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Rob's Budget 5gal CRS build


Faralon

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To be honest having all the shrimp hiding in that spot together is not a good sign. Something is wrong and I would bet that you continue to lose shrimp. How many shrimp did you add to this tank in the beginning?

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Water quality sanity check commencing...

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Will post the results here shortly.

Good call Rye...now we're doing a WC...

pH: 6.0

Ammonia: between 0 & 0.25ppm (too much)

Nitrite: 0

Nitrate: 30ppm (too much)

GH: 6

KH: 0

TDS: 184 (gonna bring it down to 170ish)

a8fa2ad9891544b9d891869f0ef44ad3.jpg

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

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Yeah, this is only a 5.5gal tank, so the driftwood is actually pretty small.  I brew my own beer, so I have 5 and 10gallon kettles I can boil driftwood in.  I believe I boiled the two pieces for a total of 4hrs, with water changes every 30min...then let them sit overnight to see if they leeched any color/tanin into the water.  Its probably just the rushed bio filtration (and me not being used to cycling a tank at such a low pH of 6.0, and the extra time that creates)...just needs a few more weeks to solidify itself.

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A week and a half isn't enough time to cycle a tank and grow proper bio film and biological activity in low PH.

 

If it where me I'd try to get my GH to 3-4 and pick up some Bt-9 to help kick in biological.

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Yeah, this is only a 5.5gal tank, so the driftwood is actually pretty small.  I brew my own beer, so I have 5 and 10gallon kettles I can boil driftwood in.  I believe I boiled the two pieces for a total of 4hrs, with water changes every 30min...then let them sit overnight to see if they leeched any color/tanin into the water.  Its probably just the rushed bio filtration (and me not being used to cycling a tank at such a low pH of 6.0, and the extra time that creates)...just needs a few more weeks to solidify itself.

Fellow homebrewer!

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Wow, so I love Otto Cats.  I had this rather annoying algae on the glass that was getting in the way of me video'ing some of the shrimp earlier.  I come back from lunch, and its all gone, and my little buddy is hovering over the old spot of algae...so I gave him a mini' Hi-Five.   :thumbsu:

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Dirty Girl was in a perfect spot for better berry video'ing...thanks to the Otto cleaning the algae too!!

Great focus of the berries underneath her, and you can see the eyes very clearly.

 

 

Sorry about the crappy ending...

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Great, so I'm taking down the 90gallon reef in my office (house is for sale) and I'm vacuuming out the bottom water/sand with a small 1.5gal wet/dry vac. Not thinking to keep the dust filter on, since I'm vacuuming wet sand...right? Dumb idea. The 90 is super clean, my office...not so much. Tiny little grains of salty sand everywhere, including inside the 5.5gal shrimp tank. The small particles are superfine, and they'll just fall in amongst the cracks of the Stratum, but it's the salt I'm worried about. I just did a good surface skim of the tank, and doing a 20% water change...here's hoping....

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Neos are hardy hehe, not to be negative or anything, but those don't look like Painted Fire Reds to me. I know they start out clear as babies but when I bought mine they were that size and already bright red. Hopefully it's just the heat and they color up nicely for you.

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