I started to talk about this tank in my other photo log, but decided it needs its own thread. Let me backtrack a bit to explain how this tank came to be.
In January blackwaterguy showed me that a favorite seller of his had the coveted farlowella catfish. I'd been searching for these for a while and didn't hesitate to buy them from a trusted hobbyist (her website is msjinkxd.com if anyone is interested). As a split second decision I decided to order some red cherry shrimps with him knowing that I wouldn't have a lot of movement or color in my tank with just Java loaches and my farlowella. Well long story short, I fell in love with them. They are insanely interesting to watch move around the tank and eat everything. I love their long feelers and how they poke everything with them.
The more I researched the more I realized that my tank might not be the best for these little guys. Gourami are known shrimp eaters (I can vouch for that), and tetra will take a swipe at the babies. If I wanted a strong colony I would have to change something. I had a betta tank that was showing terrible growth on the plants and struggled with algae. I decided to break that tank down and set up one of my spare 10 gal tanks as a shrimp-only tank.
I just got around to doing this on 27 Feb. This is how the tank looked on the night I set it up.
Today, I received an order of plants for my tanks. Some went in my community but others went in my shrimp tank. I added Bacopa and Myrio to this tank. This is how it looks now.
The substrate is eco complete. The lighting is a single T8 6500k daylight tube. I use Equilibrium to raise my GH as I have very soft water. I also dose with flourish comprehensive once a week (might be upped to twice later). It does have a small amount of copper, but not enough to harm shrimps.
The plants in there are anubias spp, subwassegtang, riccia, Rotala rountidifolia, Bacopa carolinia, Myriophyllum mattogrossense, and dwarf sagittaria.
I'm going to try to take weekly pictures to track the growth of the plants as well as the growth of the shrimp colony. Right now I have have four shrimps left (you can thank the gourami for that...) that will be moved to the tank this weekend. The female is carrying eggs, so I should at least have some babies in a couple of weeks. When the shrimp go into the tank, the betta will be removed to a breeder box until I can find him another home.
In January blackwaterguy showed me that a favorite seller of his had the coveted farlowella catfish. I'd been searching for these for a while and didn't hesitate to buy them from a trusted hobbyist (her website is msjinkxd.com if anyone is interested). As a split second decision I decided to order some red cherry shrimps with him knowing that I wouldn't have a lot of movement or color in my tank with just Java loaches and my farlowella. Well long story short, I fell in love with them. They are insanely interesting to watch move around the tank and eat everything. I love their long feelers and how they poke everything with them.
The more I researched the more I realized that my tank might not be the best for these little guys. Gourami are known shrimp eaters (I can vouch for that), and tetra will take a swipe at the babies. If I wanted a strong colony I would have to change something. I had a betta tank that was showing terrible growth on the plants and struggled with algae. I decided to break that tank down and set up one of my spare 10 gal tanks as a shrimp-only tank.
I just got around to doing this on 27 Feb. This is how the tank looked on the night I set it up.
Today, I received an order of plants for my tanks. Some went in my community but others went in my shrimp tank. I added Bacopa and Myrio to this tank. This is how it looks now.
The substrate is eco complete. The lighting is a single T8 6500k daylight tube. I use Equilibrium to raise my GH as I have very soft water. I also dose with flourish comprehensive once a week (might be upped to twice later). It does have a small amount of copper, but not enough to harm shrimps.
The plants in there are anubias spp, subwassegtang, riccia, Rotala rountidifolia, Bacopa carolinia, Myriophyllum mattogrossense, and dwarf sagittaria.
I'm going to try to take weekly pictures to track the growth of the plants as well as the growth of the shrimp colony. Right now I have have four shrimps left (you can thank the gourami for that...) that will be moved to the tank this weekend. The female is carrying eggs, so I should at least have some babies in a couple of weeks. When the shrimp go into the tank, the betta will be removed to a breeder box until I can find him another home.