Old Newbie's NPT Journal

[imsunflwr1]

Today I set-up one of the 2.5 gal. tanks! Yay!!! The water is pretty clear. Sure will be glad when it fills in a bit. Patience right? I did 2 water changes... will do 1 more tomorrow, then move it to it's permanent spot, refill, turn on the heater and light. Then on Friday add the shrimp and some snails. From what I've been reading I'm afraid the Betta will eat the shrimp, they're really small so I'll make this a shrimp tank. I'll be planting another one tomorrow and this will be for one of my beautiful Bettas. Will try to get some Amano shrimp from the LFS... they seem to be larger. Anyway... here's a pic. Hopefully enough plants. I planted several stems of:

Cabomba caroliana
Ludwigia repens
Heteranthera "stargrass"
Rotala indicia
2 Pennywort
1 Sagittaria Subulata (I think)
1 Red Dwarf Lily
1 Hygrophila pinnatifida

Once I refill tomorrow I'll add duckweed and frogbit... maybe some water lettuce. I've got it all! LOL!!! Any constructive critism and advice is welcome!

[Oldfishlady]

Nice job!
It looks great, it will fill in before you know it!

When I first got my Red Cherry shrimp and the yellow color morph-I setup 2 different shrimp tanks and once they reproduced and thriving-I started to add some to the other tanks. I started with a dozen maybe 5-7 years ago and now I have hundreds-not counting the hundreds I have sold. They reproduce pretty fast and if you have really good cover-especially moss-more will survive when kept with fish.

[aemaki09]

That looks great! Nice job!!

[imsunflwr1]

Thank you both so much! It was fun! One problem this evening. I went to check on the tank and it seemed quite warm... like a sauna. I was using a 12" reptile hood with a CFL 6500K, but it covers the entire top and I think it was holding in too much heat so I took it off and am now using a clamp on gooseneck. Not aesthetically pleasing, but it will have to do for now.

I am really enjoying the shrimp... they are fun to watch. I have one pretty good sized female so hopefully babies soon. There are a few that are teeny tiny as well... and my plant holding tank has become a nursery... I think I see several minuscule MTS!!!

Hope to get a 5.5 planted soon!

Thanks again!

[dramaqueen]

Very nice tank!

[imsunflwr1]

Thanks DQ... appreciate you stopping by!

Here's an update on the tank... doing pretty well! Definitely new growth... more than I realized when I compare the 2 tank pics. Red Cherry Shrimp are doing great! I have quite a range in sizes and both females and males. Wonder when I'll have babies? As far as I can tell the larger females aren't carrying any eggs yet. This has been a fun experience... extra plants are hanging in there. One thing with the 2.5 gal. is, it is small! Trying to get in there and clean up is not easy now that the plants are growing. I can't imagine trying to fit a Betta in there. Not much room to swim! Need to get the 5 gal and 10 gal tanks planted and add the Bettas to those.

[imsunflwr1]

P.S. Forgot to mention that the Hygrophila Pinnatifida seemed to rot off at the substrate... don't know if it will come back or if that's it. I really like that plant, but that's been the only fatality. The Dwarf Red Lily seems to be doing well with lots of new leaves. Can't really see it, but it's there in the front towards the left.

[imsunflwr1]

Learned a lot this evening from YouTube. Found out that my RCS pictured above had a "saddle". That same shrimp does have eggs and is actually laboring and having babies as I type! Just think... little Christmas shrimplets! Several other of the females have saddles too although they're quite a bit smaller... hmmm

One thing about my Red Cherry Shrimp... from what I've read if I add them to my NPT Betta tanks they might become a snack. Don't think I can do that now... I've become quite attached to them. Wonder if just MTS are enough. Just finished planting a 5.5 gal. tonight and I think I really like it. I'll post pics in a few days.

[Oldfishlady]

If you have a lot of cover for the shrimp..like moss-some of the offspring will survive, however, those tiny shrimplets are enjoyed by Betta....In my tanks-even with adult Betta-I will still have a pretty good RCS population, however, I do keep a couple of shrimp only tanks too-but I do sometimes use them for a few small/young Betta and it has never seemed to hurt the population.

Look forward to more pics....