240ric Posted July 13, 2016 Author Report Share Posted July 13, 2016 Some new pics of my growing Cardinal population Juvi White Orchid Baby White Orchid (Center of Pic) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vpier Posted July 13, 2016 Report Share Posted July 13, 2016 Thanks. Been considering using tap(well water) which is very hard but it has a lot of iron in it and I dont know if that is good or bad. Another big problem is that my well water goes through a softener. Could do the RO waste water. Was an african cichlid guy for 30 years, I wonder if any of those remineralizer's would work? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bhill66 Posted August 2, 2016 Report Share Posted August 2, 2016 (edited) Sorry if I highjacked your post but since there were a lot of post related to Ark, I thought I would add my experience with him and my project. Like many of you, I fell in love the Sulawesi Cardinals and I decided that I wanted to start a Sulawesi Cardinal tank. After a lot of research, emails with Ark, and success using Salty Shrimp GH+ with my Crystal Black Shrimp, I began by setting up a new 10 gallon tank on June 14. I have blasting sand for bottom and also added a piece of lace rock, a small pile of lava rocks and two pieces of Malaysian wood (also Indian Almond leaves and alder cones). I decided to use Salty Shrimp 7.5 since I only plan to keep Cardinals and the ease of mixing with RO/DI. I remineralize my RO/DI water to a GH of 7 which resulted in a KH of 4, PH of 7.4, and TDS of 187. I had seeded my filter media from one of my other tanks and added a cherry shrimp about 3 weeks ago as a test shrimp. All is well with tank; the RCS is doing fine and I have some good algae growth. So last Friday 7/29, I bit the bullet and ordered 15+ Cardinals from Ark on aquabid and USPS says they will be here tomorrow. (Can't wait). Update: I received my shrimp this morning. They are hard to count but I know there were more than 15, I think there were 17. As before, Ark has an excellent packing and shipping method. He wraps the breather bag in about 20 sheet of newspaper and then packs it tightly in a layer of pink insulation. It take several minutes to unwrap the bag. He also included a big bunch of plants and even threw in 4 rabbit snail (which I requested). Highly recommend buying from Ark - awesome seller on aquabid.com. All shrimp were active and appeared healthy. I drip acclimated them for about 2 hours and when I released them in my tank they went to grazing on all of the algae I had let grow for them. A side note on Ark. He is awesome - very knowledgeable, helpful and responsive via email. I did ask him about his Cardinal tanks and water and this is his response when I asked about SS. Unfortunately I have no experience with Salty Shrimp stuff. I never remineralize my water. I just use RO and tap water mix in same proportions for water changes. Probably pure tap water would be even better for Cardinals, but I just can’t dedicate separate water container to keep water for water changes for Cardinal tanks (I have 50+ tanks). I use same water for all my shrimp tanks, and it’s working for me. During water change, I add more tap water at the end, so water that goes to Cardinal tanks is harder and more alkaline. It’s GH 7 and pH 7.6-7.8. Edited August 3, 2016 by bhill66 Added updated information ShrimpP and EricM 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EricM Posted August 2, 2016 Report Share Posted August 2, 2016 On 7/12/2016 at 6:28 PM, Vpier said: Does anyone make a liquid form? From my understanding to properly dissolve the SS 8.5 you need to use CO2? is this really necessary? I'm working SL to develop a pure Sulawesi formula. Right now they recommend the red bottle, I will be giving it a try on our new sulawesi tank we recently setup. I also added sulawesi to our dwarf shrimp water parameters page since I see it becoming more and more popular. I'm pretty excited to get back into sulawesi. what plants are people using in these tanks? because I now most also keep rabbit snails and they love munching on plants. Vpier and Soothing Shrimp 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
240ric Posted August 5, 2016 Author Report Share Posted August 5, 2016 I have anubias in my Sulawesi tank. To date, my 3 rabbit snails have not munched on any of the leaves. ShrimpP 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vpier Posted August 7, 2016 Report Share Posted August 7, 2016 On 7/12/2016 at 9:37 PM, 240ric said: I haven't seen any Sulawesi specific remineralizers in liquid form. If you are thinking of getting Cardinals, you maybe able to get away with using tap water if your water is hard enough. Also, I think I read that someone on this forum is using RO wastewater for their Sulawesi tanks. It seems like Cardinals are more tolerant to wider water parameters since they are the most offered Sulawesi shrimp species out there. Anyway, I don't fully dissolve my SS 8.5. I just take a 5 gallon jug of RO water, remove 1 gallon from it, boil the 1 gallon of water, and mix in around 3 scoops of SS 8.5. I stir this mix for a couple of minutes, then add it back into the 5 gallon jug. I then aerate this 5 gallon jug for 1-2 days until the water is clear. There is slight layer of powder that settles on the bottom of the jug, but the GH of the water ends up being around 7-8. I don't normally test Ph, Kh, or TDS anymore. When I do water changes, I just slow drip the water directly from the jug without stirring up the layer of powder. I only do a 10-15% water change once a month, and my tank is doing well so far. Luckily, I was able to get a 1000g container from TheShrimpTank for cheap when they were having a broken container sale. Even with my triple dosage, the 1000g container should last me a while. Do you have any idea what PH holey rock adds? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
240ric Posted August 8, 2016 Author Report Share Posted August 8, 2016 10 hours ago, Vpier said: Do you have any idea what PH holey rock adds? I would guess it all depends on the water you start with. If your water is already hard, than it should not influence Ph all that much. If your water is acidic, then your Ph will be influenced more and raise the Ph >7.5. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vpier Posted August 8, 2016 Report Share Posted August 8, 2016 3 minutes ago, 240ric said: I would guess it all depends on the water you start with. If your water is already hard, than it should not influence Ph all that much. If your water is acidic, then your Ph will be influenced more and raise the Ph >7.5. Thanks. I read on some cichlids forums that is buffers to 8.0+. Might get the synthetic ones. Trying to keep it around 7.5. Setup two tanks this weekend and will be adding seeded sponge and a few male guppies to help cycle faster and wait at least a month to get good algae and bio-film. Will yours eat commercial food? I really appreciate this thread you started, its helped a lot. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
240ric Posted August 9, 2016 Author Report Share Posted August 9, 2016 I feed my Sulawesi tank twice a week. One day, they get a serving of Bacter AE. Later in the week, I spot feed them Spirulina powder. Steve R's thread has a lot of great info. It really helped me out setting up my tank. http://www.shrimpspot.com/index.php?/topic/3727-“mount-sulawesi”-tank/ Vpier 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vpier Posted August 9, 2016 Report Share Posted August 9, 2016 I set up all three tanks this weekend and now I need to wait for cycling and bio-film. I always run several spare sponges in other tanks and will use them with a few guppies. I wanted to do this on July 21st but I got into a fight with a chainsaw and ended up with 17 stitches. This thread has help me out. Thank you 240ric. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vpier Posted September 23, 2016 Report Share Posted September 23, 2016 Mayphly told me about a new reminerlizer from Dennerle and I was able to find some from a U.K. website. We both ordered some and are going to give it a try. http://www.pro-shrimp.co.uk/shrimp-king/686-shrimp-king-sulawesi-mineral-ghkh-200g-4001615061505.html EricM and Soothing Shrimp 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Soothing Shrimp Posted September 23, 2016 Report Share Posted September 23, 2016 If it dissolves without any heated water or CO2, I'll be thrilled! Vpier 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vpier Posted September 23, 2016 Report Share Posted September 23, 2016 1 minute ago, Soothing Shrimp said: If it dissolves without any heated water or CO2, I'll be thrilled! Andy and I are going to give it a try. Dennerle is the expert on cardinal's. Its name is Caridina Dennerli. Soothing Shrimp 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Soothing Shrimp Posted September 23, 2016 Report Share Posted September 23, 2016 I'll be interested in your results. I've waited a very long time for one that's easy to use! Vpier 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EricM Posted September 23, 2016 Report Share Posted September 23, 2016 41 minutes ago, Vpier said: Mayphly told me about a new reminerlizer from Dennerle and I was able to find some from a U.K. website. We both ordered some and are going to give it a try. http://www.pro-shrimp.co.uk/shrimp-king/686-shrimp-king-sulawesi-mineral-ghkh-200g-4001615061505.html Proshrimp UK! Sebastian is a good guy! Vpier and Soothing Shrimp 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vpier Posted September 23, 2016 Report Share Posted September 23, 2016 1 hour ago, bostoneric said: Proshrimp UK! Sebastian is a good guy! He is. He hooked me up with a Scapersflow filter and told me what converter I needed going from EU to US voltage. Would have purchased from you if you carried it. Maybe at some point, if the product works well there might be a big enough demand were you can have some in stock. EricM and Soothing Shrimp 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
240ric Posted January 4, 2019 Author Report Share Posted January 4, 2019 I don't spend too much time on Shrimp Spot anymore but I just wanted to share an update on my Sulawesi tank. Since I will be doing a little bit of travelling with my new job, I decided to reduce my shrimp tanks to only one. I find that I spend most of my time in front of the Sulawesi tank watching the little guys compared to my other shrimp tanks. It was a no brainer that this is the species to keep. I moved them all to a 20G long tank to give them more room to roam. What a pain to catch all these guys, and I might have missed a few babies. 8E5A186D-1475-45FA-A61C-70AEC81D154A.MOV Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheGlassBox Posted January 6, 2019 Report Share Posted January 6, 2019 Cardinals are on my bucket list!!! They're gorgeous!!! 😃 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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