No clean shrimp tank

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Beastije

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I bet someone ran some experiments like that but i can't find it. Does anyone have any experience with running a no clean shrimp tank? Maybe not even water change, just adding water to compensate for loss.

I have 40l which has been running for 6 months, the soil (black sand of sorts) is 2 years old or so has a good algae grow, biofilm and detritus from plant leaves.
It has mts so the soil should be well cared for, it has normal bladder snails so they should be able to pick up excess detritus and afaik shrimp eat snail poop so they sort of recycle.
Plant wise it is not so good yet, i have 4 sort of dying/doing marginally good ludwigia (not enough light to support it), java fern, bunch of riccia, large anubias which has new leaves constantly, Cryptocoryne and some limnobium that is dying out and showing the tank does not have enough nutrients to support it.
What if I took out three of the ludwigia and replaced them with egeria, took out the limnobium to not take out the nutrients too fast.
I don't plant to feed the shrimp just yet, and when I noticed the signs of hunger i plan to drop in a biofilm covered leave.
The anubias shedding leaves once in a while should provide material for decomp and sort of fertilize the other plants, adding new water should bring some nutrients too and as the tank houses only shrimp, now even in low numbers, the waste production in theory should not be high.

What do you think? Of course at some point it may either fail with even small ammonia spike which would be deadly or some event will require water change.
 
Not doing water changes is not good for aquariums and plants. your plants need nutrients to grow. No nutrients no growth. YOursnails and shrimp are not producing enough nutrients to feed the plants. Also any nutrients that are in your water are quickly consumed by your plants. Minerals in the water your plants don't need you will build up over time and will eventually kill everything in your taks Water changes are the best way to maintain a stable aquarium.

I do 50% water changes once a week and until recently with shrimp. And I added fertilizer with copper and the shrimp still did well. Your plant growth problems are not caused by inadequate light.

Algae does very well when plants cannot grow. Algae tends to do poorly when plants are growing.
 
Not doing water changes is not good for aquariums and plants. your plants need nutrients to grow. No nutrients no growth. YOursnails and shrimp are not producing enough nutrients to feed the plants. Also any nutrients that are in your water are quickly consumed by your plants. Minerals in the water your plants don't need you will build up over time and will eventually kill everything in your taks Water changes are the best way to maintain a stable aquarium.

I do 50% water changes once a week and until recently with shrimp. And I added fertilizer with copper and the shrimp still did well. Your plant growth problems are not caused by inadequate light.

Algae does very well when plants cannot grow. Algae tends to do poorly when plants are growing.
Oki, thank you, I understand this idea, sure. Please help me understand, where does the rotting plant matter come in, when it comes to nutrients? If a plant is decomposing, doesnt it release the nutrients plant need to grow?
Also exactly WHICH nutrients do the plant need. Nitrites? Nitrates? I think I dont understand this part sufficiently.

In my case the ludwigia is caused by light, since the tank is 35cm high and the ludwigia is under dense cover of riccia and anubias, so basically no light reaches it. It is doing sort of ok in the lighted parts of the tank, but in the shade is not so good. Also leaves are only in the upper parts which is a sign of poor lighting I have read. Posting a picture.
I understand the tank is not planted enough, so I am thinking about replacing the ludwigia with egeria densa, because I have a full 3l jar of it, will fill like half the space there is left.
 

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Algae does very well when plants cannot grow. Algae tends to do poorly when plants are growing.
The thing is, with shrimp, you want the algae. They consume it and no spirulina suplement is better than biofilm and algae. Ofcourse only the soft kind that attaches itself to the rocks and surfaces, as that is the most prefered kind from all the research I have seen
 
Also exactly WHICH nutrients do the plant need. Nitrites? Nitrates? I think I dont understand this part sufficiently.
Aquatic plants always feed off of ammonia which is what the living things like shrimps, snails, and fish produce when they poo or when they die and rot... Then some aquatic plants also need other nutrients. Some like more CO2 then others and some need potassium or iron. There are many other things differwnt plants need. I would research the plants you have to make sure they are getting proper nutrients. And also make sure that whatever nutrients they need wont kill the shrimp in your tank
 
Oki, thank you, I understand this idea, sure. Please help me understand, where does the rotting plant matter come in, when it comes to nutrients? If a plant is decomposing, doesnt it release the nutrients plant need to grow?
Also exactly WHICH nutrients do the plant need. Nitrites? Nitrates? I think I dont understand this part sufficiently.
A rotting plant is a dead plant. Yes it will release nutrients back into the water For the nutrients to be available tplants they must be water soluble. So some nutrients will be immediently available while other such as iron may be insoluble and settle into the substrate and may not convert back to a soluble form fro a long time. How long a nutrient stays insoluble will depend on the chemistry of tIf you exclude litght water and CO2 all plants need Nitrogen, potassium, Calcium , magneisum,, phosphate, sulfur, chlorine, iron, Manganese, boron, zinc, copper, molybdenum, and nickel. Note this list is listed in the amount needed. plants need a lot of nitrogen and potassium, but very little molybdenum and nickel.

all these nutrients must be present for your plants to grow. if just one is missing you eigther get no growth or the plant dies. How much the plant needs is dependent on the size of the plant and how much light and CO2 Algae is a single sell organism and as a result is the smallest plant in the aquarium so when plants can't grow due to insufficient nutrients algae still have more than enough to keep growing. However if plants have all the nutrients they need and grow well algae doesn't do well. No one knows why.

Also note while the exact amount of each nutrient needed can very from plant to plant yhr ratios between nutrients and the order of the list stays about the same.

Looking at your tank photo I see ananubias leaf that has a rippled edg. meaning the bends up and them down and then up again. This is sometimes an indication of insufficient magnesium. Jut to the left of the Anubis is a stem plant with a few healthy looking leaves on top with a few leaves just below that are dying and then you have a long stem with no leaves. This is a indicaiion of a mobil nutrient deficiency. This means the plant is removing nutrients from old leaves and using these nutrients to support new growth. The old leaves with the removed nuterients then dies. Mobil nutrients are nitrogen,, potassium, phosphate, chlorine, and molybdenum. That is as far as I can go looking at thephoto. There are very few nutrient deficiencies that can be diagnosed bylooking at the leaves.
 
The thing is, with shrimp, you want the algae. They consume it and no spirulina suplement is better than biofilm and algae. Ofcourse only the soft kind that attaches itself to the rocks and surfaces, as that is the most prefered kind from all the research I have seen
shrimp will fead off anything, dead plants, algae and biofilm and excess fish food.. Theproblem is it you have a bad algae outbreak you could end up with algae that is too hard for ship and snails to consume.
 
All your plants, shrimps and fish require minerals to stay healthy.

Whenever you change water, you actually replenish the minerals in the water.
You also remove unwanted waste, nutrients that are in excess.
But this also depends on the how much minerals are in your tap water.
For tap water with high GH, the Calcium or Magnesium in the water will be higher.

That's why some manufacturers carry shrimps GH salt(minerals).
These GH salts are useful for people who are using reverse osmosis water with zero mineral.
You can read here to find out more information about the require minerals.


For your plants' nutrients requirements, you can read about the Macro and Micro nutrients:

You can read all the above links for better understanding as there is too much to explain.
 
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Thanks guys, will definitely read it. I used fertilizer in small dose when the tank housed the betta, now with the shrimp i need to read the ingredients carefully before applying. I was thinking about the anubias the left part is really not looking well, it is the most shaded part that loses leaves get more yellow and dies off. I could cut of the whole left part off and leave the healthier part with the new leaves. It will also give it time and space to grow further. This plant is a cut off from my initial plant and overall i have had it for about 12 years now (though maybe not specifically this part, some part of it)
Will include a picture. Will also add the egeria and do another picture.
The java fern leaves browning and shortening i thought was normal for this plant but i guess wrong. Will look into it as well.
Best option is taking out the limnobium, the brown on its leaves is indicator of not enough every nutrient. No need to make it worse.
 

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Ok so i moved the riccia to the middle to stop shading the left part of the anubias for a while before cutting as i can always do that later.
I also remembered a critical part about the ludwigia care- it hates low temps and I have 21 degrees in the tank now since i disconnect the heater
 

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