KJensen

When I was new to shrimp I looked at flip aquatics and aquarium co op on YouTube and they go over everything you need to start up. In my experience I use the following; 1. Montmorilinite for minerals and a good algae base for bacteria. 2. Any inert substrate, however for any not black shrimp a dark one makes them display better. 3. I cycled a tank with seeded substrate, if you don’t have another tank your local fish store should be able to get you some. Also a lot of live plants specifically submerse grown java moss and subwassertange for two weeks with 2 feeder guppies for their waste production, I later fed them to my chickens. I use Tetra all in one test strips and API KH / GH test liquids and a basic TDS meter even the one from zero water filter will work.

How's it going? Personally if you are worried about decaying leaves Rabbit Snails are the best, however I have never really had that issue as my shrimp tend to pick at the leaves until they are gone. I prefer Horned Nerite Snails as they move more and faster than traditional Nerite Snails (tiger, zebra) also the color pattern pops out in my tank. I also use Trumpet Snails to pick up excess food and churn the substrate, they are also a good indicator of the minerals in your tank if you watch the shell color as it grows.

Update on the tank. All but the original 2 dream blues have died, however I now have about 30 babies of all different colors in there doing great so I will just wait for them to grow out rather than risk more. As for the hair algae, I dropped in 10 MTS and a very young amano, and started dosing flourish, and within a week they have eaten 3/4 of all the algae. The amano will be put in a different tank as soon as it is gone. No issues with it attacking the babies but I think that may be due to it being young (about the size of a full grown Neo) and the abundance of algae.

Would having phosphates that low affect my plant growth?

Update on the tank; Just started adding RO water to fill from evaporation loss while waiting for SS GH/KH+ to come in so I can switch over. Picked up a TDS meter and GH/KH test kit, parameters are as follows; Temp-76 PH-7.2 Ammonia-0 Nitrite-0 Nitrate-0-5ppm GH-5 KH-2 TDS-290 Also have added 3 dream blues, 2 chocolate, 1 wild morph, 1 red cherry, and one horned nerite. Two of the blues were berried and have since hatched their eggs and the babies are swimming around. However one blue, one chocolate and the wildform have died yet again with no dicernable reason. Also still fighting with hair algae. Ordered 2 MTS for the tank to keep the substrate clean and cut back on the lighted hours to 10. Any more advice?

That may very well be the case here. Only one way to figure it out. I think the nearest place I can acquire RO water is about an hour drive.

Hello all, I am having some trouble keeping my neocaradina alive. They stay alive for about 2 weeks, get sluggish for a day then get super active for two days then I observe them walking along the bottom of the tank strangely then falling over dead. I have roughly 11 babies that were born in the tank that are doing fine, they are about 2 weeks old now as well as two dream blues I have purchased at a different LFS than the others that seem to be going strong at three weeks now. Tank specs are as follows: 1.5 months fully cycled Fluval Spec V "5 gallon tank" Upgraded stock filter with media basket Sponge filter sections Fluval Biomax Rings Purigen Poly Filter Crushed seashell in the filter "small amount" Tropica planted soil substrate 2.5 in deep White Petco sand "about 1/8th of tank" Spiderwood Driftwood Petrified Wood Dwarf Hairgrass Java Moss Catipa Leaf PH 7.0 Amonia and Nitrite 0 Nitrate 5-10 74 degrees Tap water treated with Prime at .5 ml then left to sit overnight before 10% water change weekly Seachem excel dosed at .5ml once daily Currently in the tank are, 11 babies about 2 weeks old, 2 Dream Blues, 1 otocinclus, 1 Nerite snail. I started with roughly 10 neo's of various colors. Going for a skittles tank. Then as they died off I would fix what I thought was the problem then drop in another 10 for a total of 30 so far. So far only the babies and the Blue Dreams have stayed alive. I'm at my Wits end with this. After going through these forums I realize that I did not acclimate the shrimp properly, and that I should probably switch to remin RO water, but I'm not sure it is available here. Should I also add an air stone, as there is very little surface agitation? I also have a large green Hair Algae problem and need a solution. I am desperate for any advice you all can give me will both save more shrimp lives and my wallet or it becomes a very beautiful Beta tank.