# plan: cholla cactus + tall grass



## spypet (Jul 27, 2007)

OK, so my first idea was a bust because I could not find enough anecdotal evidence with using cypress submerged, 
so upon reflection I decided the massive bases of cone shaped knees might take away too much planting real estate.
also, once cypress knees are skinned of bark and sun dried, they become very buoyant, so I'd be wasting
a lot of tank real estate on slate buried in my substrate to keep the cypress knees submerged in place.
http://www.aquaticplantcentral.com/forumapc/aquascaping/74850-plan-cyprus-knees-tall-grass.html

so here's my next idea for combining tall grass with an unusual tall contrasting element.


























I get a bunch of foot long cholla wood pieces (my tank is a 40g breeder, so under a foot shallow)
I presoak them a long while, but leave one end out of the soak water, so trying to keep that end dry.
once waterlogged, I then tie a zinc coated fishing weight to the wetter end of each cholla piece
I drop them in my invert tank, so the weighted end stands vertically upon the substrate, while 
the dry end floats just above the waterline. because of capillary action, the dry end will eventually
get waterlogged too, but I'll thread some invisible fishing line through the cholla tops and adhere the
line to my tank frame to help keep the cholla sticks standing upright, and the top end dry.

*The gimmick is that this light cholla wood might sway a bit in the water current along with the grass,
to create an "apartment complex" like cityscape for all my tiny inverts to climb, hide, breed, whatever.*

it may not look like a scene you would find in nature, but my guess is once this tank gets grown out,
it will look very interesting, particularly in motion - so still photographs may not do this idea justice.
while APC contributor have not explored the use of cholla with much success, I found enough usage
on other forums to gain confidence this wood may work well in a planted tank as long as I have lots
of cleaners around, since all this porous vertical mass will attract tank debris, algae, vacteria, etc.

two caveats:
1: I read anecdotes that cholla is sort of like coconut fiber, and will fall apart over the years,
but no worries, I'll tie a weight to a new stick and drop it in place of any crumbling old stick.
_besides, after a year or two I get bored of my scapes, and do something totally different._

2: my grass could become a tangled mess around such porous rough textured wood, however
I notice when oto's and shrimp clean each blade of grass, they nudge it around enough to
untangle it's mass into a more natural flowing orientation - pretty cool, huh - so no worries.

_I know growing moss would look great on these chollas, but moss will eventually clog up the base,
and chock off my delicate grass plants, so I don't want ANY moss like colony plant in this tank._

*feedback please* -_ just don't send any lab coat guys over with a straight jacket for me._


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## Michael (Jul 20, 2010)

Too bad! I really wanted to see the cypress knee tank! But the cholla will be very interesting.


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## spypet (Jul 27, 2007)

good news - a dozen foot long cholla's are on the way from Arizona.
they were probably just collected on the ground, so only sun dried.
I'm not able to boil or bake them, all I can do is use bleach or salt
to pretreat them, then soak them in fresh water to see how they
behave, before introducing them to my planted tank.

any bleach - salt advice about concentration and duration is helpful.


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## spypet (Jul 27, 2007)

after a lot of emails to different breeders, I finally got a nice batch of A/S-Grade CRS/CBS from;
http://www.aquabid.com/cgi-bin/auction/vfb.cgi?&&vfb&Beviking
if you see Bill from upstate NY selling anything, grab it - affordable, high quality, expert shipper.
A lot of really nice people offered me shrimp on APC, but for various reasons I went with Bill.
Hopefully once I breed a generation thru, I'll expand their genetics with your shrimp soon.
this weekend I'm going to pick some winter dry oak leaves off a tree nearby - for this tank.
they may not be Indian Almond Catappa, but I've read oak provides a similar bio-benefit.










unfortunautly, I may not get the Cholla wood till the new year; the seller sent it by parcel post, 
and doing that between thanksgiving and new years - as they say in Brooklyn; "forgetaboutit".
I'm not upset, because I got the wood cheap, but considering I'll need to first soak the wood
for a few weeks before risking it with these CRS pushes my timetable back on this tank design.

my tank water is stable with temperate in the low 70's, so the CRS should be comfortable,
however I'm still battling algae. now that the shrimp are here I don't want to do anything
to upset them, so I'll just live with the cladophora growing on my bare substrate for now.
actually a bit of cladophora growing along the clolla wood can look nice, but the stuff
keeps choking my tall hairgrass, so I have to find a way for them to coexist without the
shrimp getting upset. if only I could afford compressed Co2 *sigh*... one day out:










these ~1cm CRS are disinterested in any dry food. I guess after 2 months of cycling this tank,
they are too busy sifting through algae and mulm in my soft clay gravel to care about pellets.
my micro crabs are more active with the CRS around - they like to pretend to be hunting them.
I hope to locate some cheap Ramshorn soon to help with cleanup, and maybe feed the crabs.


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## spypet (Jul 27, 2007)

another cholla tank user send me her use feedback.
she had some fungus for a few days, and tannins,
but her fish and water changes handled it so far;










over the weekend I went to war over my clado.
Tom Barr put it best when he wrote;
"treat clado like you would any other plant"
so just like bladderwort and moss, if you want to
get rid of it, you gotta manually remove every bit.

I removed all the plants and top layer of substrate,
boiled most of the clado off with 3% H2O2, and
scraped all the glass and plastic. so from now on,
if I see clado again, I'll remove it immediately, 
so it has less of a chance to get reestablished.

I also lowered the light photo period, since hair grass
only needs more light to grow faster, not just well.


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## spypet (Jul 27, 2007)

So far no Cholla wood yet. I filed a claim with ebaY against the seller which I hope will be resolved over the next few weeks. I had another round of algea cleaning, this time I used 1:20 bleach:water instead of 3% H2O2, and hope that will help balance the tank in my grass plants favor. If only I could afford compressed Co2 I would not have to waste so much effort battling algae in this low macros tank. Having this clay substrate makes it even harder because it does not like to be disturbed, and hosts algae so well on it's surface. I'll lower the light and photo period further - the grass will just have to manage. the good news is all 15 CRS and all 4 Micro Crabs are fine after two Months in this tank, so they must be eating something - even if it's not always in front of me. I'm also keeping only the best color display Ramshorn in this invert tank, and putting the darker runts in my community fish tank. Next week I'll start experimenting with various frozen foods to see if I can get these inverts more excited. The CRS are eating blanched spinish in front of me, so that's a relief to see - it's just a shame they are not better algae eaters...

I finally have my first berried CRS that I'm isolating in a filter bag until her shrimplets swim free,
where I can feed them powdered foods. with a clay substrate, I don't like using a spong filter.


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## spypet (Jul 27, 2007)

time for my biweekly update so here goes;

I'm ashamed to admit I've trolled the web for hours looking for just the right Cholla wood for my tank - emailing dozens of desert farms, crafts dealers, wedding decorators, dry flower dealers, but it finally paid off. I located a dessert wood & stone sculpture showroom in Nevada that has perfect naked specimens at reasonable prices. Once I get a shipping quote from him on Monday, I'll probably have some awesome pictures of what I got to show off a week later. Now that I found these, I'm so glad all my previous purchase attempts fell through.

I think I finally have my Algea under control. 2 weeks after that bleech dip, the plants and clay substrate remain algea free. I have my photo period down to 1.5wpg for 7 hours total, and I'm only dosing DIY Co2, Excel and trace powder - no more EiMethod Nitrate or Phosphate. The grass is not growing as fast, but as I wrote before I'd rather have slower growth with very low algae that my shrimp and oto's can stay ahead of - for me.

Food trails are still inconclusive - nothing dry or frozen seems to rally the troops yet. I think I'm going to feed the tank every fews days, not daily, and see if a bit more hunger inspires a bit more enthusiasm for any particular food. so far the best of the bunch are blanched spinach, frozen bloodworms and Hikari Shrimp cuisine, but I only consider them best because I don't see any left overs the next morning.

My first CRS mom dropped all her eggs, so I'm working on cooler and even more stable water conditions so that won't happen again. I net covered my water intake, so I won't bother isolating new moms to breeders boxes again. I located some cheap yellow shrimp, and should be adding them around the same time my cholla wood shows up. so by February I'll start a new Journal with photos showing how I build up this design in a new 40gal breeder tank (thank you Petco $1/gal sale).


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## ThoHell (Jan 9, 2011)

Hey spypet, what is that gorgeous thin tall looking grass from your first post? That would look awesome in my tank but not sure what it is...


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## spypet (Jul 27, 2007)

best guess is it's _eleocharis vivipara_, but my grass is even thinner and lighter;
http://www.aquaticplantcentral.com/forumapc/plant-id/42576-gorgeous-grass-new-jersey.html
so I call it _eleocharis mullicaus_ after the river/estuary system I found it in 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mullica_River
I'm sure it's a formally identified eleocharis by biologists,
http://www.bonap.org/BONAPmaps2010/Eleocharis.html
I just have not seen it circulating in this hobby yet.

In 3 years of growing in a foot of water, this grass has never dropped seeds
or shot up a rigid stem to flower like most eleocharis eventually do. all it does
is send a slightly more rigid horizontal runner that propagates more plantlets.
out of water it's complete mush, like wet human hair, so I doubt it could ever
transition to an immersed form like most eleocharis would.


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## spypet (Jul 27, 2007)

OK, I finally took the plunge - and some stunning cholla logs are on the way,
but I'll be soaking them for weeks before using them in any new aquascape.
I got more than I'll need, so anyone who buys a few ~1' pieces can PM me.


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## spypet (Jul 27, 2007)

I got my yellow shrimp on Friday from a fellow hobbyist, and they are settling in just fine - I'm just lucky they arrived before the temperature dropped to the Fahrenheit single digits. Cholla is still in transit - but more importantly; I had an AMAZING brainstorm on how best to aquascape with them - you'll just have to stay tuned as to what I do over the next few Months, and how I pull it off; *I promise it will be something revolutionary to AquaScaping!* (anyone who remembers me from PTN knows I can get uniquely creative with DIY tank projects). In the meantime, here are some candids of my sun lit algae free hair grass, and latest tank mates.


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## spypet (Jul 27, 2007)

debris and tannin removal; 100% water changes every 6-12 hours
I used filtered hot tap water in a 10gal tank and then pointed a powerhead inside each tube. the objective here was to remove dirt and dry cactus flesh, reduce tanins both on in an outside surfaces without the use of chemicals that could get soaked in, or abrasion that could break the delicate cholla texturing. since this is specially fresh local collected and dried "art" cholla, not off the ground long weathered and sundried craft wood, it's unlikely this was chemically treated.










buoyancy and fungus test; suspended to determine time of neutral buoyancy
this large piece still floats from one end. I expect it to sink (hang by fishing wire) by day 7. while I do want the cholla to host algae and micro organisms, I'm hoping my water conditions, and tank cleaning invertebrates will keep fungus from growing now that this tank is long cycled. so I'll give this one piece at least a week alone in this tank to check for fungal growth before preparing and introducing any more cholla to this tank. log is 12x4" ~200g dry


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## spypet (Jul 27, 2007)

Day.6 and the cholla is neutrally buoyant now.
no fugus - but it's still early. all shimp are fine,
no tannins noticed, so I'm going to soak more
of the cholla wood for upcoming aquascaping.
I noticed my first berried yellow shimp today,
and well fed ramshorn are growing nice shells.


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## spypet (Jul 27, 2007)

I changed this tank from a 20g to a 40g breeder so the water will be foggy for a few more days.
I have so many ideas of how to use this cholla, but for now I'm running an experiment to see
if my inverts prefer the vertical or horizontals. this is a room divider tank, so I like how each
side can offer a different vantage point. you may notice the two bundles are also different
as the vertical has more large holes, and the horizontal few large holes so it's like a tunnel,
while the others are like a standing bee hive. I hope to add some crayfish to this tank soon,
and wonder if the shrimp and crayfish have different preferences - which would be ideal at
keeping them from bothering each other, so the tank could accommodate more specimens.
I also moved the light so there is a dark and bright side, so I can observe animal preference.
my objective is not to land the cover shot of an aquarium magazine, rather to build a scape
that can house a wide variety and high density of animals while accommodating their breeding.
_my first yellow mom dropped her eggs, but I noticed a first time CBS carrying new eggs now.
I'm reading lots of forums about shrimp egg dropping and hope to reduce this problem soon._




























yup, it's upside down eating water surface protein


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## tylerG (Dec 8, 2010)

I believe they look best when standing. It could also be interesting to see what type of a background one could make with cholla. 'Might make for an awesome looking "wall". 

-tylerG


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## Jeffww (May 25, 2010)

I'd go to the tackle store and get fluorocarbon line if you plan on tying the chola in any form. It's literally invisible in water.


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## spypet (Jul 27, 2007)

now that the grass is filling in, you can see it would obscure anything in the back of this 18" deep tank, so using these 12"x3" logs as a background is out. i also like the idea of combining both vertical and horizontals for the variety of cavities they provide my inverts to explore, find each other, and avoid each other when needed. so I came up with this layout idea; I'm going to place the logs as per attached photos using wood dowels as a mock-up model. you can see how the logs will look from all different angles once placed in this peninsula open top tank. the beauty of this design is once I replant the grass there will be lots of breaks to allow me to view activity deep within this 36x18x18 tank, with a variety of well lit and shadowy places, and it greatly increases the surfaces the inverts can explore giving them the feel of a far larger tank. the naked dowel placement symmetry may look unnatural, but once it's filled in with all that hair grass, I believe the symmetry will get completely lost from every viewing angle and look very natural. a variation I may try is to place 3 horizontal of the logs on top of their perpendicular so they are a bit diagonal. comments welcome


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## davemonkey (Mar 29, 2008)

Very interesting idea and I like the layout pegs as reference.

Just FYI, I would not sweat any fungus. I've had fungus on every piece of wood I've ever used and it always goes away in a couple weeks with no treatment and no harm to the aquatic environment.


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## spypet (Jul 27, 2007)

it occurs to me that just because I have a dozen logs, does not mean I have to use them all, so I decided to simplify this design to 3x3 which will uncover a cave/cover area for observation, and increase the amount of plant-able tank bottom, and improves overall tank water flow while still allowing me to enjoy a vertical:horizontal:diagonal cholla surface throughout the tank. I'm going to tie each 3-set of logs together with fishing line to crate a unit of tank furniture so the vertical riser is attached by a single axle of line that will enable it to sway a bit with the water-flow without falling over. then I'll simple do it 3 times and place them aligned with each other. if later I upgrade from my 36x18(40g) tank to a 48x18 tank(75g), I can always add a 4th set of 3-logs then. as the famous decorator/fashion saying goes; "sometimes less is more"... this unbroken chain of logs will enable me to separate the back half field of all grass, from the front field of all ET, as the logs will nearly touch the glass perimeter of the tank. later I may decorate some cavities of the cholla with rhizome plants such as anubias nana petite.


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## spypet (Jul 27, 2007)




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## spypet (Jul 27, 2007)

this design may take some getting used to, so I'll keep it this way for a week before I adjust it further. I may move the light more center, or add more light - we'll see. I'm happy to report there is not any trace of the clado problems I had when this tank was first cycling, nor any other type of algae. after over a Month submerged, the cholla are showing no signs of fiber break down and are still hard to the touch. my shrimp are having a blast, and soon to come crayfish will too in such a complex terrain. I'm not sure about the ET placement, or if I'll do use other sectors for plants or keep them bare. in the meantime my ET has to spread more, so I have a Month or two to finalize placement. I also need to see what the crayfish will do with my plant choices as some crayfish will mow down fine leaf plants simply because they got in their way, so I'll be keeping a one inch gutter of plant free space all along the glass sides. below - front & back of this peninsula tank.



















*now I centered the light and experiment with netting on the back glass.*


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## lanceduffy (Jul 15, 2010)

This is not doing anything for me. I just don't get it.


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## spypet (Jul 27, 2007)

thanks for the feedback  i've already done the plant collection tanks with rocks and driftwood in a natural setting. now i'm trying to get in to the heads of my inverts and thinking about what they would want in a hardscape - lots of surface area to explore and hide and farm micro organisms, areas of shade and light, lots of vertical space so the shrimp are not all congregating on the substrate like in most over crowded shrimp tanks. so it's more about moving the furniture around and seeing how the inhabitants react to it, then making the classic planted tank scape suitable for a magazine cover. I'm still in the process of accumulating over a dozen different invert and fish species I want in this tank. once I have them all, I'll post more close ups of them enjoying this environment, and I believe those scenes in miniature will look more estetically pleasing than the overall tank setting. also keep in mind this is a peninsula tank, so I'm trying to design the hard-scape to offer some eye candy from 3 different sides of the same tank. _I also wanted to present anecdotal evidence that cholla wood can be used in a hard scape, and posts from people who claim their thin "pleco chew" cholla fell apart on them after a short period of time, was probably unique to that warm tank and it's rasping inhabitants._


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## lanceduffy (Jul 15, 2010)

Thanks for the information and I am sorry for the obtuse post. Aesthetically the issues I have are:
1) the arrangement of the wood looks formulaic and unnatural
2)The uniformity of the pieces and their cut ends adds to this
3) I am used to seeing this in its natural environment, the colors palate is dominated with browns and punctuated with greens. In this scape the opposite of this is happening. Additionally, in nature I've never see grasses with this wood, only cactus or other succulents with larger leaves. 

I could see a successful layout using this wood with different size pieces, ends cut on non-uniform biases or broken. Make it 90% hardscape with light brown soil. For plants I would go with some of the very small crypts and very little of them.

Your plants are beautiful, good luck.


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## spypet (Jul 27, 2007)

Thanks for taking the time to elaborate. I agree cutting the rejoining these cholla logs up into a more natural formation would be ideal. I hesitated because of the trouble and expense I went to to find these pieces, and the unknown of how long they will actually hold up in my tank. once I find a cheaper quality source and nail down actual submerged cholla life expectancy, I'll try a more natural trunk to branch formation, instead of all this symmetry. as for their natural occurrence, let's be honest... cholla are skeleton cores of cactus trees so the most natural formation would be a pile of broken sections scattered around a stream bed.


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## spypet (Jul 27, 2007)

I did some serious filter and hose cleaning and ran my UV for 2 days to get the water prestine. I also replaced half stone filter media and went with all porus foam to eliminate the chance my stone media was increasing my GH. I'm adopting another dozen S-CRS and the crayfish should be here by end of Month and possibly some more livestock surprises... depends on what good pricing I find, etc. the shimp look healthy and are molting fine, but every time i see berries, i don't see shrimplets later. this tank's a mystery. I used to breed RCS like crazy in a bare bottom tank, why this hard scape makes their lives any different stumps me. I'm getting Almond leaves in the mail any day now fresh from Malaysia - maybe that gimmick will help. the ET are really taking off now that i relocated them right under the light center. i still don't see a spec of algae anywhere, but i did have a breakout of copepods for a few days that were eventually consumed by the tank inhabitants. I stopped dosing DIY Co2, so all I add now is Excel every other day, and trace powder after a weekly 50% water change. the rest of the week I only top off evaporated water. after that copepod scare, I'm also decreasing what food I add. the shrimp never seemed to care about the food, so obviously they are finding enough micro organism to keep them happy.


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## Tex Gal (Nov 1, 2007)

I think it's interesting. Keep us posted.


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## davemonkey (Mar 29, 2008)

I'm liking this ALOT. It isn't "natural", as lance elaborated on, but it is very artisitc. The lines are clean, you've got a perfect balance of horizontal and verticle with diagonal lines to create movement, the color balance is great (brown vs green and light vs dark), my eyes are drawn throughout the scape...a very good modern-art design IMO. Plus, you've got very squared lines (straight, parallels and intersections, rectangular in the first glance) made out of curved objects, which adds another factor of interest, then thorw in the random lines of the hairgrass in the background....like I said...I'm liking this ALOT.


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## Amazon_Replica (Nov 24, 2007)

Great idea, I'm curious as to your results too. My experience with crawfish and plants weren't too good. I had a Procambarus allenii, blue crawfish, he liked to literally grab and pull my grasses. At first I thought it was plecos burrowing, but I caught him and then watched him do it repeatedly. I had to give him to a friend who didn't have plants. Looking forward to the progression!


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## spypet (Jul 27, 2007)

Amazon_Replica said:


> blue crawfish, he liked to literally grab and pull my grasses.


Thanks Amazon - I had similar experiences with larger crayfish. my hope is these dwarfs will be less stubborn when faced with a wall of grass, they will navigate around or through it without trimming it first. I'm very careful to only drop food out in the open spaces, not embedded in any plant matter. I ordered 2 pairs of 2 different crayfish that won't interbreed, so my plan is to put one of each type of pair in this tank, and another set of pairs in another tank. my hope being each pair will bond and mate since there will be no other competition around for them to get distracted with. the 2 types size comparison as adults are 3cm and 5cm so the small will most likely avoid the relatively larger one. I should have them by next weekend, and will post some photos as soon as I can. I'd rather not get too side tracked about crayfish here - if you search my posts you'll find a lot more I discuss on the subject of compatibility. now that I have that net on the back wall that is above and below the waterline, I may get some thai red claw crabs too whenever petco has them cheap. these crabs are very tolerant and will only stand their ground to fight much larger aggressive crayfish. the interspecies drama should be just as interesting soon, as the tank scape itself  I wanted to get a pair of those gorgeous purple vampire crabs, but they want to remain out of water far more than thai's do, and I didn't want to create more humid land mass to accommodate that. I have a clever idea on how to do it without distracting from this tank or shading it's light much, but I'll save that for a future upgrade to this scape. I hope the crayfish eat some of my Ramshorn because without fish in this tank, their population is exploding, so I dropped some avocado rind in the tank, wait a few hours, then remove all the snails on it to another tank.


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## spypet (Jul 27, 2007)

I'm starting an experiment today. while my shrimp molt and cherry, they don't bare live fry, the eggs drop or whatever. since the cholla are the most unusual thing in my tank for shrimp, I removed them to a 10gal holding tank for the time being. I now have two berried yellow shrimp, and I went to see if they bare young now that the cholla are removed. you can see how the cholla very slowly dissolve and deposit "sawdust" on top of my substrate that the snails eventually churn up. I'm adding some MTS soon to aid in that process. I have some new livestock and plants on order, but I will post more about them when they show up and get added to this tank. If for whatever reason the cholla discourage live fry from being dropped by berried females, I will put the cholla back in place, and simply use a separate tank as a nursery for berried females to bare their young and be returned to the main cholla tank. this approach may have the added benefit of allowing me to put fish in this tank that would ordinarily prey on shrimp fry.


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## spypet (Jul 27, 2007)

Here are the most recent additions to my tank;

c.diminitus - I've spent Months getting these for my tank, and hope the effort pays off with them breeding after all the trouble I went to importing these from Germany. they act very much like micro crabs, and stay under my canopy of ET carpet most of the time. I have seen them eat, and they have molted, and even find them digging in the soft SMS clay substrate, but so far they have not dug up any fine root plants, preferring to navigate between them. I got adult males and females, though they are so tiny you can't tell them apart without a close look at their abdomen. other dwarf crayfish I've kept like to patrol your tank all day long, while these little guys seem content to stay out of sight thus far even with nothing in this tank for them to fear. I had them a week before the crabs showed up - the crabs prefer to climb on stuff, and are rarely seen on the tank bottom - such native proclivities should help keep the crabs and crayfish away from each other.

















male & female purple sulawesi vampire crabs now have their own special home under the glass top of my 40g. I used a clay lizard food dish filled with damp clay substrate and leaves and that cholla log are kept suspended above the waterline with strong filter hose suction cups. they can get up there by the net in the rear of my tank, or a cholla log I have perpendicular (think "T") to that top flat log. The air under the glass should stay humid enough for condensation to form, so that should be high enough (>60%) for these crabs. I'm leaving out various hikari frozen foods to see which ones they like most. so far they have nibbled on a crab cuisine stick, but they have yet to molt on me. they don't fight with each other, but so far have kept some distance between them. I don't think I'll bother with plants up here, but once my Almond leaves come in from Malaysia, I'll make a nice bed of them for these crabs.










I also got some juvenile c.babaulti green shrimp this week, but I put them in a different warmer moss tank with the CPO & fish for now. once any of them color and berry up I will move that female to this tank and post a photo. Now I will turn my focus on a few shrimp fry friendly fish I want to add to this tank - just waiting for them to turn up on the order sheets of some local contacts. After removing the cholla to make sure my other shrimp remained berry'd, I restored half the cholla to the tank or 5 out of the original 10 logs. the thought is perhaps 40gal of water can't dilute whatever the cholla are adding to the water that disturbs shrimp breeding, so I'm hoping halving the amount and regular water changes will do the trick. I have at least one yellow and one CRS with berrys a few weeks old, so I will be moving them to a netted breeder box soon to help ensure their birth yields. there is nothing in the tank now to pry on shrimp fry, but I'd like to count them, and feed them powdered food for a week or two before letting them loose in this 40g tank.


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## spypet (Jul 27, 2007)

*I just noticed AQ sellers of Cholla claiming they help with shrimp breeding, and got very upset over this totally unfounded marketing tactic.

Desert Cholla cactus pulp is completely unnatural to the mountain streams and estuaries where freshwater shrimp are found, so while a cave gimmick may help some shrimp breeders, Cholla as a cave replacement and place to grow microorganism for shrimp to eat, is probably a bad idea. I see no evidence that shrimp prefer Cholla to other surfaces.
I found my shrimp far more interested in hanging out on a simple cotton net from a crafts store, then Cholla skeletons "imported" from Nevada. If you want a natural cave gimmick for your shrimp, you are probably better off with a coconut shell which will take years longer to break down in your tank than any Cholla, and has a better porous natural surface than all these silly tubes people market to shrimp breeders now.*

Today I removed ALL the Cholla from my shrimp tank, did a 50% water change, and cleaned out my canister filter throuroughly. I'm convinced now Cholla may be somehow releasing a natural substance as they slowly disintegrate, that provokes my yellow shrimp into dropping their eggs. I had 3 berried females and 2 of them already dropped. I isolated the remaining one to a netted breeder box and now that the tank is Cholla free, will see if she makes it to full term. I also have CRS/CBS with berries and want to bring them to full term, so the Cholla is banished from this tank at least till after these mothers give live birth. If the yellow makes it to full term (after 5 of others failed), this will be an early indication that Cholla were to blame, since no other changes of hardscape, plants, foods or water additives have been made to this tank. I'm glad I invested the time and expense of trying Cholla wood out, but not at the risk of any more shrimp offspring. I may plan another tank with Cholla and crayfish down the road, but for now I"ll shelve the Cholla for another time. It's a shame, as they are really beautiful and I was hoping to try all kinds of ways to display them, but that will have to wait for another time, and different tank inhabitants.


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## spypet (Jul 27, 2007)

still more evidence Cholla is a potential invert killer;

In a completely different 29gal tank where I'm breeding CPO
I placed one Cholla log inside that had already been submerged for Months in other tanks.
Within 2 days I found one of my adult CPO dead.
Nothing else had been done to this tank, not even a water change.

Can I say with certainty that the Cholla was the direct cause and effect?
no, but I'm not going to risk any more of my livestock to find out.

my guess is as Cholla dissolves it releases something akin to rotting vegitation,
_which would also explain why my first cholla tank had an outbreak of infusoria,_
and this release may upset an inverts ability to molt and carry eggs properly.

thankfully I removed this female to a Cholla free tank before this CPO tank experiement;










I won't be posting much more about Cholla use for a while, 
seeing as all my tanks have inverts now, 
but I will post if I keep seeing fatalities in my tanks that are now Cholla free, 
since it would not be fair to blame Cholla were there some other culprit,
- but I highly doubt it.

I finally got some CPD cheap for my Cholla free 40g breeder tank;








and will try to hatch and raise their spawn in a separate tank.
I hope to find the gobies and corys I mentioned before Summer.


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