New to planted tanks starting 33 long and 6 gallon iwagumi style tanks

[Mike&stef]

Well the Eco complete is going into the 33 long nicely so far I am doing to scoops a day with a small cup and spreading it around.

In the 6 gallon the sand is their for rooting purposes but yeah I do need more fish waste or the sand to age more that way their is more nutrients, right now the only thing in it since the death of my shrimps is one oto and snails. Didn't want to add a bunch of fish cause it's a pain in the a$$ to get them out.

Any one have awnsers to my other questions like what the mysterious fish is, what ferts, and what to do with the heater?

[Totenkampf]

i guess i missed that u were adding substrate into the aquarium without removing the water. amazonia would have been a mess if you had been dipping it in. EC is by far the best sustrate to add later. it doesnt seem to cloud the water much at all.

the fish looks like a tetra of the Hyphessobrycon sp. it is not colored up well and the pic is hard to see but it could be something like a female red phantom, rosy, or serpae tetra.

i dont use heaters at all unless it gets really chilly and then only on my tropicals. the rams in the 33G will want one because they dont like getting cold. cold tropicals often lead to ich. if you were going to use it in the 6G then its way oversized. i stick to 3 WPG here in texas.

the easy way to fertilize is flourish, flourish iron (or leafzone), and flourish excel dosing but flourish really doesnt have the macros that you want. a little better way is to buy the three free form macros along with iron and excel. of course, excel isnt needed is you go back to CO2. the best way is buy dry ferts from some place like green leaf aquariums and mix your own. i prefer the PPS-Pro dosing regime only i move the Mg to the micro fert mix and add 20mL excel to the 1000mL mixes to keep fungus at bay.

[Mike&stef]

the easy way to fertilize is flourish, flourish iron (or leafzone), and flourish excel dosing but flourish really doesnt have the macros that you want. a little better way is to buy the three free form macros along with iron and excel. of course, excel isnt needed is you go back to CO2. the best way is buy dry ferts from some place like green leaf aquariums and mix your own. i prefer the PPS-Pro dosing regime only i move the Mg to the micro fert mix and add 20mL excel to the 1000mL mixes to keep fungus at bay.

Ok so I just acquired the leaf zone micro macro set and I have read about the PPS- pro dosing, the only thing is it all kinda sounds like Greek to me. Should I mix 2 bottles one micro and one macro like this with ro water?
1/8 tsp kno3
1/32 tsp KH2po4
1/32 tsp k2so4
bottle #1

1/32 tsp of csm+b micros
bottle #2

I plan on using both bottles to dose both tanks 6 gallon and 33 gallon

[davemonkey]

I didn't notice if you got any info on shrimp yet. I've kept cherry shrimp, blue pearls, and now malawa shrimp in planted tanks with CO2 and very hard water with no real problems. These are hardy species, but they are sensitive to heavy metals, so a good dechlorinator that also binds heavy-metal ions is recommended (Stress-Coat, Nov-Aqua, etc...).

If you use the ADA Aquasoil, be prepared to move the shrimp out temporarily. The initial ammonia release for the first 3 weeks or so will be too high for shrimp, even with daily partial water changes.

[Mike&stef]

I didn't notice if you got any info on shrimp yet. I've kept cherry shrimp, blue pearls, and now malawa shrimp in planted tanks with CO2 and very hard water with no real problems. These are hardy species, but they are sensitive to heavy metals, so a good dechlorinator that also binds heavy-metal ions is recommended (Stress-Coat, Nov-Aqua, etc...).

If you use the ADA Aquasoil, be prepared to move the shrimp out temporarily. The initial ammonia release for the first 3 weeks or so will be too high for shrimp, even with daily partial water changes.

Yeah I have read about the ammonia spike so I decided to get Eco-complete so I could top off my gravel substrate. I just finished adding the rest of the substrate today after a ro wc; and had a little leftover to add to the 6 gallon fluval edge.

I bought 5 cherry and 5 neon yellow shrimp off someone on here and so far they are making themselves at home in my 33 gallon. Already seen mounting and they are going to town on the Xmas moss and driftwood in the tank.

If you got shrimp 4 sale I may pick some up I still need to stock my other tank. I am using ro water now from watermill for wc and top offs only additives will be the micro and macro ferts once I figure out the proper dosing.

[wesleydnunder]

I didn't notice if you got any info on shrimp yet. I've kept cherry shrimp, blue pearls, and now malawa shrimp in planted tanks with CO2 and very hard water with no real problems. These are hardy species, but they are sensitive to heavy metals, so a good dechlorinator that also binds heavy-metal ions is recommended (Stress-Coat, Nov-Aqua, etc...).

If you use the ADA Aquasoil, be prepared to move the shrimp out temporarily. The initial ammonia release for the first 3 weeks or so will be too high for shrimp, even with daily partial water changes.

+1

Also, I'm not sure if you were planning on putting cherries and yellows together. It isn't advisable because they are same species and will interbreed. The resulting shrimp will go back to their original wild color which is a muddy brown.

Mark

[Mike&stef]

Muddy brown really? That's not good I was thinking they would kinda look lik sss shrimp with red and yellow stripes. I am going to rescape the 6 gallon and I will probably add the cherries to it an keep the yellows in the 33 gallon. Thanks

[Mike&stef]

So I have been reading page after page in dosing ferts and my gram scale has arrived so I am ready to start mixing my batch of ferts. Someone mentioned the PPS method I have also read about the PMMD which sounds similar or is the same, anyways this is what seems to be what I need to do. Can anyone else verify just to make sure before I dose my tanks?

I will do 5ml in my 33 gal - Mon- Wed- Fri
10 drops in my 6 gal Mon- Wed- Fri
and the same for trace elements Tue- Thr

I will use my seachem flourish bottle or anything else that is 500ml Pour into bottle #1, 59 grams of K2SO4, 65 grams of KNO3, 6 grams of KH2PO4 and 41 grams of MgSO4.
Pour into bottle #2, 80 grams of dry Trace Element mix.
Fill up both bottles with soft water to the 1 litre size and shake. Wait over night until dissolved.

[Mike&stef]

So my dwarf hair grass is not spreading it actually looks like it has shriveled up and receded into the substrate. So now looking for a new foreground plant and more plant diversity for my setup. I am thinking Marsilea Minuta, if you know where to get it let me know.

Also can anyone chime in on my ferts dosing does it sound right?

[Mike&stef]

So I have just seen cardinal shrimp that ArmtheHomeless has for sale and WOW. I am wanting some of those for my tanks, I have seen that they require higher ph than normal. Check I got that even with RO wc.
Will they interbreed with neon yellow and cherry shrimp and if so will they still come out muddy brown or some awesome mixture?

I have seen some tank threads on here that have chola wood inside. Did they get them off ebay?? I am looking for some I hear the shrimp love them. My plastic pvc shrimp condo is sufficient but the moss will not grow and cover it as I wanted and if anything is becoming a eye sore in my tank.

[Mike&stef]

Got some great looking plants from texsun this past week been busy planting them, moving them, replanting, ect.... also added some more substrate to the tank. Started dosing micro and macros ferts just made a 250ml bottle of each and seeing how it works. I am also waiting on some new plants that I ordered new foreground Marsilea crenata and a banna plant of bobs tropical plant. Thinking about keeping the yellow shrimp in this tank and cherrys and (hopefully soon) some cardinals in the fluval edge. Anyone have any answers to previous post I had wrote?

Rescaped the 6 gallon today so the water is a little cloudy will be removing some gravel and replacing it with black sand once I find a good deal. I was going to put some of the fluval shrimp stratum in the tank but decided against it since I will be going with cardinal shrimp instead. Cherry shrimp and cardinal shrimp can be kept together correct?? Since they different species..

[mistahoo]

The cardinal won't interbreed with the RCS or the yellows. The RCS and the yellows are different species however will interbreed and usually they will give you a chocolate muddy color (Similar to the WC neos). What you want to look at is different families and not species. Different families cannot breed with each other, but different species can.

[mistahoo]

Here is Roy's (mnemenoi) sticky on keeping freshwater dwarf shrimp

[Totenkampf]

Muddy brown really? That's not good I was thinking they would kinda look lik sss shrimp with red and yellow stripes. I am going to rescape the 6 gallon and I will probably add the cherries to it an keep the yellows in the 33 gallon. Thanks

yeah unfortunately genetics dont work that way. the various color morphs have been selectively bred to only have genes for that color present, if you add different ones together then they have enough genes to go back to their true color form.

[Totenkampf]

So I have been reading page after page in dosing ferts and my gram scale has arrived so I am ready to start mixing my batch of ferts. Someone mentioned the PPS method I have also read about the PMMD which sounds similar or is the same, anyways this is what seems to be what I need to do. Can anyone else verify just to make sure before I dose my tanks?

I will do 5ml in my 33 gal - Mon- Wed- Fri
10 drops in my 6 gal Mon- Wed- Fri
and the same for trace elements Tue- Thr

I will use my seachem flourish bottle or anything else that is 500ml Pour into bottle #1, 59 grams of K2SO4, 65 grams of KNO3, 6 grams of KH2PO4 and 41 grams of MgSO4.
Pour into bottle #2, 80 grams of dry Trace Element mix.
Fill up both bottles with soft water to the 1 litre size and shake. Wait over night until dissolved.

I guess i am confused since you are mentioning two different sized bottles. The recipe that you are using is for 1000mL of mix, cut that in half if you wish to mix it in a 500mL, then use 1mL / 10 gallons of tank volume. increase or decrease from there. at your current mix and dosing you are adding 4x the recommended amount.

a few notes: if you start two notice green spot algae you can add twice the amount of KH2PO4 to the mix or just keep flourish potassium on hand. you may want to add the MgSO4 to the micro mix since it has been found that Mg doesnt play well with the macro nutrients. I often add another 35g of 11% DTPA Fe to my 1000mL micros to attain 0.2ppm iron. use this if you have high light and red plants. i also add 20mL of excel to each mix to prevent fungus from gowing in the bottles. reduce nitrates wil heavy fish load

PMDD is somewhat the same but the micro and macros are added together in one bottle and dosed daily, these emulate the popular Dupla Drops that were one of the first ferts back in the day. I started out this way but prefer PPS-Pro now.