Jt_737

Yay! Welcome here! I have a bud who lives in Australia. Aussies are awesome. Hope you like Calgary

Oh, you must be talking about ADA amazonia, whereas I have malaya! I quite agree, the dark and uniform look of the amazonia is very pleasing to the eye. Malaya isn't nearly as nice a color, in my opinion. Maybe in the future I'll try the whole amazonia-by-itself thing I still have the container, but I'll need to get a new heater for it and retrieve that mini filter I used. It seems like a lot of moving, but if things get any worse, I think its simply the best thing to do. Thanks for all your help!

Thanks for the responses, Iceturf and Lisbeth :thumbs: First off, I had no idea that ADA was sprayed with ammonia!!! But in light of that information, I now understand a few issues I've had had with other tanks along the way. Yeah, I did cap it for decorative purposes, I'm quite a stickler for aquarium aesthetics - the white sand seemed a better contrast to the green plants, the rust red lava rocks and the red shrimp if you know what I mean. I did my weekly water change three days ago, and carefully cleaned the sand bed but exposed a bit of the ADA in the process. The day after that, I noticed another dead baby shrimp :cry: which would correlate with the ADA and ammonia issue (though I didn't get a chance to test the water because the carpets were being shampooed.) I've been considering getting a TDS metre for a while now, (since reading an article about tap water usage in aquarium settings..) maybe now is the time! Would you recommend the purified/filtered store bought water, or RODI water? I know the latter tends to have a lower pH, (usually neutral or lower, depending) but if I phase out the dechlor. tap water slowly I hardly think the change would present any problems, aside from being better in the long run. Also thanks, Lisbeth, for your advice on different foods. My shrimp seem to be tiring of the spinach, so I'll certainly try the other things you mentioned. My only remaining concern is what to do about the ammonia slowly leaching out...do I simply wait for it to be done? Should I be very careful with the substrate while cleaning so as not to disturb it? Ack, this is such an important lesson to learn, but such an unpleasant process!

Hi all, My shrimp issue has a bit of a back story, so just sit tight and I'll condense it the best I can. On February 22 of this year, I purchased 15 rcs while I was in Edmonton, and made my way back home to Airdrie. Being in school at the time, I was too busy to set up the tank I had planned for them, so I simply filled a 4 gallon plastic container with water from one of my established tanks, put in a small heater, mini filter, and an assortment of fake and live floating plants along with a cheap fluorescent bulb from home depot. Every weekend, I would come home from school, change the water and feed them either an algae wafer or a bit of blanched spinach. I rarely tested the water. About 3 weeks later, I had 2 berried females - and 3 weeks after that, I had over 50 rcs. I was amazed at how easy it was to care for them! The only thing I noticed was that the shrimp weren't really red at all, they were clear. When school ended, I went about setting up the tank that was originally planned - a 5.5 gallon, planted with a mix of ADA and fluorite and capped with sand. I transferred the same heater into it, upgraded the filter and added some lava rocks from my fire red shrimp tank that was in my dorm (which I also brought home.) Anyway, on May 3, I siphoned the water from the plastic container into the new rcs tank and slowly acclimated them (since there was a bit of a temperature change.) During the next few days, I took out two dead shrimp, one very small, and one 4 times as big. Which was strange, because I tested the water to see if anything was wrong and the parameters looked like this: Nitrate:10ppm, Nitrite:0, KH:90ppm, GH:150ppm, pH: 7.4. Not only that, the other shrimp seemed better than ever, and were starting to turn a nice bright red. So I thought perhaps it was nothing to be concerned about. On May 8th, one of my favorite females died. Before she passed, I noticed it seemed like she was having trouble molting or something, because there was a large white slit in between her carapace and 1st abdominal segment, which I'd never seen before. The next few days were fine, no deaths and the baby shrimp started to turn red too On May 11th, I did a 30% water change and re-filled with the same dechlorinated tap water I always use. May 13th, 14th and today, I picked out mostly eaten dead shrimp! (They were all the older males I had since February! ) In the past, I haven't really witnessed any shrimp eating a fallen comrade - I've always removed them whole. I tested the water today, and the parameters are Nitrate:10ppm, Nitrite:0, KH: 150ppm, GH:300ppm, pH:7.1, which is very different from the last testing. So here are my questions: 1. How often should I be feeding my shrimp? Are algae wafers and blanched spinach enough, or should they have more variety? 2. How long does the typical shrimp live? (I've heard 1-2 years...) 3. How long does it take a newborn shrimp to reach adulthood (I've heard 3 months?) and yes, 2 and 3 probably depend on temperature of the water. 4. Should I change any of the above parameters to something more suitable? 5. How many shrimp can live in 5.5 gallons? I'd venture to say I have about 40 now. Is that a fair amount? I don't inject co2 and I don't fertilize. (I also don't use prime, as was warned against in a previous post.) It seems counter-intuitive to me that the shrimp would do so well in a plastic container, yet rather poorly in a planted tank... Anyway, thanks in advance to any shrimp expert who responds to this incredibly long post, your help is appreciated!

Hello all, So as the title suggests, I've got a friend who's new into the extremely addictive world of fish keeping. He saw my 10 gallon saltwater and soon after bought a tank of his own. I'm guiding him along at the moment, advising on what to buy and all that. His is a simple set up with a few easy corals and a couple of clownfish - a 10 gallon similar to mine. More to the point, I was thinking of giving him a bit of my sand in order to seed his own sand band. Now, this is all theoretical, nothing has been set up. I've never seeded another person's tank before (only my multiple freshwater tanks.) What's the most effective way to do it? Would anyone recommend it? Should I give him some of my water and some filter media along with the sand, too? Any suggestions would be appreciated, thanks

I can give you a biologically sound path of reasoning as to why your fishes exhibit said spinal curve: 1. If the fish is young, and its spine has been curved from birth, then yes I would agree with Brenda. 2. If the fish is older (how old are your guppies? As you know, their life spans are fairly short, so what I'm about to suppose may be feasible if they are 16 months or older), then it is plausible that they have suffered from a stroke. Defined below: "A stroke is a sudden loss of brain function. It is caused by the interruption of flow of blood to the brain (ischemic stroke) or the rupture of blood vessels in the brain (hemorrhagic stroke). The interruption of blood flow or the rupture of blood vessels causes brain cells (neurons) in the affected area to die." Now, supposing this did happen, a curved spine would be a direct affect of either instance. Since the brain and spinal cord are connected, an interruption would cause the spine to pinch in certain areas, causing the S shape - which also relates to the fishes acoustic-lateralis (lateral line) system. Haha, yeah there's a spelling mistake in the image above. Just ignore it. Anyway, GalenGrey, my point is that, your guppies are most likely not suffering from any vitamin deficiency - in fact, you've done a great job caring for them if they're old enough to get a stroke at this point. Sorry, but there's probably nothing you can do to help them. I had an old neon tetra that suffered from the same thing. They can still function, and will continue to eat, usually until they pass away from old age. P.s. I know this was originally posted in august, so my providing this information may or may not be useful.

Haha! That's a good one! Bettas eating ram cichlids? What will they think of next... :eh: :rofl:

I'm not new to the aquarium obsession, but I am new to this site. Actually, a super nice guy from Riverfront Aquariums suggested that I make an account on here, so I'm taking his advice. This forum seems awesome so far, I'm sure I'll enjoy it. I have three aquariums at the moment (quite a downsize..) two are fresh, one is salt. I keep live plants and also corals. I also love brackish water setups but have never had one of my own. That's something I'd like to try in the future, among many things. Anyway, it's a pleasure to be a part of AA