Red Cherry Shrimp and Scarlet Badis

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Whats your cycled tank water ph?

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Leaching wood tends to acidify water a bit. So if you find your pH is on the low side, it may not help to have wood leaching in there. But usually it's not all that big an effect. You can test to be sure. As time passes the amount of leachate decreases anyway. Tannins from wood aren't harmful to fish. In fact, many fish actually enjoy having the tannins and humic acids from wood or leaves in their water.

If you've ever seen or heard the term 'black water', it means water that is so loaded with tannins and humic acids from wood or leaf litter that it looks like coffee or very strongly brewed black tea. A number of fish species, especially from the Amazon area, like this kind of water, which is often fairly acidic as well. That said, most fish are usually fairly adaptable and you don't necessarily have to reproduce the native conditions precisely.

So much wood and leaf litter ends up in the waters where heavy tropical forests exist. Often if you research a species, you'll find out what it's native water conditions are like. Seriously Fish is a site that has that kind of info on many species.
 
My water out of the tap is 7.8ish and in the cycled aquarium it is 6.0. I have drift wood in there now but I was worried it would make the water even more acidic and mess with my bacteria so I added a bag of purigen and that takes care of it. You can easily avoid it by doing more water changes though. If your water is like mine lots of water chanhes will also keep the pH up.

ETA I also love Seriously fish! Its a great resource!
 
Well, now that I know it doesn't really make a difference, I am real happy! When I checked the tank yesterday, I saw something that made me very unhappy. there was something that looked like clearish/white gelatin on the wood. There were air bubbles inside of the gelatin stuff. Can anyone tell me what this stuff is? I haven't added any fish yet, and I won't add any specimens until I get rid of that stuff and get the water a bit clearer. Please tell me what that stuff is.

Nils
 
It happens fairly often with new wood, some sort of fungus usually. Snails eat it, and it's not harmful, but if you don't have snails, you can easily scrub it off. I don't know if shrimp will eat it or not, but fish don't.
 
Okay good, I already washed it off, and if it grows again, the pond snails will get it. Will the Tannis kill shrimp? I would hate to spend $3.00 apiece and then they die. The SB should be fine, I think.
 
Tannins should not bother shrimp either. I have Yellow Neos [ cherry] in a tank that's loaded with leaf litter, which means the water is pretty dark, and it has wood in it too. They don't appear to mind in the least.. and babies have been born and lived in there too.
 
Never have had problems with the tannins and the water, shrimp do just fine.

As for the gel goop on the DW, pond snails will eat it and Mystery snails will too. Pretty fast!
 
Ok guys, this thread is pretty much dead, but I have decided against the RCS. I got an dwarf blue crayfish, and one pea puffer. Thanks for all the help you guys!
 
Crayfish eat fish..

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Yea, for the 2.5 gallon. The puffer is so much bigger than the crayfish, and it is just a blue version of a Mexican Dwarf. The puffer eats snails, and there is so much Java Moss in there I haven't seen the puffer or cray the whole day!
 
Are you sure it's the same species as the Orange Mexican ? I've seen dwarf blue crays for sale, they were really tiny, but they weren't the same species as the Mexican. I'd have to go check to see what species they were. Be nice to see a pic, for sure.

Edit.. I checked with the store I saw the blue crays at. CPO are Cambarellus patzcuarensis, but the blue ones are Cambarellus diminutis.

Same family but not the same species, and not a colour variant of the dwarf Orange. They don't get as big at maturity as CPO's do.
 
Ah, my bad. They were in the same tank, and were about the same size, so I was guessing that they were the same family and genus and species and stuff. He eats regular Hikari sinking sticks, and he is just like the regular little Mexican dwarf crayfish. I will try to post a picture, and he is really cool. It's hard to see that he's actually blue because of the bad light and all the tannins in the water. Btw, I am in North Carolina, and I have a store near me called Upscale Aquatics. They have tons of exotic and rae fish, and you can contact them if you want to.

Nils
 
Oh, I only wish ! But importing fish would be far to costly for me.. never mind the paper work required. Plants are even worse for getting across the border legally.

But enjoy the crays.. they are in the same family, just a different species, so their care should be similar enough. Actually the ones I have seen for sale aren't really all that blue. They might have better colour once established in a home tank, as many fish will improve colours given the right conditions. But most of them were more of a grey colour. Probably be a great project to try to breed a really blue, Blue Cray.
 
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