20 long full of you know what

[Sea-agg09]

This will be my journal for my 20 sulawesi tank.

3-23:
I picked up the 20 long today, put the background on it, and started to scape it. I need another bag of eco-complete to scape the left side. I'm using zebra rock as a "pretty scape", and lava rock as a functional piece. The shrimp love (and need) to forage in crevices, so the lava rock is a great chance to develop micro organisms. I'm using aragonite based live-sand as the white. My main concern is to buffer the alkalinity and pH. The dead organisms will help cycle the tank, which is going to sit for quite a while before anything goes in it. Lighting is going to be pretty cool. I got my hands on an old coralife T5 fixture (busted fixture FG was giving away for cheap). I gutted the ballast and cables out of the light (T5 retro-fit kit FS lol), and am going to put stunner strips in the fixture. I'm going to use 4 stunner strips, or 24 watts of LED light. I'll add pics of the lights when I get the stunner strips in.

[Mzungu]

Awesome!

What kind of stunners? What blue/white ratio do you plan to use?

Have you figured out what species you're going to keep?

[Sea-agg09]

I'm going to use 4 of the "50/50" strips. They aren't really 50/50, and just add a hint of blue to bring out the colors. I'm going to grow plants in this, so I want mostly whites. They also don't blend all that well, so I that would throw a kink in things.

As for inhabitants, I'm still working with the importer to get more details as to where they get their shrimp. I am thinking probably 1 species, but maybe 2 if I get really good info. Tylos are also going in as well.
There are some micro-danios that come from similar mountain lakes that love hard water and only get about 1.5cm long. I'm considering those if I can track them down.

[jhenry]

Nice start for some reason ive been wanting to start a scrimp tank look intriguing to me

[Mzungu]

Just found out Ecoxotic's coming out with some new LED colors for their stunners.

Just wanted to give you a heads up. Says they'll be ready in April. I'm definitely gonna give them a try, since they seem much more catered to FW than those they have now.

I've got 2 blue and white stunners over a 5g shrimp tank right now, and they grow plants, but they also seem to be really loved by algae...

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[Sea-agg09]

Yeah, they are coming out with a new pink stunner. It's going to be a 2:1 of pink:white (8k), a 2:1 of blue : Pink, as well as a 2:1 white (12k):blue.
ReefBuilder's article about the stunners

Considering all the shrimp I want are red, I might switch out 2 of the pink/white strips in to see if it brings out more of the red color.I was growing small swords and anubias in a 10 gallon with just 1 stunner strip, so I'm quite confident 4 will be plenty for my tank. I'm going to have quite a few plants, and filtering the crap out of it, so hopefully algae won't be much of an issue. If it is I'll deal with it as is comes.

[koi]

WHats your plan on filtration? Are you going to use co2?

[Sea-agg09]

Filtration is an eheim 2211. Considering the bioload, that is way more than enough for shrimp and a few snails. Because eheims use "low flow" filtration, they are better than others with shrimp. With a large foam prefilter, there shouldn't be any issues with shrimplets getting sucked up.

CO2 is like.... the most terrible thing ever, ever, for this tank. lol. These shrimp are VERY VERY VERY VERY sensitive to pretty much every water condition. They come from hard-water lakes, with a pH around 8.3, and significantly hard water. Not only would CO2 drop the pH, but it would change the water chem WAY too quickly for these guys. I will use something like Flourish Excell or the Brightwell equivilent (they are based on the same formula FYI) that won't effect the pH.

[Sea-agg09]

I'm getting my stunners in tomorrow, so I guess I can show how I wired the light fixture.

I saved the switch from the old coralife fixture. I am going to have the the lights on a timer, but in case I want to turn the lights off, I can do it without going to the timer. I spliced in the switch, and sealed it with aquarium silicone. I used the silicone because its waterproof, non-conductive, and is flexible. Once it's sealed, I won't have to worry about water getting in there.


Putting the wiring back into the case is actually really easy. It looks dirty now, but it will be clean once I'm done with everything.



The lights are easily mounted into place with screws.


Switch on...


And switch off...

[Sea-agg09]

Got water in it. The Quick Disconnect was leaking really bad out of a random spot, so I have to bring it in tomorrow and get it looked at. Kinda annoying that I get the whole thing set up but a totally extra piece is keeping it from working.







Edit: Just used some larger tubing to fill in for the quick DC's before tomorrow. Might get a cleaned up shot before too long.

[Sea-agg09]

Put 3 ghost shrimp in the tank to cycle it. Of course the 2 females I get are berried, so the prefilter came off so I'm not overrun with feeders...

[Sea-agg09]

I added some more rocks, so the shrimp should have more places to hide.







I haven't put plants in yet, which are going in very soon. The bare spots are likely to be filled with plants.

[fishman1]

have you chosen what plants ur using?

[cjvo2]

:emt_thumbs:looking good

[Sea-agg09]

have you chosen what plants ur using?

99% sure. I actually just put up another thread in the planted section asking about specific hard water plants. That might be a good clue... lol

Also, thanks Tim on the snails! They look great! Now they just have to mow down all the wavy hair algae left behind from the cycling process. I want to feed them good stuff sooo bad, but they definitely have a ton of food available already.