# 20 Gallon Long tank



## razoredge (Dec 31, 2011)

Picked up this tank from a fellow GTAer last week and picked up 10 Red Rili shrimp and some orange rice shrimp from Franks this past weekend. It was originally reserved for blue tiger shrimp but they didn't come in. Tried to do some landscaping with the rocks. Looking for some suggestions for plants.


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## randy (Jan 29, 2012)

Nice, I set up three tanks of the same size in the last week too but still waiting for cycling to be done. What kind of substrate are you using and are you using CO2? Your tanks is much better scaped than mine ;-) I'll post some of mine later.


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## razoredge (Dec 31, 2011)

The setup I have is:
20G long 30x12x12
30" Aqualite 2xT5HO Light
Hydor ETH 200 in-line heater
HOB filter I used temporarily until the water clears up
Eheim 2213
Glass Lily Pipes in/out flow
Half bag of ADA amazonia 1
Full bag of Fluval Stratum
Onko Stones
Petrified Wood
I'm working on my DIY co2 for now until I can find a good deal on a co2 kit.


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## Jaysan (Dec 19, 2011)

Ah, was this brap's setup?


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## Pamelajo (Aug 9, 2009)

looks good!!


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## razoredge (Dec 31, 2011)

Jaysan said:


> Ah, was this brap's setup?


Yes, it was


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## Jaysan (Dec 19, 2011)

It was a good setup for the price!


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## razoredge (Dec 31, 2011)

argh.. just checking on the taiwan moss I got from BA in Kitchener and I've found the dreaded hairy algae. Just spent 2 hours pulling it off the moss. I hate this type of algae and wish there was an easier way to get rid of it.


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## bigfishy (Jun 19, 2009)

razoredge said:


> argh.. just checking on the taiwan moss I got from BA in Kitchener and I've found the dreaded hairy algae. Just spent 2 hours pulling it off the moss. I hate this type of algae and wish there was an easier way to get rid of it.


yamato shrimp


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## getochkn (Jul 10, 2011)

You're going to want a sponge on the intake of that aquaclear or else you'll get shrimp all stuck in your filter and possibly chopped up.

Are the orange a neo species? If so, you shouldn't mix them with the rili's.


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## razoredge (Dec 31, 2011)

getochkn said:


> You're going to want a sponge on the intake of that aquaclear or else you'll get shrimp all stuck in your filter and possibly chopped up.
> 
> Are the orange a neo species? If so, you shouldn't mix them with the rili's.


Thanks for the advice. I only used the HOB aquaclear to clear the water before I turned on the Eheim filter. I"m just too lazy to take it off 
I also put a sponge on the intake. The orange was left just temporarily for a couple of days and I've moved them into a different tank. I've moved the rest of my CRS with the Rili's. Added some Java fern & penny wort to the tank.


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## razoredge (Dec 31, 2011)

Added some Grade "S" Crystal Black Shrimp, mineral ball and an Assassin Snail to the tank. So far so good!!


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## razoredge (Dec 31, 2011)

razoredge said:


> Added some Grade "S" Crystal Black Shrimp, mineral ball and an Assassin Snail to the tank. So far so good!!


Hurray! My first berried shrimp in my new tank. That was quick. Can't believe I didn't see the Red Rili shrimp until this morning.


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## razoredge (Dec 31, 2011)

razoredge said:


> Hurray! My first berried shrimp in my new tank. That was quick. Can't believe I didn't see the Red Rili shrimp until this morning.


Must be quite the party going on. Another Red Rili Shrimp berried and now two Grade A Crystal Red shrimp berried!!!


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## randy (Jan 29, 2012)

Congratulations to the berried shrimps. Your tank looks good and works well, nicely done. 

A question for you, you mentioned you use Fluval stratum, is it the plant one or the shrimp one? You said a bag was used, how big a bag was it?


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## razoredge (Dec 31, 2011)

randy said:


> Congratulations to the berried shrimps. Your tank looks good and works well, nicely done.
> 
> A question for you, you mentioned you use Fluval stratum, is it the plant one or the shrimp one? You said a bag was used, how big a bag was it?


Thanks Frank. As per your inquiry, the ADA amazonia 1 and Fluval stratum was already mixed when I purchased the tank. The original tank has been running for about 3-4 months so I didn't have to worry about any ammonia leaking or needed a long time to cycle. I'm pretty sure that the Fluval stratum was for CRS. I've used Fluval statum in my 10G tank prior to moving all my CRS over to this tank. A couple of weeks later and my low grade CRS now has berries.


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## randy (Jan 29, 2012)

Thanks for the info, rezoredge. But name is Randy, not Frank


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## razoredge (Dec 31, 2011)

randy said:


> Thanks for the info, rezoredge. But name is Randy, not Frank


Oops. sorry about the Randy. BTW, razoredge is with a "a" LOL


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## randy (Jan 29, 2012)

That was my revenge ;-) Hope no offense taken. Again, nice tank ;-)


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## razoredge (Dec 31, 2011)

Sad to say lost 2 S+ CBS but all of the CRS are doing fine. The only thing I noticed was a few of the CBS were chomping down on a dying banana plant leaf and the next days there appear disoriented and are now dead.. Could the banana plant leaf be poisonous? I've check Ammonia and PH levels and are fine. I normally schedule my 10% waterchange every wednesday evening. I use half RO and aged water.


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## razoredge (Dec 31, 2011)

razoredge said:


> Sad to say lost 2 S+ CBS but all of the CRS are doing fine. The only thing I noticed was a few of the CBS were chomping down on a dying banana plant leaf and the next days there appear disoriented and are now dead.. Could the banana plant leaf be poisonous? I've check Ammonia and PH levels and are fine. I normally schedule my 10% waterchange every wednesday evening. I use half RO and aged water.


Lost another 2 Rili and a CRS and thinking of doing a 40% - 50% water change. Thinking of refilling with just RO. I slowly tried to process of elimination and removed most of my plants and now just have corkscrew val, Pennywort and moss left. The tank was doing so well and the last thing I put in was assassin snails. I wonder if it might be a parasite? Any suggestions?

KH 2 GH4 Ammonia 0 PH 6.8 TDS: 190


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## razoredge (Dec 31, 2011)

Still not sure what's going on with my tank but so far my berried red Rilli shrimps are doing fine.


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## razoredge (Dec 31, 2011)

razoredge said:


> Still not sure what's going on with my tank but so far my berried red Rilli shrimps are doing fine.


After getting rid of the Damsel fly nymph (see attached file), it's been 2 days since I last seen a dead shrimp (knock on wood!!).


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## razoredge (Dec 31, 2011)

I've spotted 5 Baby Rilli swimming through the plants. A little too small to be able to take pictures. 3 Pics: an adult Red Rilli hiding in a rock. 2 CRS chomping down on a spinach leaf and my New addition to my 20G tank, Tiger Shrimps!


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## randy (Jan 29, 2012)

In my experience, if you see 5 baby shrimps, there has to be more than 10 in total.

Your CRS look really nice. Hope they berry soon.


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## razoredge (Dec 31, 2011)

randy said:


> In my experience, if you see 5 baby shrimps, there has to be more than 10 in total.
> 
> Your CRS look really nice. Hope they berry soon.


Hey Randy,
Your right! I've spot at least 10 now and I found my first CRS!! 

1st Pic - Baby Crystal Red Shrimp and Baby Red Rilli
2nd Pic - Size comparison of the baby to adults
3rd Pic - 3 different sizes of Red Rillis


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## randy (Jan 29, 2012)

Nice. I am also expecting some CRS babies this week, and my male shrimps are "flying" ATM so I think I might find more berried moms tomorrow.


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## razoredge (Dec 31, 2011)

randy said:


> Nice. I am also expecting some CRS babies this week, and my male shrimps are "flying" ATM so I think I might find more berried moms tomorrow.


Interesting that my first batch from my berried CRS has a mixture of CBS and CRS. So far I've counted 4 CBS and 3 CRS. I didn't think my new CBS were ready to breed yet. Happy that I was wrong.


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## randy (Jan 29, 2012)

razoredge said:


> Interesting that my first batch from my berried CRS has a mixture of CBS and CRS. So far I've counted 4 CBS and 3 CRS. I didn't think my new CBS were ready to breed yet. Happy that I was wrong.


Where did you get your CRS? Could be that your CRS already have CBS in their family tree. BTW, I also saw my first CRS baby yesterday, they are so cute.


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## razoredge (Dec 31, 2011)

randy said:


> Where did you get your CRS? Could be that your CRS already have CBS in their family tree. BTW, I also saw my first CRS baby yesterday, they are so cute.


Congratulation on your first CRS baby! The first batch of CRS was bought from a local breeder I found on Kijiji and the second batch of CRS were from Mr. Bako. The CBS I purchased from Frank's were juvies. It was still a nice surprise!!


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## razoredge (Dec 31, 2011)

I found a dead female CRS with about 10-12 eggs (the first one in about 2.5 weeks) this morning. Has anyone tried to hatch the eggs separately? I was thinking how I would be able to take out the eggs and sticking them in a small breeder box. I would hate to loose any potential shrimplets.


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## randy (Jan 29, 2012)

It doesn't need to be sophisticated as the one in the following link, but it gives you some idea. It's not hard and successful rate is pretty high. You need to do it quick before they go bad.

http://www.shrimpnow.com/content.php/257-Artificial-Egg-Hatcher


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## getochkn (Jul 10, 2011)

Basic idea is to keep them aerated. Either put them in a net or something over an air source. I have a cheapo fish net that I bent the handle so it "clips" over the side of the tank, put it over the sponge filter filter which bubbles and use that.


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## razoredge (Dec 31, 2011)

getochkn said:


> Basic idea is to keep them aerated. Either put them in a net or something over an air source. I have a cheapo fish net that I bent the handle so it "clips" over the side of the tank, put it over the sponge filter filter which bubbles and use that.





randy said:


> It doesn't need to be sophisticated as the one in the following link, but it gives you some idea. It's not hard and successful rate is pretty high. You need to do it quick before they go bad.
> 
> http://www.shrimpnow.com/content.php/257-Artificial-Egg-Hatcher


Thanks Randy and Getochkn. How would I pull the eggs off the dead female without squishing the eggs? All I have in my basement is a pair of needle nose pliers?? LOL I'll have to find some tweezers? but my wife will kill me if she knew what I was up to? Hey honey, can I borrow your tweezers so I can pull some eggs off a dead shrimip. . Banished to the spare bedroom for a couple of days.  Wish I thought of this before I left to work this morning and hope that the shrimp isn't decaying too quickly when I get back home.


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## getochkn (Jul 10, 2011)

razoredge said:


> Thanks Randy and Getochkn. How would I pull the eggs off the dead female without squishing the eggs? All I have in my basement is a pair of needle nose pliers?? LOL I'll have to find some tweezers? but my wife will kill me if she knew what I was up to? Hey honey, can I borrow your tweezers so I can pull some eggs off a dead shrimip. . Banished to the spare bedroom for a couple of days.  Wish I thought of this before I left to work this morning and hope that the shrimp isn't decaying too quickly when I get back home.


Use them and don't tell her. lol. It's tricky but try and get them loose with tweezers, take your time and should be ok. Don't leave any dead shrimp attached at all or this will attract snails to want to eat it and they will figure a way in and eat the dead part and the eggs as a byproduct of eating the dead shrimp pieces. I learned that my first time. ANY dead shell at all will attract snails.


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## razoredge (Dec 31, 2011)

getochkn said:


> Use them and don't tell her. lol. It's tricky but try and get them loose with tweezers, take your time and should be ok. Don't leave any dead shrimp attached at all or this will attract snails to want to eat it and they will figure a way in and eat the dead part and the eggs as a byproduct of eating the dead shrimp pieces. I learned that my first time. ANY dead shell at all will attract snails.


Just got back home and #%&$, the dead shrimp is gone. I left it in a breeder box and figured it would be safe. oh well. so much for saving the eggs. Hey honey, I bought you an extra pair of tweezers. 

I wonder who the culprit is? I have two assassin snail and unlikely it would be the 2 MTS (so far evaded the assassins).


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## randy (Jan 29, 2012)

Interrogate the assassin snails, use MTS as the tainted witness.


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## razoredge (Dec 31, 2011)

randy said:


> Interrogate the assassin snails, use MTS as the tainted witness.


Interrogation failed.. Assassin snail said zip... I have more CBS shrimplets than CRS. I noticed that my only CBS female is now berried.


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## randy (Jan 29, 2012)

Nice looking mama that is. For some reason my CRS stop getting berried, only see 2 out of 8 to 10 females berried at the moment. See a few baby ones and clearly at least two batches judged by the two different sizes, but only see 5 or 6 at most at one time. It's a waiting game now, I guess.


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## razoredge (Dec 31, 2011)

The baby red rili are just starting to show some of their coloring now. Here's a few pics. I'm going to start changing the plants in this tank. It's way too busy now after putting a couple of wood with taiwan moss and the corkscrew vals are starting to stretch length wise now.
Oops. forgot to attach the pictures.


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## razoredge (Dec 31, 2011)

razoredge said:


> The baby red rili are just starting to show some of their coloring now. Here's a few pics. I'm going to start changing the plants in this tank. It's way too busy now after putting a couple of wood with taiwan moss and the corkscrew vals are starting to stretch length wise now.
> Oops. forgot to attach the pictures.


My second batch of crystal shrimps have appeared. I'm sure it's from the Crystal Black Shrimp. So far I've seen 2 Black and 1 Red so far. Hoping to see more in the next few days. I'm heading over to AI tomorrow to pick up a bag of Netlea so I can start cycling another 15 gallon tank.


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## arktixan (Mar 30, 2010)

Congrats


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## razoredge (Dec 31, 2011)

Sad to say I can't find the CBS in the last 3 days. She was so heavily berried that she could hardly move. I've moved all the wood and plants and can't seem to find her. so sad.  I can't seem to keep any of my Crystal black shrimps alive that long. The Crystal reds are doing fine though.


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## razoredge (Dec 31, 2011)

razoredge said:


> Sad to say I can't find the CBS in the last 3 days. She was so heavily berried that she could hardly move. I've moved all the wood and plants and can't seem to find her. so sad.  I can't seem to keep any of my Crystal black shrimps alive that long. The Crystal reds are doing fine though.


Holy smokes.. The female CBS is back.. I can't figure where she hid the whole time. I lifted up the wood and rocks and never saw her. She doesn't have any eggs left, however I don't see a lot of baby CRS in the tank. Just glad she's still kicking.


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## getochkn (Jul 10, 2011)

razoredge said:


> Holy smokes.. The female CBS is back.. I can't figure where she hid the whole time. I lifted up the wood and rocks and never saw her. She doesn't have any eggs left, however I don't see a lot of baby CRS in the tank. Just glad she's still kicking.


I can't tell you how many times I thought a shrimp was gone, moved everything in the tank looking for it then found it days or weeks later crawling around.


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## randy (Jan 29, 2012)

getochkn said:


> I can't tell you how many times I thought a shrimp was gone, moved everything in the tank looking for it then found it days or weeks later crawling around.


+1 I have a 7.5G tank and even though it's a small tank, I can be searching for a particular shrimp for hour and can't find it, and only to see it again a few days later.


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## arktixan (Mar 30, 2010)

razoredge said:


> Holy smokes.. The female CBS is back.. I can't figure where she hid the whole time. I lifted up the wood and rocks and never saw her. She doesn't have any eggs left, however I don't see a lot of baby CRS in the tank. Just glad she's still kicking.


Congrats 

They sure are very crafty when it comes to hiding...

I havent seen my berried CRS in a couple days myself, this morning shes chowing on some Cholla.


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## Fishfur (Mar 4, 2012)

I often lose track of mine in the 30 G tank.. there's just so much room in there, and too many places to hide. I'd never see my Snowballs except for the fact they seem to enjoy hanging in the watersprite roots, so I see them there. Needless to say, can't catch one ! Want to get the berried one into the brood tank so the danio's and loaches don't eat the babies when they come.


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## razoredge (Dec 31, 2011)

Added some Crystal Black Shrimp to my show tank. Red Rili are breeding like crazy and have at least 2 berried at any given time. Looks like most of the Crystal red shrimplets didn't survive.  I'll have to do a major trim on the Taiwan moss as it's growing out of control.


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## randy (Jan 29, 2012)

I can't seem to keep CRS babies either. I think tigers are suspicious. They may have eaten the baby CRS after they molt.


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