Small Planted Setup

[Ceez]

You're doing a wonderful job those are some happy shrimp! Loved watching the vids and I was laughing at your surprise to their racing action. Too cool

 

[MaloK]

Water remains nitrogen free, had some kind of mini bloom this week, I added a ball of filter floss on top of the filter and it's all cleared out today, water is back to crystal clear. With a good scraping of the front glass the tank looks pretty good. Shrimps love it when I scrape the glass, I leave the rolls of film in the bottom and they eat it all.

I went to replace the Catappa leave "skeleton" left in the tank, but it was covered with tiny baby shrimps... A chance I looked closely before removing it, left it alone for now.

I'm working on a little home made "shrimp proof" surface film remover. At the moment I use an old Hagen box filter and it's ugly as it gets... But it sure keeps the surface 100% clean. I'm going to use parts from my old Aquaclear and make some kind of air driven powerhead with them.

New babies are coming out everyday and was able to count a dozen more on one anubia leaf yesterday and still at least 3 berried mommy are swimming around.

It's a demographic shrimplosion.

 

[MaloK]

All right, here it is

Part list:
Aquaclear A625 : Extension tube.
Aquaclear A16050 : Intake Stem.
Aquaclear A1216 : Heater bracket & cups.
Aquaclear A1387 : Pre-filter sponge.
Air line tubing.



Looks like a commercial product
Going to try it next filter maintenance.

 

[MattW3344]

All right, here it is

Part list:
Aquaclear A625 : Extension tube.
Aquaclear A16050 : Intake Stem.
Aquaclear A1216 : Heater bracket & cups.
Aquaclear A1387 : Pre-filter sponge.
Air line tubing.

View attachment 340652

Looks like a commercial product
Going to try it next filter maintenance.

I like it! I have a constant surface film in my tanks. I wish I could deal with it without an air-driven filter/surface skimmer. The noise is an issue as the tank is in a bedroom.

 

[MaloK]

I like it! I have a constant surface film in my tanks. I wish I could deal with it without an air-driven filter/surface skimmer. The noise is an issue as the tank is in a bedroom.

Yes, me too, the bubbling sound always draws my attention like something not going well somewhere. But at least I was able to put the air pump far enough not to ear it at all.

After doing it, I found these on Amazon...

Hygger Super Mini Aquarium Filter​

They look like very good little water polishing tool.

You could get something like that and put it on a timer, so it works when you are not in the room.
And shut it down during the night. You could also make it work 5 minutes per hour during day time,
And adjust it to have minimal use to keep the surface clear.

 

[MaloK]

I installed my little Power head Monday. Copiously seeding it with a good squeeze of the intake cover from the Aquaclear. while testing it in a bucket... And finally removed the old Hagen box.

The tank is already walking on the ridge line of equilibrium... While all the filter tempering I did have not influenced ammonia and nitrite that are remaining at 0. Slightly reducing my lightning, turned into nitrates apparition under 2 days. I used the occasion to do a good 50% water change while switching the hardware. And ramped up the light back to where it was, balance plant fertilizer skipped a meal and hope... Nitrate went back and maintained 0 right after.

I should keep in mind "One modification at the time".

Since the little Power head I concocted, is somewhat more violent then the old hagen, (Shrimps are turning 90° when they cross the output) it lifted a lot of my maintenance rounded corners mulm in the water... And effectively blocked the Aquaclear to dripping performance in the process. I was able to do another Filter tempering under 2 days... and Seed the new media with the the already 1 week old new medium sponge that came with the filter That was already spewing clay and ostracods. I replaced the medium sponge with a large mesh pot scrubber that I unraveled and rolled back a little more loose and replaced the bottom media with it and placed my coarse sponge that was on the bottom on the top.

Good news the water cleared out pretty fast... Bad news the filter is already clogging... Removed everything unraveled everything and wrapped it even more loose, removed a part of it... re inserted and next days will tell. For the moment it looks good. the flow seems to remain consistent with all the crap the shrimps are moving around.

On the other fronts the ostracods are preparing another attempt to invade the tank, theres large patch of eggs layed at the moment, and are met with good retaliation, I baited the adults to the thousands and dropped them in my betta tank, I don't know if they will be able to populate the tank but Big sure loves to hunt them.

Hydras are going off the map, If i can find one, it's a limbless stump. I only brushed them off the area that where propice for them, the shrimps did the rest.

Some of my oldest shrimps have past by this week, leaving only 3 shrimps alive and kicking from the original colony. one of them became the alpha female, bullied everyone never molted and never had babies. At the moment there are at least 4 contenders for the position.

But she was berried when I received her and more than five of her offspring's are berried at the moment.
She is awol for 2 weeks now and it makes me sad. I could see she was old and was not to molt again. But there are all these little babies that makes me happy at the same time. I'm getting to the point that the love for the colony should supersede the individual.

But still, "Big O" will be missed. Maybe not by the way she kicked off the males approaching her, but. loll...