# Intro / beginner journal / seeking guidance



## CincyBrian (Feb 9, 2017)

I thought I'd introduce myself. I'm Brian, live in West Chester, OH. 

I'm almost a total newbie. I had an aquarium when I was a teenager, but I didn't understand it. it was blue gravel, plastic plants, and decorations, basic tetras, gouramis, etc. I didn't understand the nitrogen cycle, etc.

Recently my interest has been rekindled. I always wanted to grow plants but believed it to be very complicated. But some web searching led me to places like this, and it didn't seem quite so overwhelming.

What really triggered my interest was my daughter's love of Nemo and Dory (cliche), but I have no desire for a reef tank. We live in an interesting aquatic area in its own right, with the Little Miami, Great Miami, and Ohio Rivers, and of course proximity to the Great Lakes. So I started to noodle about native fish, which has led me down a path realizing that what I thought were just "minnows" are really darters, and dace, and so many more. I think that is a long-term goal of mine - to have an aquarium with small creek fish. I've also been lurking on NANFA and watching darter tanks on YouTube.

But for today, I discovered Diana's article on shrimp bowls and started reading about planted tanks and it seemed approachable so I dove in. I am stubborn and for unknown reasons wanted to avoid "aquarium" equipment, so I took an old 2-gallon glass cannister, and a desk lamp, and got started.

~~~

My 2-gallon shrimp bowl.

The container is a 2-gallon glass cannister. The substrate is Special Kitty litter with a layer of fine aquarium sand cap. Plants are water wisteria (hygrophila difformis), purple cabomba (cabomba pulcherrima), and green myrio (myriophyllum pinnatum). The plants are not at all what I wanted; I was hoping for some Val, some anacharis, and some ceratophyllym demersem, since from what I read they were easy to grow and good at taking up nitrogen. But the plants I have are what I could find at PetSmart and my local fish store.

After I added the plants I added 12 cherry shrimp and 2 zebra danios. Disclosure: NOW I am aware many find that problematic, the danios should be in a school and probably need more water. But they're here for the time being. I was operating on the very basic and flawed "tiny tank, a few tiny fish" principle. I also missed some tiny snails on the myrio before I planted it, and now I have dozens.

My experience so far has been up and down.

For a week and a half, everything was fine. Plants started growing roots quickly enough. With a lot of light, I could seem them pearling. The fauna seemed fine.

But then, about a week and a half into it, my shrimp started dying. One here, then two. The last shrimp died this weekend. The danios still seem fine.

Water quality has been fine all along. I started with the API Master Kit drops, and have never seen ammonia, nitrate or nitrite. PH has always been about 7. When I started seeing issues with the shrimp I got API strips to test hardness, and it's hard - always peaking the dark blue of 180, but the KH is low, between 0 and 40. It's unheated, but my house is kept warm. Water temp fluctuates between 65 and 70. It's not in direct sunlight. The desk lamp is a daylight CFL, 23watts (100 watt equivalent). It's on a timer and on 10-11 hours/day. I had the light right down over the surface, but have since pulled it up a bit when I started to get traces of fine, hair-like algae. I pulled it off, dialed the timer back a couple hours and raised the light about 6 inches and we'll see.

So, I have some questions:

* what happened to my shrimp? I expected them to be hardy, and actually figured I'd lose the fish first if something weren't right. I don't see anything obviously wrong with my water. If it were from transition, I thought they would succumb more quickly. I had about 9 good days - I saw evidence of molting from a couple, everything seemed good. Then the wheels fell off. I had babies, I"m assuming I bought a gravid shrimp, because there were some really tiny ones for a time. Late last week I thought I had stabilized at 4 shrimp, and I went a few days at that level. But then they died over the weekend. They're all gone now.

* could they have starved? There is plenty of plant debris - both the myrio and the cabomba have been a little messy and littered leaves onto the bottom. I feed a small pinch of tetramin flakes, allowing enough so that a few flakes hit the floor. I read so much more about overfeeding, I was trying not to do that, but maybe that was the obvious thing I missed?

* is there anything to the really hard water, but low KH? I don't know anything about water hardness, but it seems like if one is high the other should be high.

* how many snails is an infestation? I'm torn about the snails. I didn't really want them, but they seem as valid of a resident as any other. But I read about tanks overrun with snails and wonder when (if ever?) I really need to pay attention and consider culling.

* when people talk about "cycling a tank" - is it really the tank that cycles, or the filter? With plants to consume the nitrogen and a very small population, is there a cycle that I could still be facing? Because that's what the timeframe feels like to me. But I think from what I understand that a (relatively heavily) planted, the non-filtered tank doesn't really cycle like a "normal" HOB filter media tank would because it's not depending on bacteria development to consume the nitrogen. Am I thinking about that correctly?

So, my initial goal was to experiment with water chemistry and see if I could grow plants.I'm three weeks in and I'm learning about water, am paying attention to water quality, and my plants are alive (I've even trimmed and replanted a stem of cabomba and a stem of myrio). In that regard, it's a success. But everything I read said shrimp were hardy, I didn't expect to lose the whole population so quickly. After the first few days of losses I changed about 50% of the water, but as near as I can tell the water I put in was nearly identical to the water I cupped out. So I tried it because I didn't know what else to try. 

Here's a pic. It looks like every other one on the internet.


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## Michael (Jul 20, 2010)

Welcome to APC!

First, you have too much light. A 13w CFL would be more than enough. I would also suggest a siesta schedule to maximize natural CO2.

Second, your substrate provides no nutrients at all. With all that light, the plants are going to suffer soon. So reduce the light, and think about how to add a small amount of nutrients--maybe a root tab or a few granules of Osmocote. Or start over with soil.

I don't know what happened to your shrimp. They didn't starve, and the hard water is not a problem per se. They are very sensitive to metals in the water, and your test kit will not show that. It is possible that the danios harassed them to death. You really need to give the danios to someone with a bigger tank with a school of them. Of course, this is a great excuse to set up another tank, lol.

Snails are quite useful in a Walstad tank, but people have very different feelings about them. If you get more than you like, that is an "infestation". An overpopulation of snails is usually a symptom of some other problem: overfeeding, lots of dead plant debris, etc.

As commonly used in the hobby, "cycling" a tank refers to establishing beneficial bacteria in the filter of a fish-only tank. Healthy planted tanks are quite different--you are correct that the plants take care of the nitrogen compounds. Since your jar started with no nutrients in the substrate, the plants should have no problem keeping up with the very small amount of ammonia produced by shrimp (and danios until you find them a proper home).

To summarize: reduce light, add SMALL amounts of nutrients for the plants, and send the danios to a better place. Then wait a few weeks, do some water changes, and when the plants look very healthy, add a few new shrimp. I hope this helps.


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## Michael (Jul 20, 2010)

One more thing--are you certain that your cat litter has no additives? Look for clumping agents, fragrance, antimicrobials, and any magic "odor absorbing" chemicals.


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## CincyBrian (Feb 9, 2017)

Michael said:


> I hope this helps.


It does help, thank you.

FYI, I do have the timer on a siesta, w/ about a 6-hour break in the middle.


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## CincyBrian (Feb 9, 2017)

Michael said:


> One more thing--are you certain that your cat litter has no additives? Look for clumping agents, fragrance, antimicrobials, and any magic "odor absorbing" chemicals.


I'm as sure as I can be with a processed good.

https://www.walmart.com/ip/Special-Kitty-Natural-Cat-Litter-25-Lb-Cats/10293705#about-item

Just FYI, I chose to experiment with it based upon threads like this:

http://forum.aquatic-gardeners.org/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=1425

http://www.thekrib.com/Plants/Fertilizer/substrate-jamie.html


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## Maryland Guppy (Mar 5, 2015)

Actually Special Kitty was not a bad choice.
Here is actual contents of Special Kitty.
Has a decent CEC rating also.
EPA Method 6010.

I thought pick would show up better, just click on it to check it out.


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## dwalstad (Apr 14, 2006)

My *best guess* is that your shrimp were killed by metal toxicity. All shrimp are very sensitive to heavy metals (iron, aluminum, copper, zinc, etc), more so than fish. The fact that they didn't die immediately means that it could be a low-level presence of ordinarily non-toxic metals. My well water has moderately high levels of zinc. It is safe for me and my fish, but for keeping shrimp, I have to add an aquarium water conditioner for any setups or water changes.

If you try again with shrimp, I would use a water conditioner designed to combat heavy metals. They work well.


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## CincyBrian (Feb 9, 2017)

dwalstad said:


> My *best guess* is that your shrimp were killed by metal toxicity. All shrimp are very sensitive to heavy metals (iron, aluminum, copper, zinc, etc), more so than fish. The fact that they didn't die immediately means that it could be a low-level presence of ordinarily non-toxic metals. My well water has moderately high levels of zinc. It is safe for me and my fish, but for keeping shrimp, I have to add an aquarium water conditioner for any setups or water changes.
> 
> If you try again with shrimp, I would use a water conditioner designed to combat heavy metals. They work well.


I used Tetra AquaSafe, and let that water sit in a bucket in my basement for a few days. I'm at work now, but I'm wondering if I didn't get the dosage right?

I'll head to web-search more next, but should AquaSafe work for all the metals you listed? I didn't look into it any more than "conditions chlorine and metals."

Thank you for sharing!


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## CincyBrian (Feb 9, 2017)

dwalstad said:


> My *best guess* is that your shrimp were killed by metal toxicity. All shrimp are very sensitive to heavy metals (iron, aluminum, copper, zinc, etc), more so than fish.


I haven't studied it thoroughly, but here's a recent water quality report for my tap water. Copper ( .028 ) is slightly above the limits you posted in your "Heavy Metal Standards for Humans and Fish" table (.02).

http://butlercountyws.org/html/drinkingwater/documents/WATERQUALITYCHART_003.pdf


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## dwalstad (Apr 14, 2006)

CincyBrian said:


> I used Tetra AquaSafe, and let that water sit in a bucket in my basement for a few days. I'm at work now, but I'm wondering if I didn't get the dosage right?
> 
> I'll head to web-search more next, but should AquaSafe work for all the metals you listed? I didn't look into it any more than "conditions chlorine and metals."


The AquaSafe should work for all the metals that I listed (zinc, copper, iron, aluminum, etc). The active ingredient (probably EDTA) should work right away, so letting the water sit is not a factor.

A 0.02 ppm level of copper could definitely cause problems for shrimp. I would try using a higher dose of AquaSafe and or bottled drinking water. It could be that some other chemical in the drinking water is causing the problem and using bottled water might solve the problem.

I would be interested to hear what happens if you pursue this. Good luck!


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## CincyBrian (Feb 9, 2017)

dwalstad said:


> I would be interested to hear what happens if you pursue this. Good luck!


Thank you - I'm definitely pursuing it. I changed the water yesterday with water that I know was conditioned properly, and I've got a copper test arriving today.

If/when the water tests out OK and when I can get to the store I will try out some more shrimp.


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