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Mr. Aqua 12G Long Redux


jumpsmasher
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Today I decided redo my Mr. Aqua 12 gallon long.

I had this tank running for a while but haven't really done anything with it lately. In its glory days it was covered with a nice rich carpet of HC but it has fallen into a neglected state as of late; the HC was overgrown and there was quite a bit of algae. I ripped out all the plants including the HC, removed all rocks and shove all the substrate over to one side so I could set up my standard UG pipe as an intake for my canister filter. Once that was done I went to town with the box of seiryu stones I had lying around and moved the substrate back over.

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Tank: Mr. Aqua 12G Long rimless (36" L x 8 1/4" D x 9 1/2" H)

Substrate: ADA AS Amazonia Powder + Fluval Shrimp Substrate

Filter: UG + Ehiem 2211

Lighting: Finnex FugeRay

CO2: GLA Paintball CO2 w/ Atomizer Diffuser (not being used right now)

Hardscape: Seiryu stones

Plants: None

I filled up the tank using ro water and added Bee Shrimp GH+ almost instinctively but than after thinking about what kind of tank i wanted, I decided to do something different from my usual shrimp tank set-ups and do a tap water shrimp tank so I drained it and refilled it with tap water. I also decided to keep the tank plants free including moss at least until I figure out what plants I wants but i am leaning keeping it as is with no plants and maybe add some leaf litter. This is the look I planning to do with a future 75G shrimp tank so in a way this would be my prototype for that one.

As for livestock, i added some snails for now to clean up the tank a bit but once the tank stabilizes I plan on just throwing in a bit of everything I have in terms of shrimps and seeing how it goes.

Edited by jumpsmasher
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yes i used the hagen one to dechlorinate - forgot the name but it is the standard one you can get everywhere. Also added some Bacter AE and Speed Sand to help get it going.

Edited by jumpsmasher
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Your scape looks great, looking forward to seeing what you do with this one.

Thank Blink!

I also like how it looks now as is as the rocks have a decent scale to them so I am not in a rush to get it planted.

Next step for me to in some shrimps - a carpet full of shrimps and leaf litter! :p

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  • 2 weeks later...

Where'd you buy those stones man? Also nice layout, cant wait to see it planted!

Thanks! You should be as to get seriyu stones at most ADA dealers like Pisces or angelfins. Still resisting the urge to plant it but we will see.. :)

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yes once the dust settles on my current batch of projects the next big thing will be a 75 Gal shrimp tank. I might need to bring in a crate worth of Manten Stone from ADA or Utah Dragonstone as I heard both are inert (as opposed to Seiryu stone), Did you get your PRL tank up and running yet? I should have all my new custom tanks for the new rack from Concept by the end of next week.

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The PRL tank isn't up yet but the space is cleared, tank is being built, ADA soil on it's way, all new filters and membrane in RO/DI and the filters I plan to use are cleaned and ready to go.

Inert stone would be awesome, kinda of why I haven't used the Seiryu. I'd be in for some Dragon stone, I'll have to check out Manten.

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Amazonia + Seiryu stone should result in a ph of around 6.8 - 7.2. I did a spot check the other day and it was sitting at 7.2 but that was with tap water and used Amazonia + FSS - should be lower if you use RODI and new aquasoil. This tank is more of a experiment of what i can get away with versus recreating the ideal parameters from scratch. I put in some of my blond OEBT the other day and so far i haven't seen any deaths.

I believe Manten stone will be around 4-5x the price of Utah Dragonstone because it is ADA.

Edited by jumpsmasher
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you know, the only thing i measured after it was up and running was my pH which was at 7.2. I didn't measure anything else as I wanted to see if i could adapt my tiger shrimps to water seeing how it looks like they have adapted to warmer temperatures this summer. I do expect the substrate / Seiyu stone would change it a bit but thinking they might also cancel each other out - I believe Amano commented once that the Aquasoil would counter the effects of the Seiryu Stone.

I did setup a tank many years ago with FSS when I first got the Seiryu Stone. I remineralized RO water to around 180 TDS and after 3 month the tank's TDS was around 250 or so but not sure how much of that was due to the Seiryu Stone.

I just measure the TDS now and it is around 118ppm. Straight tap water is around 156 ppm so the substrate is lowering it a bit.

pH is now at 7.5 and temperatures hit 27 C today.

So far no deaths or sign of bacteria infection.

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  • 2 months later...
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