Planted Tank for CRS

[silane]

I have heard some horror stories of mid to high maintainace planted tank, some claim that dosage of fert killed their Crystal Red Shrimps or plant kills shrimps. On the other hands, I see pretty and sucessful CRS planted tank around.

The type of plant refers to stem plants, not low maintainance plant like moss and ferm.

It had been quite boring for me to use moss tank to keep CRS, I have venture in planted tank.

Would you to hear your views. What fertiser and gravel are you using? What are the plant species you are using? How to maintain the planted tank. Any pitfall, any sucessful story and tank pics? Please share. :)

[imi_sky]

i have 2 planted thats for CRS, both have taiwan moss in it, but all the other plants are pretty light and fert dependent yet the CRS are breeding fine.

as for fert, alot of the japanese CRS breeders recommend ADA "amazonia" due to its black contrast and the ability for u to not dose for a while. but for me i use normal gravel, i dose with dry fert that has been pre mixed in water.

or i use Kent Botanic products for dosing smaller tanks. both work fine, and i have CO2 running in all my tanks and everything happy plants and CRS

[rain-]

I have my best grade CRS in my main tank which is planted 144 liter, 38 gallon, tank. Here's more about it (http://www.plantedtank.net/forums/showthread.php?t=18356).

There's regular sand blasting sand as a substrate (0,1-0,6 mm), Tetra Crypto and Jungle Plant Food Tabs with my self made clay+peat balls as a bottom fertilizer, 2 x 70W metal halides are on 12 hours a day.

There's 3 x 1,5 liter DIY CO2 bottles in use right now and they are attached to two smallish internal filters diffusers and to a Tunze CO2 diffuser. I have almost all the items needed for pressurized system, but I think it will take a month for me to get it up and running. And when I do, I will certainly move my shrimps to live in another tank for a week or so to be sure that I won't overdose the CO2 with the pressurized system.

I add CO2, bottom ferts, nitrate, phosphate, potassium, micro ferts (Seachem Flourish and Tropica Master Grow), Seachem Flourish Excel which is a liquid source of bioavailable organic carbon, baking soda and some calcium and magnesium. This is how I dose:

Day 1: 50-90% water change, Flourish or TMG 5 ml, Excel 10 ml, Phosphorus 5 ppm, NO3 5 ppm, Ca+Mg 2 teaspoons, potassium 1 teaspoon
Day 2: Excel 5 ml
Day 3: Flourish or TMG 5 ml
Day 4: Excel 5 ml, Phosphorus 2.5 ppm, NO3 5 ppm
Day 5: Flourish or TMG 5 ml
Day 6: Excel 5 ml, Phosphorus 2.5 ppm, NO3 5 ppm
Day 7: Flourish or TMG 5 ml

I do a water change once a week and I change 50-90% of the water then. Tank water parameters: pH 6,5, 22-24°C, KH 3, GH 4.

Once I accidentally overdosed nitrate, resulting to 40 ppm in tank water, but the shrimps were fine and the plants grew really fast. I think that the CRS are enjoying their life there, there's no other occupants except malaysian trumpet snails, there's lots of plants and good oxygen levels because of them.

I have several species of plants there, Ludwigia helminthorrhiza, Phyllanthus fluitans, Vallisneria americana var. biwaensis, Heteranthera zosterifolia, Microsorum pteropus 'Red', Microsorum pteropus 'Tropica', Rotala wallichii, Rotala rotundifolia, Shinnersia rivularis, Ludwigia inclinata var. verticillata 'Cuba', Hygrophila corymbosa 'Stricta', Echinodorus tenellus, Echinodorus angustifolius, Egeria najas and lots of mosses and liverworts.

There also houseplants behind and above the tank. I have a filter foam plate as a backwall and there's Fittonia, Riccia and Ficus pumila growing on top of it above water line and I intend to attach some mosses to it under water.

Before I used normal fluorescent tubes and I added only liquid ferts (Tropica Master Grow etc.), CO2 and maybe a bit of nitrates. But after I replaced the tubes with metal halides and started dosing by EI, Estimative Index (http://www.barrreport.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1), the plants have started to grow even faster than before. There has to be constant CO2 addition with that much light and ferts, otherwise there will be some thread algae. That's why I am switching to pressurized CO2 system, then there's no need to replace the yeast+sugar+water -bottles once a week to get enough CO2.

I won't put new plants directly to the tank, first I will rinse them clean and keep them in a bucket and change water a few times during couple of days. Just in case there's some pesticides or other chemicals.

Picture 1 (http://sademetsa.net/141205.jpg)
Picture 2 (http://sademetsa.net/141205_2.jpg)
Picture 3 (http://sademetsa.net/141205_3.jpg)

[Frank]

Hello fruitpie,

I´m using black sand (1-2 mm). I´ve plants in every tank, even my 10l tank. I´ve only heard of anubias who can be dangerous to shrimps. When you cut the plant, the juice shall be poisoned to the shrimps.

[chquan7]

Bro rain, you does nitrate? I thought CRS prefer low nitrate level? I mean isn't the whole point of,keeping CRS in planted tank, for CRS to have almost zero nitrate level? Please englighten.

[rain-]

They don't seem to mind the nitrate addition, the females are carrying eggs and the shrimplets are growing. You can see couple of the babies in this picture:

http://sademetsa.net/downoi0801.jpg

I don't add that much NO3 right now, only about 10 ppm per week, so it's not that high, but I have added more from time to time (also that 40 ppm once by accident) and the CRS don't mind at all.

I also have another tank with CRS and I don't add any NO3 to that tank. The CRS in both tanks are acting similarly and shrimps in both tanks are growing about the same speed and getting as many babies and getting pregnant as often.

I think that it would be a different case if there was a high bioload in the tank and the nitrate would be high because of that. Then the nitrates would come first from ammonia which then turns to nitrite and then to nitrate. There would also be other waste products in the water. But in this case almost all the nitrate comes from the bottle and not from the food etc. And the water is rather pure since I do 50%-90% water changes once a week. And there is lots of plants to use up the nitrate and other nutrients.

[silane]

as for fert, alot of the japanese CRS breeders recommend ADA "amazonia" due to its black contrast and the ability for u to not dose for a while. but for me i use normal gravel, i dose with dry fert that has been pre mixed in water.



How much concentration of dry fert do you add? Is it like KNO3 powder and such?

rain-,
At what stage to do start to dose liquid fert? What is the base fert you use?
How mature was the tank when you introduce CRS? Do you think adding CRS into a new planted tank with all the fert added but plant are not ready to adsorb posing a risk to CRS?

Frank,
I heard that crypt is a no-no too, personally, I have not try and dare not try it.




How many PPM of CO2 are u guys/gals using?

[retardo]

Dosing NO3 is not necessarily dangerous, since it is a nitrogen byproduct that plants use as part of their cycle. If the tank is heavily planted, NO3 will not affect the water chemistry (or shrimp) that much unless you OD.

Re: the crypt debate and its supposedly toxic properties, I have crypts in my shrimp only tank with no adverse effects. Unless someone is able to prove otherwise, I don't see any reason not to keep crypts with shrimp. Why believe rumors w/o sufficient proof?

[silane]

Re: the crypt debate and its supposedly toxic properties, I have crypts in my shrimp only tank with no adverse effects. Unless someone is able to prove otherwise, I don't see any reason not to keep crypts with shrimp. Why believe rumors w/o sufficient proof?

Do a simple experiment, crush some leaves of crypts and leave it in the water, together with the plant. If crypt like some land plants which release some form of toxic when attack by caterpillars or damaged, this experiment will tell. :)

[keithtang]

hi,

I add some crypt to my Crs tank,
and that prove fatal.80% of them
found dead the next morning.
Manage to save the other 20%.
:cry:

[gr81]

Dosing NO3 is not necessarily dangerous, since it is a nitrogen byproduct that plants use as part of their cycle. If the tank is heavily planted, NO3 will not affect the water chemistry (or shrimp) that much unless you OD.

Re: the crypt debate and its supposedly toxic properties, I have crypts in my shrimp only tank with no adverse effects. Unless someone is able to prove otherwise, I don't see any reason not to keep crypts with shrimp. Why believe rumors w/o sufficient proof?
Have you there CRS?
I have crypto tank with RCS and no problem, shrimps feed, grow, breed :)
Now I want add some CRS to that tank, and now am I confused...

[ianlim]

I am starting a new 2ft. tank for CRS and intend to have a top layer of black quatz sand, most probably will start off with mini moss and then slowly add glosso and stem plant, what should I put in the bottom layer? ADA power sand, Amazonia? pls comment. thank you.

[Frank]

Maybe there are problems with crypts in small tanks. I only have a few in tanks up to 50L, also with CRS. So far no problems.
Everything is poison, it´s just the quantity wich makes the damage!

[Ibn]

Here's a 1.3 gallon Ocean Free tank that was set up for such purposes. Substrate on the bottom is ADA Amazonia soil.

http://i.pbase.com/o4/35/597035/1/55700635.DSC_1926.jpg

[ianlim]

Here's a 1.3 gallon Ocean Free tank that was set up for such purposes. Substrate on the bottom is ADA Amazonia soil.


Hi Ibn,

r u using just ADA Amazonia only? is there another layer of powersand? what is your pH?

thank you.

[Ibn]

Yup, that's just ADA Amazonia there. No power sand on the bottom. The Amazonia drops both pH and KH of the water. Before redoing the tank, I had coarse sand on the bottom and with the water out of the tap, pH was at 7.6 with a KH of 6. After switching over, pH dropped to 6.7 with a KH of 2.