You guys HAVE to congratulate me on this.. I've now got almost the entire collection of known bugs and critters in my small tank.

- seed shrimps --> checked
- pest snails --> checked but under control. Occassionally see one.
- nematodes --> checked but under control. Occassionally see one.
- leeches --> checked
- planaria --> checked but relatively under control.
- hydra --> LATEST part of the collection

This post has been edited by sniper on the roof: Nov 19 2013, 05:18 PM

Up Aqua Shrimp Sand and fertilized by shrimp poo poo. ~10% weekly water change + topup with RO water mixed with Azoo mineral plus and Vita plus @30% recommended dosage

Admittedly I should've done more cleaning rather than letting all the crap accumulate. Only after noticing that the floating plants grows at a prodigious rate did I start cleaning.

Now doing twice a week siphon and manually remove whenever I see a creepy crawly.

This post has been edited by sniper on the roof: Nov 19 2013, 05:42 PM

The uncle fish shop fella always say... you can do it expensively or you can do it cheaply.

Substrate choice is just what you wanna do with the tank. If you're not planting any stem plants, then don't need nutrient rich soil like Amazonia etc.

Main purpose for those shrimp specific substrate is that they buffer your water ph to a specific level for between 1 to 2 years.

If you don't need that, then sand would do as well but have to make sure that its inert and doesn't release stuffs that affects water quality.

And the de facto choice of shrimps for beginners are cherry/sakura/fire red shrimps as they're the most hardy.

True that

Though some folks like my collegue... she's running a small <10liter tank with a generic HOB filter stuffed with filter wool that gets changed maybe twice a year, generic gravel and stuffed with overgrown plants (she doesn't even remove the plastic cup and cotton that it came with), only top up when filter making noise.....

and her shrimps are thriving are breeding like rabbits

They looked like generic cleaner shrimps though according to her, they were reddish when she got her first batch.

and heartache.

My fav shrimp.. survivor from previous tank disaster just died today. RIP

It's less than 2 months old so still teething problems I suppose.

The thing is... when I pulled out the dead shrimp, it feels like the shell is abnormally hard so I did a water test and found that my kh has gone up quite substantially but GH is ok. I think some rocks are leeching lime so also removed all the rocks now.

My current tank. Roughly converted from taiwan dollar

GEX desktop set including slim S HOB filter --> $120
Various filter media --> ~$50
Up Aqua Shrimp sand --> $36
9W LED --> $90

Various moss/driftwood etc --$40

Seachem prime --> $28
Seachem stability --> $28
TDS Pen --> $30
API 5-in-1 test strip --> $50

Guys.. what medias do you use in your filters?

So its all bio media, cotton wool and nothing more?

Can't wait for the updates.


On another note.. finally my shrimps gone naughty and did the bedroom lambada while I was away on holiday. Finally berried shrimp

Hair algae? My tank's got plenty of those

Btw, how long is the gestation period for cherries?

It's been a while since I posted. Did some new year cleaning recently and was surprised that I had more shrimps than expected. These fellas really masters in hiding.

Will cherries eat hair algae?

My shrimps has been ignoring pellet food for more than a month already. That's why I'm asked. It seems that they're surviving on nothing.

JBL Nuvo shrimps, Hikari shrimp cuisine and Sera.... they used to go nuts over them but now all ignored.

I did that before as I thought there was too much crap in my tank but after couple rounds of spring cleaning and gradual water changes, they still not eating pellet food.

My tank is severely under populated though. Only 4 cherries for 11 liter.

Wow... they seem to be thriving.

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I recall that you've used JBL's novo prawn food before. Do you feed the amount as per instructions ?