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SL Aqua Soil pH problems


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7 minutes ago, aqua_che_scapes said:

 

 

Thanks!  I only used the baking soda once when the pH dropped down to 4.5 because some of my bucephalandra started to melt and a few even died.  But I’ve done water changes since then and it’s been over a week or two now.  I don’t plan to use it ever again.  Yah the change is very rapid.  I haven’t done a water change in a solid week now so the tank is pretty untouched besides the prime I added yesterday.  And the prime.  I was worried that the present level of low nitrate or small ammonia might hurt the TB shrimps while trying to acclimate them.  I see now that it was an overreaction... I only use prime to neutralize ammonia or high nitrates in my fish tanks when I know water change day will be delayed and the levels are too high.  But I’m only 6 months into caridina shrimp (only have had tigers before these recent/new TBs) so still learning do’s and dont’s.  I didn’t realize a few drops of prime would cause parameter changes.  Nothing is safe I guess 🤣👍🏻

 

A few drops of Prime isn't going to make a huge impact one way of the other, it's just not necessary. On the other hand, if you add to much, it could lower O2 levels in your tank. The baking soda will surely have a negative effect on buffering substrates, though. 

 

After seeing your pH results, it appears your pH probe and sera test are pretty close. I'd trust that over the fluval test, any day.

 

As for the ammonia readings, ammonium (NH4) will also be detected by API test. You are seeing ammonium readings here, not ammonia, which is waaaay less toxic, especially at those levels. Plants and biofilter can convert those levels easily enough. It already is, according to your nitrate test.

 

 

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1 minute ago, madcrafted said:

 

A few drops of Prime isn't going to make a huge impact one way of the other, it's just not necessary. On the other hand, if you add to much, it could lower O2 levels in your tank. The baking soda will surely have a negative effect on buffering substrates, though. 

 

After seeing your pH results, it appears your pH probe and sera test are pretty close. I'd trust that over the fluval test, any day.

 

As for the ammonia readings, ammonium (NH4) will also be detected by API test. You are seeing ammonium readings here, not ammonia, which is waaaay less toxic, especially at those levels. Plants and biofilter can convert those levels easily enough. It already is, according to your nitrate test.

 

 

 

 

Ok great thanks!  I think I’m finally going to acclimate the shrimp right now.  I still do worry the pH will just randomly drop again unexpectedly... because it did it before but it shouldn’t now.  I wouldn’t even know what to do to save my TB shrimp if it decided to do that.  They would all die.  

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I doubt a half a point difference within 24 hours is going to cause any issues. I dumped some peat pellets in a HOB filter once when I was having issues with some fluval soil not keeping my pH below 6.7. The pH dropped down to 4.3 within an hour or so. Needless to say, I removed the peat after that but everyone survived and went on to breed after I swapped substrate.These were german pintos, so they were bred off TB shrimp. I've kept BKK and RKK in a high tech tank for a few months but they never did breed. So they can survive a pH swing , it just isn't ideal, especially when breeding. Not sure if that makes you feel any better but it proves that shrimp can handle pH swings when everything else in order.

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14 minutes ago, madcrafted said:

I doubt a half a point difference within 24 hours is going to cause any issues. I dumped some peat pellets in a HOB filter once when I was having issues with some fluval soil not keeping my pH below 6.7. The pH dropped down to 4.3 within an hour or so. Needless to say, I removed the peat after that but everyone survived and went on to breed after I swapped substrate.These were german pintos, so they were bred off TB shrimp. I've kept BKK and RKK in a high tech tank for a few months but they never did breed. So they can survive a pH swing , it just isn't ideal, especially when breeding. Not sure if that makes you feel any better but it proves that shrimp can handle pH swings when everything else in order.

 

 

WOW that seriously makes me feel a hell of a LOT better. Thanks!   I’ve just read so many warnings about how difficult TBs are and how sensitive they are and it’s scared me into some overreacting.  I feel more confident now.  I started the shrimp on a slow drip. I REALLY appreciate all the time you (madcrafted) spent replying to my post and helping me out.  I would still be totally confused still right now without your insights/help. 🤣 💪🏻 Thanks!!!!

 

 I’ll update the thread with photos of the shrimp happy in their new tank probably tomorrow.  I have 5 extreme blue bolts and 6 BKK shrimp coming tomorrow and Monday to combine with the shadow pandas in the same tank.  I’m definitely going to have to upgrade their tank this next year if they do well.  

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when acclimating the shrimp I realize it’s important to match temp, gh, kh and TDS but what about pH?  I can’t aeem to get the pH to match the new tank at all.  The shrimp are in 5.7 and the tank is 5.2.  That seems too big of a difference to move the shrimp over.  I acclimated the shrimp to the new tank water a long time today but pH is the only water parameter value that’s not matching up.  

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I don't bother with pH readings during acclimation and rarely drip any longer than 4-5 hours and that's only if the difference is drastic, GH-wise. I've even received bee shrimp that were in damn near neo parameters and still only dripped them a few hours. I feel like the longer they are dripping, the longer they are being stressed. Once I've doubled the water volume of bag water with my tank's water, I increase drip rate from about a drop a second to 2 drops a second. I like to use marina HOB breeder boxes for acclimating, but the method is the same when using bowls/buckets. By the time the breeder box gets ready to overflow into my tank, I check water. If it's close, I'll net them into tank. If it's still a degree off GH-wise or if temp is more than a couple degrees off, I'll scoop water out of breeder box and let it continue to drip until they match closer. Rarely is this the case. Usually by the time you add 4-5 times the volume of starting water (bag) with your tank water, it's pretty close.

 

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One other thing to note is that's it's better to add shrimp to water that is slightly less minerals (GH) than adding them to richer mineral tanks. This causes less issues with the molting process due to the osmotic changes that occur when the shell is flooded with salts. There's a whole scientific explanation to this but I'm not smart enough to break it down in detail. lol

 

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1 hour ago, madcrafted said:

One other thing to note is that's it's better to add shrimp to water that is slightly less minerals (GH) than adding them to richer mineral tanks. This causes less issues with the molting process due to the osmotic changes that occur when the shell is flooded with salts. There's a whole scientific explanation to this but I'm not smart enough to break it down in detail. lol

 

 

 

I have been wanting to get one of those hang on marina breeder boxes.  There is the kind that has a small mini pump like an hob and the. The regular airline kind from what I’ve seen.  For drip acclimating obviously the non-pump kind.  The container the shrimp are being acclimated in is actually a glass Marina Cubis betta tank.  It’s just what I had sitting around honestly.  Yah when I wrote my reply last night I think the shrimp had only been dropped for maybe 2 x the starting water volume.  I had the drip going WAY too slow yesterday.  I wish I had known about the “better to acclimate to lower gh/tds” before yesterday. Next time 👍🏻.  The shrimp were at TDS 133 and the tank is 138 so hopefully that’s not a bad difference. GH matches ok.  The rest of my shrimp come today.

 

I was reading more last night about matching gh and osmotic Shock.  It is stuff I just haven’t read up enough about.  Good reading material.

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Here’s my acclimation setup. Just throwing whatever I have together.   Obviously the tank water level gets low during acclimation since the tank isn’t that big.  After the shrimp go in I will have to match the water and drip it back in to fill it up.  The red root floaters are doing great in here and helping out a ton.   I think In shrimp tanks smaller than 10 gallons, floaters are almost critical to me keeping my water stable. I like the look of my tanks without the floaters but it feels a lot safer when they are there soaking up anything bad.    

5E2A84EB-A245-4528-91B7-0E7861B460D5.png

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Hello,

I have had this Problem in the past myself. However; with GlasGarten environmental soil.  Provided is a link to my discussion Forum on TPT.  https://www.plantedtank.net/forums/88-shrimp-other-invertebrates/1197882-b4-i-add-twb-i-have-ph.html

There is not much Information on it. It might help though.

In regards to the GlasGarten bacter AE. I would strongly recommend that whatever doseage you are using to reduce it to 1/4 of current amount. 

Purigen should not have any Problem with the water Quality in fact it controls ammonia, nitrites and nitrates by removing nitrogenous organic waste that would otherwise release these harmful compounds. I actually over use it on my main Aquarium. 250ml for 60liters.

I would also like to Mention that at this current time. I rebuilt my main Aquarium just 12 days ago. Picture posted is an old Picture of the Aquarium overgrown. The second Picture is new Setup and current pH. other Parameters NH4, NO2&3 still have readings. No Shrimp deaths yet. with 40+ in the Aquarium along with fish.

 

 

DSC_0541.JPG.65d50acb5f139362d174911ba73694ed.JPG

New setup.jpg

pH.jpg

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27 minutes ago, JonRon said:

Hello,

I have had this Problem in the past myself. However; with GlasGarten environmental soil.  Provided is a link to my discussion Forum on TPT.  https://www.plantedtank.net/forums/88-shrimp-other-invertebrates/1197882-b4-i-add-twb-i-have-ph.html

There is not much Information on it. It might help though.

In regards to the GlasGarten bacter AE. I would strongly recommend that whatever doseage you are using to reduce it to 1/4 of current amount. 

Purigen should not have any Problem with the water Quality in fact it controls ammonia, nitrites and nitrates by removing nitrogenous organic waste that would otherwise release these harmful compounds. I actually over use it on my main Aquarium. 250ml for 60liters.

I would also like to Mention that at this current time. I rebuilt my main Aquarium just 12 days ago. Picture posted is an old Picture of the Aquarium overgrown. The second Picture is new Setup and current pH. other Parameters NH4, NO2&3 still have readings. No Shrimp deaths yet. with 40+ in the Aquarium along with fish.

 

 

DSC_0541.JPG.65d50acb5f139362d174911ba73694ed.JPG

New setup.jpg

pH.jpg

 Beautiful tank you got there. I love the creative use of moss and the rotala indica background.

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47 minutes ago, aqua_che_scapes said:

 

 

I have been wanting to get one of those hang on marina breeder boxes.  There is the kind that has a small mini pump like an hob and the. The regular airline kind from what I’ve seen.  For drip acclimating obviously the non-pump kind.  The container the shrimp are being acclimated in is actually a glass Marina Cubis betta tank.  It’s just what I had sitting around honestly.  Yah when I wrote my reply last night I think the shrimp had only been dropped for maybe 2 x the starting water volume.  I had the drip going WAY too slow yesterday.  I wish I had known about the “better to acclimate to lower gh/tds” before yesterday. Next time 👍🏻.  The shrimp were at TDS 133 and the tank is 138 so hopefully that’s not a bad difference. GH matches ok.  The rest of my shrimp come today.

 

I was reading more last night about matching gh and osmotic Shock.  It is stuff I just haven’t read up enough about.  Good reading material.

 

Yeah, that's not a big difference. You should be fine.

 

41 minutes ago, aqua_che_scapes said:

Here’s my acclimation setup. Just throwing whatever I have together.   Obviously the tank water level gets low during acclimation since the tank isn’t that big.  After the shrimp go in I will have to match the water and drip it back in to fill it up.  The red root floaters are doing great in here and helping out a ton.   I think In shrimp tanks smaller than 10 gallons, floaters are almost critical to me keeping my water stable. I like the look of my tanks without the floaters but it feels a lot safer when they are there soaking up anything bad.    

5E2A84EB-A245-4528-91B7-0E7861B460D5.png

 

Funny, I've never needed floaters in my tanks and I actually have to dose KNO3 the first few months until bioload increases. My tanks are all nano sized 10 gallons or less. I feed very sparingly and prefer to use magic powder every other day with feedings, so they could contribute to my low levels. Shrimp are always grazing, so they appear to be doing well. I just set up a few more tanks not long ago and I'm still using KNO3. Hopefully these tanks will start booming in the spring and I can ease off nutrient dosing.

 

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Here are the 4 that I just set up back in sept. Nerites devoured that dust algae on the walls... along with most of that brown filamentous algae in the mosses. Plants are just starting to perk up. Nitrates were 2-3 ppm the other day. I have to say though, shrimp seem very happy in sl-aqua soil.  My water temps are 62-65° these days, so not much happening as far as breeding but I feel like they will take off this spring.

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sl_cycling_26days.JPG

galaxy_skrimps.jpg

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WOW nice tanks everyone!  I wish I had that many tanks 😭🤣  I do have three other nano aquascape tanks, 2 of which are co2 injected with micro Rasboras and amanos only.  But the two smal shrimp ones are Just low tech shrimp scapes for me to learn how to keep different shrimps for the first time.  I’ve only had amanos and neos and ghost shrimp before last summer.  So I’ve spent 6 months or so trying to learn and start with caridinas.  The TB tank is simple and I don’t have to worry about it so much except caring for the shrimp and also a grow out space for some bucephalandra and rare mosses.   I’ve been very planted tank focused in the hobby but I want to slowly shift over to low tech and caridina shrimps now.  

 

 

 

 

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JonRon.  Thanks for the insights.  Love your tanks wow!  So when I dose bacter ae I literally scoop out about a small fingernail clipping size with the scoop spoon,  mix with tank water in a test tube with a lid and I use that amount in both my shrimp tanks.  So it’s pretty minimal.  I may even be underdosing it.  

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I just finished netting my shadow pandas into their new tank.  I’m currently dripping water back into the tank to fill it back up so I can’t take a full tank shot yet.  So far the shrimp are exploring the tank but just walking around,  no swimming.  No signs of immediate stress.  The 5 extreme blue bolts I ordered to put with these shadow pandas was suppose to arrive today and the tracking is showing it’s still in some other state... I picked a bad time of year to order shrimp...

 

 

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Only rising issue with this shrimp tank is I somehow got hair algae in it.  And it’s been slowly attaching itself to my fissidens moss pads and buce plants.  I’ve significantlg lowered the lights and the floating plants should help remove any of the algae’s food source hopefully it’ll be weakened.  I haven’t wanted to be bothered with the algae too much since I just want to leave the tank alone and focus on the shrimp.  But it might get I slightly.  

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9 minutes ago, aqua_che_scapes said:

Only rising issue with this shrimp tank is I somehow got hair algae in it.  And it’s been slowly attaching itself to my fissidens moss pads and buce plants.  I’ve significantlg lowered the lights and the floating plants should help remove any of the algae’s food source hopefully it’ll be weakened.  I haven’t wanted to be bothered with the algae too much since I just want to leave the tank alone and focus on the shrimp.  But it might get I slightly.  

 

 

Fissidens always the first to show algaes. It's truly a magnet for the stuff. lol I employ the use of nerites and whatever other hitchikers I may get. Right now there's a huge explosion of bladder snails in my tanks but they are keeping the moss clean for me. Reducing light helps a lot with fluffy and filamentous algae. I have all mine wired to dimmers. 

 

So, what are these rare mosses you speak of? I like rare mosses too. lol

 

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21 minutes ago, madcrafted said:

 

 

Fissidens always the first to show algaes. It's truly a magnet for the stuff. lol I employ the use of nerites and whatever other hitchikers I may get. Right now there's a huge explosion of bladder snails in my tanks but they are keeping the moss clean for me. Reducing light helps a lot with fluffy and filamentous algae. I have all mine wired to dimmers. 

 

So, what are these rare mosses you speak of? I like rare mosses too. lol

 

 

Uh they aren’t that rare I guess.  I have mini pellia,  fissidens fontanus, fissidens nobilis and real fissidens mini.  My other tanks have a lot of Pilo moss.  I love that moss.  I have several buce from Han aquatics that are cool,  like buce SO64 and Metallic black and some super mini varieties.  I’ve had atleast 5 or 6 types of buce plants melt away on me since July too which totally sucks.  

 

Before I switched my shrimp tank to SL Aqua I had major problems trying to cycle it as an aquascape not a shrimp tank with aweful spiderwood and reused Amazonia.  I spent months trying to cycle it and fix it and tore it down.  Started over in October basically.  pH was constantly dropping below 4.5, the spiderwood was clogging the filter with black fungus gunk I had NEVER seen before in a tank and the tank had the worst case of month or two long cloudy water blooms that stunk like hell.  Nothing I did was solving it.  Decided to go with a simple shrimp tank setup and dump everything out and start over using only reputable shrimp brand products etc.  It was the worst tank start up I’ve ever had. Let’s just say I am never re using soil,  OR ever using spiderwood ever again. Not a fan.  

 

Yah I never buy tank lights that don’t come with a dimmer switch.  I use mostly Chihiros RGBs that has a dimmer remote control and it’s on a WiFi app iPhone controller so I can schedule the photoperiod and turn it on and off with my phone.  All 4 of my tanks are like that.  Makes things a lot easier and accessible and customizable.  I also have two USA Satellite planted pro plus LEDs on my two aquascape fish tanks.  Nice. 

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31 minutes ago, aqua_che_scapes said:

JonRon.  Thanks for the insights.  Love your tanks wow!  So when I dose bacter ae I literally scoop out about a small fingernail clipping size with the scoop spoon,  mix with tank water in a test tube with a lid and I use that amount in both my shrimp tanks.  So it’s pretty minimal.  I may even be underdosing it.  

I have heard through the grape vine here in Germany that GlasGarten had been working on a better formula for the Bacter AE. However; I believe my sources to not 100% credible. If so, that will be good for shrimp keepers. I would strongly suggest that you purchase oxidations units for your aquarium while doseing Bacter AE since it reduces the amount of oxygen in the aquarium (the bacteria used in AE consumes oxygen). In reply to your dosage the fingernail clipping size is around the amount I would suggest. Maybe reduce the feeding schedule for the AE to once a week. This could also be why you are getting the algae problem also. I had a very bad episode with hair algae as well. I stopped using AE, and injected Flourish Excel as prescribed on the bottle. Removed as much algae as I could by hand. A few weeks to a month later it was gone.

I hope this information finds you well.

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I wouldn’t mind putting a snail in this shrimp tank for the algae but the pH 5.2 is too low for them I thought.  The acidic water will kill them.  Especially nerites. I like horned nerites.  I got some last year but they all died cause the dewormer I used in my tank 6 months prior was Apparentally still inside the tank and they died.  

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1 minute ago, aqua_che_scapes said:

I wouldn’t mind putting a snail in this shrimp tank for the algae but the pH 5.2 is too low for them I thought.  The acidic water will kill them.  Especially nerites. I like horned nerites.  I got some last year but they all died cause the dewormer I used in my tank 6 months prior was Apparentally still inside the tank and they died.  

https://www.garnelenhaus.com/garnelenhaus/dusky-nerite-anthracite

 

This is what I have for my Aquariums. I love These Things!!

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1 minute ago, JonRon said:

I have heard through the grape vine here in Germany that GlasGarten had been working on a better formula for the Bacter AE. However; I believe my sources to not 100% credible. If so, that will be good for shrimp keepers. I would strongly suggest that you purchase oxidations units for your aquarium while doseing Bacter AE since it reduces the amount of oxygen in the aquarium (the bacteria used in AE consumes oxygen). In reply to your dosage the fingernail clipping size is around the amount I would suggest. Maybe reduce the feeding schedule for the AE to once a week. This could also be why you are getting the algae problem also. I had a very bad episode with hair algae as well. I stopped using AE, and injected Flourish Excel as prescribed on the bottle. Removed as much algae as I could by hand. A few weeks to a month later it was gone.

I hope this information finds you well.

 

 

Thats interesting.  Cool.  

 

Yes i use a sochting oxydator and I only dose the Bacter ae once a week or on water change day.  I think the algae just got cross contaminated from my other shrimp tank that had it.  I just have been removing it manually with a tooth brush.    Im thinking about maybe removing the affected moss pads and soaking them in peroxide/RO water, rinsing with tank water and putting it back in but not sure that’s the best route.  I’d rather put a snail in.  

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11 minutes ago, JonRon said:

https://www.garnelenhaus.com/garnelenhaus/dusky-nerite-anthracite

 

This is what I have for my Aquariums. I love These Things!!

 

 

Thise are super cool!  But don’t snails die and their shells get eaten away by acidic water when the pH is below 6? 

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