your kh and gh? I have 22 CRS in the mail coming Thursday and I was just wondering if you have any good tips for me... Thanks!


----------



## Kitty_Kitsch

You know this bowl is the reason I joined the forum! It looks great! <3 your shrimpies!


----------



## Newman

Thanks Kitty_Kitsch! I appreciate you checking out the bowl =D

Geniusdudekiran: I received 8 very young juvenile CRS. I haven't seen all 8 at once since but i do get to see 4 of them gathered in a place sometimes. the plants are really very dense and they can hide well. So idk if all 8 made it.

I will check my GH and KH shortly, but just keep the water for your shrimp clean and stable and they should behave fine! They behave well in cooler 70sF water and softer, lower pH water. my pH is something like 6.6 or so.


----------



## Newman

Tests came up as 1dKH and 1dGH - This means i have not been treating the RO/DI water with enough Equilibrium. I am going to have to up my dose. my goal is 3dGH/dKH to have at least some buffering capacity so that pH wont fluctuate as much. 
But the shrimp seem fine for the time being.


----------



## Geniusdudekiran

Yeah, I just use this Fluval Shrimp Mineral additive to bring my GH up. Good luck with breeding them. I can't wait until mine come. I am SOOOOOOO excited!


----------



## astrosag

With cherry shrimp, is there anything I need to do more than what I do for my Amano shrimp (which is basically nothing but dechlorinator)?

What you have going is awesome Newman!


----------



## Jorge_Burrito

astrosag said:


> With cherry shrimp, is there anything I need to do more than what I do for my Amano shrimp (which is basically nothing but dechlorinator)?
> 
> What you have going is awesome Newman!


Cherry shrimp are pretty hardy as far as shrimp go and seem to be able to take a wide variety of condition. As long as your tap water parameters are not on the extreme end of the spectrum, no you don't need to do anything else.


----------



## astrosag

Thanks Jorge, appreciate it.


----------



## TwoStrokeKing

Newman said:


> Haha, thanks; I take it you liked the bowl =)


 lol dude i love it! i love nanos and urs is simply amazing.


----------



## Newman

Thanks!


----------



## Kitty_Kitsch

I'm so in love with this! I'm trying to find a neat container to use, I was looking like a mad-woman at the home goods today


----------



## Newman

Yes its a very simple and easy concept. If you like keeping shrimp, you will like taking care of a bowl/container like this =)


----------



## Kitty_Kitsch

How would you rate it compared to a shrimp tank like an ebi or something like that? I'm going to be moving my shrimp to a separate tank soon as I have angels (they are nickel size now but they won't be for long!) and I want to have more shrimp. I just want to figure out if I want something like this or a full tank for them.


----------



## genetao

Nice tank, err.... uhhh, bowl!

You know I once had this tiny, tiny tank that held a pint, that housed a couple of RCS and some plant trimmings (clovers, christmas moss, java fern, bacopa). No filter, only an LED light. The fact that I took the substrate and plants from an established tank, allowed for a sufficient bacteria culture. I had the tank for well over a year, and rarely fed the shrimp. They just fed off of the algae.

In fact to this day, the RCS in the tank are still alive in one of my other tanks. I eventually gave that tiny tank to Ocean Aquarium in San Francisco. 

It was a neat experiment to see a TRUE tiny ecosphere taking place.


----------



## Newman

That is awesome genetao! So epic that an Aquarium accepted it? Do you have any pictures of what it looked like? RCS sure are hardy shrimp, i am not surprised they lasted so well in that tank (likely bred too) with barely any external help for you =)
I got 10 RCS about 1.5 years ago and their population has been through 100s of individuals, and many different tanks including my main 40gal tank which used to house a goldfish and now houses an angel. They are still in there lol, but their numbers shine in tanks that are dedicated to them.
CRS might be a different story though, I will find out. 

Kitty_Kitsch:
The more gallons you have, the safer the environment and more room for more shrimp! You should go with w/e you will be most comfortable with taking care of and what you can afford. The bowl method is cheaper, but the ebi and other shrimp tanks can easily be run with the same capped soil no filter method (unless a filter is supplied)
CRS will do fine =)


----------



## Kitty_Kitsch

Do you think an edge would be good? (if I sponge the intake) 
I had a neat little thing set up in like 6th grade for the science fair that was similar to this but no where near as pretty! I had ghost shrimp in it and I think it had a few fish but it was a long time ago!


----------



## demonr6

I think Newman's bowls are awesome.. I was inspired to set one up for myself and have good results so far. The tank takes some finessing but once you get past that initial stage it is great. Mine has one sole snail at the moment with zero intervention other than replanting a few times because the snail gets a little overzealous and uproots my plants but other than that all is well. I haven't even fed the snail much, it munches on all the stuff in the tank happily.


----------



## Newman

Thanks for backing this demonr6 =)

Kitsch: an edge is a great shrimp breeder tank. Yes surely put a sponge on that intake to save the shrimp. Cherry shrimp are a good choice to start! you can try o get a really crimson strain going to keep things interesting!

On a sad note the adult male cherry shrimp was found dead in this bowl today. RIP cherry shrimp...
I recon he was pretty old. I moved him into this bowl when he was already an old adult, and he probably lived out most of his life in my 40 gallon tank already. Still I'll miss him, he was twice as big as the crystal shrimp i have right now(he was more than 1" in length). I hope his death did not upset the water much though...I will do a water change today...


----------



## Geniusdudekiran

Update?


----------



## Kitty_Kitsch

RIP big shrimpie


----------



## Newman

The big female adult died recently too, but that was only after she was moved to the second shrimp bowl 
Either she got pH shocked in the move or she died of old age, I will miss her because she was the main breeding cherry female i had and she was by far the reddest one(she was also about 2" in size). There is still one cherry shrimp in this planted bowl however, and idk if I want to move him out...there are four cherry shrimp living in the second shrimp bowl (those are doing good.) I am learning that plants are really vital in bowls like this.

I dont have much of an update other than that. I see the crystals in this bowl and the one cherry shrimp and they are all doing great!


----------



## shrimpnmoss

moar pics dude!


----------



## Newman

OK! lol
What do you guys want pics of? a full bowl pic and something with the shrimp?


----------



## Jorge_Burrito

Newman said:


> I am learning that plants are really vital in bowls like this.


Not surprising really, they are what is providing the oxygen and waste control in what is essentially a stagnant water setup. I am still impressed you have been able to keep parameters stable enough for CRS.


----------



## Newman

Jorge_Burrito said:


> Not surprising really, they are what is providing the oxygen and waste control in what is essentially a stagnant water setup. I am still impressed you have been able to keep parameters stable enough for CRS.


All true and i am testing whether cherry shrimp are hardy enough to survive w/o plants in my other bowl.
We cannot make a final judgment yet on the crystal situation until they grow up to be adults and breed in this bowl =)

They do seem to be growing.


----------



## Newman

an updated bowl pic is the best i can do right now


----------



## jamiex09

Sorry if I sound dumb. Pretty neat and thinking of starting one. Did u put the plants first and with a couple of water change in order to 'cycle' it before adding the shrimps?


----------



## demonr6

It's a forest in there!


----------



## Newman

jamiex09 said:


> Sorry if I sound dumb. Pretty neat and thinking of starting one. Did u put the plants first and with a couple of water change in order to 'cycle' it before adding the shrimps?


yes that is how i started. i also recommend being very vigilant with water testing and changes after you put your shrimp in there.

And yes the plants are getting pretty dense lol.


----------



## demonr6

I've not thrown the right plants in mine to get the forest like yours. Time to review my plant choices..


----------



## jamiex09

It's really amazing the cherries can be berried in a bowl tank without filter and stuff! I'll really like to get a nice bowl and try to see if cherries can berry.


----------



## Kitty_Kitsch

Mine are getting an upgraded tank soon but I have them in a 1 gallon with a "undergravel" and a ton of moss and rotala and one of my females kicked out about 10 babies this past week and I have a berried female! They are easy going shrimp! I'm still thinking about a bowl to keep my "ugly" shrimp. (Momma loves all her shrimpies  )


----------



## 10gallonplanted

I have an ugly shrimp tank too! Check it out, its the ~1 liter one.


----------



## theguppyman

I am doing something like this except with wild guppies, its a 2 gallon vase and it has only 4 guppies still juvis, but lots of plants. I really like your idea Newman


----------



## Newman

thanks guppyman =)


----------



## Newman




----------



## demonr6

It's a shrimp torpedo, dive dive dive!


----------



## Newman

dive an hide lol
the shrimp usually keep toward the darker bottom. they were feeding in that pic. I counted about 6-7 of them in that one spot when they were eating at one point =)
I forgot to mention that the majority have already grown into good sized shrimp, almost can't call them juveniles anymore.


----------



## LucyLoofa

As I followed I lost track I think. I don't see the java moss in any of the pictures except the first 3/4.
Did you remove it?


----------



## Newman

the first 3 pictures in my first post are some of the most recent shots, the first two being the most recent to date in showing what the bowl looks like now. 
To make long story short, yes the moss on the driftwood is still very much a part of the bowl, it has taken over the top half of the bowl and the chain swordplants have taken the bottom half of the bowl. There are some other plants mixed in there too but they are barely noticeable 
I do not know if i will remove the moss in the future, but right now its growing very well so i am leaving it. The moss on the DW is probably a mixture of something that looks like christmas moss and probably some java moss. There may be more but i cannot tell them apart haha.

All 8 crystal shrimp are still alive and well, I saw them the other day when i dropped a fresh pellet in.

Summer is getting pretty hot though, and w/o any temp control I hope these shrimp can handle water warmer than 80F...
They are getting more and more visible as the warm days go on, probably because the warm water is making them uncomfortable and they can not longer hide at the bottom all the time...or all that may be a stretch, but I am just a bit worried for their well being.


----------



## LucyLoofa

I knew the first literal three are most recent, I meant chronologically lol. Where it is bare and just starting out.
The moss in your bowl looks amazing though.  I prefer it to java fern.
I hope your shrimp will do well too. You've worked on giving them perfect living conditions, it is very sad that the temperature is out of control. (I get the same problem here. :C )


----------



## al28894

*Beautiful...*

Great. Now you're making me want to go to the Home Decor store and buy a bowl like yours (not to mention I'm now VERY interested in raising shrimp... if only the local LFS has them :icon_cry: )


----------



## Newman

thanks al28894. It would certainly help your future bowl if you liked raising shrimp though 

The shrimp definitely do not like the hotter summer temps, they are swimming around like i havent seen them swim before. I will try to keep the light off in the hottest parts of the day to keep the temps down..


----------



## Jorge_Burrito

Yeah, high 70's are pushing it for CRS. If you start losing them you might consider putting a fan on there to get some evaporation. Wouldn't take much with such a small setup.


----------



## LucyLoofa

Newman said:


> thanks al28894. It would certainly help your future bowl if you liked raising shrimp though
> 
> The shrimp definitely do not like the hotter summer temps, they are swimming around like i havent seen them swim before. I will try to keep the light off in the hottest parts of the day to keep the temps down..


Oh my gosh! Just thought of this!
But since I'm an art minor I have tons of white and black foam board. Putting this in front of my tanks beside the window keeps the sunlight of them at least, which lowers the temperature by 2 degrees about. Just thought this might help.  The foam board is about a 1/4 inch thick and keeps the light off very well. 
(I use the foam board as my matte board for my art, but it works very well for this too. So would a canvas (not stretched fabric, but the el cheapo panel canvas you can find anywhere) at least from my experience)
I hope this helps!


----------



## Newman

thanks burrito and loofa, I will see if those help.


----------



## brandon429

*==*

.Newman you didnt tell me you were a planted tank enthusiast

and if you did and i forgot then I apologize 

dude your opening fts is smashing awesome, thats a great shrimp habitat and may I add that Im jealous you can buy crystal reds where you live my hometown never has those, ever. Glad to see you and yoshii here its neat you guys keep plants.


----------



## Newman

Hey brandon, glad you dropped by here! Although i can buy sub-par crystals at an LFS near my town, the ones you see in this bowl are from another member on this forum. I ordered them about 2 months or a month ago. They are all definitely SS grade shrimp and way better looking with much more white than the ones i can find in my LFS.
Thanks for the compliments on the bowl =)


----------



## amazonalbert

Very cool. Can we see the second bowl?


----------



## Newman

the second one has a thread of its own, it is called Newman's Shrimp Bowl II
Not much going on in there, just 4 cherry shrimp who i am trying to grow out without plants involved. It doesnt look promising, shrimp really do need plants...


----------



## Geniusdudekiran

How're the shrimp doing? Update?


----------



## Newman

not good, i lost a total of two in the past heatwave. one jumped out and the other died in the tank  I have 6 left now and I moved the bowl into my room since i recently put an AC unit in the room. they should stay cooler in here.


----------



## Geniusdudekiran

That's too bad. Well, I guess, just keep the tank as cool as you can. Have you looked into mounting a fan above it? Just a small battery powered one?


----------



## Newman

Finally!!


----------



## Newman

current FTS was updated. and a pic of some shrimp:


----------



## shrimpnmoss

Newman, are you using pure RO during WC? Are you remineralizing the RO? And still 90% WC?


----------



## Newman

I use RO water and add some seachem equilibrium to it to keep up the hardness (hopefully more than just GH). the resulting water in the tank is very soft.
if the tank needs to be topped off, I top off with pure RO water
Water changes are now 80%. I have started to leave more water in to reduce stress on the shrimp during the water change.

If you notice something wrong with the water i am preparing/using, please let me know!


----------



## shrimpnmoss

nothing is wrong if your shrimps are berried....let's see if the babies survive...


----------



## Newman

babies survival is a serious test of whether keeping these sensitive shrimp in such a bowl is practical or not. right now i think the berried female may have dropped the eggs before they hatched. hopefully the females will become berried again soon so i can see if this is a recurring thing, or just bad luck the first time.


----------



## Newman

Another female is berried!

Granted now i have some excellent advice from shrimpnmoss, I now know what to do to maximize the chances of getting crystal shrimplets.

I will just scale down my weekly water changes to about 30%.


----------



## shrimpnmoss

Hey good luck man. Congrats on the new berry.


----------



## Newman

thank you! I really hope this works!


----------



## Newman

actually it looks like that first female still has some eggs left. they just turned white-transparent so i couldn't tell that she was still berried. she still is.


----------



## demonr6

Congrats! I hope you are setting aside lots of money for their college fund. You know how expensive it can be.


----------



## Newman

lol, nah, they'll probably just get decapod scholarships at w/e college they go to


----------



## Jorge_Burrito

Quick question Newman. I have a chance to bring in some cheap lower grade CRS with some other more expensive shrimp I will be ordering for another project. Now that I have seen first hand how easy the cherries are in this setup (and water conditions are amazingly stable) I think I might follow your footsteps and try the CRS in my bowl. I am scratching my head though how to get my cherries out of there without totally messing up the bowl. How did you do it?


----------



## al28894

If only they would stock shrimp at my LFS... 

Oh well, nice bowl Newman!

EDIT: Looks like your bowl has another follower... :http://www.plantedtank.net/forums/p...48-latnems-shrimp-bowl-walstad-inspired.html:


----------



## Newman

thanks guys! that link doesnt work btw...

CRS in the bowl is doable, but I can't seem to get them to breed well yet. we'll see. getting the cherries wasnt that hard, just drain it half way, get a brine shrimp net in there and try to net out as many as you can. it may take a few tries each day but youll get them all out eventually.


----------



## audioaficionado

al28894 said:


> If only they would stock shrimp at my LFS...
> 
> Oh well, nice bowl Newman!
> 
> EDIT: Looks like your bowl has another follower... :http://www.plantedtank.net/forums/p...48-latnems-shrimp-bowl-walstad-inspired.html:





Newman said:


> thanks guys! that link doesnt work btw...
> 
> CRS in the bowl is doable, but I can't seem to get them to breed well yet. we'll see. getting the cherries wasnt that hard, just drain it half way, get a brine shrimp net in there and try to net out as many as you can. it may take a few tries each day but youll get them all out eventually.


latnem's Shrimp Bowl Walstad Inspired


----------



## Newman

yes i found that one, thank you! =)


----------



## gnod

question - is the miracle grow substrate safe for shrimps?


----------



## Newman

the organic one is =)


----------



## gnod

interestingg, i can just get that at any lowe's or home depot?


----------



## Pooky125

Should be able to. I think I found it at a Walmart last December. This time of year it should be pretty readily available.


----------



## audioaficionado

I was inspired to start *my own shrimp bowl* because of this thread. So far I have the bowl, LED light and Tahitian Moon black sand. I'm working out the cloudiness from the substrate ferts I incorporated into the black sand. Once I get it planted I'll start my own thread.

Thanx Newman for the inspiration.


----------



## Newman

Great! be sure to make a thread on the bowl once you set it up =)


----------



## shrimpnmoss

how your babies doing?


----------



## Newman

unfortunately, i still dont see them. one of the females definitely dropped eggs but the original female with the eggs still has a few. why she is hanging on to them for so long, idk.(she may even be saddled again, and she still wont let them go o_o ) they look clearish white as opposed to brown-black as they started.


----------



## theworm

This happen to me, they drop their eggs when they are ready to mate again. But very few did that.


----------



## theworm

It happen to me too, I think they drop their eggs if they are ready to mate again. But only a few did that.


----------



## Flyin Hawaiian

Sorry if you covered this before. But I am curious what was the largest number of shrimp in the tank at any given time?


----------



## Newman

largest number of shrimp was when the cherries were still in here. that was two large adults and roughly 30 small juveniles lol. the juveniles always got moved out quickly, once they got big enough, to not pollute the tank.

Though i think 5 adult shrimp is a good number to have in this bowl.(if not breeding)


----------



## Flyin Hawaiian

Thanks for the quick reply. I have a 1 gallon bowl just lying around and your thread is definitely inspiring. Thanks for all the awesome pics and updates!


----------



## Newman

Shrimp doing well, but any females that get berried dont keep the eggs for too long. I'm going to wait patiently till winter, when temps cool off and stay constant. Then I bet I'll have nice CRS broods. I'm assuming that SS grade CRS being very sensitive to temps is very true.


----------



## madness

*bump* 

Count me as another person who was inspired by Newman's shrimp bowl success.

I have had the bowls and substrate for a month but had not gotten around to filling them yet. I just got done planting and filling my 30gal XH and decided to keep on going and fill the shrimp bowls as well. 

Thanks for sharing your experiences and inspiring others.


----------



## jdm68

So I haven't started a thread about my shrimp bowl, but I do have some questions/requests for ideas. I've got a 2 gal bowl, with 6 adult(4F,2M) and 2 baby RCS(kind of a fluke, you can check "Twin Shrimps" thread if you want). Right now, ALL of the females are berried, with two of them showing eyes and one of those showing a saddle, so I'm very close to the first brood. I know that you netted out your juveniles Newman, but what about making a mini shrimp trap. Like, instead of the 20oz bottle "funnel," I could make a small funnel of plastic and put it inside a film canister(they still make those?!?). What other way(s) might I be able to move the juvies from the bowl to prevent overpopulation? Thanks for any help from anyone, and thanks especially to Newman for passing the shrimp bowl idea on; it is a super fun project and a very cool tank to keep.


----------



## Newman

thanks for following madness and jdm68.
that trap idea sound like it would work well. i remember once i tried to get snails out of a planted 10 gal with a trap made of rubber, clear hose with some shrimp pellets inside. didn't get many snails but got tons of RCS out with it lol.


Unfortunately for my bowl, i left on a two week vacation and apparently the temps got really hot in the house during this time, so i lost 3 of my crystals(they vanished): one female and the two males. All i have left now are two no-entry sign females (one is berried, but i doubt anything will happen with that).
Since I plan on moving to an apartment sometime early next year, I have to get rid of all my tanks including this bowl. I was thinking of selling the plants (with the plants from my 40 gallon too), but idk of anyone who will buy two crystal shrimp lol. 
I returned from my vacation expecting to easily be able to sell the 5 crystals (4 sold and one being an extra) but now its going to be much tougher...

So in conclusion, eventually this bowl will be no more =/


----------



## audioaficionado

I would think in an apartment a shrimp bowl would be something you could keep. Sorry to see this one go


----------



## jdm68

Did the apartment say you couldn't have the bowl? Will they allow houseplants? That seems pretty ridiculous to me, almost like, "You can't drink out of glasses larger than 12oz!"


----------



## madness

It might just be that the move is going to be so difficult that he isn't willing to fight with moving over any active fish tanks.


----------



## Newman

no, i have no idea what the apartment will allow yet. but the decision to get rid of my tanks includes this bowl. I too am sad to let this go, and idk what i should do with it.

As of right now, the only tank i am taking with me is my 3 gal reef tank. i feel like that would already be a handful to maintain when i am on my own. i don't even pay for the electricity all my tanks use up right now lol.


----------



## Jorge_Burrito

Sorry to see that you are going to let your bowl go, we all have to make tough decision sometimes though. If you price your shrimp cheap enough someone will take them. I would take them for $10 shipped
(priority) if all else fails.


----------



## Newman

ok, i'll keep you in mind, burrito.


----------



## Geniusdudekiran

Jorge_Burrito said:


> Sorry to see that you are going to let your bowl go, we all have to make tough decision sometimes though. If you price your shrimp cheap enough someone will take them. I would take them for $10 shipped
> (priority) if all else fails.


LOL He'd make approximately $1 for that deal  

Have you tried selling the whole bowl, shrimp and all? I'm sure somebody local would be thrilled to have this boss bowl!


----------



## Jorge_Burrito

Geniusdudekiran said:


> LOL He'd make approximately $1 for that deal
> 
> Have you tried selling the whole bowl, shrimp and all? I'm sure somebody local would be thrilled to have this boss bowl!


Well i did say if you price them cheap enough :tongue:


----------



## shrimpnmoss

Newman,

Don't you have any other tanks? It's a shame that they keep on berrying and you're not getting anywhere. You should take the berry out and see if she releases the babies in another tank.


----------



## Newman

no, i dont have any other tank with soft water that they like. this bowl is my only soft water tank. my other FW tank has pH around 7.6 and extremely hard water. all my other tanks are SW.
it is a shame that i still can't get babies. if this berry doesn't produce anything, then I will try to sell the shrimp to a friend who is buying some other stuff from me. but then again, if he can't accommodate a soft water shrimp, then i wont sell them to him =P


----------



## Newman

plan B is too keep the bowl and bring it along in the move. Also I would add some A grade crystals to the bowl to keep the two SS females company.


----------



## Newman

I saw a baby shrimp in the bowl today. unfortunately i only see one right now, so my hopes aren't really that high that he will make it, but at least I finally got one of the females to have babies in the bowl haha.


----------



## shrimpnmoss

sweeeet....the first two weeks are the riskiest.....after a couple of weeks then you are really in the clear....FINALLY!


----------



## planted goldfish

"subscribed", love your thread. keep up the good work.


----------



## Newman

Thanks!

I see two shrimplets now !


----------



## audioaficionado

Next payday and after the summer is over, I'll make my moss bowl into an official shrimp bowl with the addition of some fire reds.


----------



## 10gallonplanted

http://www.youtube.com/user/dangerousfishbowl#p/u/2/QV-Y74YH51M
Window bowl burning wood lol.


----------



## Newman

audioaficionado said:


> Next payday and after the summer is over, I'll make my moss bowl into an official shrimp bowl with the addition of some fire reds.


Where is your build thread, I would like to see it!



> http://www.youtube.com/user/dangerou.../2/QV-Y74YH51M
> Window bowl burning wood lol.


0___0
I'll be keeping it away from windows now, thank you.


----------



## 10gallonplanted

Its kinda scary how your house can burn down from a shrimp bowl.


----------



## Newman

well its safe to put it in a room or at a window that never gets direct light or sun shining into it. My bowl stands in my room which has a window that always only get indirect sunlight because the house blocks the sun. I hope that video isn't too discouraging to anyone out there, and doesn't stop people from setting up shrimp bowls lol. its just takes a little bit of planning to make the bowl safe from the death rays of the sun


----------



## audioaficionado

If it's packed full like Newman's, there's no worries.


----------



## Newman

Also very true. This much plant matter stops the rays cold. They dont get to pass through the whole tank lol. Great point man


----------



## 10gallonplanted

Oh im not trying to discourage anyone from setting up a bowl! I set one up a few days ago.


----------



## Newman

There will be no discouragement, only useful warning of what might happen lol
I did not think about this prior to you alerting us, thanks!


----------



## Newman

I am getting rid of all the plants in my 40 gallon planted tank. If you want some plants for your tank, take a look at the swap and shop section! =)


----------



## Newman

Most plants in the 40 gal have been sold, just waiting for someone to claim around 10 dwarf sags for $5.

Back on topic, I came home today and turned on the bowl light to find this little guy molting. here is a pic of him after the molt was done :


----------



## shrimpnmoss

Nice!


----------



## Newman

yes, though he is probably the only shrimplet in the tank (slight chance there may be more hiding). so he survived the first week, lets hope he gets to his second week and gets growing faster! He is noticeably bigger already than the day he was born .


----------



## shrimpnmoss

Nice he could be the "special" one with the right mix of genes to survive and grow in that bowl of yours. Lord knows you went through a few berries to get one survivor.


----------



## Newman

yes it is pretty amazing! Now I'll be getting some A grades this week as well, and they will go into this tank. hopefully they will breed even better.


----------



## Newman

I did a big trim on the moss in the bowl a few days ago. there was a lot of extra, I used it to furnish a marina cubus tank for some cherry shrimp (i had them left over from my 40 gallon)

The bowl doesnt look much different, only two females and i think one shrimplet in here. more crystal shrimp are arriving next week. hopefully they will be S grade or below, but it depends on the shipper. i was notified they ran out of A grades >_< I hope they dont send many SS grades even if they are for the price of A grades.


----------



## Newman

This week i will hopefully get new CRS juveniles from two different sources. one batch will be from nikki - a member on this forum. I am hoping for S grades or lower, as I expect them to be more prolific than higher grade, but I'm probably going to get SS grades too.

Baby crystal shrimp is still alive, i saw him today.


----------



## LucyLoofa

Good thing that little guy is hanging on!
I really love this bowl and hope everything goes well after the new shrimp arrive.


----------



## Penny

I really love this bowl! I seriously want to try one, one of these days... better give my husband some time to adjust from me adding a second betta tank first though


----------



## Newman

I like the bowl too, and have decided to bring it along in the move instead of taking it down.

with cooler house temps in the winter season, i am sure the new juveniles will grow up fast and start breeding well. I think that was my only issue in the summer time.


----------



## 10gallonplanted

I demand an update, Newman.


----------



## Newman

as in an update FTS?


----------



## 10gallonplanted

Haha yes.


----------



## Newman

ok let me go take one right now


----------



## Newman




----------



## rikardob

Yes! I can't wait till my bowl is a sea of green like that. Jealous of that CRS too.


----------



## 10gallonplanted

I dont know how you plants dont die from lack of light.

The ones on the bottom.


----------



## audioaficionado

10gallonplanted said:


> I dont know how you plants dont die from lack of light.
> 
> The ones on the bottom.


Side light from a window could do the trick.


----------



## Newman

not much sidelight, but the plants on the bottom are just the dwarf sags and chain swords that send their leaves way up to the top to gather their light. there's also some lame java ferns somewhere in the middle but they aren't doing anything lol, not enough light.


----------



## 10gallonplanted

Lol poor plants. Only the strongest will survive i guess, or the tallest in the plant world.


----------



## Newman

First order of shrimp arrived this morning and are now in the bowl. They are SS grade juveniles (small) and there were four of them. best part is that they were free from a reefing friend. I just paid $6 shipping lol.
I hope they do well in my tank.

Next up is a package from nikki off this forum. Hopefully they will be S grades! (didn't get here yet)


----------



## Newman

I think I have just realized why i may have such a low rate of shrimp fry surviving - iodine shortage.

I use RO water re-mineralized with Seachem Equilibrium, but the additive doesn't mention iodine in the ingredients. there's calcium, magnesium but no iodine! I think my shrimp that are alive have been getting their iodine from the shirakura food i feed them. there would be little other source.

What i decided to do was to get the Mosura mineral plus solution (it has iodine) and use it as my mineral source. While I was at it, I also figured i could add some food variety for my shrimp, so i also tried to order the Mosura Excel food.


----------



## madness

RO re-constitution is a troubling topic when it comes to shrimp keeping since some of them require such soft water while still require minerals for exo-skeleton health.

Other than doing something expensive like reconstituting RO with mosura old mineral mud or whatever I haven't seen any real concrete explanations from people about how they are doing it in order to have success.


----------



## Newman

I am working primarily on guess work and trial and error with some tips from people who do use the Mosura mineral plus and say that they have fine crystal shrimp breeding.


----------



## Newman

This may be a little unrelated but:

I noticed that my cherry shrimp are not really reproducing in their marina cubus tank that sits on my window sill (wanted to use sunlight and no other energy for it). Sunlight works great and my moss in the cubus is thriving, but the shrimp are not.

I decided to test the temperature and found out that it was slightly below 70F. This is probably too low for comfortable breeding, so i moved the cubus into my room, to sit right next to me Shrimp bowl.

Now the cubus gets the spillover light from the bowl (which is actually a lot and will support the moss)
And the temperature is at about 70F right now. The Shrimp bowl with my Crystals is at 71-72F now.

The temps will likely increase into the 74F range once the house heat gets turned up to 75 degrees.

I am hoping that with the increased temp the cherries will be breeding again. One female has been berried for a very long time now, and the other females have nothing. the males are still small and probably just juveniles, so in time the population should establish itself. All these cherries came from my 40 gallon when i removed all the plants.
Also the cubus that they are in only has moss as the plant. I am trying to grow more moss in here.
That's all for my cherry shrimp rant lol.

In other news, nikki's crystal shrimp still haven't arrived yet...today is the last day they might possibly arrive before they arrive DOA (its been about 4 days since they were shipped) I hope everything goes well, we don't want to lose these amazing shrimp :icon_frow


----------



## Newman

Some pics of shrimp.
Newly added juveniles, and one of my adult females.





























Unfortunately the shrimp order from nikki did not arrive...USPS fault for killing off some amazing shrimp 
Nikki was gracious enough to send me a replacement order scheduled to arrive this week. Will be interesting to see how her shrimp compare to the ones i have right now =)


----------



## madness

That sucks about losing the shrimp.


----------



## Newman

I'm still going to check my post office again to see if they are just being jerks and are holding my package, but its unlikely that i will find it there tomorrow...


----------



## audioaficionado

They'll find the box and eventually deliver it to you 50 years from now.


----------



## Newman

audioaficionado said:


> They'll find the box and eventually deliver it to you 50 years from now.


would be great if the shrimp would still be alive...even if it does take [STRIKE]50 years[/STRIKE] more than 4 days. I doubt i'll get it though...





> I noticed that my cherry shrimp are not really reproducing in their marina cubus tank that sits on my window sill (wanted to use sunlight and no other energy for it). Sunlight works great and my moss in the cubus is thriving, but the shrimp are not.
> 
> I decided to test the temperature and found out that it was slightly below 70F. This is probably too low for comfortable breeding, so i moved the cubus into my room, to sit right next to me Shrimp bowl.


Bingo, the berried female gave birth last night to quite a few shrimp. Cubus tank sits at a temp in the low 70s.


----------



## shrimpnmoss

That's a nice looking CRS crown you got there.

You are correct on the temp. Shrimps grow faster and breed quicker in the 75-77 range. However, that temp range also speeds up their metabolism and shortening their life. I keep all my shrimp tanks at 75ish. I'd rather have lots of breeding versus a long life shrimp that only breeds a couple of times.


----------



## Newman

can you imagine that these (four) new juveniles were free? they came from someone who i helped on a reefing forum.

As far as temp goes I hope to have the bowl's temp around 75F in the winter...but we'll see. 


I checked my post office again but they said they didn't ever get the box, so all hope is lost on those crystals that niki sent me 
the replacement order probably shipped today. should get here soon.


----------



## Newman

Replacement order did not arrive that week. its hopefully getting shipped this week......


I got a TDS pen from Liam on this site. nice tool. I used it to take readings from all my FW tanks. readings were as follows:

Crystal Shrimp Bowl - 150ppm
Cherry Shrimp Cube - 440ppm
40gal Community - 550ppm


----------



## shrimpnmoss

That TDS for your bowl is spot on. The cherries shouldn't have an issue in your hard water either. Man, is that out of the tap? The cube water and community water.


----------



## Newman

yes the ~500ppm water is tap lol.


I can't wait to get that Mosura mineral plus thing soon and start correctly re-mineralizing the water in the bowl to the optimum level. You use yours at 100ppm right?


----------



## shrimpnmoss

My CRS tank is around 150-170. My TT tank is 190-200. How is your CRS water getting to 150 right now?


----------



## Newman

I have been using Seachem Equilibrium to re-mineralize the water so far. my issue with it was that it has no iodine.

I thought you told me once that you set your RO water to 100ppm via the Mosura product? do you still do that in water changes or have you changed to re-mineralizing the RO to 150ppm instead?


----------



## TheJadeShrimp

Hey, Newman! Thank you so much for the inspiration. Here is a link to mine!  My Shrimp Bowl


----------



## Newman

I'll check it out, thanks!


----------



## shrimpnmoss

Newman said:


> I have been using Seachem Equilibrium to re-mineralize the water so far. my issue with it was that it has no iodine.
> 
> I thought you told me once that you set your RO water to 100ppm via the Mosura product? do you still do that in water changes or have you changed to re-mineralizing the RO to 150ppm instead?


My water is a little weird because there's a big rock and wood in there. My water actually test at 190-200ppm. However, I put in 100 to 150 water in to drive the existing hardness down. In your bowl I'd go with a straight 100 to 150 it doesn't have to be exact. Recently I've been putting in 100ppm water for my CRS. I've been playing around with it.


----------



## Newman

i see. i tested my bowls water today, after a water change yesterday, and came up with about 168ppm. looks like i need to dial down on the equilibrium...
I only change around 30% of the water now, but i sometimes do it more than once a week because i usually need to siphon out some food before feeding fresh stuff.

The juvenile crystals are looking so good, I think some may actually be SSS grades!


----------



## Newman

I have been talking about my cherry cube lately but have never posted any pics of it. here it is, I started it a few months ago.

Its a barebottom cube with some DW wrapped in java moss, marimo fragments, an almond leaf fragment, and the few cherry shrimp that survived in my 40 gallon community for the past 2+ years.
Recently one of the females bred (but died soon after...) so now i have quite a few baby shrimp hiding about.

This isn't meant to be a display tank of any sort unlike the Shrimp Bowl right next to it. Its simply meant to breed my remaining cherry shrimp and maybe grow a bit of moss. This cube used to sit on a window sill and be lit only by sunlight but since the cold temps have started, i moved it into my room and it's now being lit by the shrimp bowl's ambient light. It's enough for the moss.

Right now the tank also has one newborn platy fry who is going to be raised here until he is large enough to go into the community. I will move him out also before he is able to eat any shrimplets, right now he is the size of a shrimplet lol.

This cube has no filtration other than weekly WCs and the moss.


----------



## 10gallonplanted

Thats really cool looking man, I have one of those cubes but nothing in it!


----------



## saturniidae

Awesome. It may not be meant for display, but that moss looks really good in there.


----------



## TheJadeShrimp

I like it. Is it all glass?


----------



## Newman

Yes its all glass. its the Marina Cubus betta tank (obviously no bettas going in here lol, my betta is in my 40 gallon).
I can't wait to get some Christmas moss in here


----------



## Newman

Looks like nikki's replacement package will be shipping this week. i though it got lost again last week, but have now been notified that it hasn't been shipped yet.
I will hopefully be getting some A grade crystal shrimp soon!
Why would i be excited over A grades? because I think they will do best in my bowl; they are supposed to be less sensitive and picky about their water conditions.
Can't wait to get these guys, have them grow and breed in my bowl; I feel like the SS grades are at a standstill. only one baby born/raised successfully in the past 7 months is pretty lame...


----------



## TheJadeShrimp

I forgot to ask. Do you do any maintance work, besides water changes? Like Ferts or anything?


----------



## Alyssa

If short on iodine - why not just add a pinch of table salt that has iodine in it?


----------



## Newman

I do not do any maintenance besides the weekly water change and weekly feeding.

i do not want to put any extra salt in the tank for fear that it would raise my pH way too high. since i have very low buffering capacity, the salt might effect my pH too much. 
Though essentially what I'm doing is adding types of salts when i re-mineralize the water (Seachem Equilibrium). its good for plants, but once i get the Mosura Mineral Plus additive, i'll switch to that instead. it should have everything that crystals need in their water.


----------



## TheJadeShrimp

Newman said:


> I do not do any maintenance besides the weekly water change and weekly feeding.
> 
> i do not want to put any extra salt in the tank for fear that it would raise my pH way too high. since i have very low buffering capacity, the salt might effect my pH too much.
> Though essentially what I'm doing is adding types of salts when i re-mineralize the water (Seachem Equilibrium). its good for plants, but once i get the Mosura Mineral Plus additive, i'll switch to that instead. it should have everything that crystals need in their water.



Weekly feeding? Feeding the shrimps? What does the Mosura/seachem suppposed to do?


----------



## Newman

yes i feed my shrimp weekly at least. usually i just throw in a shirakura pellet after taking the old one out...because they usually never finish it, unlike my cherry shrimp who always eat everything until its gone lol.

Those are RO water additives, designed to re-mineralize the water. The additive adds stuff like calcium, potassium, magnesium, and other useful stuff. its also raises GH.


----------



## Newman

The taiwan moss was getting out of control again so i took the DW out and trimmed the moss again... also vacuumed up all the gunk in the middle of the tank and changed about 40% of the water. 
Dwarf hairgrass is still in there, still green, but is not visible because of the chain swords and dwarf sags. java ferns were also still there.


----------



## Newman

I was notified that nikki did ship the crystals this week and that they will arrive this Saturday...the problem is that she sent about 20 of them! extremely generous, even if they are A grades. 
Now I don't know what to do with them all!
Some will definitely go into this bowl, but I have no clue what to do with about 10 extras of them? 
should i just put them all in the bowl and hope they all grow up to at least young adult size, when i can sell some and reduce their numbers? I realize I'll have to test my water regularly now and do more frequent water changes to keep nitrates at 0...no idea what will happen on that note.
I have no other cycled tank that can be run as softwater. my cherry cube is packed with cherries right now and is very hard water that the crystals wont like...
I do have lots of extra taiwan moss lying around, but i don't think setting up another temporary bowl would help them because it wont be cycled, even with the moss...

So my best bet is to just put them all into the bowl, i'm guessing...?
what do you guys think?


----------



## madness

Is there some reason that you can't keep the cherries in softer water?

Slowly switch the cherry cube from tap water to RO water. Put all of the crystals in your bowl for now but start doing water changes to change from tap to RO in the cube and when it stabilizes then switch over the excess CRS.

The cube should be small enough to make using RO water possible - atleast in the short term.


----------



## Newman

my cherries die in soft water. back when i converted my bowl from tap water to softwater, i left a few cherries in the bowl to see how they would do. I converted very slowly over the course of more than a month (doing water changes with the softer water) but eventually my cherries just died in the bowl...
adaptable as they are, they couldn't take a pH of less than 6.5


----------



## audioaficionado

Was it just low pH or lack of vital minerals for them to build their exoskeletons?


----------



## Newman

no clue what it was but the crystals grew up in perfect condition and the cherries disappeared...
I dont think my cherries will work in soft water.


----------



## Newman

ok so i think i've decided to put the majority (about 13) of the crystals into the bowl, and the rest (probably about 3 or 4) into the cherry cube. 
I'll likely select the lowest grades to go into the cherry cube...
Also i'm going to try to soften the water in the cube slightly (not drastically or anything; it will likely still stay hard).
I'll do this preparation before tomorrow. can't wait to see them arrive alive tomorrow!


----------



## madness

Newman said:


> ok so i think i've decided to put the majority (about 13) of the crystals into the bowl, and the rest (probably about 3 or 4) into the cherry cube.
> I'll likely select the lowest grades to go into the cherry cube...
> Also i'm going to try to soften the water in the cube slightly (not drastically or anything; it will likely still stay hard).
> I'll do this preparation before tomorrow. can't wait to see them arrive alive tomorrow!


Yeah, the cube doesn't have to have ridiculously soft water (like you might be trying to create to 'ideally' keep the CRS in) but just soft enough to keep the CRS alive (even if they don't breed).


----------



## Newman

looks like i didn't need the cube...

Crystals arrived today!
there were 14 in the bag, but 4 were DOA  so 9 live ones went into the bowl.
They are nice A-S grades, thought its hard to tell still because they were stressed.
The best part about them is that they are already young adult, and way larger than the SS juveniles i have in the bowl right now. I think I'll have them breeding in a few months =)

Also the Mosura stuff arrived yesterday apparently but was taken back to the post office. I'll have to go get it on Monday...It should be a bottle of Mineral Plus and Excel food.


----------



## Newman

I'll be getting about 6 new cherry shrimp next week for the cherry cube!
I thought i needed to introduce some new genes into my population (or what remains of them) but since the shrimp i bought are higher grade red, I may just sell my current cherries to avoid any dulling in the color. They will be Taiwan Fire Reds hopefully. red legs and everything. 

Currently i have about 7 cherry shrimp, young adult - adult size in my cube plus 10 or more of the tiny little shrimplets from the last berried female. I'll likely sell the 7 larger cherries very soon for cheap.
These are insanely hardy shrimp that have survived my 40 gallon community tank. i guess the tank's fish bred my shrimp for survivability and not color lol! I would have bred them for color, but it was up to the fish


----------



## Newman

I fed the crystals today with some spirulina flakes and they went crazy for them!

Here is a vid and a pic:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KT1r8HzUiGA


----------



## Newman

if anyone has seen shrimp mate, its kinda funny lol. i have never seen this until just now. just happened in the cherry cube so hopefully one of the remaining adult females will be saddled soon!


----------



## jerilovesfrogs

very cool. i have read a lot of this thread...but am not up to date with the latest info. so is this bowl the original one you set up? 

i'm curious about this cherry shrimp cube. are there any pics? 

i'm going to do a little bowl as well. i have a Spec and a Finnex with shrimp...but i would like to see how a bowl, with dirt, would go. the other 2 don't have dirt.

edit: i found the cube pics. pretty =] how many gallons is it?


----------



## audioaficionado

My bowl is unheated and during the winter it will drop down into the low 60s or high 50s. Don't think any shrimp will tolerate that.


----------



## Newman

jerilovesfrogs said:


> very cool. i have read a lot of this thread...but am not up to date with the latest info. so is this bowl the original one you set up?
> 
> i'm curious about this cherry shrimp cube. are there any pics?
> 
> i'm going to do a little bowl as well. i have a Spec and a Finnex with shrimp...but i would like to see how a bowl, with dirt, would go. the other 2 don't have dirt.
> 
> edit: i found the cube pics. pretty =] how many gallons is it?


This is the original bowl i set up, it started out with a pair of breeding cherry shrimp about 1 year ago.

the cube is slightly less than 1 gallon. about 0.9gallons



> My bowl is unheated and during the winter it will drop down into the low 60s or high 50s. Don't think any shrimp will tolerate that.


you're probably right, but the solution to that is to get the shrimp in the bowl in the spring time, breed them until fall, sell all of them off by winter when the temps start to fall and just keep it planted until next spring when you can buy more shrimp and breed them gain


----------



## jerilovesfrogs

audioaficionado said:


> My bowl is unheated and during the winter it will drop down into the low 60s or high 50s. Don't think any shrimp will tolerate that.


coudn't you put a little heater in it? like one of those black, flat little 7.5w ones...i think by hydor? i have one in my 2g and it keeps it in the mid to upper 70s in the winter. i dn't use it in the summer.


----------



## al28894

I think that for the cube, a nice heating pad should suffice. At least, that's what I think.


----------



## Newman

don't need a heating pad anymore. i moved the cube from the window sill to my room to sit right next to my bowl. temps are in the low 70s and the cube still takes no electricity to run since it leeches the light off my bowl.


----------



## jerilovesfrogs

yeah i forgot about heating pads...that would probably work too i imagine. 

so Newman....you have sand on top of the soil. i told someone about this, on another forum, and they said it would pack down too much over time and wouldn't let the nutrients through. do you agree or disagree? i would say since yours has been set up for over a year....no ill effects have come of using sand over soil.


----------



## Newman

its been setup for around a year, and so far no bad stuff in terms of plants not doing well. moss + water lettuce takes care of dissolved nutrients from shrimp wastes and the rooted plants have the access to the soil via roots that are string enough to still penetrate the substrate.
this may change over the next year, i don't know. I don't have that much sand capping the soil. i only started with a small layer and its even less now because i siphon it out in WCs...


----------



## jerilovesfrogs

thanks newman....i have a planted tank with sand...no soil, and the plants (dwarf sag and narrow leaf chainswords) are doing well. just wondering what the effect would be using sand and soil. seeing you've had success, i guess it's worth a try =]


----------



## madness

jerilovesfrogs said:


> yeah i forgot about heating pads...that would probably work too i imagine.
> 
> so Newman....you have sand on top of the soil. i told someone about this, on another forum, and they said it would pack down too much over time and wouldn't let the nutrients through. do you agree or disagree? i would say since yours has been set up for over a year....no ill effects have come of using sand over soil.


The purpose of the sand is to keep the nutrients in the soil from entering the water column.

It doesn't do this perfectly, obviously, but it limits the leeching enough so that the water column does not become overloaded or polluted.

The rooted plants pull the nutrients from the soil layer via the root systems. The rest of the plants (without roots in the soil) rely upon fish and food waste and whatever nutrients might leech through the sand layer into the water column.


----------



## Newman

also for my bowl, some nutrients came from tap water change initially and now they have also been added by using Seachem's Equilibrium to re-mineralize the RO...but no more!

I received my mosura mineral plus bottle finally along with some mosura excel food.
For the past hour i've been playing with the mineral plus bottle, trying to figure out how much i need to re-mineralize 1 gallon of RO to about 100+TDS...
I just decided to fill it up with some RO water, according to the instructions. the bare concentrate only increased my water 20ppm with two drops...
So now i put in about 23 drops into the 1 gallon of RO total...hopefully that gets me to 100ppm >_<

My crystals aren't going crazy for the excel food, but they do show some interest so i think that's good enough for me. 

I'll probably do a water change with the mosura stuff soon (tomorrow).


----------



## rikardob

I think if you forgo the sand and tried filling a bowl with water on top of raw MGOPM it would look like the toilet after a heavy night of drinking.


----------



## Newman

lol yes it would. that's another reason why i would try to dry start my next bowl before filling it with water and getting a cloudy mess. hopefully the carpeting plants will hold the substrate better after they have had a bit of time to grow into a dense lawn..


----------



## jerilovesfrogs

madness said:


> The purpose of the sand is to keep the nutrients in the soil from entering the water column.
> 
> It doesn't do this perfectly, obviously, but it limits the leeching enough so that the water column does not become overloaded or polluted.
> 
> The rooted plants pull the nutrients from the soil layer via the root systems. The rest of the plants (without roots in the soil) rely upon fish and food waste and whatever nutrients might leech through the sand layer into the water column.


yeah i was wondering about sand vs gravel really....because sand kind of packs down..and gravel doesn't. so it would *seem* that more nutrients could enter the soil through the gravel. 

i do have a planted tank with sand and no soil...and still have good growth. so they must be getting something...and i don't dose hardly at all.

in walstad's book, she recommends 2-3mm gravel for optimal growth. not that you can't use something smaller i would guess. i think there are a lot of different ways at growing plants successfully


----------



## madness

jerilovesfrogs said:


> yeah i was wondering about sand vs gravel really....because sand kind of packs down..and gravel doesn't. so it would *seem* that more nutrients could enter the soil through the gravel.
> 
> i do have a planted tank with sand and no soil...and still have good growth. so they must be getting something...and i don't dose hardly at all.
> 
> in walstad's book, she recommends 2-3mm gravel for optimal growth. not that you can't use something smaller i would guess. i think there are a lot of different ways at growing plants successfully


People have success with gravel as well as Eco-complete and other similar stuff.

Trying to use fluval shrimp stratum as a cap for 'dirt' would likely be a disaster but even then you could probably lay a thin layer of gravel on top of the 'dirt' and then put the shrimp stratum (or something like ADA AS) on top of that. 

Sand is not considered the ideal substrate for root development but when using it as a capping layer having a somewhat impermeable layer is the point. The roots will be growing in the 'dirt' or soil anyways once they get growing.

Lots of options are available but in tanks using the 'dirt' or soil of some sort the key thing is to use a capping layer that can keep the 'dirt' from mixing directly into the water column (both physically and in terms of nutrients leeching straight into the water column from full exposure).


----------



## jerilovesfrogs

i have walstad's book, and it's pretty informative.....i started a 10g NPT last month, and am going to start a 'dirty' bowl this week. yay! so great to see people have success with these little bowls


----------



## Newman

I'm going to have to let 7 of my beloved cherry shrimp go from my cherry cube...need to make some room for the young shrimp and the cherries arriving later this week.
I am selling the 7 cherries in the SnS section.


----------



## madness

jerilovesfrogs said:


> i have walstad's book, and it's pretty informative.....i started a 10g NPT last month, and am going to start a 'dirty' bowl this week. yay! so great to see people have success with these little bowls


Most of these were inspired by an article that Walstad did about adapting her NPT techniques to bowls like this. She decided to toss in some shrimp and had success so she updated the article or appended information to it (can't remember which).

Walstad did the leg work and then people read her article and started having success with them and sharing that success which is how a lot of us stumbled upon the idea.

I read the Walstad article before I started my bowl but there are probably quite a few people here who only referenced threads like Newman's and Uka's shrimp bowl threads.

The reason that I point all of this out is that if you have read Walstad's book and have an NPT 10 gallon then you are already familiar with the vast majority of the basic knowledge and science involved here.

I have heard that Walstad discusses the importance of floating plants in the NPT method but in these bowls I would say that they are likely even more important. She specifically mentioned frogbit in the shrimp bowl article which led me to acquiring some and I now have it in all of my tanks (NPT or not). 

Heavily planted and including floating plants these bowls seem to be pretty easy and forgiving but if you cut back on the plant load or don't have the floating plants then it seems like you would actually have to put some effort into keeping things balanced (which I am too lazy to do).


----------



## jerilovesfrogs

yes madness....i'm familiar to the NPT...long before i started one. but her book has made it easier (or harder haha) to understand the science of it. not a science person really. 

i love frogbit.....they would look great in the bowls. and najas would work well for the beginning of the bowl while the plants are getting established. 

i just got a super pretty 'brandy sniffer' bowl from petsmart. i might just have to start a thread of my own =]


----------



## madness

jerilovesfrogs said:


> yes madness....i'm familiar to the NPT...long before i started one. but her book has made it easier (or harder haha) to understand the science of it. not a science person really.
> 
> i love frogbit.....they would look great in the bowls. and najas would work well for the beginning of the bowl while the plants are getting established.
> 
> i just got a super pretty 'brandy sniffer' bowl from petsmart. i might just have to start a thread of my own =]


Good luck. 

Looking forward to it.


----------



## Newman

updated first post with a sort of banner that i made from a cropped photo i took today. the A/S grade shrimp are real nice =)


----------



## madness

Newman said:


> updated first post with a sort of banner that i made from a cropped photo i took today. the A/S grade shrimp are real nice =)


I like it (the banner and the shrimp). I like the nice lower grade shrimp (with clear banding but sharp coloration and crisp breaks between the colors) a lot more than I like the mostly white higher grade shrimp that seem to be popular at the moment.


----------



## Newman

i really like them too. I hope these breed much better than my SS grades did.
If this crystal attempt falls through again, though, I'll just get a bunch of yellow shrimp and switch back to tap water 

I still have a couple of SS grades in the bowl right now.


----------



## madness

Newman said:


> i really like them too. I hope these breed much better than my SS grades did.
> If this crystal attempt falls through again, though, I'll just get a bunch of yellow shrimp and switch back to tap water
> 
> I still have a couple of SS grades in the bowl right now.


How is the pH doing with the R/O water? Can you get it low enough? If not you might have to put in a few scoops of aqua soil before capping your next bowl and try again.


----------



## jerilovesfrogs

is it absolutely necessary to low ph to keep crs? i was thinking of trying a lower grade...since they are cheaper, and more hardy (so i hear). but i don't want to fuss with trying to get the water perfect. i want them to be able to fit in with my water.... maybe i'm asking for too much haha


----------



## Newman

madness said:


> How is the pH doing with the R/O water? Can you get it low enough? If not you might have to put in a few scoops of aqua soil before capping your next bowl and try again.


madness, the RO water and re-mineralizing supplement makes water perfect for crystals. my pH is acidic (around 6.4) KH is 0, GH is around 3dGH (I'm guessing) TDS is 140...ideal imo. (the GH maybe be around 5dGH for all i know, but i don't think its less than 3)

I think the issue isn't the water but more the temperature during the summer, and fluctuating pH/ oxygen levels during day and night...

We'll see how the lower grades do, and if i get them to breed and have many survivors, then I'd say its very possible to keep crystal shrimp in small bowls.


----------



## Newman

jerilovesfrogs said:


> is it absolutely necessary to low ph to keep crs? i was thinking of trying a lower grade...since they are cheaper, and more hardy (so i hear). but i don't want to fuss with trying to get the water perfect. i want them to be able to fit in with my water.... maybe i'm asking for too much haha


If your tap water is liquid rock like mine with a pH higher than 7 then it would be best to keep Neocaridina shrimp. if you have access to RO/ distilled water, you can mix tap and distilled to get water soft enough to keep Caridina species.


----------



## jerilovesfrogs

hmm, well i've had tiger shirmp in my 2g Spec, with fluval stratum for several weeks, they seem fine. for now i guess. the profile in planetinverts says they can be in ph up to 7.5. plus i think the shrimp stratum is supposed to make the water softer. though my ph kit is old and i haven't tested it yet. 

i can buy distilled water...since the tank/bowls aren't that big. guess it's something to consider

actually the profile for crs says the same thing about ph. hmmmm


----------



## Newman

they wont breed well in hard water, that's the issue.


----------



## Newman

Sold my 7 larger cherries, and the new ones came in today. 6 very small, but probably red cherry shrimp. these will hopefully be the foundation for breeding very red cherries in my cube(for now). They are supposed to be Taiwan Fire Reds when they grow up.


----------



## jerilovesfrogs

ahhh, they won't breed, ok. but i *could* keep them in my water, as it is...but they might not breed....is that what you mean

so the new shrimp you got are supposed to be the fire reds? pics pics.....we do need.


----------



## Newman

my new cherries are still too tiny for pics. and aren't all that red right now to be impressive or anything. in a few months we'll be talking very nice shrimp hopefully.

maybe crystals might survive in your tap water. what are your tap water's parameters?


----------



## Newman

ok i managed to get one pic of the new cherries.
the first one is one of them
and the second pic is a comparison of my regular cherry shrimp.

Mine are very small and likely will be duller colored than the new ones. i should be able to tell them apart by size when they grow up more. the new ones will be the largest and my cherries should be much smaller. to not risk mixing them i'll sell off all of mine once they get to a certain juvenile size.


----------



## jerilovesfrogs

so how do you know they will be bigger than your other cherries? what exactly is the difference between them? i think they will be very pretty though, judging from the pic


----------



## Newman

you can already see the difference in size in that pic. i mean that literally, right now, the new ones are much larger than my shrimplets. that's how I'll tell them apart. its slightly unreliable if one of mine experiences a growth spurt, but if that happens then I'll just be selecting the reddest ones anyway to stay.

in about a month or so mine should be large enough to sell. I will try my best to not sell these fire reds by accident...the males might give me trouble in deciding though. males are often not as red as females..


----------



## baysidefish

other than potting mix on the lower layer, what kind of sand should I use for the top layer? thanks


----------



## Ozydego

I used play sand from Walmart, play sand, blasting sand, leveling sand all seem to be good choices, my play sand had a lot of big pebbles that I sifted out, the blasting sand would not have that... with any, be sure to rinse it well before adding it, with the play sand, I rinsed it through my wife's strainer to get rid of the large pebbles and rinse at the same time


----------



## baysidefish

okay..thanks


----------



## Razorworm

Hello Newman
Where did you get your shrimp? I haven't exactly had the best experiences with my LFS.


----------



## Newman

my initial cherry shrimp population started over 2 years ago with LFS shrimp. I bought 6 of these most recent fire red additions on Aquabid.com 
look around, sometimes you can find a good auction. I got them at $3 per shrimp which wasn't too bad.

My crystal shrimp were initially from bsmith on this site, but I'm pretty sure i don't have any of his left  They were all extremely nice SS grades. Right now most of my crystals are from nikki on this forum and only one or two of my crystals are from some member of a reefing forum who sent me them for free.


----------



## Newman

OK, I am planning on setting up two more bowls lol. I know it is a bit random setting up two at once, but I currently have two interesting ideas that I really want to try out.

They will both be planted (I learned my lesson with Shrimp Bowl II). 

One will be the "no maintenance" bowl concept done in a ~2 gallon glass bowl.
This bowl will have a red Crypt as the centerpiece and chain swords surrounding it. With some Salvinia as the floater. The fauna will be cherry shrimp as expected.

The other bowl will be a revival of my shallow 1 gallon glass bowl - this time as a fully planted bowl. It will have Blyxa japonica as the centerpiece with dwarf hairgrass surrounding it. will probably also have the Salvinia as the floater. The fauna here will be blue pearl shrimp, and later on I *may* add some of my rabbit snails from my community tank. So Blue Pearl Shrimp with a few Yellow Poso rabbits.

Here comes the boring parts:
Not only will these bowls be dry started for a couple of months before doing anything, I also won't even be starting them, until I finally take down my 10 gallon nano reef (which I have been slowly selling bit by bit.) I expect my reef to be finally taken down in about 2 months (I still have some rocks to sell and my clownfish pair).
So all things considered, I will probably even get to move by the time I get any shrimp into these two planned bowls...

Still I really like to plan ahead and consider many different choices 

I have not yet figured out how to light the bowls yet. Possibly just one CFL lighting both bowls together? idk if it is possible, but worst case scenario, I'll set up a multi-bulb lamp that I will use anyway in my apartment when i move.

The 1 gallon shallow bowl will be a regular maintenance bowl with weekly 50% water changes (or more) and regular feeding of the shrimp.


----------



## baysidefish

after a bowl is setup, how long can you add shrimps? thanks


----------



## 10gallonplanted

From 2-3 weeks to be safe. Pretty much when you see lots of new plant growth, so that means all the excess nutrients are being used.


----------



## baysidefish

thank you..


----------



## baysidefish

can I use beach sand for the top layer? thanks


----------



## 10gallonplanted

Uhmm i wouldnt even though I used creek sand. But beach sand as in its from the ocean?


----------



## baysidefish

yeah lol

the reason I asked was because I check lowes, they sell play sand for $4 which is cheap, but it is 50lb!!!!!! I just need a cup or so.....try to find out any options..thanks


----------



## Newman

how about a playground or something...sand is in a lot of places lol.


----------



## baysidefish

hehe......


----------



## Newman

either way, you will want to rinse the heck out of it when you get it. What i did was put a bunch of it in a container (such as a bucket) and then ran tap water through it for a long time, moving it around to have all the silt be washed away. just let the water overflow out of the bucket and take the silt with it. be careful not to allow the larger grains into the drain though o_o So do the washing gently but thoroughly.


----------



## baysidefish

got it....thank you


----------



## baysidefish

question, for the bowl, can I just use ada soil without sand? thanks


----------



## baysidefish

also, with sand, will algae grow on it? thanks


----------



## Newman

algae will grow on just about anything, the trick is to not let it. water changes do help.

you can use any substrate to cover your organic soil, it does not have to be sand. If the ADA soil has pH changing properties, you have to take this into account for the shrimp choice you will go with. low pH = Caridina species, even more so if you have softer water.
I find Neocaridina do best around neutral pH, but they are adaptable.

w/e substrate cap you choose, you must make sure to add at least 1/2" layer on top of the organic soil to prevent your bowl from getting messy.


----------



## baysidefish

sorry to keep bugging you

Can I use this?
http://www.repotbonsai.com/bonsai-mix/Akadama.html


Also, for the sand alternative, which one would you recommend?
http://www.petco.com/N_13425_4294956558_30/Fish-Gravel-And-Substrates-Freshwater-Fish.aspx?cmref=Pet Type&cmrefv=Freshwater+Fish&cmrefr=5000&cmrefid=13425&cmrefpf=1
thanks


----------



## Newman

I would just use the miracle gro organic mix soil capped with this: http://www.petco.com/product/115883/Petco-Black-Aquarium-Sand.aspx
if those are your options...

A 1.5" layer of soil, capped with a 1/2" to 1" layer of the sand should be good for you.
be aware that there is a certain order and direction that you should follow when setting this up and planting it. otherwise you'll get a mess on your hands.


----------



## baysidefish

cool...thank you


----------



## Geniusdudekiran

Wow, this bowls's over 1 year old! Super job Newman, I've had so much fun watching this progress!


----------



## Newman

Yes, I recently noticed that too! I am surprised it's lasting this long! maybe the soil is good for longer than 2 months unlike the package claims lol.

I also noticed that recently (for roughly the past 5 months) I have not had to even clean my glass from algae anymore! It stays very clean now, and plants are growing without algae or other problems. I wonder how long this will last, before the next algae bloom sets in? (my last bloom was a complete take over by cladophora algae which made all my plants fuzzy. it happened roughly 5 months ago.)


----------



## Geniusdudekiran

Pics? Hehe


----------



## Newman

pics of what? the cladophora bloom?


----------



## Geniusdudekiran

No, just the bowl in general. That bowls just so awesome. I've been watching this thread this whole time.


----------



## Newman

o an updated FTS? I suppose i really do have to replace that one in the first post now haha. I'll take one soon!


----------



## madness

Newman said:


> o an updated FTS? I suppose i really do have to replace that one in the first post now haha. I'll take one soon!


Every photo is a FTS with a bowl.


----------



## madness

baysidefish said:


> question, for the bowl, can I just use ada soil without sand? thanks


You could do a bowl with ONLY ADA Aqua Soil. 

It wouldn't really be a 'Walstad' bowl and it wouldn't have the initial organic content that the Miracle Gro Organic Complete does nor would it have the the large amount of soil that is left after the MGOC mineralizes but since Aqua Soil has a ton of nutrients in it you would definitely be able to grow plants well.

I would imagine that an Aqua Soil only bowl could be made to work pretty easily but it would likely balance and mature differently (I am talking about water parameters, growth rate, keeping algae away, etc.) than a Walstad style bowl does.

One of those little 5 pound bags of generic aquarium sand at Petco should easily do the trick without breaking the bank or leaving you with 40+ pounds of extra sand. Remember that you want to keep some extra capping material around because you may need to add small amounts in the future to cover up low spots, spots where you tear a plant out, etc.


----------



## Newman

FTS updated on first post!


----------



## Geniusdudekiran

Very nice newman.


----------



## Newman

thanks!
that shrimp in the FTS is one of the few top-notch SS grades that I have left.
As a side note, all the shrimp have gained a nice white color to them, so all now appear to be S grades instead of A. looks like the mosura mineral plus is doing some good for them


----------



## Newman

Crystals are growing nicely. hopefully ill see them breed soon.
I think my cherries in the cherry cube are growing too...though slowly. I think i lost one of the 6 TFRs that i had, so now i have 5 TFRs left 
I moved the platy fry out of the cube today so the shrimp should have slightly more room. they didnt mind the fry though.


----------



## Geniusdudekiran

More pics? Haha


----------



## Newman

more pics of the bowl? shrimp?
or things in the cherry cube?


----------



## rikardob

Newman said:


> more pics of the bowl? shrimp?
> or things in the cherry cube?


Cover all your bases.


----------



## Newman

lol there is not much to take pics of right now.

On a side note my 2 gal bowl arrived today. bought it at HobbyLobby's online store. wasn't too expensive either. it will be host to my "no maintenance" bowl concept. but i cant start it until i take down my 10 gal reef, so this will take a bit more time to get going (plus i need to dry start it)

I have its plants and fauna figured out already.


----------



## demonr6

I decided to check in on my bowl Friday after a couple of months being neglected.. the wife has been in charge of topping it off and the occasional feedings when she asks "Should I be feeding the shrimp?" What?! Anyhoo.. I walked in to find the telanthera, pennywort over the side of the bowl and literally inches from the ground, there is some sword plant of unknown origin that is growing up and out and some other plant that she strung up along the window sill like a vine. "Honey, wth.. this thing evolved into a a f*ing jungle and you did not tell me?" It was insane, no wonder she was having to top off so much. The shrimp are still in there and there is a colony of snails too. It's nuts. I had to trim in back but man do I have nice clippings now. Shame they have been growing out of the bowl though and did not like going fully immersed again.


----------



## Newman

lol that sounds crazy nice.


----------



## audioaficionado

demonr6 said:


> I decided to check in on my bowl Friday after a couple of months being neglected.. the wife has been in charge of topping it off and the occasional feedings when she asks "Should I be feeding the shrimp?" What?! Anyhoo.. I walked in to find the telanthera, pennywort over the side of the bowl and literally inches from the ground, there is some sword plant of unknown origin that is growing up and out and some other plant that she strung up along the window sill like a vine. "Honey, wth.. this thing evolved into a a f*ing jungle and you did not tell me?" It was insane, no wonder she was having to top off so much. The shrimp are still in there and there is a colony of snails too. It's nuts. I had to trim in back but man do I have nice clippings now. Shame they have been growing out of the bowl though and did not like going fully immersed again.


Post up some pics or it didn't really happen LOL :icon_mrgr


----------



## demonr6

audioaficionado said:


> Post up some pics or it didn't really happen LOL :icon_mrgr


I'll get pics of the trimmed tank tonight and update my thread. It's trimmed back but you can still see it's hella grown out.  I mean to update but by the time I get home and everything complicates with pets and other chores time vanishes.


----------



## MitchellLawson

Is there any updates on this, just spent from 8-23:32 reading pages 1-24. Did you set up your other bowls?


----------



## Newman

hello,

the FTS you see in this first post is essentially what it looks like now. that FTS was taken roughly 2 weeks ago. the water lettuce has just grown more roots - that's about it. shrimp are growing nicely. i estimate about 8 crystals in this bowl right now.

I did not setup my other two bowls yet. I going to start getting supplies later this week. currently finishing with finals and i'll be done with school tomorrow for the semester. 
Starting by getting soil first, and a lamp to hold the CFL bulbs...
The week after Christmas I'm going to order my plants and plant the two bowls. they will be dry started if possible.


----------



## bluegoldfish

Are you doing any filtration at all, or airstone? Looks like no, but was wondering.


----------



## Newman

no filtration at all. just a weekly 50% water change and one weekly top off.

News:
I moved the bowl out of my room because i finally bought an actual lamp for it. its a floor lamp, but it works well for my purposes. so now the tank is lit by a 9W CFL 5000K.
In addition to this i started to setup my other two bowls. i only got as far as putting a layer of organic soil in them for now. once i order my plants and get them, I can continue to the planting of the bowls.

One bowl will have a white playsand cap while the other will have a black eco-complete cap. i chose those because i already had some leftovers to use. each bowl will be lit by one 9W bulb since the floor lamp has multiple arms.


----------



## Newman

More news:

at least one crystal shrimp is berried now, so i have high hopes for these shrimp once again.


----------



## Ozydego

Very nice! I'm still working with the easy shrimp, the 2 gallon bowl is ready for shrimp now, that's my 2nd. One day a CRS bowl, one day.... So you are setting up the 3 bowl 3 light setup that was discussed a while back?


----------



## Newman

yes i am. i bought a 5 arm floor lamp so i can technically run up to 5 bowls. however i want to run three for now lol.
1 will be a 2 gallon "no-maintenance" concept with red cherries
1 is my Shrimp Bowl with crystal shrimp
1 will be a 1 gallon shallow bowl with Blue Pearl Shrimp and maybe some sulawesi snails.

The shrimp bowl and the shallow shrimp bowl will receive weekly water changes while the biggest bowl will not receive any water changes.


----------



## Robotponys

Soo cool! I read the whole thing... _._ zzzz quick question for anyone: in NYC we have very soft water (6.something and almost unreadable gh and kh) also, cherry shrimp are my available nearby, only crystal reds. But they seem far more sensitive. I have never kept shrimp before (except ghost shrimp I tossed in the Betta bowl a few days ago) so should I ship and buffer the water or stick to the CRS and hope for good results? Im really stuck between them. Thanks and I love your bowls and cube! FYI, check out thecontainerstore.com and look at toy display boxes (amac boxes, toy collecting, sports collecting, etc). They look great for this, plus they're super cheap.


----------



## Newman

thanks for the suggestions.


you could start with low grade crystals if that is what is available at your stores. but you should really let the tank mature first, and let the plants take over. basically run a planted tank with maybe snails for bioload for about 2-3 months, and then add a few crystal shrimp to test. obviously treat the bowl like a tank, test parameters etc. you wouldnt want the shrimp do die.


----------



## Robotponys

Newman said:


> thanks for the suggestions.
> 
> 
> you could start with low grade crystals if that is what is available at your stores. but you should really let the tank mature first, and let the plants take over. basically run a planted tank with maybe snails for bioload for about 2-3 months, and then add a few crystal shrimp to test. obviously treat the bowl like a tank, test parameters etc. you wouldnt want the shrimp do die.


Thanks, but just realized the shrimp are Sakura shrimp not crystal reds! Oops. So I guess if I wanted to get some eventually I should buffer the water? Which way is best in your opinion? Crushed coral, baking soda, any other methods you use.
Also, sorry for my grammar! I'm on my iPhone and it auto corrects a lot of stuff I miss type to random words...


----------



## Newman

get some what? sakura or crystal reds? crystals wont need much buffering of any kind. if you water is soft, just use something to bring up the TDS to 100ppm and youre ok. I use mosura mineral plus. 
for sakura shrimp, they honestly wont care, they are basically cherry shrimp.


----------



## Robotponys

Thanks! I really appreciate it!


----------



## shrimpnmoss

Got any new pics of the grandfather of all the shrimp bowls?


----------



## madness

Robotponys said:


> Thanks! I really appreciate it!


Sakura shrimp are a great choice for starting out. They are very good looking and they are very hardy and very easy to keep healthy and get to breed.

The cherry red shrimp that I have in my bowls are not quite as nice as Sakura shrimp but they are close and they do really well in the bowls. Very hardy.


----------



## Newman

shrimpnmoss said:


> Got any new pics of the grandfather of all the shrimp bowls?



until night time comes, I'm going to have to settle for this garbage pic. too much reflection and brightness limits any detail. taken today.

my two other bowls (still empty) are on the sides.

Does anyone think that the moss needs to be trimmed again? its climbing out of the bowl in two spots lol.


----------



## depech

wow! how long did it take for moss go grow to this level?


----------



## Newman

about 2-3 months from the last trim maybe less.


----------



## FisheriesOmen

omg I'm bookmarking this page and gonna check every second for updates this is the best thing ever and I'm guessing its pretty cheap too? what light and substrate are you using I'd love to get something like this!:bounce::bounce::bounce::bounce::bounce::bounce::bounce::bounce::bounce::bounce::bounce::bounce::drool:


----------



## Newman

haha, glad you like it. as far as cost goes, if you have no initial equipment ready for the build (like sand , a bowl/tank, a desk lamp) then the build will run you roughly $40 or slightly more.

the light is more focused on the bulb itself because the fixture can be anything. a desk lamp is good. i use a floor lamp i bought for $18 because it ha 5 arms and can support up to 5 bowls. its going to support 3 bowls for now. the bulb is the important part. the bulb i use is a 9W 5000K CFL. you can use 13W and 14W bulbs too.

The substrate and tank specs are all listed on the first post of this thread.


----------



## FisheriesOmen

Amazing! I was originally planing on a 10gal planted and then buying a baby betta fish and watch it grow up but that would have cost over 100$ for everything (including poor quality plants from petco). But this is way cooler and 40$ is within my price range :angel: especially since I'n in no rush for the shrimp...Now i just need to find a place that sells acceptable plant quality 

great work! roud:


----------



## Newman

what kind of plants do you want?

you can either check the SnS section on this forum for someone who sells the plants you need. also i may be able to provide you with some plants soon, depending on which ones you want.


----------



## FisheriesOmen

I def. want some moss cause i just love it now that i realize that you can attach it to stuff rather than a large ugly ball ( i don't know what kind (recommendations welcome)). Also a good floater plant cause I'm assuming most my plants are gonna be low light ( and i like seeing the dangling roots ). Overall im not sure I'm more of a reef guy so I'm traveling into unknown territory o.o :iamwithst:icon_conf:help: :confused1:


----------



## FisheriesOmen

this is probably a stupid question but do you know what brand of bowl you have and where you got it? I've been searching online on all the Major hardware and pet stores but there's
only (what looks like) 1 kind but the reviews people had of it on walmart was that it was cracking at the bottom.


----------



## tbnist03

Not to hijack the thread but I've got some plants you might be interested in. PM me if so 

Sent from my DROIDX using Tapatalk


----------



## Newman

hey i like the reef side of the hobby too  I own a 3 gallon reef myself.

anyway as far as moss goes, i can provide you with some taiwan moss, flame moss, and christmas moss, all of which are great.

i will have salvinia for my floating plant soon. and also water lettuce if it ever decides to split again (normally they split like crazy but mine hasn't for the past 4 months...)

I'll have some other for you soon, so let me know when you start/need them.


you can find good bowls at craft stores i am told. also hobby lobby has good ones around 2 gallons in size (i have one) you might need to get one from online..which will cost more.


----------



## FisheriesOmen

Cool. I think I'll check a crafting store for one and I'll be sure to pm you when im ready for plants . Also do you have a price in mind?


----------



## Newman

for my plants? it depends on how much you want, but if you just want small amounts, enough to just start owning the plant and propagating more of it on you own, then I wont charge much above the shipping cost. shipping will be $5.50.


----------



## FisheriesOmen

cool I'll pm when i get the stuff all setup and i hope to see more updates. Are your Crystals breeding fully now? or are there just 1 here and there?


----------



## jdm68

Like another recent poster, I'm not trying to jump in or steal your plant sale Newman, but I've got some plants too, and I live about 15 minutes from FisheriesOmen in Bloomington off 77. In my signature is one of my bowls, and i think at the end a pic of the two together with a variety of plants, fish and shrimp. Let me know if you'd like anything or help with setting up the bowl(I'm actually helping someone at work in setting up a bowl). Also, Michael's has a good selection of glassware, and I bet there's one in AV. World of Fish in Richfield has a decent selection of plants, and bettas, as well(Both of mine came from WOF). There is also a newish betta specific store in St. Paul called The Betta Shop.


----------



## FisheriesOmen

Omg for reals? that's awesome! I'll still buy some of my plants from newman just for the Great Idea of this bowl. But that's awesome someone near me, that works perfectly!


----------



## Newman

no, if you want to get your plants from someone else, I wont sell my plants then. it will be a drag for me to ship them anyway. however if you can't find something from the previous two guys, then let me know and i may or may not have it LOL


and yes the shrimp just started to breed, but i doubt they will be successful for the first few tries. eventually they'll get the hang of it though.


----------



## FisheriesOmen

Well from the look of jdm68's bowls he prolly dosen't have any type of moss and moss is a must!  But if you don't want to hassle with shipping I'll try the fish store in minneapolis.


----------



## Newman

i can provide you with moss if you need it.


----------



## TheJadeShrimp

Hey newman just letting you know. My bowl is going back up. I finally got my hands on DHG.


----------



## Newman

great I'll check it out 

I also just planted one of my bowls with DHG. dry start mode though.


----------



## TheJadeShrimp

Newman said:


> great I'll check it out
> 
> I also just planted one of my bowls with DHG. dry start mode though.


What is dry start exactly? I have heard it several times. This DHG is left over from their 200 gallon show tank. Planting it right now.


----------



## Newman

its basically just planting a tank without flooding it with water. you also cover the tank with plastic wrap at the top to keep the humidity very high (so plants don't dry out). then you just leave it alone for a while, making sure that its stays humid inside and the substrate is moist and plants aren't drying out. the end result is supposed to be a full planted tank in fraction of the time it takes to reach the same result in a standard aquarium with water. after the plants have grown to the desirable density, you flood the tank with water and it looks complete.

I'll be testing whether or not this method works well with my two bowls.


----------



## TheJadeShrimp

Oooh! Okay. Well, I posted pictures of the bowl. Let me know whatcha think!


----------



## FisheriesOmen

I want to see pics Newman :O


----------



## Greedy

wow your bowl has really filled in nicely!


----------



## Newman

FisheriesOmen said:


> I want to see pics Newman :O


pics of my other two bowls starting up? i might make a thread on them someday soon, or maybe ill just post their pics up in this thread. I'm not done planting them yet so no pics yet. I did take a few of the setup process for someone else though, so if you want those i will post them.




> wow your bowl has really filled in nicely!


yes it's crazy dense in there right now. a challenge to find shrimp in there. the moss definitely needs a trim soon.


----------



## xenxes

Did you ever say where you bought this bowl? The bowls @ Petsmart/co are as expensive as the larger tanks!


----------



## TheJadeShrimp

xenxes said:


> Did you ever say where you bought this bowl? The bowls @ Petsmart/co are as expensive as the larger tanks!


I got my bowl just like Newman's bowl at Walmart for like $6.00.


----------



## FisheriesOmen

Newman said:


> pics of my other two bowls starting up? i might make a thread on them someday soon, or maybe ill just post their pics up in this thread. I'm not done planting them yet so no pics yet. I did take a few of the setup process for someone else though, so if you want those i will post them.



Yes. I want to see them 
:tongue:


----------



## Newman

yes you can get these cheap at craft stores and walmart.

Ok ill post those pics up eventually


----------



## xenxes

I'm off to Walmart! Stay tuned XD


----------



## TheJadeShrimp

Can't wait for updates!

P.S. My bowl came from the fish section of Walmart.


----------



## FisheriesOmen

Gah it's agonizing waiting for updates D: I liked it better when I just found the post and spent a couple hours reading through it.....I think I'm gonna do that again


----------



## Robotponys

fisheriesomen said:


> gah it's agonizing waiting for updates d: I liked it better when i just found the post and spent a couple hours reading through it.....i think i'm gonna do that again :d


+1 :d


----------



## Newman

lol what do you guys want updates on? this bowl or the other two? this bowl still looks the same as that last pic i posted on the previous page. i have not gotten to trimming the moss off yet. i will likely do that then next water change. usually i take to whole DW thing with the moss out of the tank when i trim, but this time i don't want to stress the shrimp - who may be carrying eggs - so i'll lightly trim w/e i can get to when half of the water is drained.

moss that i get from this bowl will likely be put on sale (once i have enough of it). not anytime next week, but eventually lol. I am also growing Christmas moss right now to replace ALL of the Taiwan moss in my cherry shrimp cube. so once the Xmas moss gets going, i'll take out all of the Taiwan moss from the cube and sell it. there will also be some flame moss for sale at some point too. growing that as well.


----------



## FisheriesOmen

Newman said:


> moss that i get from this bowl will likely be put on sale (once i have enough of it). not anytime next week, but eventually lol. I am also growing Christmas moss right now to replace ALL of the Taiwan moss in my cherry shrimp cube. so once the Xmas moss gets going, i'll take out all of the Taiwan moss from the cube and sell it. there will also be some flame moss for sale at some point too. growing that as well.


Your a moss master :O I will happily gobble up any moss you throw out I'm not sure of the differences of them. But I'm guessing i should wait till after a dry start..
oh and yes i want pics of everything even if it doesn't seem interesting I'm the guy the likes to see the set-up in progress.


----------



## Newman

lol idk about moss master since i never really got to collect as many mosses as i initially wanted to (I have now given up on the idea and will probably sell all my mosses eventually. except the taiwan will always be in my shrimp bowl).

Yes i'll let you know when i have some available for sale. you can start growing moss during a dry start too, since all it needs is a humid environment to survive and grow. you of course dont have to get it now. i'll probably have it for you in a few weeks.


----------



## FisheriesOmen

Gasp! You must pursue your dream :O and would moss do well in that glass box I showed on my forum work to grow moss while I wait for the dry start? Does moss need the same special 5000k watt? Or actually could I use stray light from my lamp? Oh and I don't see how hard starting a collection ofmoss would be :/ I vote you continue with it (I was thinking of becoming a moss master too)


----------



## Kworker

Would a LED bulb work in a desk lamp for this project?


----------



## FisheriesOmen

I wouldnt a diff. Bulb can increase chance of a fire.


----------



## Kworker

FisheriesOmen said:


> I wouldnt a diff. Bulb can increase chance of a fire.


how could one of the ecosmart LED screw in bulbs increase a chance of fire over the no longer produced incandescent bulb? im sure the compact fluorescent is what i would end up using i was just curious if one of the new Ecosmart LED bulbs could work for plants in this project


----------



## FisheriesOmen

I would just say stick with the bulb Newman uses I don't know how well led bulbs work


----------



## Ozydego

The LED bulbs are a great option, they last forever and most have the same or less heat than a CF bulb, so as long as you do enough research to make sure the lumens or par are similar or greater than a CF then do it... They are more expensive though, that's why most of us stick with CF because on these small bowls they are a very inexpensive solution...


----------



## FisheriesOmen

Hurry and post some pics D:


----------



## Newman

haha, no pics for now. ill try to post next week - when the rest of my plants arrive from a member of this forum.

yes an LED light will work, but make sure its white light as the blue bulbs wont do much comparatively. if its a complete unit then your fine. if you have to DIY an LED into a fixture, make sure you know how to do that correctly or you will wind up with a burnt out bulb and maybe a fire.


----------



## FisheriesOmen

:/ I will continue to watch your "Adventures of Shrimp Bowling" like a hawk 0.-


----------



## Kworker

Newman said:


> haha, no pics for now. ill try to post next week - when the rest of my plants arrive from a member of this forum.
> 
> yes an LED light will work, but make sure its white light as the blue bulbs wont do much comparatively. if its a complete unit then your fine. if you have to DIY an LED into a fixture, make sure you know how to do that correctly or you will wind up with a burnt out bulb and maybe a fire.


I'm just going with a table lamp with LED than thanks for info.. I saw a nice one at the store for 10 bucks.. just filled up my 2 gal glass cylinder before!


----------



## FisheriesOmen

O.- I'm still watching this forum like a hawk


----------



## Newman

haha, I'll put stuff up as soon as my final plant order arrives. its a few crypts, an anubias and some Salvinia floaters. the salvinia will be put into storage in my cube and bowl and the other two plants will go in my larger bowl that i just started. once i flood the two started bowls, i will add Salvinia to each.


----------



## Kworker

i put microsword and little wisteria floating buds in my 2 gal cylinder with a LED bulb.. what do you think the success percentage is?!


----------



## Newman

well microsword will do better if there is an organic soil bottom layer. the wisteria can serve as a floating plant (though i recommend salvinia or frogbit as better choices). your success % right now sounds like it would be 85%. it all depends on how you set it up.


----------



## FisheriesOmen

Where is my update O.-


----------



## Newman

hah, apparently my plant order got delayed again...so i'm going to get it next week and ill take pics then.


today, during a water change, i got to trim the moss from this bowl. I probably trimmed off a good $5.00 worth. surprised to see that much moss from last trimming. also trimmed some roots from my water lettuce, and put in a fresh almond leaf for the shrimp to eat from. i place a pellet on the leaf to feed the shrimp, so the leaf acts as a plate for my shrimp. I like seeing them gather in a big pile on the leaf, trying to eat the pellet after the weekly water change lol.


----------



## FisheriesOmen

lol that's awesome that's a pretty big dinner plate


----------



## Kworker

Newman, what is your temperature in your bowls averaged at? Right now mine is in mid to upper 60's and you had success at this temp for cherry's or crystals?


----------



## Newman

my house temp is often set to 70-73F. whenever i can i set it to 71F. my shrimp bowl (with the crystals) stays at roughly 73F but not less than 70F. i think they like it like that.

My cube with cherries is around 69-70F, and the cherries are sluggish and dont really grow rapidly at all. but they are doing fine too.


----------



## Kworker

Alright so with that said I will move it to the corner furthest from window and near heater.. hopefully that will make a difference


----------



## FisheriesOmen

:hihi::hihi::hihi::hihi:I was promised an update:hihi::hihi::hihi::hihi:


----------



## Newman

yes, but it looks like the plant shipment got lost >_<

so i dont even know what to do now...


----------



## FisheriesOmen

:O Oh the horror!


----------



## xenxes

>


Newman that big jumbled mess in the middle is aponogeton right? or is it the chain sword? I haven't gotten a chance to drive down to the LFS for dwarf HG so playing with other clippings in the mean time.


----------



## Newman

although i'm sure the aponogeton is still in my bowl somewhere (lol), do not get confused - that plant you are referring to is pygmy chain sword. they, along with dwarf sag took over the entire floor of the bowl.


----------



## Ozydego

I expect my Jungle Val to get that big after another 6 months, the runners are just going around and around the bowl.... I do hope that the leaves stay stunted though and not grow 3 feet long like in my 55 gal....


----------



## Newman

yes lol they do grow extremely long in large tanks. in 6 months a val would over taken my 40 gallon (used to be planted with vals)


----------



## kcartwright856

Thank you so much for sharing this. I read every single page!

I was wondering if I could follow in your footsteps and have similar success with a 2 gallon hex tank that I have.


----------



## xenxes

Newman said:


> although i'm sure the aponogeton is still in my bowl somewhere (lol), do not get confused - that plant you are referring to is pygmy chain sword. they, along with dwarf sag took over the entire floor of the bowl.


They are not very pygmy then are they?  Looks great though!


----------



## Newman

no, they are defninitely not pygmy if they have to grow taller to get access to light. if blasted by high light they will stay short. thanks

and yes this method (Walstad) can work with any small tank too.


----------



## Newman

ok for those who wanted pics of my other two bowls, i finally bought the rest of my plants and was able to get my write-up for a friend halfway done. here is what i have so far:

*Step 1* - A 1" - 1.5" of organic soil.









*Step 2* - Moisten soil with water









*Step 3* - Plant your plants in the moist soil.

















*Step 4* - Add substrate cap layer on top of soil.

















Here is where methods may differ. Two major choices to be made are whether the bowl should be dry started or filled immediately. This guide will show the dry start, so if you filled you bowl after step 4, then proceed past Step 6.

*Step 5* - Cover bowl with plastic wrap. Mist the plants for the next couple of days to ensure that they stay moist.

















At this point, while doing the dry start, you should leave the photoperiod around 8 hours a day, mist the plants if they ever start looking dry (the bowl should be very humid), and otherwise just leave the bowl alone until you get the level of growth you want.


----------



## FisheriesOmen

woot! finally an update! Loving the bowls...and was i suppose to wait to put the top soil on? I already added the topsoil >.< Can't wait for further updates


----------



## Newman

ususally its easier to plant into the moist organic soil and then cover with substrate cap layer. this also prevents soil mixing into the water column if you flood directly after step 4.


next update will be after my dry starts are over. that can take a couple of months


----------



## inka4041

I now have a windowsill full of dirt bowls/jars, solely because of the photo with the crs in the middle. Can't wait to see how these new ones turn out!


----------



## FisheriesOmen

you could update on the growth of the plants still D: and so i pretty much screwed myself with putting the top soil in...... -.-


----------



## Ozydego

Not necessarily, I placed a small layer of capping sand before I planted, I wanted to soak the extra water I put in with the topsoil, the key is if you have flooded the bowl, if you are not super careful when planting, draining water down to the soil will allow you to plant through the cap without too much issue


----------



## mgdmirage

Nice little bowl Newman


----------



## Newman

thanks!


----------



## Rabidgerbil

So I knowticed your clowns and gotta ask, .newman. from N-R? Either way I love The shrimp tank, hope to see it filled again soon. How did everything do without the heater though? I just started a little 1 gallon to try my hand in planted tanks but I really dont wanna spoil its simplistic appeal with an ugly heater in there..


----------



## Newman

Yes thats me 
the shrimp bowl is doing great.
the other two bowls you see here getting dry started are two new bowls i am working on.
and yes without a heater the shrimp do fine.


----------



## Rabidgerbil

Very good, how do you feel about CO2 on a sub-gallon tank? I started a DIY system with yeast and sugar and so far have seen positive results (pearling and such). I don't have anything from the animal kingdom in my tank though, intentionally at least...


----------



## Newman

@Rabidgerbil: DIY CO2 is a drag imo, but it brings terrific results to any tank, even sub gallon as long as you keep the bubble count low (the smaller the tank the lower) and also you need to religiously change the reactors when they start to slow down. if you get lazy, you'll end up with a massive algae mess from fluctuating CO2.


OK, BAD NEWS GUYS.
Due to some circumstances, I have to break down the two bowls i've just started. i decided to just run with one bowl - that will be the shrimp bowl. three will be too much. moving out soon, i'll need the time to work and for school. already have a 3 gal reef to take care of and maybe even some birds that i will take with me. one bowls will be enough for the FW side. plus i am thinking of seriously raising some shrimp in a big crate container, but thats a story for another day 

So long story short, first i'm offering up the bowls to anybody local to me to come pick them up as they are. they look real nice, and have great potential for being shrimp bowls. i've included two pics to show what they look like. The bigger 2 gal bowl is only $25.00 for the whole setup. the smaller one just has hairgrass so it's $10.00 for the setup as is.

If nobody wants them, then ill break them down and will sell the plants separately. the bowls will likely not be sold (too risky to ship).

$25.00 Bowl









$10.00 Bowl


----------



## xenxes

Bowl breakdowns make me sad 

Hate to think I have to break down a few tanks in a year or two. Wish this hobby was more portable. Good luck with the move!


----------



## Newman

It makes me sad too, because these could have been amazing shrimp bowls...

I am giving you guys one more day before I just sell all the plants and rip the bowls apart. if there are no takers by tomorrow, then look for my plants being for sale in the S&S section.


----------



## xev11

Any chance of you driving into the city anytime soon?


----------



## Newman

depends on where you live in NYC. I might be able to. let me know via PM.


----------



## Newman

no responses, the one day's up so now i'll sell the plants.


----------



## FisheriesOmen

whew i thought you were gonna sell the original.....that woulda made me really sad


----------



## Newman

no way am i selling the original. even if all my crystal shrimp disappear (they are still alive and well btw) then i'll still keep the bowl around and just try yellow shrimp instead.


----------



## Newman

ok i sent out one plant package today. I only have about 10 crypts left. staurogyne has been claimed and hairgrass was shipped today.


----------



## TheJadeShrimp

Awwww. It is sad that your taking down your two newest bowls. But it is great that your keeping the main bowl. xD

I added an updated picture of my HG growth if your interested in seeing it.


----------



## Newman

*Full CO2 System FOR SALE! local pickup if you want the 10lb cylinder*

I have no need for my CO2 system, so I decided to get rid of it.
It is this system:
http://www.aquacave.com/Deluxe-Plant...P1303C870.aspx
instead of the bulky reactor w/ powerhead assembly, I will include a Rhinox 2000 diffuser I think its a much more pleasing way of diffusion.

setup includes the following:
10lb cylinder
Milwaukee pH controller with probe
Milwaukee MA957 Regulator
Bubble counter (attached to regulator)
CO2 Hoses

The above setup is for pickup only if you also want that 10lb Cylinder. if you don't want the cylinder but want everything else, then i can ship.

Price is $200.00 picked up w/ cylinder
$175.00 shipped w/o cylinder

this system was used for less than 6 months, and produced amazing results. also no algae at all. proper CO2 injection really helps keep algae away!


----------



## Newman

5 crypts remaining. does anyone want to buy them for $5.00? I am shipping 5 of them next friday. would be cool if someone bought the last 5  Salvinia is included free. and i'll throw in a small java fern.


----------



## Newman

all crypts sold. jade shrimp gets the crypts.


----------



## Newman

ok. here is an unrelated matter to the shrimp bowl (which is doing well btw):

I setup a cherry shrimp crate recently, in hopes of breeding these great shrimp for a little bit of money.

Currently there are roughly 15 cherries in there. some have PFR potential which i will selectively breed for over the next year or so. There are also two amano shrimp in there for cleanup of algae (in case i get some). Plants are Taiwan moss tied to DW (also a tiny amount of flame moss in there) and Floating Salvinia. I have plans to replace the taiwan moss with fissidens once it grows out.

On to the pics.
Cherry shrimp:









Crate setup (i was doing a water change, hence the airline tubing. its not part of the setup):









Equipment for the crate includes a 100W heater, a small internal filter, and a floorlamp (this also lights my shrimp bowl. the shrimp bowl sits on top of the cherry crate, suspended by a wire mesh.)
not an attractive setup but that is not its function ;P


----------



## FisheriesOmen

Woot finally posted this!  Shoulda done it newman style and use no filter or heater seemed like your cherries in your old bowl would reproduce like mad  Good Luck! and if i DO get some fissidens from h4n I'll trade you some for some plants  (if they grow lol)

When i eventually breed cherries I'm just gonna have a chain of Shrimp bowls  and to think...it all started cause of you ._. my parents probably hate you now lol


----------



## Newman

I would like some maintenance suggestions on this cherry crate.
Currently the plan is to do a weekly water change of 5 gallons of tap water (I top off with RO water)
Do a weekly sweep of detritus with the airline tubing.
Also possibly do a filter service/rinse out of media once a month or so.

During weekly maintenance i move the leaves and the DW around to get detritus that may accumulate under them.

This brings up the concern of crushing shrimp in the process, but i don't think that's an issue at this population density. may become a problem in the future though...

Main concern right now i sucking up shrimplets during weekly sweeping of the bottom...
If i do not do the sweeping, and if i just scoop all the water out from the water column, I run no risk of getting shrimplets but the detritus will continue to accumulate...
so there lies my dilemma.
what should I do after the shrimplets appear in the crate? should I siphon the way i always do and then somehow double check the water i siphoned out?


----------



## Newman

i would do it w/o heater and water flow, but on a larger system it might be more annoying, and the growth rate wouldn't be as fast. I did all this to breed them and grow them quickly, hopefully at optimum conditions.


----------



## FisheriesOmen

As long as the shrimplets don't die when they get siphoned I'd just do what you normally do and then put the little suckers back into the tub. If you ever get culls let me know. I love culls for some reason. especially if the have dark red specs on a translucent body(i dont know why i like those ones so much). Doubt you will though...those are pretty deep red shrimp


----------



## Newman

I will definitely have culls for you. my first sale of these shrimp is going to be likely about 10 or more of regular quality cherry reds. you may want those. At that point I'll be saving the fire reds and selling all the rest for cheaper - regular cherry price.


----------



## FisheriesOmen

Keep the REALLY crappy ones for me lol then I can send you my "culls" of those shrimp, which would end up being fire reds lol


----------



## Ozydego

On my 5 gallon, I do get shrimplets sucked up all the time and I just spoon them back.... gonna be harder with the higher water volume.... maybe run the siphon water through a net to catch the little guys and detrius and then sort it out... a little messy, but it lets you cull the ones you want not just the unlucky ones. I use larger diameter tubing so that if I do suck them up, they do not get hurt in the tube. I snapped an adult in half once, but it was his fault for not being fast enough....


----------



## FisheriesOmen

Ozydego said:


> I snapped an adult in half once, but it was his fault for not being fast enough....


lol survival of the fittest. I'm sure all your shrimp have adapted to be quite fast now


----------



## Newman

yes, no adult snapping for me lol.
i'm going to be careful and siphon then spoon them back.
some trouble is finding them among the debris. it will likely help if they get red color fast after the hatch. i'll have trouble with transparent shrimplets though..


----------



## FisheriesOmen

Newman said:


> yes, no adult snapping for me lol.
> i'm going to be careful and siphon then spoon them back.
> some trouble is finding them among the debris. it will likely help if they get red color fast after the hatch. i'll have trouble with transparent shrimplets though..


nnoooo the transparent are the kind of culls I'm looking for D: But it is a cool "natural selection" if they aren't red enough they are less likely to make it back to the tub in order to breed. Honors Bio. FTW roud:


----------



## Newman

lol yes. I am a biology major as well (I'm assuming you will be too)
and I will be saving all the shrimp i can. I never actually cull shrimp by killing. i sell.


----------



## FisheriesOmen

Well it's either Bio major or Game Design (really similar right?)
and good all I need are a male/female cull pair. (wont be for a while though).


----------



## Newman

lol yes very similar, almost identical  (NOOOOO)

yes i'll have plenty of females and males for you.


----------



## FisheriesOmen

cool. man thats been my biggest problem is i could either a.)Be a Game Designer and run a side buisness involving fish (like speedie) or b.) Be an aquarist and do a little game designing on the side. Both are quite easily interchangeable which makes it even harder to decide D: at least I'm down to 2 though when I was younger there were 23 things i wanted to be when i grew up lol i was a very weird kid back then  

Update? wanna see my drawing of a cherry shrimp I made today


----------



## Newman

sure, why not


----------



## Newman

anyone need a CO2 system? everything but the cylinder(which you can rent) I can ship. check out my sale thread on it.


----------



## Newman

co2 system sold for $130.00
too cheap but at this point i just want to give it to someone because its simply idle equipment which could be doing great things


----------



## Newman

unfortunately the crystal shrimp are all gone. my parent wanted me to put my shrimp tanks outside, and the crystals couldn't handle the temp swings...all are gone 
I brought the bowl back inside, and will eventually try yellow shrimp and convert the bowl back to tap water 
for now it stays a planted only system.

I also am desperately trying to move out so that these types of problems dont keep happening.


----------



## FisheriesOmen

Next time don't listen to your parents...would've thought you'd know better >.>


----------



## Newman

I had no choice. My parent isn't exactly normal...
So until i move, which is hopefully soon, I have to deal with w/e i am thrown.

7 Yellow shrimp went in today. they seem in good health.


----------



## TheJadeShrimp

Awww! Sorry about the crystals. The plants you gave me are growing good. The Salvinia is in the bowl right now. I flooded it also. I love it more than ever. Can't wait to put shrimps in it.


----------



## Newman

yes i will miss the crystals 

yellows are doing well in the bowl. i converted it to tap water now. waiting for possible algae...

my cherry shrimp are doing ok. both amanos still alive. All are currently indoors because of cold weather. the crate is in storage, and the shrimp are currently living in a 5 gal bucket...
the cold weather messed them up in terms of the berried females. some of the babies were born but only a few made it into the bucket.
a few females are still berried and most are saddled. a couple of them are both saddled and berried at the same time which is odd...


----------



## Drift Monkey

what's up old friend? :smile:


----------



## Newman

nm, Drift. I'm guessing you are from NR forums right?

not much has been happening. this bowl went from crystals to yellow shrimp recently.
and i added more cherry shrimp, in hopes of breeding a good amount of them.
the cherry shrimp are in a bucket though, not in this bowl haha.


----------



## Drift Monkey

Yeah, I was another picotope-er. It got messed up when I moved so I shut her down. 

Check out my shrimp bowl thread...maybe you can help me out!


----------



## FisheriesOmen

Man, I haven't been on in forever! so now I got to get back to usual buisness of telling you to post pics . Personally i dont like crystals (but im still sad about the loss) glad to know you got yellows  they might breed readily for you.


----------



## Newman

yes yellows are doing great. females are now saddled. responding great to feeding once per week, they dont mind larger water changes. things are great.

the cherry shrimp bucket is doing well too. shrimplets in there now, berried and saddled females. also threw in three pleco wrigglers just for the fun of it...we'll see if i can raise them in this safer environment. (my community tank where they were born, has an angelfish).

the bucket o' cherry shrimp might become a 10 gallon tank setup later. idk what will happen yet, but i am moving my shrimp bowl to my new apartment tomorrow. the rest of my tanks will follow hopefully this weekend.


----------



## Drift Monkey

Newman said:


> yes yellows are doing great. females are now saddled. responding great to feeding once per week, they dont mind larger water changes. things are great.
> 
> the cherry shrimp bucket is doing well too. shrimplets in there now, berried and saddled females. also threw in three pleco wrigglers just for the fun of it...we'll see if i can raise them in this safer environment. (my community tank where they were born, has an angelfish).
> 
> the bucket o' cherry shrimp might become a 10 gallon tank setup later. idk what will happen yet, but i am moving my shrimp bowl to my new apartment tomorrow. the rest of my tanks will follow hopefully this weekend.


Finally free from your folks?


----------



## galaxy710

It looks so neat! I bet it will look even better once the moss and everything gets established.Thanks! i have high hopes for this not getting taken over by algae and looking lush and green one day!


----------



## Newman

almost free. i still have to move my things over to my new place. lol
and thanks galaxy. i need to take an updated FTS soon. it still looks the same, but now with yellow shrimp instead.


----------



## Newman

lost one yellow shrimp today - the water level was too high and one male jumped. luckily there are more males still in the bowl and two saddled females. i lowered the water level to avoid further issues...
i didnt get to move the bowl today but tomorrow i might.


----------



## FisheriesOmen

D: I hope they do well. Got any culls yet?  I think my bowl is getting close to being established, luckily those tiny snails are probably cycling it for me.


----------



## Newman

well i do have plenty of shrimplets now in my cherry bucket.
unfortunately it looks like i'm going to lose a berried cherry female - she's looking like she's suffocating for w/e reason when everyone else is ok...hopefully the rest will be just fine. sometimes the females do have trouble like this.
shrimplets are growing fast and fine. pleco fry are still alive and are still growing on their yolk sacs.
i put in some yellow poso snails from my 40gal today. hopefully they wont eat all my taiwan moss haha!.
so now in the bucket i have:
~30 cherries
2 amano shrimp
3 pleco fry
3 yellow poso snails

busy bucket.
Omen, i will let you know soon about my culls. as soon as they grow to selling size. I'll also have to include some of my less red adults.

bucket is moving to my new apartment soon.
my 3gal reef gets moved after the bucket. that's going to be the most difficult to move ugh...


----------



## FisheriesOmen

You'll have to send me some pics of the culls  speaking of which....where are more pics :O so many updates and no pics to go with it. and don't forget if all your fissidens get eaten.....Mine should have grown by then


----------



## Newman

I am thinking of upgrading my cherry shrimp bucket into an actual glass aquarium.
Either a 10gal or a 20gal.
They are breeding like mad and the 5gal bucket cant keep up.
What do you think I should do guys?
would the 20gal cost around $20? if so, where?


----------



## audioaficionado

The 20L would cost $20 at Petco's buck a gallon sale, but the rest of the stuff you'll eventually need would cost many times more unless you have a good old aquariums odds & ends box to dig through. All you need now is a tank and sponge filter or Aquaclear HOB.

So far my 20L shrimp tank I got for $20 has cost me ~$170 without any shrimp yet LOL.


----------



## Newman

yes i am just keeping it simple, no scape, just shrimp breeding. i have a piece of DW with moss tied to it for the flora part, i have a heater, have a small internal filter that i can use, and i am keeping it bare-bottom for ease of cleaning. so i think all i need is a tank and maybe a cover? I also have all my shrimp that i need to start. boy were they expensive lol! while only a few of them are PFR, they do have what it takes!
if petco was selling 20L tanks for $20 then that's exactly what i need, thanks!


----------



## Newman

a few pictures of the shrimp bowl as it stands today. Still a jungle in there. one thing i really like about it is that i have not cleaned the glass from algae in over 6 months now and it still looks clean. there really is no algae anywhere.


----------



## Geniusdudekiran

Tl;dr, but are those snowballs? :hihi:


----------



## Newman

lol no, they are yellows. though they blend with the greenery so they appear more transparent than anything else lol.


----------



## pedropete

beautiful new shots! love this bowl!


----------



## Geniusdudekiran

I can has update pweez?


----------



## Newman

lol it looks the same 
but ok tomorrow i'll update.


----------



## Aheartlessfish

cool! makes me wana make a bowl...fish bowl.

Not sure if u mentioned (i didnt see it in the first post) did u add dolomite to the soil?


----------



## Newman

the first post explains everything in terms of setup. the soil is just organic miracle gro and its capped with some play sand. 

Fish bowls wouldn't really work as well unless you get a very large ~10gal bowl and fit it with a filter (and a heater for tropical species). a 5gal+ bowl is decent as a betta habitat, but you have to set it up well for the fish to be happy.


----------



## Newman

updated shrimp bowl pic. yellow shrimp among the moss. i know he's hard to see here.


----------



## FisheriesOmen

Man I love your bowl.......have the yellows started breeding yet?


----------



## Newman

no babies sighted yet. i do see either berried or saddled females though...
they are trying to breed but idk whats up. i'm sure i'll see something soon since these aren't crystal shrimp. cant be that picky.


----------



## FisheriesOmen

Can't wait


----------



## stanzzzz

Newman said:


> lol, nah, they'll probably just get decapod scholarships at w/e college they go to


First of all, i was blown away when i saw you bowl newman.. love it to pieces. After looking at your bowl i thought of doing the same, just had a bowl lying around for ages and i am going to start where you finished, especially for the dying memory of your Dry Start bowl. so i have started my bowl as a Dry Start Method, got some grass plants and also greenworth. hope it works out like your tank and i am happy. i am also trying green pennyworth plant emerged along with the grass plants. also will put some java fern later on behind my driftwood. would love to get your suggestions as you are my mentor for this bowl.

This is my 3rd day for DSM, hope you can guide me through:icon_smil
here is my pics:
side view 









front view


----------



## Newman

thats going to look pretty awesome!
i'll help you if i can 

as for news:
one shrimp female is berried again and the other is saddled. i did get a few shrimplets from the last berry. shrimplets are growing fast! they are also yellow


----------



## FisheriesOmen

Woot! Finally they start breeding!


----------



## Newman

yes!


----------



## FisheriesOmen

Update on the cherries?


----------



## Newman

cherries are doing fine. the young ones are growing and some are already saddled. i am thinking these are still all going to be culls.
Or i can wait until they grow up more to see if the females gain an intense red like their parents.
what should i do? wait or sell them in their current state as regular cherries?


----------



## idleivey

Newman I am loving your bowl, how much light are you running?


----------



## FisheriesOmen

idleivey said:


> Newman I am loving your bowl, how much light are you running?


Check the first page. That tells you everything about the set-up.

I would say it would be more worth it to you money wise to wait to see if you can charge them for more.


----------



## Newman

yes that's what i was thinking. I am going to sell you the few for regular cherry price and then leave the rest to grow and see if I can actually get any PFRs out of them.

in the bowl both females are now berried. there are about 6 adult shrimp total in there, and all those shrimplets.


----------



## Newman

plecos are now out of the 20L and into my 40gal community. the shrimp tank was getting way too crowded out so i moved them. now the shrimp can eat in peace, without getting torpedoed by baby plecs...

I am pretty sure i mentioned this before, but the yellow poso snails finally started to breed now. i see one young snail crawling around


----------



## FisheriesOmen

How did i miss this update! must.respond.now.


----------



## FisheriesOmen

Got any pics of the snails? Also I can just picture those plecos in there ramming the poor shrimp lol, is the Shrimp Bowl your designated Fry tank now? 
Any News on the Yellow Neos?


----------



## Newman

yes i'll post a pic of the snails and the baby.
plecos are removed to my 40gallon community tank. some of them actually stay near the father - i found that very curious. the male is currently raising a new brood, and the old ones have joined in and are staying in the nest with the newborns. i'm going to have a lot of plecos on my hands lol.
shrimp bowl only has yellow shrimp and will remain that way.
yellows are doing good. females still berried, all are active, and the babies are growing up nicely.


----------



## FisheriesOmen

Haha those Plecos don't want to leave home


----------



## Newman

juvenile on left, then young adult rabbit snail, and a shrimp on its shell.
the baby snail has grown up some since it was born.


----------



## FisheriesOmen

Woah those things look sweet, normally I'm not really into FreshWater snails


----------



## Newman

the sulawesi snail species are really something different. definitely more striking than most other FW snails. they probably evolved directly from marine ancestors when the Sulawesi lakes formed, if they were cutoff from the ocean, etc (maybe from something that looked like a Cerith Snail) and their behavior is really interesting.


----------



## FisheriesOmen

Ya they do look a lot like the cerith snails I have in my 10g.


----------



## Newman

yellows eating. you can see one of the babies on the left.


----------



## FisheriesOmen

Nice! So does that mean they're breeding then? So nice to see other neos beside cherries


----------



## Newman

o yes, they have successfully bred now, and continue to do so.

However i am not having much luck with my 20 gal long cherry tank.
i started out with maybe 15 nice red PFR females. I probably only have about 5 of them left at this point. Tons of offspring though(about 70 shrimp total now), so that's good. unfortunately, none appear to be PFR quality or even sakura quality shrimp =/
I tested my tank water today and it came back as 0.25 ppm ammonia, 0ppm nitrite, and 10ppm nitrate. presence of ammonia is killing them off...
I am currently doing everything i can to avoid any more loss.
worst comes to worst, I will sell all of my non PFR shrimp again and restart with new PFR individuals from someone else here at TPT forum.
I will be trying a few borneo wild products for shrimp to try and save my colony.
Theoretically this should work. 
obviously i am working with a not fully cycled tank, but i bet i can solve the issue in time.
New tank is new, what can I say. It was newer than i thought it would be at this point unfortunately.

I'll update on the PFR situation later.


----------



## FisheriesOmen

I can always give you some PFRs if the one you accidentally gave me gets berried (and I think I'm noticing some more PFRs).

Hope the situation gets remedied.


----------



## Newman

cherry tank situation:


----------



## looknleap

New here and very interested in starting one of these bowls thanks to this thread. If you don't mind I have a few questions. If I heavily plant my bowl and give it time to establish, is there a rule of thumb for how many adult cherry shrimp per gallon? And do you think it would be at all feasible to have one of those rabbit snails in said bowl? I love them.


----------



## Newman

i'd only do a rabbit snail in 2gal bowl or larger. they do grow large. get the yellow poso if you can, it is a smaller species than most of the others.

one gallon bowls should have about 3-5 adult cherry shrimp. ideally a pair is best because then there is plenty of room to raise and then sell the offspring. a two gallon bowl can probably have about 7 adult shrimp. and so on. the less the better.

I can try to make up a rule of thumb to keep you on the safe side if you want. start with 3 adults for one gallon and add 3 more adults per additional gallon.


----------



## looknleap

Thanks for replying so quickly. I have a tanks that the rabbit snail can be moved to if it gets to large. 

One last question before I start tracking down a bowl. Miracle grow with sand on top, versus flourite with root tabs will one sustain the plants for a significantly longer amount of time.


----------



## malady

so would you rec commend doing crs again?

as long as you keep temp steady an proper water parameters?

I am having trouble deciding shrimp for my bowl


----------



## Newman

yes low grade CRS are great for a bowl like this, but make sure to keep temps cool and down forget to change the water!

idk about which substrate is better. both sound good to me. I want to see how long my soil+sand substrate lasts. its over a year old by now.

last thing about the rabbits snails is that they can eat some plants. as long as you have your bowl overgrown with pants, you're not going to notice anything. plus they eat shrimp food, so wafers and pellets do help curb their plant appetite. I have never had any issues with my rabbit snails eating through my plants, and i have several species. I have the yellow posos, the orange poso, and the orange spotted posos. they also like dried leaves and driftwood. as do the shrimp.


----------



## Newman

moved the shrimp bowl into our kitchen, and put up a new light for it. wil it be good enough for the plants? will find out.


----------



## Newman

selling some more culls:
http://www.plantedtank.net/forums/showthread.php?t=182066


----------



## Otto72

I just read through the whole thread and I must say Newman your bowls are truly outstanding 

I have a couple of questions for you:

01.) Is this the correct earth I need (see pics below) I'm pretty sure this should be ok, it's name is slightly different (doesn't say potting compost but says _*'All Purpose PEAT FREE growing compost'*_) May be differently named in the uk.
It does say that its Organic and 100% chemical free/Made with Naturally Occurring Ingredients though which is good right?

















02.) I'm gonna be using this sand for a cap. It's black with grey specs aquarium sand, looks quite light in that picture but its actually much darker, not that I'll see it much of it in the bowl once the plants take over :icon_roll
I assume most sands are fine for the cap right?










03.) The round globe bowl you use, is it an actual real Goldfish bowl or one of those bowls you see in random gift shops (thinner glass than real Goldfish bowls) 
I always wondered if those thin glassed bowls were safe to hold water for a long amount of time. It's just I don't want to get the wrong bowl and a few months down the line it explodes with water all over my room lol

04.) UK summer so far has been terrible (lots of rain) but its still reading 22.5°C room temperature in my home currently.
I was wondering what the lowest temp Cherry shrimp can tolerate, as it gets quite cold over here during the winter time. I would use a heater during winter but have yet to find a tiny one for a bowl so far.

I think I speak for a lot of others on this thread by just saying I would like to thank you for your inspiration, you have touched a lot of people with your lovely nature bubbles.

roud:


----------



## Newman

haha, thanks! Bowls are great and interesting ways to keep aquatic plants and shrimp.

Yes that soil will be fine.
Yes the gravel sand is fine too. remember the darker it is the more bright the shrimp colors will be.

My bowl that i use for this Shrimp Bowl in this thread is indeed a thick-glass goldfish bowl. though I have made bowls in the past with thinner glass and they held up nicely. overtime though idk. maybe there is a slight risk of the breaking. just be careful and dont bump them or handle them too much while full.

Cherries and other neocaridina shrimp will not breed if the temps go below 70F. they can still survive below 70F but might struggle. at 65F them might even start dying, though cherries are usually hardy and some have been reported to handle winter - the water freezing up at the top of the pond (or large tub where the shrimp are kept outside). i wouldnt risk my shrimp like that though.

if you have cooler water all year round, maybe you can try low grade crystal shrimp to start out?


----------



## GeneralInYoFace

this is really interesting. i'm actually thinking of starting my own nano shrimp tank. i have a 1 gallon LED lit bowl ($12 from Wal-Mart) and i'm probably copy you a little bit with the plants and substrate if you don't mind.


----------



## Newman

i do not mind, i bet it will turn out nicely!


----------



## VeeSe

Hey Newman,

Is that new light one of those LED lights that they sell at Target and other stores now? I was JUST there like yesterday and saw these, which made me wonder... will these work? Looks like you had the same idea except you actually bought it! Keep me posted please!


----------



## audioaficionado

I have a 9W spiral CFL in a desk lamp fixture on top of my bowl and there's still too much light. I have to keep it right on top or my cats will drink it dry. They've already broken my new $20 20L cover glass top by jumping on top for drinks out of my Aquaclear HOB.

Trying to discipline them is futile. It either makes them afraid of you, but they'll still be sneaky and keep doing it if they think you aren't watching, or they'll just look you straight in the eyes and do it right in front of you.


----------



## Ozydego

Off topic, but Audio, try masking or packing tape upside down... it will freak them out when they jump up and get it stuck to their paws... hilarious as well....


----------



## Newman

lolcats

yes i'll keep you updated on whether the little LED light can keep up.


----------



## FisheriesOmen

Love the bowl still, but not sure on your logic on down-grading the lighting (or at least it looks like a down-grade).
Been gone for a while but glad nothing major happened while I was gone


----------



## idleivey

Newman I've got the same LED on one of my bowls as well (as well as a 9watt CFL) so far so good but it is too small for some of my larger bowls.

I've been using 3w e27 led bulbs on a couple of my other bowls and I'm getting pretty decent growth. The optics suck though and the light spread it too tight but I only paid 4 bucks each.


----------



## Newman

if i raise my little light, it covers more of the bowl. yes the optics are way too narrow of a spread.

I downgraded to this light in order to make my tank more of a display in my kitchen. the light is extremely compact and is rather invisible compared to the bowl - the main focus.


----------



## idleivey

yeah I like the one I have. I just wish they came with a cooler led.


----------



## Shrimpie

I've looked on various websites but I cannot find a suitable bowl :icon_mad:
Can anyone give me any pointers?


----------



## FisheriesOmen

Just go to a Crafting store, they should have glass bowls


----------



## thebuddha

do you know of anybody who has found "perfect" lighting for this type of bowl?

i can go get one of those ikeas or target ones but i want to see my options...




i thought about buying a clip on LED one on amazon for like 30 bucks, but i just want what works and looks best.


----------



## MrAlmostWrong

Very inspirational bowl, Newman. Read the whole thread! I have a very beginner question that might have been addressed earlier in the thread and I missed it somehow, but how do you do water changes in a bowl this size? Vacuum all the water out and add more water back in or is there another system? Also, are you adding any type of dechlorinator or just straight tap water? 

I have 3 0.5g tanks that used to house my baby bettas, but are now collecting dust so very tempted to give a nano shrimp tank a shot.


----------



## Newman

hello,
water changes are done by using some air line tubing to syphon the water out (if you're careful you can syphon out some debris at the bottom too.)
Then new water is added. I always use tap water that has been dechlorinated with Prime.


----------



## MrAlmostWrong

Simple enough, thanks!


----------



## Koi Kameon

*Is that my ikea lamp you have there?*

Xenxe was using one and i saw it the day i was going to buy it. In my 2.5 gallon bowl, it was too much light (coupled with the bowl being near a window, i'm sure) with a lot of long green algae, but the bowl cracked and moved the light to a vase with a N. stellata in it not by the window and the stellata is doing great. Moved plants into a Current "betta" container and put black construction paper in the back to cut out some outside light and attached a cheap LED from local discount place and now everything seems to be at homeostasis. The ikea light itself is very elegant looking and the 3,000 K don't seem to make a difference.


----------



## thebuddha

i have a lamp with a "20w 12v jc type t" halogen bulb in it. is that a good enough bulb? :confused1:


----------



## Shrimpie

I just bought a 9w spiral light, it has 38w brightness and 2700k. Would you say this is okay to grow plants?


----------



## maxwellag

Shrimpie said:


> I just bought a 9w spiral light, it has 38w brightness and 2700k. Would you say this is okay to grow plants?


38w doesn't mean brightness, it means how much power the bulb uses. 2700K is the color temperature, which is not in the optimal range of 5000-10,000K. You could probably still grow a few low light plants but it would be better if you got a bulb with a better color temperature.


----------



## audioaficionado

Actually 9W is the wattage the bulb uses, 38W is the apparent equivalent tungsten light bulb it replaces and 2700 Kelvin is the approximate color temperature which is a some what yellow tungsten light color. It should be fine for growing plants, but some of us like the cooler bluer Kelvin temps like 6500 K better for a more natural day light color.


----------



## thebuddha

so is a '20w 12v jc type t' to much light?


----------



## Shrimpie

I found a bulb in a drawer, I think its slightly better than my 2700k but it dosen't say the k on this one. But it has 660 lumen's. What is this in k?
:icon_conf


----------



## Ozydego

20w halogen might be too much, I had a bunch of algae growth with a 10w so apparently it was enough. If you use the 20w it will need to be further from the bowl.

As far as the spectrum one major reason we use higher kelvins is to be able to penetrate deeper water depths. 8000k is close to the optimal range of 6700k (the K of the sun) and penetrates better and is what is used in Nature Aquariums. The natural light Phillips are 6500k which is close enough for our purposes. The lower kelvins may grow plants, just not very deep under water.


----------



## thebuddha

Ozydego said:


> 20w halogen might be too much, I had a bunch of algae growth with a 10w so apparently it was enough. If you use the 20w it will need to be further from the bowl.


thanks ozy, ill be sure to get a new lamp or a smaller bulb.


newman- sorry for derailing your thread a couple posts :/


----------



## Newman

thats fine lol, lighting discussion will help everyone working on their bowls


----------



## dannylc

Sorry for not reading through this all but how is the temperature of the bowl or whatever controlled in winter?

I know room temp in warmer months but what about in the winter nights when the room temp will drop?


----------



## Newman

in winter the room temps dont really drop below 70F. we try to keep them at 72F in the winter.

warmer months room temp is actually a bigger issue because they often get way above 90F in heatwaves...the gas exchange at those high temps isn't very good.
Back when i had crystal shrimp, they never did well in summer.


----------



## stanzzzz

Newman, what happen to the fish in your bowl, did they die or you gave it away. Just wanted to know as they were in your you tube video and your bowl had no filter.


----------



## Newman

I would never keep fish in a bowl.
There were no fish in this bowl ever. in my youtube vid you saw a bunch of swimming juvenile cherries that were doing laps around the tank.

yes my bowl has no filter. it gets weekly water changes of around 50%, and the plants act as the only filter option for the bowl. They do a decent job though since shrimp grow and breed here.


----------



## FisheriesOmen

Now that I'm back from the dead.....
MORE UPDATES


----------



## stanzzzz

How u going Newman, would you plz let me know how you battled against BGA, I can see you used to do90%water change but didn't it bothered you're shrimps. I m struggling with BGA aswell n trying to manually remove it and did like 80% water change, just getting stressed abt my shrimps now.. any suggestions..


----------



## FisheriesOmen

I.Demand.Update.


----------



## Newman

do 50% water change to not stress shrimp. the cyano bacteria can be gently siphoned out in places with an air hose. keep at it and it should subside in about a month or two. be very very patient with it. prevent it from smothering your plants, that's most important.

I just got back from a month-long vacation. bowl is doing fine, the light looks like it has been working great. the bowl and shrimp lived fine w/o my care for a month, though there was a lot of evap. wouldn't recommend leaving a bowl w/o top offs for more than two months, or plants will likely start to dry up among other (concentration) issues.


----------



## Newman

did a much needed water change on the bowl today (haven't done one in over a month since i was gone.) Also trimmed the moss to make room.
Made an update video after i did all this. 
Found way too many yellow shrimp in the bowl. I'll have to sell a pack of 10 juveniles to make the bowl roomier...if anyone is interested.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lb47C5IJI9w


----------



## bitFUUL

Nice shrimpbowl...................... Newman.


----------



## Newman

haha


----------



## Unkillable Cat

A couple of questions. First is how on earth do you catch the shrimp with that much growth? I'm guessing there is no room for a net in there.

The other is how he led is working out? I'm in the process of growing a bowl in and have tried every flexible lamp I own, but the light is too bright in the room. I did try an ikea lamp that was feat in terms of light, but heated the water when it was on and the temp would climb by 6-8f over the course of the day which I guessing would be too hard on the shrimp, or would cherries be robust enough to tolerate that?


----------



## Newman

catching shrimp can be tricky. a small brine shrimp net can fit there if some of the plants are carefully bent. also i can lure the shrimp into one area with food and then quickly extract them with a net at the top of the tank (on the moss at the top).

the LED is decent enough to support growth. before this i had a 11W or 13W CFL that was fine too. what do you mean too bright? distracting?
the ikea light heats at the black socket of the lamp, not directly from the bulb. so i keep it up maybe 6" above the bowl and it doesnt really heat the water...


----------



## Drift Monkey

Glad to see this is still up and running bud!


----------



## Newman

yep, this one will be running for a long time i bet =)


----------



## Newman

Shipped 12 yellow shrimp out of this bowl today. population has been effectively thinned. there are at least 10 more in here, possibly even more than that. i counted 10 in one spot.


----------



## Drift Monkey

They must be lovin' the bowl!


----------



## Newman

yes they should be 
i see two saddled females in there now.


----------



## FisheriesOmen

It has been too long since I've read through your thread
Sounds like everything is doing good, but it'd be a lot easier if we could "see" it too roud:


----------



## Newman

sure i'll take some pics soon


----------



## FisheriesOmen

Back to the ways things should be...... lol


----------



## Newman

one of the previously saddled females is now berried. just spotted her.


----------



## FisheriesOmen

I don't know what "berried" means, mind showing a picture?


----------



## rodcuda

It is when the shrimp is carrying eggs under the tail as in the yellow eggs on this fire red shrimp.


----------



## FisheriesOmen

rodcuda said:


> It is when the shrimp is carrying eggs under the tail as in the yellow eggs on this fire red shrimp.
> 
> View attachment 54798


I've been in this hobby long enough to know what "Berried" means lol I was just trying to get Newman to post some new pics 

Lovely CRS btw


----------



## Newman

New Pics



















Both females that were saddled before are now berried. pics are of one of them.


















The shrimp blend in so well  Try to find them!


----------



## FisheriesOmen

wow they were meant for your bowl! Still looks great 
Should have gotten Blue Velvets like I just got. No way they could blend in there


----------



## Newman

blue velvets are nice


----------



## FisheriesOmen

I just hope I can get them to breed. My Cherries currently haven't breed for weeks. Also do Least Killifish eat baby shrimps?


----------



## Newman

most likely. you keep those with your shrimp? you better have a densely planted tank then so the shrimp babies can hide. 
predation may be your problem.


----------



## FisheriesOmen

Good thing I decided to put the Blues in a fish-free tank.

Also the 5.5g is densely planted (guess I should update my tank thread).


----------



## big_trucks_1985

i will be starting my son one of these tommorow. he is super excited. he wants pumpkins and black crystals!


----------



## Newman

thats nice!
i'd use distilled water for the bowl if crystal black shrimp are going in. or do a mix of distilled and tap water to get a TDS of around 150-200. also go with low grade crystal blacks as those will do best in bowls.


----------



## big_trucks_1985

i have a rodi unit for the water and my tap water is only 7 tds last i checked. im also a reefer so im good with water
i let him pick his shrimp out 
my daughter picked out yellows and OEBT for our 20L


----------



## Newman

i see.
I picked chocolate shrimp and tangerine tigers for my 20L that i recently bought/set up.
Though because of the acidic pH, my chocolate neos are taking their time with breeding. either that or i have no males.


----------



## Newman

update


----------



## golfer_d

sweet....that looks thick with plants!

the Ikea LED was strong enough? or did you get another?? (sorry didn't read all 41 pages to see if that was answered)


----------



## Bserve

Hey, I'm a newbie, and I was just wondering if you can make java moss grow by just sticking it in the substrate? I use ADA Amazonia, and any advice would be helpful. Oh, and by the way, Newman, your bowl is awesome.


----------



## golfer_d

I don't think so...usually it is tied to a rock or wood


----------



## Bserve

Maybe wood buried in the substrate?


----------



## Newman

golfer_d said:


> sweet....that looks thick with plants!
> 
> the Ikea LED was strong enough? or did you get another?? (sorry didn't read all 41 pages to see if that was answered)


Yes too many chain swords in here lol.

I started the tank out with a 11 or 13W CFL light. but yes the current ikea LED is good enough to keep the plants alive 
hopefully the light doesn't burn out anytime soon.
It is still the same Ikea light btw.


----------



## Newman

Bserve said:


> Hey, I'm a newbie, and I was just wondering if you can make java moss grow by just sticking it in the substrate? I use ADA Amazonia, and any advice would be helpful. Oh, and by the way, Newman, your bowl is awesome.


we'll although Amazonia substrate will create nice water conditions for moss, and will stimulate it to produce more rhizoids (than in hard alkaline water), it is best to tie the moss onto DW or a rock and place the rock/DW onto the substrate. the moss can't be buried. you can use slate if you want a flat look. the moss will spread and eventually start attaching to the substrate too, but that will take a long time.


----------



## Newman

golfer_d said:


> sweet....that looks thick with plants!












I would say so.....yes :icon_conf


----------



## golfer_d

Looks awesome!


----------



## acejohn

Newman said:


> I would say so.....yes :icon_conf


Awesome! As always!


----------



## Newman

just realized that this bowl turned 2 years old earlier this month


----------



## LyzzaRyzz

Congrats on your bowl birthday! 
You've converted another one of us over to starting a bowl..now to find the perfect bowl! =]


----------



## roncruiser

Hi Newman,

Very inspirational bowl. Based on this thread alone is why I started my very own bowl.
I noticed on the first post you mentions Dwarf Hair Grass. How did it do? Was it able to thrive, or has it given way to the much taller plants?


----------



## Newman

it definitely doesnt thrive. but I'm pretty sure its still in there in the undergrowth, shaded off by all the swords and sag. just a few blades of the grass here and there.

Hairgrass is a fine bowl plant though if given enough light, and less competition from taller plants.


----------



## 10gallonplanted

Did the CRS die off?


----------



## Newman

ooooo that is one long and tragic story.

they were doing great, but one very cold spring day someone in the house decided to put the bowl outside for the whole day and night and they basically died overnight because of very cold temps. I brought in the bowl then next day and none were alive. This happened last spring. I've had yellows in here ever since. 

Lame since around the same time i had PFRs outside in a huge 40gallon tub in the same cold (though their tub had a heater) and they did fine over the course of weeks at low 40Fs, maybe less.


----------



## 10gallonplanted

That does sound tragic. I really liked seeing them thrive in such a small bowl. Do you thiunk you will try them again? Maybe some tigers?


----------



## Newman

no, I will only do Neocaridina in this small bowl. maybe in a larger bowl one can try tigers or super low grade crystals, but i don't need another bowl right now haha. too many tanks!

The main problem for caridina in bowl like this (after you got everything else right) is temperature changes in summer and winter. they will not breed when it gets too hot, and they dont like shifting temps. 

Neos dont care.


----------



## Newman

I think my yellow shrimp are trying to evolve into land crustaceans. Photo is of one of them coming out of the water and eating stuff off water lettuce above the water surface.








The water line is marked by the lowest blue mark on the photo. I didn't catch it in the photo, but the antennae were waving around in the air - it was rather funny to look at.


----------



## idleivey

Heh, nice photo. I wish I could get good macro shots like that.


----------



## Newman

haha macro shots. I need a nice $600+ camera for nice pics. I only have a $20.00 piece of trash that I use to take my pics


----------



## GMYukonon24s

Your pics look good to me.


----------



## acejohn

Newman said:


> I think my yellow shrimp are trying to evolve into land crustaceans. Photo is of one of them coming out of the water and eating stuff off water lettuce above the water surface.


I also found some of my shrimps lying on the floor. Never thought before that they could jump out of the bowl.


----------



## Newman

yes they do jump if the water level is too high or they dislike the bowl. i haven't had that happen in a while. back when i had SS crystals in here, i mysteriously lost a lot of them over the course of a 2 week vacation i took. it was summer, it got past 80F in the bowl, they probably hated it and either died and got eaten by the survivors, or jumped out. i never found bodies anywhere though...maybe they jumped far.


----------



## tex627

Looking wild and jungle like! My shrimp do that a lot too! They love the bio film that builds up on top of the tank!!


----------



## Newman

haha, it's not very organized anymore scape-wise but i still like the way it looks! really low maintenance and functions well.


----------



## Seedreemer

Bserve said:


> Hey, I'm a newbie, and I was just wondering if you can make java moss grow by just sticking it in the substrate? I use ADA Amazonia, and any advice would be helpful. Oh, and by the way, Newman, your bowl is awesome.


I've had it spread to the substrate and take root there but I've tried doing it intentionally.


----------



## Newman

I will be selling my sulawesi snails very soon from my 40gallon community tank. Ideally they would be happy in a sulawesi setup, but anything with similar water parameters will do. I am selling all of these as a group.

Here are all the ones I'm selling:
One Adult Orange Poso Snail (usually worth $10 a snail)









Three adult Yellow poso Snails (really nice bright colors on these guys and their shell pattern is amazing

























Fourteen Orange Spotted Poso Snails (a mix of adults, and juveniles. great looking snails, and their shells come in three main colors)
























They have either jet black shells:








Sort of Polished-wood colored shells:








Or golden-colored shells (my favorite):









I will also add 3 adult Ramshorn snails for free. They look like leopard ramshorns when young, but grow into a blueish-looking shell:









That's 18 sulawesi snails total, and I am asking $50.00 for all of them shipped. That includes heatpack, priority shipping, double insulated box, breather bags, live arrival guarantee on every snail, and a tracking number on the package. It may seem like a lot of money but it's only about $2.70 per snail which I think is a very good price. I will be making a post in the S&S section soon. just waiting on my priority boxes atm.


----------



## audioaficionado

You should move this last post over to a SnS thread asap


----------



## Newman

I already did, haha, and they sold 
These awesome snails will be shipped out of my house this Tuesday. I will miss them. turns out there were 19 of them


----------



## Zeeke

That tank is beautiful and the pictures of the snails are cool too. I just have a quick question. I tried surfing through the pages to find the answer. I was looking at using that same light from IKEA for a 1 gallon, heavily planted, shrimp bowl. Was it enough on its own to support all your plants? I would be getting similar low light plants. I'm sort of new to the planted aquarium scene.


----------



## Newman

it is not enough to START the bowl. I used a 13W CFL bulb back when i started, and i used it for more than 1 year. that gave the plants plenty of light to grow in lush and a little too crazy. Then I swapped to a display light - the IKEA one. Comparatively it is very dim, but it's enough to keep plants alive. moss and other things grow slowly. Its a good light to set the pace for an already full planted bowl.

However if you only use moss, java fern and maybe some other very low light stuff, then this light is good enough. keep in mind its only 1W of LED, so that equals very roughly only slightly more than 1 wpg of standard lighting (LEDs output slightly more light than equivalent wattage florescent) It goes even less if you have floaters (which you should have) and tall plants blocking the light to plants below them.


----------



## Zeeke

Thanks that was very helpful. I'm really excited to give the shrimp bowl a shot. That makes sense. Ill start out with a good grow light. Then someday if all goes well I'll switch to something less powerful. I have to order some plants and the shrimp.


----------



## Zeeke

I'm guessing you sell plants? haha. That would be great! My LFS (I'm learning lingo  ) only sells a few, miscellaneous, mystery plants. Do people sell RCS on here too? I'm still trying to find my way around. I'm on a mission to make shrimp stew. I appreciate all the help.


----------



## acejohn

Are there any disadvantages with snails?


----------



## Newman

Yes those snails went fast. They are the most amazing FW snails imo. They went to a good home and all of them made shipping and are alive and well.

There arent too many disadvantages with normal snails. unless they overpopulate the tank and crash it. they can make the water smell bad with their waste if that happens.
Stay away from apple snails, columbian ramshorns, and sulawesi snails for planted bowls. those will eat some plants. and don't keep assassin snails in shrimp bowls, as sometimes they can kill shrimp.

Yes you can buy cheap cherry shrimp in the classified section of our forum here. plenty of invert sellers have them for cheap.


----------



## tex627

Zeeke said:


> I'm guessing you sell plants? haha. That would be great! My LFS (I'm learning lingo  ) only sells a few, miscellaneous, mystery plants. Do people sell RCS on here too? I'm still trying to find my way around. I'm on a mission to make shrimp stew. I appreciate all the help.


Yep on this forum, you can buy a lot of awesome stuff at hobbyist prices! This forum is pretty helpful!


----------



## roncruiser

Hi Newman,
My bowl is cycled. The bowl was born on 11/2012. Ammonia is zero and nitrates are zero. I'm just about ready to add some Cherry shrimp. How often do you change the water? My bowl is 2 gallons. Substrate is ADA Amazonia. I've been doing 50% water change every 7-10 days. Was wondering what your thoughts are on water changes for bowls. I'll continue to monitor water parameters after adding the shrimp.

Thanks,

Ron


----------



## Koi Kameon

*horned nerites every time!*



Newman said:


> Yes those snails went fast. They are the most amazing FW snails imo. They went to a good home and all of them made shipping and are alive and well.
> 
> There arent too many disadvantages with normal snails. unless they overpopulate the tank and crash it. they can make the water smell bad with their waste if that happens.
> Stay away from apple snails, columbian ramshorns, and sulawesi snails for planted bowls. those will eat some plants. and don't keep assassin snails in shrimp bowls, as sometimes they can kill shrimp.
> 
> Yes you can buy cheap cherry shrimp in the classified section of our forum here. plenty of invert sellers have them for cheap.


I had to put a plug in for horned nerites. My favorite are the bumblebee black/gold swirl ones. They stay around a half inch and their waste load is miniscule compared to the larger nerites. And, like the larger nerites, they don't breed successfully in fresh water so no worries about a snail explosion. Just my two admiring cents. Although my all-time fav snail is the lowly ramshorn snail, but it is such a crap shoot as to whether or not they will populate the heck out of the tank. I have had ones nearly an inch across never lay eggs and a tiny one laid 70 eggs, which all hatched and the mom/dad snail promplty died leaving me to raise them until they could be put back in the pond...


----------



## tumbleweedz

It's been fun watching this bowl evolve, thanks for sharing.


----------



## Newman

Bowl is being taken down. 
Shrimp are up for sale:
http://www.plantedtank.net/forums/showthread.php?t=280026&highlight=
The plants will be given away in the RAOK section soon. (there is a good amount of moss in here and roughly 20 pygmy chain swords.)


----------



## mosspearl

Aw, sorry to hear that, Newman. It's been quite a ride. But I guess all good things must come to an end.


----------



## Kehy

Sorry to hear that. But this bowl has been a huge inspiration for me to make my own shrimp bowl, and I've really enjoyed watching both of ours grow


----------



## dhgyello04

NOOO!!!! Say it isn't so. May we ask why?


----------



## Newman

Plans changed. It's time somebody else enjoys the shrimp and plants from this bowl


----------



## acejohn

This bowl really inspired me to create one!


----------



## FisheriesOmen

Sad to see it go  I'm sure your Thread has been the most inspirational when it comes to shrimp bowls, I know it is true for me, I might not have even been in the FW hobby if it wasn't for your bowl Newman. roud:


----------



## Koi Kameon

*i checked in often with your bowl*

(and Xenxe's) when getting my shrimp bowl going. Thanks for opening up a beautiful miniature world for me.

For the guy about the Ikea lamp--I have low and med. light plants in mine and they grow just great with it from the get-go.


----------



## AquaAurora

I've been debating for a while between pygmy chain sword and micro sword for my nano. I like the idea of being able to cut it (micro) but the pygmy looks so lovely from your photos! I can't decide arghh


----------



## Newman

pygmy chain swords are pretty cool! they are kinda like dwarf sag. and can be used similarly


----------



## brandon429

Newman hi man. Hey I just read the thread I'm so impressed man!


----------



## Newman

o hey brandon! i almost forgot you were on this site/side too lol. you did/still have that awesome uber plant orb that was/is pretty self sustaining.

yeah this bowl was great!
I am not much into shrimp anymore because i got into L number plecos and breeding plecs in general, but i may still revive this bowl someday in the far future. I'd prob do the reef vase way before another planted bowl though.


----------



## MobileMedic

Just wanted to say thanks for being such an inpiration. I had an early jar fail but you have made me want to give it another go!


----------



## AquaAurora

I finally set up a bowl too after being inspired by this thread, 3g bubble bowl with blyxa j., chain sword, micro sword, and thew in left over dwarf tears (don't expect the last to live) a few cherrys, mts, and pond snails that wondered in. 
Its nowhere near the overgrown beauty shown here but hoping it will eventually grow into a dense wild mess ^^


----------



## Newman

AquaAurora said:


> I finally set up a bowl too after being inspired by this thread, 3g bubble bowl with blyxa j., chain sword, micro sword, and thew in left over dwarf tears (don't expect the last to live) a few cherrys, mts, and pond snails that wondered in.
> Its nowhere near the overgrown beauty shown here but hoping it will eventually grow into a dense wild mess ^^


It will, have fun watching that bowl grow!

I have been thinking: would i make another shrimp bowl in the future if i had the time and space for one? Chances are high because it is a nice aquariums type thing to look at and is easy to grow stuff in as long as I keep to Neocaridina shrimp.


----------

