5 Gallon Shrimp Only Tank

[ishar]

OMG! I've been reading the "Let's See Your Shrimp Aquariums! Thread on The Planted Tank - Articles, Forums, Pictures, Links and I'm uber excited about getting some shrimp tanks!!!!!!!!!!

Could I ask for a direct link to that page? I can't find it

[emmanuelchavez]

Originally Posted by ishar

Could I ask for a direct link to that page? I can't find it

try this one:

Let's see your Shrimp Aquariums! - Page 20 - The Planted Tank Forum

[ishar]

sweet! thanks

[emmanuelchavez]

a picture will come either tomorrow morning, or very late tonight. I had a dream, where I saw I had a dwarf hairgrass carpet in this tank, as opposed to the dwarf sag, and well, I loved it! I'll put the dwarf sag in the other tank. Now for a quick bite of dinner, then for some rescaping!

(lol, I went all across Houston today looking for some more dwarf hairgrass! lol, those who know Houston know how big it is.)

[emmanuelchavez]

So I decided to impulsively buy some Eco-Complete at an LFS last week, and finally got around to scaping both my 5 gallon shrimp only tanks on 5/9. I added 4 drops of ammonia in each... and that brought my ammonia levels to way above 8 ppm (the color was almost black).

Today, 5/12, I decided to check how the tank with the small rock-cave that had already been in an established tank was coming along. It read .25 ppm ammonia. I decided to leave it there for 15 more minutes, so I tested the other one.... reading of .5 ppm of ammonia.

I figured that had to have been wrong, so I test both again, and same readings of ammonia. So then I test for Nitrites; .25 ppm, then Nitrates; 10 ppm.

I still had the bag of Eco in the trash can, so I read through it, and it said it contains live bacteria... does it really?

This is just amazing! I'm going to have to keep feeding it ammonia until I can afford to get my tigers and yellows in at least 2 weeks.

I don't know whether this makes any difference but:

Tanks 1 has:

• 1 piece of driftwood covered in java moss
• java moss wall
• dwarf hairgrass
• duckweed

Tank 2 has:

• 1 small "rock-cave" from already established tank (Ok, so this does make a difference, but that's still some very fast progress)
• Dwarf Hairgrass
• Duckweed

[emmanuelchavez]

Tank 2 seems to be cycled already! I'll have to keep adding a drop of ammonia each day to make sure the bacteria stays alive.
Tank 1 is getting there.

Tank 2 was getting a severe case of blue-green algae. I didn't scrub down the small cave I put in there, which had some bga on it, so all my hairgrass was covered in the stuff. I put a powerhead in there while there's no inhabitants to help with more circulation, and to help with the CO2 dispersal. There's been a more rapid growth in the hairgrass since I hooked up the co2 to the powerhead. The new growth isn't covered in bga! I'm going to use a maracyn treatment to kill the cyanobacteria I have in there already, it shouldn't be a problem if it kills off some of my nitrifying bacteria, since it doesn't have inhabitants yet. I'm going to wait to add shrimp till the hairgrass has filled in more, and is less likely to be uprooted by shrimp trying to get some food.

Tank 1 had a severe case of hairgrass, moss, and even duckweed melting... there's new growth in the hairgrass, so it looks like it's making a comeback. i'll probably take some from the 10 gallon to add to this one, to spread it out a lot more. most of the moss I had on the moss wall appears to have died on me.. there's still a bit doing well in there, so hopefully it'll just spread itself around.

I promise i'll get pictures soon, I have 6 gb of pictures from spring break and my friends' graduation this past weekend, so both my memory cards are pretty full, lol.

[emmanuelchavez]

haha, pictures never came.... and now they're not picture worthy.

I killed most of the cyanobacteria in one tank.... but I'm going to re do it a bit... in the sense that i'm going to take out the cave in there, and in its place add one of my driftwoods that has a bunch of anubius on it, with some moss.......... me being my clumsy self though, tipped over the DIY co2, and had 50% of the stuff make its way into the tank.... i haven't replaced the water in 3 days... good thing there's no inhabitants.

the other tank has some little critters, some gsa, and hair algae. i just gotta do a waterchange, clean the walls, start adding ammonia again, b/c i completely slacked off... and eventually add my tigers!


I think I'm going to convert the 10 gallon into a shrimp only tank too, and distribute the inhabitants between the 15 gallon, and one of the 5's... we'll see. I have to get paid first! Where's my stimulus check?!

[MOsborne05]

LOL, you are hooked! Can't wait to see pics of the new tanks & shrimp

[emmanuelchavez]

So I decided to give the 2 5gl's the boot and got a 20 gl instead.
The lighting sucks though, .75 wpg, so I'm trying to figure out what to do before I start scaping.
I was thinking of buying 3 25watt clip-on lamps for under $10 each. Does that sound feasible?

[emmanuelchavez]

OK, so I have absolutely no idea how to scape this. All I've got at the moment is play sand, and a sponge filter. I'm going to be getting another underwater filter for additional water movement, and replacing the stock lighting, (going from .75 wpg to 3.75). I'm going to leave this open top, with duckweed to keep some jumpers at bay.

The only thing I know I'll be putting in, b/c I don't have another tank to transfer it to, is the driftwood with anubias and moss on it from the 10 gallon.


I may add some Alternanthera reineckii for some red/pink. I was thinking of trying something new for foreground / groundcover, as opposed to hairgrass. I was thinking of using maybe some glosso - but I've been having second thoughs about it b/c of it's invasive nature.

After I'm done with homework, I'll probably draw up a few ideas and then ask for suggestions. Any suggestions in the meantime though, much appreciated!