Progress updates

[Mech]

If you have a cycled tank, ammonia is instantly turned into nitrites, this then gets turned into nitrates by friendly bacteria.

If you have ammonia then you have not gotten a cycled tank, if you are over feeding or something decaying and nitrates are not increasing then the nitrogen cycle isn't doing its job. You tank has either crashed and is starting to do a mini cycle again or you just didn't have a fully cycled tank in the first place.

It's not that simple. Cycling only works for a specific amount of bioload. A tank isn't just "cycled" and then you can feed arbitrarily large amounts of food (or add arbitrarily large numbers of livestock). Feeding too much overwhelms the nitrifying bacteria (for a while...then they reproduce) and you can have ammonia. The best thing with the really low levels of ammonia that usually occur in Supershrimp tanks is to simply do....nothing. The bacteria will adjust.

If you cycle your tank correctly instead of just adding live animals before the cycle is finished then you wont run into this problem, plus you wont be stressing the shrimp out with the ammonia and nitrites.

[Mustafa]

If you cycle your tank correctly instead of just adding live animals before the cycle is finished then you wont run into this problem, plus you wont be stressing the shrimp out with the ammonia and nitrites.

--Yes you will. There is no "correct" way of cycling a tank for an unexpected bio-load. You don't have to take my word...you can pretty much read about this on any beginner aquarium site that talks about cycling. The advice is to never add too many fish at once...even after the tank has "correctly" cycled. But maybe my tanks never got "correctly" cycled?

[Varanus]

One development over the past months has been that parts of the macroalgae have slowly started to "disintegrate" (or rather fall apart into small pieces). Most of the main masses are still fine (and indeed some of the shed portions seem to come to life again and grow like crazy) but a good portion of the substrate is now littered with tiny, pale strands.

A unexpected consequence of this has been that a number of young shrimp (it seems it only happens to small ones) somehow end up with a strand tangled around their legs or body. Its hard to see how at such a small size, but it must be tangled fairly well as the pieces remain even as the shrimp continue to feed and move about and swim.

Its rather distressing for my OCD sensibilities as I'd like to somehow untangle them. However, given the shrimp continue to move fairly well and feed I have to assume things are okay and they will be freed when they next molt (or when the strand breaks down enough to just fall off).

[Mustafa]

Yeah, don't worry about it. I have tanks like that too where the macroalgae is in tiny pieces. Not sure why this happens...maybe the conditions aren't quite right for a little while and the macro falls apart only to come back when conditions change. But the shrimp never suffer from having macroalgae attached to them. It will fall off eventually. And lots of times they actually carry little pieces around themselves because they continually munch on them.

[Varanus]

Here's an amusing sight to share, I just saw one of the adult shrimps pick up a little snail as it was scrubbing along the holey rock. It turned the snail around a few times then dropped it. The snail proceeded to fall down and land right on the head of a shrimp on the sand below! The shrimp barely noticed though and continued to scrub.

[JennyPenny]

That's funny! I'm surprised the other shrimp wasn't scared. Mine are very timid.

[Super Jess]

Haha, your shrimp are unflappable! It must be funny to live in a world where snails can just fall out of the "sky" and land on you, lol.

[Varanus]

That's funny! I'm surprised the other shrimp wasn't scared. Mine are very timid.

They certainly freak out whenever something major happens like me moving something around in the tank, but a snail like that (a good deal smaller than the shrimp and with the impact lessened by the water) presumably doesn't merit any more notice than bumping into snails or other shrimp does.

[Varanus]

First batch of larva in several months have hatched, here's hoping all goes well with them.

[Mustafa]

What's the temperature in the room/water? Just curious...

[Varanus]

What's the temperature in the room/water? Just curious...

Haven't measured the water but the room temperature has been lower for a while, at least at night, as we have headed into winter. Don't think it has gotten below 60 degrees though (if even that low), and the breeding stopped well before the temperatures fell. I figured the slowdown was simply due to how much the population grew during the previous few bursts of reproduction, since I've heard the population self regulates as it increases.

[InSoOverMyHead]

This is an informative read! I'm glad I'm not the only one who had low amount of ammonia in my water in the onset of cycling. Glad to read this success story, gives me hope!

[Varanus]

This is an informative read! I'm glad I'm not the only one who had low amount of ammonia in my water in the onset of cycling. Glad to read this success story, gives me hope!

Glad it is of help, but I think one thing should be explained. That is ammonia is actually a necessary part of cycling, the bacteria that eat it are essential for handling the toxins the wastes of living things produce.

That is ALL tanks with animals in them have ammonia, the goal and ideal is to keep your bacteria colonies healthy enough that they eat/process the ammonia so quickly that it never builds up to a level where a standard water test will detect much/any at all. Basically 0 ammonia doesn't literally mean 0.

[Varanus]

Things are still going smoothly with the shrimp, gorgeous colors, good appetites, and new babies every two months or so. However it is a bit annoying cleaning up the macroalgae fragments every few weeks as a lot of them slip through the mesh of even a brine shrimp net (as noted in a earlier post there was a period where the main macroalgae mass fell apart slightly and I've been dealing with the fragments it produced ever since). The fragments grow to cover the "feeding" area of the tank that I prefer be bare so the shrimp have an easier time getting the pellets I feed. Plus while it may not be harmful I do still wish the shrimp didn't so often get pieces of the macroalgae stick on them as I can't help but worry a bit.

So I'm considering eventually replacing the macroalgae with Mustafa's moss balls. Am I right in recalling posts that say that the moss balls tend to eventually outcompete the macroalgae, leading to it eventually being eradicated/marginalized in the tank? As the moss balls stay clumped together, aside from when they bud, it seems like they would be easier to keep in certain parts of the tank and move if they get into places I don't want.

If I'm mistaken then no biggie, I'll just keep things as they are.

[Mustafa]

Thanks for the update! The mossballs don't outcompete the macroalgae. The reverse can be possible though. However, the mossballs really never fall apart and just keep chugging along. Your macro will probably come back at some point too. And at least *some* of the shrimp you see with macroalgae "stuck" to them are actually carrying them around on purpose because they are eating it. Once the macro deteriorates it becomes soft enough (and probably "rots"...i.e. covered with bacteria) for the shrimp to consume it.