Where did you get your cherry shrimps?

Woa! Custom made Solar I!
Show off some pics la wei~~~
How much is the cost of it for you to DIY?
I'm sure it's going to be way cheaper compare to the ADA at around RM4K

That will be a very expensive meal! LOL

Anyone mind to share what pH does CRS and RCS like?

Thanks~

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Added on November 16, 2011, 11:45 pmIs the algae hard or slimy?
If it's slimy, it is BGA (Blue Green Algae), which is a type of bacteria. Try to suck it out with a hose and change 10 to 30% of you aquarium water.

If it's hard, then it could be Brush algae or Hair algae, which can be removed with a tweezer or a tooth brush.




This post has been edited by Newgen: Nov 16 2011, 11:45 PM

Hi all,

Got following plants for sale or trade:
1) Ceratopteris thalictroides (Plenty, more than 10 stems)
2) LAGAROSIPHON MADAGASCARIENSIS (Plenty, more than 30 shoots)
3) Riccia (1 palm full)

More to come~

Interested please PM me.
Thanks

Just try to plant them and see if they are still alive.
It's very hard to tell from the pictures.
Just remove any dead/squashed leafs before you plant.

Limited edition!

I used to do these:

Ingredient:
1 Cup of Sugar
1.5L bottles
1 tspn spoon baking soda
1/4 tspn of yeast

Now the making it part:
Sugar part:
pour 1 Cup of sugar into the 1.5L bottle
pour 1/2L hot water into bottle and shake to melt the sugar
pour 1/2L cold water into bottle and make the mixture warm (around 40 degrees)
pour in the baking soda.

Yeast part:
Prepare warm water of about 20ml (1 part hot water 3 part cold, so will be around 37C, close to Body temperature)
pour yeast into the warm water and stir it vigorously until it foams, and let it settle for 5 minutes.

Mixing part:
Pour the yeast mixture into the Sugar Water mixture.

DONE~

This way, the yeast is activated and it will start work in around 10 minutes.

I used to make 4 bottles each time, and additional 4 bottles at the 2nd week (total of 8)
And I'll change the first 4 at around a month's time.
This way, the CO2 supply is quite constant for a 4ft tank. And i use valve to control it to around 3~5 bubble per second depend on the plants.

This post has been edited by Newgen: Nov 22 2011, 06:35 PM

Using 100 Plus bottles or any other Soft drinks bottles.
I don't use boiling water, i use hot or warm water which is sustainable by the bottles.
Another tip is to pour in the room temperature water in first before you pour the HOT water in, so that it becomes warm water and easier for the sugar to dissolve.

About the valve, i use normal green/black gray color air line valve, which allows you to control the CO2 BPS abit. Not too high of the pressure but surely, it helps a tad.

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Added on November 22, 2011, 11:24 pmYeap! he's right!
Yeast can't take temperature of more than 60C.
So that is why I prepare the yeast first before I pour the yeast mixture into the sugar mixture.
For yeast:
27 C (81 F) - 38 C (100 F) Optimum Fermentation Range
35 C (95 F) Optimum Fermentation Temperature

Another tip is:
After you stir the yeast mixture with luke warm water until it foams, put a pinch of sugar and the baking soda into the mixture and stir more before you let it rest for 5~ 10 minutes.



This post has been edited by Newgen: Nov 22 2011, 11:24 PM

Malayan Soil is PH 5.0 too when it started off. I put a handful of Coral chips to buffer with pH.
Now my pH is around 6.5 when CO2 is running.
Gonna take out some of the coral chips this weekend and see what it's gonna be like.
CRS like 6.2 to 6.8 right ciohbu?

Get a few nerite snails.

like quarter to half the size of a biji of rice~

What is the best fish to keep with shrimps like CRS and RCS?
So far I have not come across fish that does not eat shrimp other than otto.
I do have some Pygmy Cory, Cardinal Tetra and SAE in the tank thou.
I know SAE do take chances...

Hi All,

After some long thoughts of whether to share my shameful tank setup and shame myself... I finally decided to share images of my tank which i setup since mid October. So What the hell... 2011 is going to end soon, so why not just accept some bashing and improve :mrgreen:
So... brace yourselves... eye sore alert

Started of a budget minded concept, wants to keep everything to the minimal cost, well, didn't have much to spend. Thought it would be a shrimp only tank with some simple aquascaping (which what I had in mind was some fauna and greens)

So I bought the equipments and setup at the same day (or i should say, night) and the out come is this:


Didn't do any good planning before I start because I was too excited to jump into this aqua hobby after stopping for almost 4 years :mrgreen:

Initial Tank Setup:
90x45x45CM
"CHEAP"board cabinet (which I think i was being ripped off)
Eheim 2217 (bought 2215 initially and sold it off to get a 2217 after 2 days)
2 Packs of ADA Malayan Soil (Normal)
CO2 with manual regulator, with Glass defuser


And within the week, my itchy hands couldn't stop and here comes the modifications:


Added a Aquazonic 39W X2 T5HO light
Hands got itchier and did a "Silly Pipe" which was trying to act as a Lily Pipe:

Honestly, It didn't help much... Still saving some bucks aside to get a proper Lily Pipe.
And up till this point, no algae was found in the water and the water was crystal clear since the setup.
Only weekly 50% water change was done. Only thing is that pH was too low (5.5) for Yamato to survive, they turn pinkish and die within a week, and it took me 2 weeks and about 8 Yamato to find it out So added a handful of coral chips into the filter to raise the pH to around 6.5.


A month passed by, added some Fauna. Added more plants and Added another Aquazonic 39W X2 T5HO light because the growth rate was way too slow...

Had like 20+ Cardinal tetra and they started dying one by one being hit by spot disease, ich. So started some anti-ich medicine and only manage to save 6 of them. Funny thing was, all of my 16 Pygmy cory was not affected at all!


And another 2 weeks passed so did a quick trim, got myself ADA Brighty K and ADA Step 1 and started dosing according to the manual for my approx 160L tank, which I dose 5 to 6 squeeze of each Brighty K and Step 1, which suppose to treat 120L. The reason i under dose it because I think that i don't have much flora in the tank yet.


HERE, after 2 weeks, algae started blooming, most, if not all kinds of algae starts to attack the tank, BGA showed up too so had to bomb the tank with Erythromycin (Anti-biotics) for 3 days. Did massive water changes of up to 70 ~ 80% every 3 days. So BGA was gone after 1 week.

After BGA was gone, this little fellow was gone too... Had 2 of them in the tank before the BGA attacks... Suspect that the bombing causes NH4 and NO2 level to spike which killed them... sigh...

So Now, here is the tank picture which I took this morning before I head to work...

Blurry water, it's been like this, on and off for 2 weeks now.
Like this live example, It happens after 50% water change on last Saturday and it turn blur (did not disturb the soil, use tubs to prevent disturbance of the soil), and i added like half spoon of the ADA Bactor into the tank (near the filter outlet) after the water change.
Water cleared up the next day on Sunday.
Then Monday onwards it was blurry again... Not sure whats happening...

No casualties after the Cardinal Tetra ich attack event and BGA attack, Cherry shrimps started breeding and here are some pics of the cute little red babies :

Foregound plants could not grow (used to have glosso) and started dying slowly and infested with algae. Was thinking that the soil was too shallow for their roots to grow. Might need to add another pack of Malayan Soil soon but worry that the pH will kill my fauna again :roll: :?

Setup till date:
Equipments:
90x45x45CM
"CHEAP"board cabinet (which I think i was being ripped off)
Eheim 2217
2 Packs of ADA Malayan Soil (Normal)
CO2 with Solenoid Regulator, with in tank Defuser
Aquazonic 39W X2 T5HO light (X2) (Total 4 x 39W T5HO)
DIY 8CM DC FAN (keeping the water temp to appox 23C ~ 25C)

Flora:
Java Fern
Riccia
BJ
Moss (not sure what type)
* and the rest not really sure what's the names

Fauna:
Cardinal Tetra
Pygmy Cory
Cherry Shrimps
Yamato Shrimps
Nerite Snails
and some garden snails :?


I know that the scaping sucks, I'm still trying to do better, saving for more hardscape (still can't find cheap stone, only manage to get RM15 per Kg 'ryu' stones... driftwoods are also crazily priced, RM100 per small piece/stick?!?! well... at least that's what I think... :mrgreen: )

And is my lights enough? Thinking and finding a way to hang my lights up so that i could have better access to the tank for maintenance.


Thank you for reading :wink:
Feel free to advise and bash me! :mrgreen:

This post has been edited by Newgen: Dec 30 2011, 03:03 PM

So far I don't see any light shop selling T5HO(high output).
Normally they only have T5NO(normal output)

I know PLL comes in a form of 55W which is around 6500k, Osram.
10,000k ones got to find in LFS