New shrimp tank!

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Bengals

Aquarium Advice Regular
Joined
Jan 24, 2013
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57
Location
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I finally convinced my wife to let me get a new gently used 20g long tank for our shrimp and tetras. They were both not doing well in our main 29g tank with rainbow fish. I do have some questions though as we finally got a very good handle on the first tank in terms of plants, water clarity...etc. Now we have to start again on the small tank.

Old tank:
29g
Aquaclear 70
Aqueon 55
Finnex Ray 2
Black diamond substrate

New tank:
20g long
Giant sponge filter (was used in the old tank for ~2months)
20g shrimp filter en route
T5HO
Black diamond substrate

Ok so both tanks are cycled (0/0/<50) but my question is that purigen and filter floss helped so much in the old tank to really clean the water. Since I don't have an HOB in the shrimp tank, is there a way to use purigen? Can I leave it in a small sac and hang it from the edge? You can see in the photos that it is kind of murky.

First 3 photos are of the new shrimp tank. Last one is the bigger 29g tank.

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I'm sure somebody out there will know how to better filter my water. :(


I just dislike the cloudiness. Grr.

Thanks in advance!
 
I'm sure somebody out there will know how to better filter my water. :(

I just dislike the cloudiness. Grr.

Thanks in advance!

Are you using air to power the sponge in the 20? If so, then look for a box filter (or any small air powered in-tank filter) at your LFS. Put the sack of purigen in there with floss on top if you wish and wrap the box in pantyhose. The hosiery will keep the shrimplets out of the filter. Yeah, the flow is not as strong as an HOB but it is probably more effective than just a sack of purigen sitting in the tank.
 
I finally convinced my wife to let me get a new gently used 20g long tank for our shrimp and tetras.

Funny, same situation here! But no tetras in the 20...shrimp only for mine. I had a Coralife dual t5 NO in my original tank; bought a Finnex FugeRay for that and moved the Coralife to the new shrimp tank. No shrimp yet. Going through some insane cloudiness in the tank at the moment. Going to start a thread for the new shrimp tank.
 
Funny, same situation here! But no tetras in the 20...shrimp only for mine. I had a Coralife dual t5 NO in my original tank; bought a Finnex FugeRay for that and moved the Coralife to the new shrimp tank. No shrimp yet. Going through some insane cloudiness in the tank at the moment. Going to start a thread for the new shrimp tank.

Too funny. I felt guilty that the tetras were hanging out with the corys in my 29g and would hide in the cave when the rainbow fish started eating. Definitely needed to be moved. I will follow for your thread and will let you know if I come up with an earth shattering revelation for cleaning up the junk. I also figured out it could be from the new substrate we laid down on Friday. I have tons of bb in the filter so I wasn't worried about using new sand.

Are you using air to power the sponge in the 20? If so, then look for a box filter (or any small air powered in-tank filter) at your LFS. Put the sack of purigen in there with floss on top if you wish and wrap the box in pantyhose. The hosiery will keep the shrimplets out of the filter. Yeah, the flow is not as strong as an HOB but it is probably more effective than just a sack of purigen sitting in the tank.

The sponge is powered by an air pump. I can titrate the flow with one of those little valves. My wife also suggested I just put an air stone into the purigen bag but I don't think it'll be powerful enough. My new shrimp filter came today so I will see if that improves it at all.
 
If you decide that the tetras need to go back in the big tank, you might think about some dither fish such as danios (zebra, blue, pearl, just not giant). I have gold tetras that would spend all non-eating periods hiding (from what? Nothing else was in the tank). After the blue danios (6) were introduced, the tetras were put at ease with danios constantly swimming in the open areas and later joined them.

What kind of filter did you get?
 
I found this on drs f&s but it was cheap on eBay.

http://item.mobileweb.ebay.com/viewitem?itemId=200540117522

I'm on the mobile app so hopefully that like will work. It says it can do 20g. We will see.

Yeah it's viewable on the web app. Good price.

The corner box filter I was referring to can be found online at ThatPetPlace.com. Not sure what the shipping cost is so you may want order others supplies while your at it:

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That looks like a very neat idea esp to add purigen to. In any case when I came home tonight the tank was much clearer. I think it's part of the substrate settling. I spent an hr and redid the aquascaping and got rid of that silly coral rock. I have a ton more slate I can add but am awaiting a plant package.

New filter is really nice and quiet and looks a heck of a lot nicer. I may get another to be safe.

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