Some of you may recall I had a little incident in the beginning of October which resulted in a shattered shoulder and 5 broken ribs. This made water changes impossible till January and I have only managed minimal changes until recently. My daughter helped with the big tank but I have done no other maintenance since then other than rinse the filter sponges in tap water occasionally.
All except the little flex (15G). That only had one microdevario kubotai, a few CPD and a load of RCS. So it pretty much just got topped up when I could hear it and a very small pinch of food a couple of times a week. The fish were in there to live out their lives and I resigned to losing the shrimp - I started the group with 7 around 6 years ago. The tank was extremely overgrown and covered in duckweed; so quite dark and loads of biofilm (no algae though) made it difficult to see anything - but I did occasionally catch sight of the fish - but no shrimp. Fair to say there were loads of hiding spaces . Its hard to get motivated by a tank with 3 nano fish but this week I finally managed and did a 50% water change, cleared the overgrowth, wiped the glass and moved the fish into another tank.
Well well well, there are over a hundred shrimp in there of all sizes, some berried and some saddled!!! I have cancelled my plans to replace the sand because after 6 years of being undisturbed that will almost certainly kill the shrimp. I have replanted loads of cuttings and the tank actually looks half decent - not good enough for pics yet
. The anubias look really good after being in the shade for so long. This is the same colony that survived shrimpageddon in the autumn of 2019. Some contaminant was introduced to the tank and I thought all my shrimp had died. I did 2 90% water changes and let the tank stand for a couple of months. I planned to buy more shrimp but wanted to be sure whatever killed them was gone. Before I bought any more I started seeing shrimp and the tank was soon re-populated. I will probably keep this as a shrimp only tank.
I'm not suggesting that this is a good way to treat your shrimp - but the next time someone asks if neos are hardy ...
All except the little flex (15G). That only had one microdevario kubotai, a few CPD and a load of RCS. So it pretty much just got topped up when I could hear it and a very small pinch of food a couple of times a week. The fish were in there to live out their lives and I resigned to losing the shrimp - I started the group with 7 around 6 years ago. The tank was extremely overgrown and covered in duckweed; so quite dark and loads of biofilm (no algae though) made it difficult to see anything - but I did occasionally catch sight of the fish - but no shrimp. Fair to say there were loads of hiding spaces . Its hard to get motivated by a tank with 3 nano fish but this week I finally managed and did a 50% water change, cleared the overgrowth, wiped the glass and moved the fish into another tank.
Well well well, there are over a hundred shrimp in there of all sizes, some berried and some saddled!!! I have cancelled my plans to replace the sand because after 6 years of being undisturbed that will almost certainly kill the shrimp. I have replanted loads of cuttings and the tank actually looks half decent - not good enough for pics yet
. The anubias look really good after being in the shade for so long. This is the same colony that survived shrimpageddon in the autumn of 2019. Some contaminant was introduced to the tank and I thought all my shrimp had died. I did 2 90% water changes and let the tank stand for a couple of months. I planned to buy more shrimp but wanted to be sure whatever killed them was gone. Before I bought any more I started seeing shrimp and the tank was soon re-populated. I will probably keep this as a shrimp only tank.I'm not suggesting that this is a good way to treat your shrimp - but the next time someone asks if neos are hardy ...
