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

[Jozle]

I need lily pipes.

[Mike&stef]

Update: my MC is spreading and sending runners all over the 33 gallon will wait a few weeks and take a nice chunk out and put it in the 6 gallon. Still have not seen any berried yellow shrimp in the tank out of the 6 I got I think they are all males, so will be looking for new yellow shrimp to add to the colony. Lilly pipes running great.

6 gallon rescaped again and found one male cherry shrimp had survived as well as the clutch of baby's the female had before dying. So now I got a handfull of baby shrimp swimming around with a single dad to watch them. Not sure how everyone else in the tank croaked but the baby's survived..??? Added a cover to the tank to keep out any unwanted chemicals from landing in the water to prevent future deaths.

[Mike&stef]

The algae has arrived in the 33 gallon. I have noticed a little green hair algae on some plant leaves but it wasn't that bad. This mornin it seems like it blew up and is all over a few plants. I also started to see black beard algae developing on the lip of my Lilly pipe as well as the rock scape in the tank. I am dosing 5ml of micros and macros with sunday as a off day. Will drop it to 3ml dosing of each and continue with excel.

as far as cleaning crew I have otos, dwarf pleco, 6 yellow shrimp a few snails. Any other recommendations amano shrimp maybe??

[mnemenoi]

Amano shrimp do a great job with hair algae, I also found reducing the light cycle to help

[Mike&stef]

My lights are on at 10hrs if I reduce anymore wont I be affecting plant growth? My tank is downstairs and has very little to no natural light hitting the tank.

reading your sticky amano shrimp won't breed so I will not have any problems mixing them with yellow shrimp or cherrys correct?
so I should probably get like 5-10 for my tank for a good cleaning crew

[mnemenoi]

My lights are on at 10hrs if I reduce anymore wont I be affecting plant growth? My tank is downstairs and has very little to no natural light hitting the tank. You'll likely affect plant growth, but you will certainly effect your algae growth as well. Most of our tanks are on a 10 hour cycle and we reduce them if we are having difficulty with algae. If you reduce the intensity it can also help, our daughters tank has 2 36 watt 10K bulbs on a 10 gallon and we started having crazy algae problems, but I realized she was turning on both bulbs instead of just one. Once it was fixed the algae problem vanished.

reading your sticky amano shrimp won't breed so I will not have any problems mixing them with yellow shrimp or cherrys correct?
so I should probably get like 5-10 for my tank for a good cleaning crew? Indeed, Amano shrimp are low order breeders and you can mix freely with literally anything. We have 5-6 in a 10 gallon tank with literally hundreds of cherry shrimp. They are far larger and can usually live 2-3 years each. I have seen ours bully the smaller shrimp, but with enough dense vegetation it should not be an issue. About the only thing I would worry about is adding them to a high price dwarf shrimp tank (OEBT, Cardinal, CRS/CBS) as there have been whispers about the possibility of them eating some of the smaller shrimplets. I can say from experiance that our RCS colony is not effected by them in even those numbers.

[Mike&stef]

Stopped using ferts for the past few weeks as well as reduced the lighting and the bba algae has stopped spreading and growing. Green hair algae is still present but I am sure the new amano shrimp I added should be eating that up soon. Plant growth has been going great and my endlers are producing new fry all the time. If any one is interested in some female endler llet me know. As well as my Xmas moss is growing like crazy I have plenty to get rid of. I have noticed a lot of growth from this floater plant, I think it's the hc that hitchhiked on my moss and has been growing like crazy.





in the 6gallon fluval edge plants have been growing ok. I have a lot of algae growing need to stick an oto or two in here to control it as the front glass is covered. My cherrys have taken off in here no more perfume getting in since I made a cover for the top of the tank to prevent anything from falling in.

[mistahoo]

That plant is duckweed not HC. HC looks like clumps of little circles. Duckweed looks like three triangular leafs. Duckweed will grow extremely fast and take over the top of the tank in almost any condition and very hard to kill unless you're trying to. Duckweed also hitchhikes with almost all plants. Unless someone has OCD and removes every piece of duckweed.

[Mike&stef]

Duckweed I don't even know how I got it in the tank, must have hitchhiked with some of the plants I got.

[mistahoo]

Duckweed I don't even know how I got it in the tank, must have hitchhiked with some of the plants I got.

Yup.

[troy tucker]

The tank looks great...

[mnemenoi]

It is certainly duckweed, its the bane of nearly all my planted tanks... I have tried to eradicate it, but a few lone stragglers always seem to hide and its going full stream by a week later. I just try and sift it out with a net.

[Mike&stef]

Any pros and cons of having duckweed in a tank? Right now the only benifet I see is its absorbing nutrients that would be absorbed by green hair algae or bba.

[mistahoo]

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

Any pros and cons of having duckweed in a tank? Right now the only benifet I see is its absorbing nutrients that would be absorbed by green hair algae or bba.

Only cons I see is it getting in the way of any tank maintenance and always getting caught in your net. It's messy. Its benefit is just as any other plant. Absorb nutrients and help keep algae at bay. Nothing wrong with duckweed. It's just that most people don't like it.

Sent from my spaceship using Tapatalk 2.

[mnemenoi]

Pros - are light control and nutrient export, I usually recommend floaters for starting planted tanks as they are able to utilize atmospheric CO2 levels as opposed to be limited by the concentration in the water column. It also assists in pulling out very high Ammonia, Nitrite, and Nitrate levels in the tank. They do a terrific job at reducing a very powerful light, especially at the start of a tank or whenever you are experiancing an algae related issue. Usually I recommend Red root floaters or Amazonian frogbit.

Cons - Light sheilding, they can become so dense that literrally no light can diffuse through them and will choke/kill high light plants that are starved of light lower in the column. They can also cause plants to become straggly and lose lower foliage due to the same issues. They will clog filters, nets, and other mechanical filtrations. With a strong current they can also become lodged in various othet plants in the tank and are difficult if not impossible to eliminate in a densely planted tank.

I usually recommend other floaters as they are larger and more easily removed and controlled. They also provide a larger root system for macro inverts to develop in and provide live food options for nano fish/fry/shrimp.