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10G MK Breed Style Tank Setup


kubism

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Few more pics of the MK Breed PRL! Eating MK Breed foods of course.

Still got plenty of bio film, and not enough shrimps to eat them all, so no shrimp ball action yet, hopefully kn the future when population increases !

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Been a while since my last update, work's been busy, and I've been also busy setting up my 6 tank rack.

This tank is doing extremely well. All 10 MK Breed PRLs are doing very well and growing up fast. One of them is a female for sure, and its a really nice one. ( Thick shells, super white body ) Hopefully I'll see some berried action soon.

I've been changing about 10% of the water weekly, and adding about 1/2 spoon of the MK Breed Gold Powder, and about 1 ml of the MK Breed Blood Diamond. TDS stays on the lower side, at about 90, GH is 2. Slight amount of Nitrate since I don't have a ton of floaters to absorb them, but shrimps don't seem to mind.

So far so good, I'm curious to see how much of a population I can hold in the tank, and the survival rate of the babies will be also interesting to take note of.

 

Hopefully they start breeding soon !

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wow, just follow this journal. I am very surprised to read the way to cycling this tank with ADA soil in just 4 weeks!


i have some questions:


Don't you have problem with ammonia leeches?


how many hours a day you light the tank durning the startup in the first 2 weeks?


Is GH 2 not too low for shrimps?


thanks


andy

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wow, just follow this journal. I am very surprised to read the way to cycling this tank with ADA soil in just 4 weeks!

i have some questions:

Don't you have problem with ammonia leeches?

how many hours a day you light the tank durning the startup in the first 2 weeks?

Is GH 2 not too low for shrimps?

thanks

andy

 

 

Hello Andy,

 

Glad you like what I've shared. I too was surprised when I initially read how MK does his setup, and it was so simple and easy. Although It does use his line of products, I can say that his method is very simple and even a noob like me can have successful result. 

 

During the first 2 weeks of tank setup, I left the light on 24/7. This turns the tank green, which is a sign that the tank is on it's way to be ready for shrimp. I did not grow any blue green algae, only green ( shrimps will eat all the green algae on the tank walls, in my case, they barely eat the foods I feed since there is a constant source of food everywhere ) 

 

The way I understand is the Z powder becomes activated and colonizes on the ADA soil, which converts the ammonia released into nitrate & nitrite. Im pretty sure tanks will become " cycled " eventually on their own, but adding a nitrifying bacteria speeds up this process considerably. 

 

GH of 2 is not too low for shrimps. The reason for low GH is to aid in molting for the PRL, since many PRL are breed to have " thick shells " and lower GH helps the baby molt, thus increasing your baby survival rate. In my MK style tanks the molts are usually entire pieces, where as my earlier tanks the molts are usually broken up and thinner. 

 

Hope this helps, and happy shrimping ! 

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You what know? This is the second time I recall reading about a situation where someone kept their CRS/CBS/PRL in low gH range.

First time around, the logic behind keeping it in that low of a gH range was for culling. The person rationalized that any shrimps born and raised in such parameters would need to be exceptional to show their best colors, and so, are worth keeping.

And now I'm reading your logic behind this, which is to help babies molt and grow faster.

Very interesting ideologies of shrimp keeping. This is survival of the fittest at the most extreme.

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So during the first four weeks you only did one water change and it was 1/3 tank? What kind of light? How deep is the substrate? Did you consider using an UG filter?

 

Yes, first 4 weeks of setup, only did water change once, and was 2 weeks in, 1/3 of the water. Light is a Finnex, forgot the exact model, but not the planted one. 

 

Substrate is about 1 1/2 inch.  I did not use a UG, since I was told just a sponge filter is enough, and wanted to try out if that was the case.  I would say if the tank is bigger than 10g, maybe a UG is a good idea to get some additional filtration going, but for a 10g, just sponge filter should be more than enough. 

 

The key is keeping things simple, and understanding why things work or don't work. You don't necessarily need a expensive canister filter and water chillers to keep and breed shrimps successfully. 

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