Shoal & Stem
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Full Tank Log

· 13 entries
Update

Another berried female

There is yet another pregnant female blue shrimp in the tank. If the colony continues to reproduce at this rate I’m going to start live feeding them to my tiger barbs.

Update

Huge Update.

We were looking around today and it seems one of the shrimps egg clutches that we previously presumed were shed with a moult had actually successfully hatched! We’ve spotted multiple blue and snowball shrimplets in the tank today! It’s hard to get a…
Update

Plants are recovering

Some more root tabs did the trick for now, all plants seem to be recovering well

Update

Both shrimp lost their clutch

The blue diamond mother shrimp definitely dropped her clutch in a moult which is unfortunate but I’ve heard is common in new mothers. As for the snowball I honestly can’t tell what happened, she could have given birth and the babies could be hiding b…
Problem

Plants are struggling

I think the amount of substrate in the tank isn’t enough to accommodate the plants, some have been struggling to take root or stay alive. I figured c02 tabs would help but they have not been sufficient. I think I see a rescape and the addition of a D…
Update

C02 tabs

I added some c02 tablets to help the plants outcompete the algae.

Solution

Upgraded the light!

We noticed some plants were having a hard time so we upgraded the light with a significantly higher powered light that actually covers the whole aquarium quite well.

Milestone

Shrimp is pregnant!

Key moment

We noticed today that we have multiple shrimp berried up! One blue diamond and one snowball are both very obviously carrying eggs and about to give birth! I’m super excited!

Update

Added some driftwood to the tank

Added some small pieces of acacia driftwood and a bit of shrimp wood to the tank to add some more hiding spaces and in an attempt to leach some beneficial tannins into the water column. I did boil the woods before adding to the tank to ensure they we…
Solution

New plants!

Added two new species of plant to the tank to give the shrimps more room to hide and for the tetras to have more stuff to play in. It should help the nitrogen stay down as well.

Solution

Added some shells!

After the deaths of the shrimps in the tank caused by molting I figured there was an issue with my Gh or Kh. I got some of the test kits from API and sure enough the Kh was pretty low which made a lot of sense so to combat this I added some natural s…
Update

Added an air stone

I noticed a biofilm starting to form at the top of the tank a while ago. This morning I noticed the Kerri tetras almost exclusively hanging near the top of the tank and nipping at the surface almost as if they were gasping. Worried that the biofilm w…
Update

New decorative plants

I added a few well propagated and well rooted cuttings of pothos through the gaps in the hood to help manage the nitrite spike and for decoration. After the water change today the cloudiness subsided a bit much to my satisfaction. Additionally a few…