zodduska

Really appreciate the advice, thanks!

I've never swapped a shrimpy substrate before, I'd appreciate any advice or feedback on my plan you guys would care to offer! I only have one aquarium set up, a planted 12 gallon long with 9L of Amazonia from 2013. The only livestock are 20 young PRL added last Monday. Water parameters are good, RO and Salty Shrimp GH+, but the tank has lost its buffering capacity, the pH stabilizes around high 6 low 7s. My plan: 8L SL-Aqua Nature Soil into pantyhose in a 5 gallon bucket with RO water and a powerhead, after 24 hours test ammonia, agitate the substrate and change the water, wait 24 hours, repeat until ammonia leaching is minimal. Any idea how long this will take? I'm hoping that it will be minimal, unlike aquasoil. After the new soil is no longer leaching ammonia setup a temporary 3 gallon plastic Petco "pet keeper" filled with tank water from the 12 gallon. Filtration will be a topfin 10 hang on the back filter that's currently running on the main tank with a purigen pouch inside it. Net the shrimp and put them straight into the temporary tank Remove the hardscape, plants, discard most of the aquasoil while saving as much water as I can. I plan on re-using about 1L of the old substrate which I will rinse and add to the tank as a base layer to both build up and seed the new substrate with bacteria. New substrate in, hardscape and plants. Let the tank run 24 hours, test the water and if it's good prepare to re-add the shrimp. In the case that the tank water pH has lowered significantly I would drip acclimate the shrimp before adding them. What do you guys think? I'm mostly trying to minimize the stress / impact on the shrimp.

Thanks Nikolaus777, I'll give them some more time to adjust and try some fresh foods. I have some snowflake I could toss in too. Edit: they like the snow flake!

Haha, Oh God, I just ordered 3 types of SL-Aqua from Discobee because I was afraid my new shrimp weren't eating the food I had because it was too old.... wish I had read this before placing the order.

Thanks, DETAquarium! I've watched some of your Youtube series and found it very enjoyable! Very nice setups you have! Your answer is helpful and I also believe there is a balance to be struck between flow and proper oxygenation, the Choice bubbler is a great idea.. Personally, I may be too attached to the glass lily pipe because I like how it looks and it spreads the flow over a larger area compared to my eheim pipe. With a shallow tank like this it seems difficult to direct the flow in such a way as to minimize the current while still maintaining good circulation and eliminate deadspots, the small HOB should help I think. Last night I turned the current up slightly because the shrimp looked a little lethargic, I think it's closer to where I want it to be now. I'm a little confused as to what is actually required to oxygenate the water, I've read that as long as you have the water surface being turned over it should be sufficient but I wonder how much is really enough.. does it have to be noisy? As a side question the 20 PRL were added to this tank Monday evening and I'm having trouble getting them to take prepared food in a Pyrex petri dish, they don't even really investigate it. I'm wondering if the food may be too old as it was bought a couple years ago, I tried Lowkey Secret food, Lowkey Ultra Supple, Shrimp King Complete. The food smells okay and was always dry thanks the the moisture absorbing packets. I may have to get some new stuff. I took the SKC from the dish last night and dropped it right in front of a shrimp, he ate it a little and another shrimp walked up to it, tasted it then walked away.. Ha.

Hey dao I ran into this question myself recently, last weekend I decided to rescape and restock a long running tank with very old Aquasoil in it (2013) I use reconstituted RO water with a tds of 25 and adding in Salty Shrimp GH+, I had originally been using Salty Shrimp GH+KH to do this for OEBT of long past.. so anyway there is still a bit or remaining KH in the tank. GH 6 KH 1-2. PH was in the high 6 range, with PRL incoming I wanted it lower so I added a bunch of alder cones, a large indian almond leaf and a new piece of cholla wood, the next day there were plenty of tannins in the water and PH went down a little to the mid 6 range. Added new Purigen to a HOB filter because I've always used it with shrimp, the next day the water was clear and I decided to check the PH... 7.4! I was pretty surprised and figured it had to be the Purigen absorbing the tannic acid, googled it like you and read the same responses from Seachem support. I thought how could it remove the acid yet still leave a low PH? Seems contradictory. Removed the Purigen, changed water, PH is now back down below 7. The Purigen's effect on my water was more pronounced than usual because my substrate's buffering ability has likely significantly diminished over time compared to my initial experience with using Purigen in the tank, a new substrate probably has much more ability to counteract the absorption effect. I've also changed over 100% of the water in the last week so hopefully over time there is still enough left in the Aquasoil to keep the PH low. YMMV.

Hi guys! Over the weekend I rebooted a several year old overgrown mr. Aqua 12 and added some PRL My filtration is an Eheim 2026 Pro II with ADA style lily pipe I also added a small hang on the back Topfin 10 at the other end of the tank with fluval prefilter sponge to have more aeration/sponge filter/easily swappable purigen. So, obviously this tank is capable of really churning the water. I normally run the Eheim at about 20% which creates enough current the push water all the way down the front of the tank and back again to the intake, here's an old pic to show the filter setup The HOB is now on the left side, finally my question: I've noticed the shrimp seem happier and are more spread out when I turn off the filter or have what I would consider really low flow, otherwise they seem to stick around under the lily pipe or toward the glass all around the tank. I stuffed some filter sponge into the HOB pipe to reduce its flow and set the Eheim around 10%, there are no bubbles or things blowing around from the HOB but the water flows completely across its output shelf. The Lily pipe doesn't create noise or bubbles when raised slightly as in the pic above. There is a slow flow all around the tank, the plants don't wave perceptibly. However this causes me to consider the impact this is having on oxygenation. I've often seen over filtration recommended for shrimp tanks, how do you guys deal with the flow that creates? What kind of flow do you have in your shrimp tanks?