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Densha's Taiwan Bee Tank


Densha

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Hi. After lurking on these forums for a long time, I've decided to start a Taiwan Bee tank and document it all. I usually focus on high-tech planted tanks, but deep down I got started in the hobby due to my love of shrimp. I've only kept RCS and crystals in the past, but never set up a tank dedicated for them. Usually they were housed in my various high-tech tanks, and while they lived, breeding wasn't the best due to CO2 injection / ferts. So for this tank, I want to keep it minimalistic, for me anyways, with just some moss and buce. I know Taiwan Bees are one of the toughest shrimp to keep, but I've always longed for a colorful shrimp tank, and due to cherry shrimp producing wild-types, I've always kept a single neo color in my tanks. I just want a tank of happy, healthy, and colorful shrimp!

 

Started cycling the tank on 4 April with seeding media, and as of a few days ago, it's cycled. I'm just adding 2ppm ammonia daily to keep the bacteria happy while I decide where to get shrimp from. I'll do a 100% water change before adding shrimp. There's a nice layer of biofilm all over the substrate and glass thanks to the MK-Breed Golden Powder. Haven't decided on food yet, but I have various types of SL-Aqua that I've fed my crystals in the past. I'm looking to trying out LOWKEYS series of foods.

 

Here's the stats:

 

Hardware

  • ADA 45p (34L , ~9 gals)
  • Eheim 2213
  • Current USA Satellite Freshwater LED Plus (18 inch)
  • NAG Bubbler

 

Substrate

  • Brightwell Rio Cafe-XF (Keeping it at a 6.6ph)
  • Glas Garten Betaglucan
  • MK-Breed Silver Powder
  • MK-Breed Golden Powder

 

Bucephalandra (All from Han Aquatics)

  • Mini Velvet
  • Dark Mini Velvet
  • Brownie Ghost
  • Blue Kedagang
  • Sekadau Velvet
  • Green Wave

 

Moss (All from Han Aquatics)

  • Christmas Moss
  • Mini Pellia

 

Food (All from Han Aquatics)

  • Monday - Lowkeys Ebi Supple or Lowkeys Ebi210!
  • Wednesday - Lowkeys Spiral or Lowkeys B18 Power Protein
  • Friday - Lowkeys Vitamin Kale or Lowkeys Ultra Supple and CSF Pure Mineral
  • Weekends - Amaranth or Mulberry leaves
  • 2x a week - Wet toothpick tip portion of Bacter AE for additional biofilm

 

Others

  • RODI Water with Salty Shrimp GH+, MK-Breed Blue Diamond, Lowkeys GH Mineral Balance x4 (5dH, 0kh)
  • Lowkeys Amino Acid Vital Plus
  • Cholla Wood
  • Indian Almond Leaves
  • Guava Leaves

 

Taiwanbeetank.jpg

 

Edited by Densha
Added food schedule
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Welcome Densha !  Like the look of your tank as I like it simple.  Many members sell shrimp they raise themselves and can give you background on them.  You could advertise in the Marketplace with WTB TBs.

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Nice catch! Didn't think anyone would notice that. It's actually a homage to one of my favorite aquascapers Katsuki Tanaka. I lived in Japan for the past 6 years and just moved back to the states this past January. While I was there, I started following his aquascaping blog. While he is an avid aquascaper (he placed #8 in 2015's IAPLC, and is good friends with the grand prize winner for 2015), he is known as a very old and famous manga artist. A few years ago, he created a craze in Japan for a character called Fuchiko. This little figure is made to hang on cups. It also works for fish tanks! Wish I could say I came up with the idea, but Katsuki Tanaka does it on his tanks as well.

 

fuchiko1.jpg

fuchiko3.jpg

fuchiko2.jpg

 

He even branched out to other things besides Fuchiko...

 

pugdogs.jpg

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10 hours ago, Densha said:

Nice catch! Didn't think anyone would notice that. It's actually a homage to one of my favorite aquascapers Katsuki Tanaka. I lived in Japan for the past 6 years and just moved back to the states this past January. While I was there, I started following his aquascaping blog. While he is an avid aquascaper (he placed #8 in 2015's IAPLC, and is good friends with the grand prize winner for 2015), he is known as a very old and famous manga artist. A few years ago, he created a craze in Japan for a character called Fuchiko. This little figure is made to hang on cups. It also works for fish tanks! Wish I could say I came up with the idea, but Katsuki Tanaka does it on his tanks as well.

 

fuchiko1.jpg

fuchiko3.jpg

fuchiko2.jpg

 

He even branched out to other things besides Fuchiko...

 

pugdogs.jpg

They are pricey, thought my girls would like them. My sister in law is Japanese, going to ask her if they are cheaper in Japan versus ebay

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Just checked eBay, they are slightly more expensive there. They are sold in Japan as blind gachapon. You will buy them in a box for about $1-$3 dollar equivalent, but you can't see what character you get until you open them. So it's easy to amass a bunch of the same figures while you are searching for the complete sets. People will sell the complete sets online at inflated prices for those who don't want to waste money buying individually.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

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I've had a bottle of MK-Breed Blue Diamond sitting around for awhile and decided today to mess around with it. I've been using the same container of Salty Shrimp GH+ for going on two years, but figured a liquid remineralizer would be much easier.

 

Is it me, or does the recommended 10 mL / 25 gallons seem a bit much? Using .4ml per gallon gave me a dH of around 10. Took me 5 gallons to figure out that .9ml per gallon of Blue Diamond gives me around 4dH.

 

Hope I have as much success with Blue Diamond as I did Salty Shrimp. I'm not going to miss having to measure out .35g of Salty Shrimp for each gallon jug, and cleaning up all the salt I inevitably end up spilling on my desk/scale.

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Beautiful Setup Densha and Welcome! Honestly with liquid remineralizers I usually "eyeball it". Meaning I follow the directions very minimally, I add a fraction of the dosage, test TDS, and add as needed, then document for future remineralizing.

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Great start, just be weary that it's a pretty small shrimp tank for Tbs so less stable, so do everything slowly and in moderation when it comes to say water changes and you should be fine ...

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5 hours ago, Purplepanda said:

Great start, just be weary that it's a pretty small shrimp tank for Tbs so less stable, so do everything slowly and in moderation when it comes to say water changes and you should be fine ...

 

Definitely Purplepanda! While I was in Japan, space was at a premium so all of my tanks were Nano. The smallest high-tech I had was an ADA Mini-S (12L, 3gal) and that was an incredible challenge to keep stable with fluctuation of CO2, PH, and TDS at water changes. The one lesson I learned is slow is fast when it comes to tanks. I know there is some debate about whether or not you should drip back in new water at water changes. Some people say its unnecessary when the new water parameters are close, but I plan on definitely doing it for this tank because it is on the smaller side.

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Yes agree Densna , I drip in all my 20 to 30 % shrimp tank water changes, it's so easy so why take the risk and do it faster. It also reduces the likelihood of overfilling the tank, well rather catching it in time, which most of us have done at some point :) 

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Finally got some TBs! I purchased two blue bolts, two pandas, and two wine reds from DETAquarium. He is an awesome seller and can't recommend him enough. I will most likely get a few more from him. After a 3 and a half our drip acclimation, I added them on Friday. They quickly begin to get to work on all the bio film that accumulated during the cycle... and there is a lot of it. 

 

Going to hold off on starting feeding while they get accustom to the tank and water parameters. I added a tiny bit of snowflake to the feeding dish  today and they are all over it. I don't know if it's just me, but I like to "train" them to know where the feeding dish is when starting a new tank.

 

Besides that, all of them seem normal and are constantly scavenging the tank and not swimming all over as if they are trying to flee, so that's great. The buces are adapting well. The dark mini velvet leaves are looking rough, but the rhizome is still good so hopefully it starts throwing out new leaves soon. The mini pellia on the other hand is melting pretty badly. Going to keep it there because in previous tanks, it starts off really rough, melts, then comes back in force. I have some weeping moss growing emersed that may end up taking its place if it dies.

 

Here are the new additions:

 

TBs.jpg

TBs-2.jpg

TBs-3.jpg

TBs-4.jpg

 

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Finally got some TBs! I purchased two blue bolts, two pandas, and two wine reds from DETAquarium. He is an awesome seller and can't recommend him enough. I will most likely get a few more from him. After a 3 and a half our drip acclimation, I added them on Friday. They quickly begin to get to work on all the bio film that accumulated during the cycle... and there is a lot of it. 

 

Going to hold off on starting feeding while they get accustom to the tank and water parameters. I added a tiny bit of snowflake to the feeding dish  today and they are all over it. I don't know if it's just me, but I like to "train" them to know where the feeding dish is when starting a new tank.

 

Besides that, all of them seem normal and are constantly scavenging the tank and not swimming all over as if they are trying to flee, so that's great. The buces are adapting well. The dark mini velvet leaves are looking rough, but the rhizome is still good so hopefully it starts throwing out new leaves soon. The mini pellia on the other hand is melting pretty badly. Going to keep it there because in previous tanks, it starts off really rough, melts, then comes back in force. I have some weeping moss growing emersed that may end up taking its place if it dies.

 

Here are the new additions:

 

TBs.jpg

TBs-2.jpg

TBs-3.jpg

TBs-4.jpg

 

Some fine shrimp right there

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How do you like the substrate? I have never heard of it but I kinda dig the more earthy color.

I'm guessing it buffers downward similar to AS?

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2 hours ago, ibebian said:

How do you like the substrate? I have never heard of it but I kinda dig the more earthy color.

I'm guessing it buffers downward similar to AS?

 

I really like it. It's actually buffering down to about 6.3-6.4 now. I use ADA in all of my other planted tanks, but wanted something that didn't leech all of that ammonia, and allowed me more control during my cycle for this tank. Brightwell and Controsoil are actually the same company. I originally wanted Controsoil, but couldn't find anyone selling it at the time. I also like the fact that the individual soil pieces are much more uniform than ADA soil. The have the extra fine (XF) version which is similar to ADA powder. The juvenile shrimp easily move it around. I think next time, I may go for the normal size. 

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On 5/5/2016 at 0:37 PM, avonsurfernc said:

That be some mighty fine shrimp right there

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Thanks Avon Surfer!

 

1 hour ago, brocknorman said:

Are you able to set up your Current USA Satellite Freshwater LED on a timer? (Like one from a store)

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Yep. Currently I use the Titan Controls Apollo 9 timer for all my lights/co2. Its a great timer that has 2 outlets and 8 separate schedules. I'm still trying to figuring out the lighting on this tank though because the light sits about flush with the top of the tank and is honestly way more light than I need. I'm around 75% right now. Going to see if the green/brown algae subsides in the next week or two.

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I really like it. It's actually buffering down to about 6.3-6.4 now. I use ADA in all of my other planted tanks, but wanted something that didn't leech all of that ammonia, and allowed me more control during my cycle for this tank. Brightwell and Controsoil are actually the same company. I originally wanted Controsoil, but couldn't find anyone selling it at the time. I also like the fact that the individual soil pieces are much more uniform than ADA soil. The have the extra fine (XF) version which is similar to ADA powder. The juvenile shrimp easily move it around. I think next time, I may go for the normal size. 

The one you have in the pics is extra fine? Maybe the shrimp are very young but the scale looked like ADA AS regular size to me. But good tip. And there is no ammonium leach at all or its minimal? Considering redoing substrate for an established tank so would need to complete the move over the course of a day and don't want to go into a mini cycle.

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