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Densha's Taiwan Bee Tank


Densha

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17 hours ago, ibebian said:

 

 

 

 

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.

 

Yep, that's extra fine. The shrimp are pretty young so it may have threw off the scale like you said. I'll definitely have to take a picture of the scale once they are full size for comparison. 

 

I didn't notice any ammonia at all. I use Dr. Tim's ammonium chloride to cycle and I had exact control of the ammonia added. You do house a lot of beneficial bacteria in your soil, but with an established filter, I believe you could switch substrates to brightwell and not have a mini-cycle. Personally though, I would be watching my ammonia and nitrite levels like a hawk for the first couple of days.

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[Day 12]

 

TBs-4.jpg

 

So it has been around 12 days since the TBs were introduced to the tank and all of them are doing spectacular. All of them are grazing and have seen quite a few molts that have all been clean and whole. Couldn't be happier with the shrimp's health. Since a few of you mentioned the upside down girl, I've hired a new professional to look after my shrimp. Meet Duke Togo:

 

TBs-secret-6.jpg

 

As you may have seen from the first picture, I'm battling what looks to me like diatoms all over my glass and tank. Now, I hope you all have read Scott's latest article, I definitely fall into the Nano tank keeper stereotype. Before this 45p, i've only kept 2-3 gallon high tech co2, high lighting, EI fert nanos. With tanks that small, you have to be very aware of your conditions because when issues crop up, they go downhill fast. So with this tank, I've tried to keep hands off as much as possible because I know shrimp crave stability. I tried not to even look at it much because if I did, I knew I would want to adjust something, or find some reason to stick my hands in the tank. By ignoring the tank, what I neglected to notice was my filter screen clogged up drastically reducing the flow as well as my lighting was a bit too much. I think this was a contributing factor to why in just a week the tank went south. My mini pellia is all but lost and a particular area on my driftwood that has a bit too much flow for these small shrimp hasn't been touched in quite a while and has accumulated a lot of diatoms and algae.

 

TBs.jpg

TBs-2.jpg

 

So I have reduced my lighting to around 50% and cleaned up the filter thus returning a good flow to the tank. Unfortunately, my buce suffered from the diatoms/algae covering the leaves. Most of my brownie ghost leaves are gone, and the rhizome is getting dark. I'm not totally convinced that its dead as there are green spots still there so I cut off the leaves and left the rhizome there to see what will happen. The other buces are looking rough too. I don't have much experience with these plants yet as I usually plant stems. I've cleaned up some of the dead leaves and will let them keep going.

 

I decided to use DETAquarium's feeding schedule with LOWKEYS foods as I've heard nothing but good things from them. I noticed they didn't take any interest when I used some leftover Hikari food I fed my neos. I figured it was due to them having enough biofilm/algae in the tank. Yesterday I put in a tiny piece of Ebi210! and within 10 mins I had my wine reds chasing each other away fighting over the food. They settled down when the panda came to feed. Hope they enjoy the rest of the series just as much.

 

I'm thinking about adding some horned nerites to this tank as I have no pest snails in here. I have yet to even see any sort of nematodes/worms which I'm a bit surprised with all this algae/diatoms. I do have a few copepods swimming around that I don't mind. I treat all my plants/moss before putting them in any tank so I usually have to add nerites to help control the algae. Normally I wouldn't worry but since these shrimp seem so healthy, I'm a bit concerned about introducing anything else into the tank. I may try to quarantine the snails just to make sure nothing hitchhikes. 

 

Obligatory shrimp pics:

 

TBs-7.jpg

TBs-8.jpg

TBs-9.jpg

 

With everything considered, i'm pretty happy so far. While the aquascaper in me hates seeing the tank look like this, (I want to do multiple water changes to speed up the diatom/algae removal), I know that the shrimp seem happy so I will be patient and let nature take its course. If the buce do end up dying, I haven't decided whether or not I will try some more buce or just use some low light plants I'm more familiar with keeping.

 

Now to let Duke Togo get back to work...

 

TBs-secret-7.jpg

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Tank still looks great! Shrimp seem to have adjusted well. How are your parameters? 

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Looks like your right on the money! Don't sweat the diatoms they will be gone in no time.

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  • 4 weeks later...

[Day 40]

 

TB3-9.jpg

 

40 days down and all is doing really well! Made it through my first water change two weeks back with no issue. Ended up changing out 10% and dripping it back in. I've switch out remineralizers and use Lowkeys GH Mineral balance x4. 0.75ml of Mineral Balance per gallon of RODI water gave me 5gH for anyone wondering. There was nothing wrong with the MK-Breed Blue Diamond that I was using, and I will continue to use it on my other tanks, but I wanted to use Lowkeys exclusively in this tank. I have also added Lowkeys Amino Acid Vital Plus to the new water when dripping.

 

All the buces and moss have recovered from the diatom algae I had back during day 12. A bit of hair algae has replaced the diatoms on the top-most piece of mini pellia due to it being very close to the light. I didn't take that into consideration when placing the moss at setup. There is still some brown algae on the glass. I have employed a few new additions to keep that in check. Bought 5 tiny horned bumblebee nerites that are chipping away at the buildup.

 

TB3-4.jpg

 

TB3-5.jpg

 

If you were wondering what Duke Togo has been up to, he has been assigned a new mission...

 

TB3-2.jpg

 

He's closely guarding the tank due to berried TBs! I took these pictures last night, and this morning I awoke to two more berried females. In total I have four females berried, all three blue bolts and one panda! First berried was on 31 May, the next one was 2 June, and the last two were 7 June. So hopefully they all continue to successfully carry them. I decided to do water changes every 3 weeks with such a low bio-load, however I'm nervous to do another one with so many berried females. My TDS is a steady 140 with zero nitrates so I think I will hold off on this change. All females are actively grazing and look good. My poor males. The other panda and the two wine reds have been constantly dancing around the tank for about a week due to all the females being ready at once. Now that they are all berried, they can take a break!

 

TB3-1.jpg

 

TB3-3.jpg

 

TB3-6.jpg

 

TB3-8.jpg

 

So all-in-all, everything's going well. I've got to admit, I couldn't keep my hands out of the tank like I wanted, so I ended up buying a set of long nitrile gloves. Sure I could just wash my hands, but I feel you always leave some sort of residue on your hands no matter how much you wash. I have dry skin so I use quite a bit of lotion. Are the gloves necessary? No, but for me it's a cheap piece of mind and I have yet to have an issue with the tank *knocks on wood*. I also constructed a way to remove the leftover food/waste out of the feeding dish without getting my hands wet using a large syringe and some rigid airline tubing:

 

TB3-10.jpg

 

Not going to change anything up since everything's going well. With four berried shrimp within a week, hopefully the next update I will have a tank packed full of babies! That is, if Duke keeps everyone safe...

 

TB3-7.jpg

 

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You have a beautiful scape and some sweet shrimp. Nice work [emoji4]

Appreciate it! Wanted to keep it on the simpler end of the spectrum so I can enjoy watching the shrimp.

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I know shrimp genetics are pretty random when it comes to the offspring of TBs, but wanted to know if I could end up with higher quality BBs even though mine have little blue as they have grown older. I never saw which males mated with the females so I have no idea what to expect.

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Congratulations Densha! That is awesome to hear and see, you seem to have hit the nail on the head with this build and the TBs have responded. Look forward to many more updates. If that BB is from me it looks to have lost alot of blue since initially adding. To answer your question though, there is always an opportunity to see better genetics as breeding continues, especially in coloration. 

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Awesome progress with the tank Densha! I'm totally jealous of the berried shrimp, as my tank has been stocked since April and it is drier than a monastery in there... Love the pics too, and looking forward to your next update! Duke has served you well :) 

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1 hour ago, DETAquarium said:

Congratulations Densha! That is awesome to hear and see, you seem to have hit the nail on the head with this build and the TBs have responded. Look forward to many more updates. If that BB is from me it looks to have lost alot of blue since initially adding. To answer your question though, there is always an opportunity to see better genetics as breeding continues, especially in coloration. 

 

Thanks. The BB is from the set I bought from you. I read that BB's can lose color due to hormones though. I've seen the blue come and go and then come back again with these so I'm not too worried about it.

 

I think great stock and the NAG/Choice Bubbler are the reasons why this tank has responded so well. Usually when I buy nerites, a few of them die within the first week or many are gathered at the top of the tank. They require high oxygenation levels due to their natural habitats being shallow streams in the wild. While a bubble filter provides more than enough oxygenation, the NAG bubbler circulates microbubbles all over the tank and the bubbles have longer contact time suspended in the water. I feel this leaves no dead-spots that are lower in oxygen, plus more oxygenation throughout the tank. Overall I'm really happy with the bubbler. Thanks DETAquarium for the recommendation on your channel! I'm considering adding it to my other 45P to off-gass the CO2 at night.

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@DETAquarium Hanaquatics just got the Choice Bubbler back in stock. I bought the NAG Bubbler before he restocked the original Choice version. Since you use the Choice version, I wanted to know if it came with a piece to divert the flow downwards like the NAG version does. I don't see it in your videos so I was wondering if it did. It's the piece circled below.

 

NAG-bubbler.jpg

 

Thanks!

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Hey Densha,

 

I have both models actually and they both come with the diversion tool, I however don't use it.

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On 6/8/2016 at 9:59 AM, Densha said:

 

Thanks. The BB is from the set I bought from you. I read that BB's can lose color due to hormones though. I've seen the blue come and go and then come back again with these so I'm not too worried about it.

 

I think great stock and the NAG/Choice Bubbler are the reasons why this tank has responded so well. Usually when I buy nerites, a few of them die within the first week or many are gathered at the top of the tank. They require high oxygenation levels due to their natural habitats being shallow streams in the wild. While a bubble filter provides more than enough oxygenation, the NAG bubbler circulates microbubbles all over the tank and the bubbles have longer contact time suspended in the water. I feel this leaves no dead-spots that are lower in oxygen, plus more oxygenation throughout the tank. Overall I'm really happy with the bubbler. Thanks DETAquarium for the recommendation on your channel! I'm considering adding it to my other 45P to off-gass the CO2 at night.

 

I know whenever I start a second tank, I'll probably go with a canister and bubbler set up like yours and DETAquarium as well. I currently have a UGF filter with two outlets, so two air stones. With an HOB filter and lots of floating Salvinia, I don't think the oxygen is an issue in my tank. No doubt the stock that DETAquarium sent is great stock. I'm going to have to look for locally bred shrimp in Toronto, and avoid getting imported shrimp... That or I just happen to have 20 males? lol

 

Hopefully we'll see shrimplets by your next update!

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  • 2 weeks later...
On May 11, 2016 at 1:34 AM, Densha said:

[Day 12]

 

TBs-4.jpg

 

So it has been around 12 days since the TBs were introduced to the tank and all of them are doing spectacular. All of them are grazing and have seen quite a few molts that have all been clean and whole. Couldn't be happier with the shrimp's health. Since a few of you mentioned the upside down girl, I've hired a new professional to look after my shrimp. Meet Duke Togo:

 

TBs-secret-6.jpg

 

As you may have seen from the first picture, I'm battling what looks to me like diatoms all over my glass and tank. Now, I hope you all have read Scott's latest article, I definitely fall into the Nano tank keeper stereotype. Before this 45p, i've only kept 2-3 gallon high tech co2, high lighting, EI fert nanos. With tanks that small, you have to be very aware of your conditions because when issues crop up, they go downhill fast. So with this tank, I've tried to keep hands off as much as possible because I know shrimp crave stability. I tried not to even look at it much because if I did, I knew I would want to adjust something, or find some reason to stick my hands in the tank. By ignoring the tank, what I neglected to notice was my filter screen clogged up drastically reducing the flow as well as my lighting was a bit too much. I think this was a contributing factor to why in just a week the tank went south. My mini pellia is all but lost and a particular area on my driftwood that has a bit too much flow for these small shrimp hasn't been touched in quite a while and has accumulated a lot of diatoms and algae.

 

TBs.jpg

TBs-2.jpg

 

So I have reduced my lighting to around 50% and cleaned up the filter thus returning a good flow to the tank. Unfortunately, my buce suffered from the diatoms/algae covering the leaves. Most of my brownie ghost leaves are gone, and the rhizome is getting dark. I'm not totally convinced that its dead as there are green spots still there so I cut off the leaves and left the rhizome there to see what will happen. The other buces are looking rough too. I don't have much experience with these plants yet as I usually plant stems. I've cleaned up some of the dead leaves and will let them keep going.

 

I decided to use DETAquarium's feeding schedule with LOWKEYS foods as I've heard nothing but good things from them. I noticed they didn't take any interest when I used some leftover Hikari food I fed my neos. I figured it was due to them having enough biofilm/algae in the tank. Yesterday I put in a tiny piece of Ebi210! and within 10 mins I had my wine reds chasing each other away fighting over the food. They settled down when the panda came to feed. Hope they enjoy the rest of the series just as much.

 

I'm thinking about adding some horned nerites to this tank as I have no pest snails in here. I have yet to even see any sort of nematodes/worms which I'm a bit surprised with all this algae/diatoms. I do have a few copepods swimming around that I don't mind. I treat all my plants/moss before putting them in any tank so I usually have to add nerites to help control the algae. Normally I wouldn't worry but since these shrimp seem so healthy, I'm a bit concerned about introducing anything else into the tank. I may try to quarantine the snails just to make sure nothing hitchhikes. 

 

Obligatory shrimp pics:

 

TBs-7.jpg

TBs-8.jpg

TBs-9.jpg

 

With everything considered, i'm pretty happy so far. While the aquascaper in me hates seeing the tank look like this, (I want to do multiple water changes to speed up the diatom/algae removal), I know that the shrimp seem happy so I will be patient and let nature take its course. If the buce do end up dying, I haven't decided whether or not I will try some more buce or just use some low light plants I'm more familiar with keeping.

 

Now to let Duke Togo get back to work...

 

TBs-secret-7.jpg

 

Before adding shrimp, did you have the algae/diatoms? I have all of that after 5 weeks of cycling ADA soil. I am about to go on a week long trip so I am waiting to add shrimp. Anyway, what did you see your TDS at before adding shrimp? I'm using RO/DI water remineralized to GH5 with Lowkeys GH Mineral Balance x4 and keep getting TDS levels around 160-170. 

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I did have the diatoms before adding the shrimp. I noticed them starting just before the cycle was finished. However, they really bloomed after I added the shrimp. I don't think they minded and everything went well. I did brush some of the diatoms off the wood but left it on the glass.I saw shrimp graze on it every now and then.

 

When I was using MK-Breed, it was around 130, and after the first water change with Lowkeys it bumped up to 140. I didn't start with Lowkeys so my TDS will no doubt be a bit skewed compared to yours. Two water changes of 10% later it's sitting at 147.

 

I usually never measure the TDS of my new water, but I'll make some now and test.

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2 minutes ago, Densha said:

I did have the diatoms before adding the shrimp. I noticed them starting just before the cycle was finished. However, they really bloomed after I added the shrimp. I don't think they minded and everything went well. I did brush some of the diatoms off the wood but left it on the glass.I saw shrimp graze on it every now and then.

 

When I was using MK-Breed, it was around 130, and after the first water change with Lowkeys it bumped up to 140. I didn't start with Lowkeys so my TDS will no doubt be a bit skewed compared to yours. Two water changes of 10% later it's sitting at 147.

 

Good to know. I did a large water change tonight and I added less LK's GHMB and my TDS is now 134. I have another tank and I like them meticulously clean so the algae and diatoms are driving me crazy. I'm forcing myself not to mess with it and wait for the shrimp and snails to clean it up. Mine will be a Taiwan Bee tank. 

 

I've really enjoyed your journal and have learned a lot. I've got two 3 gallon JBJ Picotopes (shrimp tanks) and a 5 gallon Fluval Chi (my son's little community tank). I want to get a large tank for our family room once the kids are a little older. Keep sharing your progress. 

 

Thanks for your response. 

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  • 1 month later...

[Day 90]

 

tb-full.jpg

 

Hope everyone's enjoying their summer. I know Duke has been enjoying the sights that summer brings.

 

tb-4.jpg

 

tb-5.jpg

 

So remember that tank full of babies I wanted on day 40? I now have more babies than I expected. One of my blue bolts gave birth on 28 June, and the rest gave birth within that week. I'm glad they all made it through without any issues. Well, one of my blue bolts molted while she was giving birth so there were about 10 eggs still in the exoskeleton. I decided that since she was in the process of giving birth, I would just leave the exoskeleton alone and see what happens. Luckily for me, the rest of the eggs hatched by the next day and the exoskeleton was empty. I tried to count them 2 weeks after they were born, however, I ended up giving up after 40 or so. It's been a month since the first TB gave birth and it seems most if not all survived. I couldn't find any dead babies so either the adults ate the bodies or I had good luck. Regardless I have quite a bit. 

 

tb-2-2.jpg

 

Most of the babies are red wine and black pandas. I'm hoping that some of the black pandas develop into shadows once they are a bit older. Among those though, there are quite the variation. I have seen one and two stripe ruby reds, one and two stripe BKK, and one that looks like it may even be a no entry.

 

tb-2-3.jpg

 

tb-8.jpg

 

tb-7-2.jpg

 

tb-1.jpg

 

I was a bit surprised that despite all these babies, I couldn't find a single blue bolt baby. I began researching the genetics and the highest chance of them seem to be mating a blue bolt male to a blue bolt female. Although three of my pregnant females were blue bolts, I couldn't see any blue bolts at all. Then about a week ago, I found a single one!

 

tb-1-3.jpg

 

So I'm crossing my fingers that this one turns out to be an alpha male and brings his "A" game for the females! Besides that, everything is going well. The original adults are still active and doing their thing. I have noticed that the blue bolts have regained a lot of their blue color recently. The only thing I have been doing differently is leaving the amaranth leaves that I feed on the weekends in the tank longer. I was a bit apprehensive to let leaves sit in the tank too long in fear that they would foul the water. So I always removed the uneaten leaves after 1-2 days. One weekend I forgot to remove it and noticed the next day most of the adults and babies were gathered in the feeding dish devouring the leaf. I was a bit surprised because I've never seen them that aggressive eating it. I guess it takes a few days before the leaf gets soft enough for them to really go to town on it. So now I leave the leaf in there till it is gone.

 

Besides my TB tank, I bought a few golden back neos for another 45p and they are doing well. I didn't realize but I must have placed a few babies in the tank from the shipping bag. None of the neos were pregnant when they went into the tank, but a few days later, I counted 8 babies that survived my pack of mischievous chili rasboras. I forgot how much faster neo babies grow compared to TBs. In about 2 weeks, they are double the size of the TB babies. This tank is still a work in progress and hopefully, will be entered in one of the nano contests at some point.

 

tb-3-2.jpg

 

tb-4-2.jpg

 

So all in all, very happy with the tank health and the fact the babies are doing well. As I write this, I notice that my males are doing the dance so one of the females must have given birth again. I'm soon going to have more TBs than I know what to do with. I guess that's a good problem to have, though. Actually, it's a much better problem to have than the one Duke has...

 

tb-3.jpg

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Hahaha! Duke! Great update, tank and shrimp look fantastic! Quite the variation of shrimplets, always a good thing.

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