Nano Update #2: Baby Shrimp do-do-do-do-do-do!

Last week I was surprised to discover something new in my nano tank.

At first, I wasn't sure what I was actually seeing. I thought it might be a tiny worm, you know, a planarian or something that fish-keepers commonly find in tanks that are overpopulated or overfed, or maybe just some bit of detritus that had landed on an anubias coffeefolia leaf. Then I noticed it was moving against the current, and I immediately knew what I was looking at: a baby shrimp (aka shrimplet)!

It was so small that it was very hard to see. I mean, neocaridinia shrimp are small enough, even when fully grown, but these micro-mini-shrimp have got to be the smallest babies I have ever seen... and I've bred bettas before (aka Siamese fighting fish), so I know how small some tiny baby fish  can be (I understand that bettas are among the smallest of baby fish), but these shrimplets are ridiculously small! In fact they are so small that I can't get my old iPhone6 to properly focus on them most of the time, as you can tell from the picture below, where one of the shrimplets is resting on a java fern leaf.




To be honest, I only spotted the first shrimplet by chance, really, but then I started looking around the tank and noticed several other baby shrimp. It's hard to say how many are in there exactly, but I counted at least eight this morning, roughly the same size as each other, and all of them starting to get some color.

I seem to have a habit of setting up environments that encourage fish to breed. I don't know. I chalk it up to experience, really. I've been a fish-keeper most of my life at this point, and I "ain't no spring chicken" if you know what I mean..! Even the filter on this nano tank is 30 years old (and running just fine, which is very impressive), so yeah, I've been in this hobby for a while, I guess.

Speaking of that filter, it's a little noisy, so I should probably replace the impeller - another thing I have learned from past experience - but it still works so well that I have it on the lowest setting possible. I suspect that even at its lowest setting it has probably sucked up a few shrimplets, despite the foam pre-filter over the intake tube, but if that's the case, these guys are the survivors and probably too big to get in any major anymore. They are certainly growing, and judging from their coloration and activity level, they seem to be thriving.

So what do I do now? The answer is simple. Continue with the status quo. In other words, keep doing what I've been doing all this time. In general, if the conditions are right for breeding, they are right for growing the babies out. Therefore, I continue my routine and make small weekly water changes, but I am wise enough to avoid making any major changes while the babies are growing. I only clean the algae that builds up on the front glass, just to be able to see inside better and enjoy my tank. I'm not getting rid of any algae on the rocks and plants, however. I keep it there to provide food for the shrimplets.

Anyway, here is the best close-up I could get of one of the largest shrimplets (probably a female, given her growth and the fact that female neocaridinia shrimp are larger than males. I can't see any details on the shrimplets with this camera, but I already have a new iPhone XR waiting to be activated, so I expect to have much better pictures the next time I post.

Keep those elbows wet!

Nano Update 1: Bloody Mary Shrimp

It's been two months since I set up the nano in my office, and nothing has died yet.

That's always a good sign.

I'm glad I waited all this time to finally add some shrimp. It helped me make sure that I knew what I wanted and could find a good deal on what I wanted. I knew I was going to be out of the office all that time, so it was not a good idea to introduce any live animals to the tank anyway.

Instead, I just dropped in a couple of times during my vacation, just to make partial water changes and top off the tank. The plants suffered a bit when the water level dropped after the first three weeks, but I was surprised to see they all survived with just a 15 watt incandescent bulb over the next several weeks. I even got some algae to deal with! Go figure...

I really have to get some better lighting soon, as can be seen from the leggy growth (the distance from one leaf node to another) on the staurogyne repens in the foreground, but to their credit, they are alive too! They aren't thriving, but they are definitely surviving even without strong lighting, which I expected form the other plants but not really from staurogyne repens. I trimmed the dead anubias leaves when I got back from summer vacation but left a little debris for the shrimp that I knew I would soon be buying.

I received them a couple nights ago and brought them to my office the next morning, acclimated them, and transferred them to the tank using a net (to avoid contamination from their water). All seven shrimp survived the trip and seem to have settled in nicely now, grazing on the plant leaves and the little bits of debris that have collected on the sponge that covers the filter inlet tube.

They looked so nice when I came in this morning and saw the tank, that I felt inspired to make a little video of them as an update. Enjoy the scape, listen to some dope beats, and relax.

Thanks for stopping by!

Peace!

Nano Nano!

A couple months ago, a small octagonal tank mysteriously appeared in my garage, and I decided to do something about it.

Having kept fish, plants, and all manner of tanks for many years now, people tend to offer me their tanks and equipment after a while when they've lost interest in fish-keeping. Most of the time I get what I consider to be beginner-type equipment such as colored gravel and plastic plants. I don't want to act snobbish about it because most of us start out with that type of stuff, but sometimes I get lucky and get something cool like an industrial chiller that a colleague gave me one time. I haven't used it yet, but that's something I consider to be pretty cool (no pun intended) if I ever intend to keep some sort of cold-water species. No need for it now, but you never know..!

In any case, I was immediately attracted to the little 5-gallon as a potential hospital tank (this helps keep medication costs down if fish ever get sick) but quickly realized that I could throw some of my cuttings in there and create a pretty nice little nano tank for my office at work. I had a spare HOB power filter (a 30-year old little workhorse, once known as an Aquaclear Mini but now they are called the Aquaclear 20) set up and running anyway, so ultimately, that's what I decided to do. I washed it out and gave it a new home in my office at work.

For hardscape, I went with some nice grey seiryu stone to match the grey walls and furniture of my office. I figured it would blend into the environment and help the plants pop more. I found a vendor on Amazon with some good prices (and good reviews), so I took a chance buying 17 lbs of the stuff for $30. It seemed like a better deal than my LFS, and the reviews were pretty impressive. Man, was I glad I went for it! The rocks were beautiful! I thought I was going to have a couple of pieces left over, but it turned out to be just the right amount and in the perfect sizes for this tank.

Here is a picture of the tank when I first put in the rocks, just to get an idea of the layout.

This was the final hardscape layout I settled on. Let me know what you think!

A couple days later, I brought some cuttings from the plants in my 90-gallon. I didn't disinfect them, so I know that this is going to introduce some snails and probably some pathogens too, but I don't plan to stock this with anything for a few months, so there will not be much for them to survive upon and they will probably die off naturally. I'm not too worried.

I later ordered a small bag of extremely expensive substrate. I've never really used any fancy aquascaping substrate. I went with pea gravel from the gardening section of Walmart when I set up  my 90-gallon many years ago, and I'm pretty happy with it, but I wanted to try something new, so I went with this cool, aquasoil. The 1-liter bag set me back about $10, which was remarkable for such a small amount, but it was just about enough.

Here is the final result! I placed my travel mug next to it to give you some sense of the scale. I think it looks pretty good.

This next picture is what it looks like when I first step into my office in the morning. I think it's pretty cool. My students and colleagues seem to like it too. What do you think?

I know I want to put some Cherry Shrimp or Bloody Mary Shrimp in there, maybe some other type that won't interbreed with them. I also want snails. I'm a little more apprehensive about fish though. It's not a very big tank, so not many fish would be happy there, despite the more than adequate filtration and circulation, plus it's not very warm. That limits me somewhat. I love bettas, and this would make a nice betta tank, but I want to keep shrimp, so a betta is out of the question. I've never kept gouramis but a dwarf gourami might work but I'm thinking even smaller, like maybe endlers or some other small livebearer. I already have 43 neons at home, so no neons. I want to try something different.

Let me know what you think in the comments below! Till next time! Keep those elbows wet!

90-Gallon Update & Ideas for 2019

90-gallon Update

My last post was way back in May of last year, and a lot (of really good stuff) has gone on in my personal life since then, including my tremendous wedding and an incredible two weeks in Italy and France. It has truly been a roller coaster of the most incredible kind this past year or so.

Needless to say, however, my tank has borne the brunt of my negligence. I had some pictures of the tank back in mid- July that I never posted, so I think I'll start with those pictures first, a sort of then and now...

First, lets look at the tank on July 14 last year. I picked three pictures that show slightly different aspects of the tank, so I will start with the one that focuses a little more on the lush carpet of staurogyne repens along the foreground.

If you're wondering what the little blue box is, by the way, it is an enclosure where I deposit the babies as I find them, to keep them from getting sucked into the filtration system.

It took a lot of work to get that lush carpet of staurogyne repens you see here, and there is more to the tale of this staurogyne repens that I will detail in a future post. If you look carefully, however, you can see that I was already letting things go. There are some strands of algae on top of the vals.

That repens looks lush here too, but it badly needed a little trim too, and boy did it get one this past weekend! I only hope it's not too late. I'm pretty confident they'll be fine. We'll see.

I really love the broad, bright green leaves of these Amazon swords. They grew even more lush soon after this picture was taken. Believe it or not, I have kept this particular line for about twelve years, and I have brought them bac from the brink on more than one occasion.

Speaking of bringing them back form the brink, about 20 baby ancistrus (aka bristlenose plecos) got out of the blue plastic and mesh breeding container you see in the top right side. Somehow, the separator fell to the bottom of the tank instead of staying at the top. The suction cups went bad or something, but either way, the baby ancistrus all escaped into the tank, and when I neglected to feed them - I decided to let them go hungry for a while because their waste was throwing off the water chemistry too much - they started in on the Amazon swords. You'll see some of that damage later.

Ancistrus  have another downside: They are known to poop - a lot - and having over 25 or so in a 90-gallon tank is never going to be a good idea unless you are making regular large water changes. I'm paying the price for my negligence though, believe me!

7 months later...

I stopped taking care of the tank as much, and I have paid the price. I should have taken pictures before I started cleaning up, but I thought of it too late. Now let's take a look at what's left after cleaning things up a little, following seven months of neglect.

Looking at it now, it doesn't seem so bad. I mostly see just a lot of yellowing of the leaves, which was to be expected. After all, I hadn't added any liquid fertilizer in about six months and had only topped off the tank from time to time instead of doing regular water changes. That's also what saved it from being drowned in algae. I had also trimmed much of the damaged parts of the jungle vals, which were looking rather shredded before, so the picture really does not do the damage justice. However, the following picture shows a closeup some of the damaged leaves of the sword plants. 

Here's one of the (cute!)little bastards below, probably taking a break from munching on my swords.

Though you can't see it well in these pictures, I trimmed most of the staurogyne repens really hard, as evidenced  by the cropped bare stems int he pictures below. The staurogyne in the picture above, however, was spared for a week. I just got tired of trimming and replanting.

I'm working with 48 linear inches of staurogyne for a carpet. It can take hours to trim and replant.

The bottom of their stems had gone bare from being drowned out by the leaves above them, but now that they are exposed to light, and I'm hitting the tank with ferts again, I fully expect them to bounce right back.

Believe it or not, I've seen worse, like when a strange disease (a least it seemed like a disease) melted the repens to the point that I thought I was going to to lose it all, only to see it come back in less than a month.

Here are a couple pictures of the tank a week later (March 2). You can see that the plants are starting to recover and their colors are getting stronger.

Anyway, it's time to post this long-awaited and highly unanticipated update... finally! 😃 We'll take a look at the fish room next time. I promise. I've got some updates on that too, coming soon...

Keep those elbows wet!