planted shrimp tank [updated 5-22-07]

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I'm now using 2 lights on my 10 gallon to attempt to get a bit of algae for the snails (right now I'm feeding flake food and algae wafers :) ). I have the stock NO hood from my 20gallon high (17w NO), which hangs over a bit on either side of the tank so I don't know how much is actually getting into the tank (this runs from 6am until 10pm). Then I have a 13w CF shop light (5" bulb or so) hanging off the right side of the tank (this runs from 3:30pm until 10pm). I'd love to leave the shop light on all day but don't trust it without someone watching it....

Those combined should get me close to low-medium light I would hope. I dosed a little bit of Excel yesterday and added some light ferts (little bit of potassium and some more calcium). I figure the algae wafers and flake food will more than make up the phosphate and trace/iron requirements.

What I really want to do is once I get a large population of snails, remove the floating plants. They are somewhat of a mess as some leaves are dying and clogging the small Whisper 10gallon-rated filter. I want that "sea of snails" look you have. :)
 
lol.....sea of snails. That pic of the snails was of a small area when they were eating...the whole tank doesn't look like that.
Hey how long you leaving your lights on per day?
 
GlitcH,

Just grabbed these when I got home. Using a Canon A620 digital camera with manual focus and a flash at 1/20th of a second (can't get my tripod up to the glass so it requires a VERY steady hand). Creates a neat effect when the rest of the room is dark. It's crazy to see the snail "bend" the surface tension of the water so much. Must be due in part to the slime...

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Oh and my last post before your's had my light stats. Hood light on from 6am until 10pm, shop CF light from ~3:30pm until 10pm. I don't have any timers on these lights (my powerstrip is full from my main tank and the heater/filter from this tank), so I just do it by hand for now).
 
Sweet tank, better than my DIY CO2 tanks but that isn't saying much. I hope my tank looks like that now that i have removed the CO2 and will be dosing a lot less. Still about the same light but will hopefully come around like yours. I know, keep dreaming but if someone else can do it I should be able to figure it out sooner or later.
 
fish_4_all said:
Sweet tank, better than my DIY CO2 tanks but that isn't saying much. I hope my tank looks like that now that i have removed the CO2 and will be dosing a lot less. Still about the same light but will hopefully come around like yours. I know, keep dreaming but if someone else can do it I should be able to figure it out sooner or later.

That sounds like a recipe for disaster. I would really think about lowering your light level if you just cut out the CO2 and lowered the fert dosing! 8O
 
fish_4_all said:
Sweet tank, better than my DIY CO2 tanks but that isn't saying much. I hope my tank looks like that now that i have removed the CO2 and will be dosing a lot less. Still about the same light but will hopefully come around like yours. I know, keep dreaming but if someone else can do it I should be able to figure it out sooner or later.

Got any snails in your tank Fish4all?
I think the reason I'm not overrun with all types of algae is cuz of the snails. But I'm very interested in how you do.......keep us updated.

I got some better pics today.
FEEDING TIME
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The shrimplets love to graze on the center rock.
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Come and get it!!
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Any updates Glitch?

Now I want to try my hand at the "high light don't give a crap about ferts/co2" method. Just my style of tank!
 
No pics to show ya [lent out my camera] but everything is still growing like mad.

lol I like what you've named my method.

You gonna use snails?

I'll update soon after Thanksgiving.
 
It will be pretty hard to avoid snails. They seem to just multiply in my tanks even if I watch my feeding very carefully. Right now I have a handful of MTS, lots of Ramshorns, and a decent amount of pond snails.

I find it interesting that you actually welcome pond snails. Everything I've read says pond snails are on the level with the devil himself. Do your snails mess with any the more delicate plants like maybe moss? You don't have any Ramshorns in there do you? Maybe that's what is munching on some of my plants.

I'm going to do a high light tank and not worry about dosing anything just to see how it goes. One thing I'm cheap and another I'm lazy. My second 10g hasn't EVER had a touch of ferts/CO2 and it grows plants just fine. Not crazy fine but they grow even under 15w.

Do you have any problems with the pool filter sand? I tried it once but the snails just made it smell horrible. I'm guessing it was the snails because that was the only thing in the tank. Kind of leaning toward that for my 40g.
 
Nope the Pool filter sand has been good to me so far......I've got it in 2 tanks for over a year now.

My snails don't touch the live plants at all.
Most of the snails are pond snails.....cuz they reproduce the quickest but I also have a couple of common brown ramshorns........they don't eat the plants either but there are some types of ramshorns that will chow down on them.
 
Maybe I'll purposely add the pond snails to the 40g as algae control. The only visible algae in my 10g right now is hair algae that I just cannot get rid of. Every method either kills the plant and moss or just the plant. PITA!
 
I have what looks to me like pond snails in one of my little planted tanks and not only do they eat algae, but some of the plants as well. I wouldn't purposefully add them. Also, they do not eat hair algae. They walk along it but don't do any damage, or at least, not enough to notice.

EDIT: I looked it up and it looks like what I have is brown ramshorn snails. Mine have black spots, unlike most of the pictures I see of them, but I read that sometimes they do and there isn't much of a difference between them other than the spots.
 
Ok......I lil update:

I had a mass die off of pond snails over the past month.
I don't know what happened but the pond snail population is at about a tenth of what it was.
However the ramshorn and MTS have taken up the slack.
Only things that have changed with the tank is that I have cut the lights down to 16 hours and I no longer to PWCs.
As recommended by Tom Barr I have started just topping off the tank everyday.
So to not encourage algae growth with large spikes in CO2 contained in the new water.
Because I was getting a bit of staghorn, which has completely disapeared since I stopped the PWCs.

As for the plants.......I did a big trimming and pulled up alot of the glosso cuz it was just getting to bushy.
Not to mention it had spots of staghorn on it. I'm going to do my best to keep the plant mass at a constant level from now on instead of letting it go wild and then doing large trimmings.
I hear that can cause swings in ammonia levels and we all know what that can do to a shrimp population.
Oh and I also got my hands on some HC some of which I am trying to grow in here without CO2......we'll see how that goes. :roll:

And finally the RCS........they are doing awesome.......I have tons, as you will see as you scroll down.
They have been reproducing crazy fast.
I also added 10 low grade CRS to see how they do and get a feel for how sensitive they are to my routine.
So far 2 have died [ when I added 3 liters of water instead of the normal 2 liters] I'm not 100% sure that was the cause but since I've returned to 2 liters a day, I haven't lost anymore.

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Hey Glitch, it looks a bit bare in there now! I'm sure it will look great in no time, good luck with the HC, it makes a great carpet if you can get it to catch. Looking forward to updates :)
 
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