New shrimp and crab tank.

[sharkweek1782 1]

Some snails and seed shrimps hitchhiked in. Fine with me. They can take care of detritus and dead leaves. It's not like I'm feeding anything in the tank so they shouldn't get out of control.

 

[sharkweek1782 1]

I don't know what happened with this pygmy chain sword

The first runner has appeared.

View attachment 371206

I don't know what happened with this pygmy chain sword. The one sent out runners. And then it stopped. This is pretty much as far as it went. And none of the other pygmy chain swords sent out runners at all. They've been there since the end of June.
I'm thinking of pulling all of these and just starting over with a new batch.

 

[WhistlingBadger61 16]

In my experience, they do nothing and nothing and nothing and TAKE OVER THE WORLD!

You're still in the nothing nothing nothing phase. Wait for it...

 

[sharkweek1782 1]

I'm giving up on the pygmy chain swords. I have some dwarf sag on order. Everything else is growing well. Overgrowing, which is the look I like.
I screwed around too much on cycling the filter in another tank and I'm rededicating myself to that.

 

[WhistlingBadger61 16]

I'm giving up on the pygmy chain swords. I have some dwarf sag on order. Everything else is growing well. Overgrowing, which is the look I like.
I screwed around too much on cycling the filter in another tank and I'm rededicating myself to that.

So they never took off on you! Sorry to give you all the false hope. Different plants work well in different tanks. Dwarf sag can be great. Hope it works for you.

 

[sharkweek1782 1]

So they never took off on you! Sorry to give you all the false hope. Different plants work well in different tanks. Dwarf sag can be great. Hope it works for you.

Don't worry about it. It happens. You related your experience, which was a good one. That's the interesting thing about the hobby. No two tanks can possibly be alike and what works for one might not work for another.

 

[sharkweek1782 1]

Been cycling a sponge filter in another tank. It clears the ammonia from 2 ppm to 0 in 24 hours. But it's not clearing the nitrites yet.
Once that happens, I'll probably just get regular cherry shrimp. I was going to get the bloody mary version. But I'll be just as happy with regular cherries and will pay much less.

 

[sharkweek1782 1]

Been a while since I posted this. So here is the tank now.

The dwarf sag I added is starting to spread. I added some marsilea hirsuta a couple of weeks ago. That will need some time.
The rest of the plants, I let go full ham. I like the wild look. It's ready for some shrimp.
There's some green hair algae in there but I'm not sweating it. I just pull it out and put it in my other tank for the amano shrimp to eat. They love it.

 

[sharkweek1782 1]

Drip acclimation.

 

[sharkweek1782 1]

This went badly. Out of the 11 shrimp I got (they threw in an extra); one died in the bucket, one died while transfering to the tank and 4 more died later. That's just confirmed deaths. I've only seen two of them active at any time since then.
Now I have to figure out if it was the tank, a problem in the acclimation process or just bad stock.

 

[SammyTargo]

Did you check the water specs and quality? Shrimps can easily be susceptible to stress / death if they don't have the right conditions.

 

[WhistlingBadger61 16]

Sorry for your losses. You aren't alone. Several of us on here have mentioned having bad luck with drip acclimation over the years. It has something to do with the chemistry of ammonia; it is less toxic in a high-CO2/lower pH environment (which tends to develop in shipping bags) but becomes more toxic when exposed to fresh, oxygenated tank water and the pH comes up a little bit. Your losses fit the pattern.

A lot of us have moved away from drip acclimation toward "drop and plop." Float the bags for 20 minutes or so, then either fish the critters out of the bag with a small net, or pour the water through a net into a bucket and plop them straight into the tank. There is a slight danger of osmotic shock if the hardness levels are drastically different, but that is generally considered less dangerous than the exposure to ammonia in the bag water.

 

[SammyTargo]

A lot of us have moved away from drip acclimation toward "drop and plop." Float the bags for 20 minutes or so, then either fish the critters out of the bag with a small net, or pour the water through a net into a bucket and plop them straight into the tank.

Kind of funny that the method I was initially shunned for when I started the hobby is becoming a more viable option now. I was always told that I shouldn't drop and plop, so I spent all the time to get all the materials for proper drip acclimation, and now it's being proven ineffective in some cases

 

[WhistlingBadger61 16]

Kind of funny that the method I was initially shunned for when I started the hobby is becoming a more viable option now. I was always told that I shouldn't drop and plop, so I spent all the time to get all the materials for proper drip acclimation, and now it's being proven ineffective in some cases

Yeah, ain't that just the way it goes? Our hobby is always growing and progressing and learning. I still cringe to think about the suffering I inflicted on my tanks when I was younger, just from not knowing better. But drip acclimation isn't even that. It's kind of unfair because it makes sense that it would be the right way to do it. Turns out it usually isn't.

 

[SammyTargo]

But drip acclimation isn't even that. It's kind of unfair because it makes sense that it would be the right way to do it. Turns out it usually isn't.

Yes, for me initially even I always recognized it is probably safer and more proper of a method than bag acclimation, or “drop and plop”

However I never had a problem without drip acclimation for my first few years until I got into breeding and it was strongly recommended to me. People shunned on bag acclimation too much, it seriously won’t make a difference and the fish normally is fine after 30-60 minutes of the new environment unless the fish is quite sensitive.