Tank questions

[Mebious]

Hey

So, yesterday I got some opae ula for the first time, so ofcourse it comes with a couple of questions since it's the first time I'm setting up a tank as well .

I've been browsing the forum a couple days and probably overlooked some of the already asked questions, so I'm sorry if some questions have already been answered before.

I set up a 30L tank in my new studio as mentioned in my previous post about the luminous sand.
It's been cycling for a good 4 weeks now and some oily looking film has been covering the top of the water ( biofilm?)

When I tried to add some cultured rocks to help the tank cycle faster I noticed a white slimy substance around one of the decoration pieces that had been in the tank for couple weeks.
I removed the decoration piece from the tank and put the cultured rocks instead. ( more reasons for me being scared to put the shrimps in there )

For now I'm keeping the shrimps and snails in a plastic container since I'm not living in my studio yet.
I don't want to just put them in a tank I won't be seeing every day to see what's happening .

I put a couple cultured rocks in there too, and they've been happily swimming around and grazing the rocks.

I kept a close eye on the shrimps , scared I might lose them all in one night.
I took a couple shrimps out of the water and kept them in a seperate bowl just in case some shrimpocalypse would happen

I went to check on them at midnight and was greeted with red colored shrimps instead of pale colored ones.
I figured the red color means everything is alright so I put the seperated shrimps back into the container.

Sadly to say, the next day I did find a couple dead shrimps.

I'm not sure what dead shrimps look like, but they still have the bright red color, they're just lying on their side and aren't moving :/

So here a couple questions:

1. The white slimey substance around the decoration piece, do you think it's harmful to the shrimps? Any idea what it is?
I put a couple snails in the tank to check how they'd be doing. I haven't been able to check up on them yet but I hope they're alright.

2. Should I leave the dead shrimps be? It's a pretty sad sight but it doesn't seem the shrimps are too bothered by it. ... From time to time the dead shrimps do move from place making me think more shrimps have died

Thanks for taking time to read my questions

[Mebious]

Alright, the dead shrimp question I already answered for myself...
Within the last couple days they got torn into pieces and I think the only thing that remains of the 3 dead shrimps is a tiny patch of red...

[Mebious]

Little update:

I don't think my tank is doing all too well I'm thinking I might have to empty the entire tank and refill it again... But I hope to hear some of you guys advice first, since I have no clue what to do

I went to check on my tank in my flat. The snails are still alive and I haven't seen any increase in the slimey substance.

Something else I did notice were white flakes all over the tank.
They're probably left overs from the white film I found ontop of the water.
When I touched it to clear it away it broke apart. At some places It also formed on the side of the tank at waterlevel , looking like white foamy bubbles? I'm sure I can scrape them off but I let it be for now.


Other than that I noticed some small white dots swimming around.
They're the same white dots I found today in my shrimp container. I'm pretty sure they came along with the cultured rocks.
Atleast something is able to stay alive in the tank


Should I change the water or wait it out and see what happens?

I did sniff the tank and it does smell a little bad.

[LeShrimp]

Are the white things on the glass moving? If so I have been through a similar situation. They can actually be beneficial.

[Mebious]

Are the white things on the glass moving? If so I have been through a similar situation. They can actually be beneficial.

The white dots ( and some are a little longer than a dot, like a tiny worm) are moving around yea They're barely visible to the eye, so not like I'll be able to photograph them.

In what way can they be beneficial? Are they going to stay if I leave them like that?

[Mustafa]

Your tank does not look cycled at all. That is probably part of the problem. Another part may be that your "cultured rock" already has all kinds of dead organics on it that pollute the water create bacterial blooms. I can tell you from experience that a lot of biofilm species die pretty much immediately when not immersed in water. What kind of substrate is that? Are those tiny "plastic" (i.e. polymer or something similar) balls? And honestly...that many nerite snails are completely counterproductive...they have no benefit at all but to very efficiently eat the biofilm on which the shrimp are supposed to feed. Oh yes...the marimo ball may also be slowly releasing organics into the water if it has begun to decompose already. In addition to that...if the shrimp were already dying in their own water inside another plastic container, then you probably also did not get the highest quality shrimp. People who go out there, catch shrimp in the wild and sell them to the public don't know much, if anything, about keeping the shrimp alive, and how to properly ship them (and, of course, that means they have no clue how breed them, either). These shrimp are tough...but not indestructible.

In any case, I would just set up a very basic tank...without your "cultured rock", just simple sand or fine gravel substrate with calcium carbonate rocks here and there (you could use the "cultured rocks"...but after washing and cleaning them). Just follow the instructions that I wrote down on this website...that's it. Put the shrimp in there....but NO nerites. And then just wait...you're going to probably have die-offs either way, but at least if you do things the "recommended way" your tank will stabilize. If you want to speed things up, get some of the brackish water snails and macroalgae. Or....you could take a chance and dump everything back into the tank you already have. But I can tell you this...in all these years of setting up tons of Supershrimp tanks, I have NEVER seen unidentified white slimy stuff anywhere. There is something definitely wrong with your tank.

[Mebious]

Your tank does not look cycled at all. That is probably part of the problem. Another part may be that your "cultured rock" already has all kinds of dead organics on it that pollute the water create bacterial blooms. I can tell you from experience that a lot of biofilm species die pretty much immediately when not immersed in water. What kind of substrate is that? Are those tiny "plastic" (i.e. polymer or something similar) balls? And honestly...that many nerite snails are completely counterproductive...they have no benefit at all but to very efficiently eat the biofilm on which the shrimp are supposed to feed. Oh yes...the marimo ball may also be slowly releasing organics into the water if it has begun to decompose already. In addition to that...if the shrimp were already dying in their own water inside another plastic container, then you probably also did not get the highest quality shrimp. People who go out there, catch shrimp in the wild and sell them to the public don't know much, if anything, about keeping the shrimp alive, and how to properly ship them (and, of course, that means they have no clue how breed them, either). These shrimp are tough...but not indestructible.

In any case, I would just set up a very basic tank...without your "cultured rock", just simple sand or fine gravel substrate with calcium carbonate rocks here and there (you could use the "cultured rocks"...but after washing and cleaning them). Just follow the instructions that I wrote down on this website...that's it. Put the shrimp in there....but NO nerites. And then just wait...you're going to probably have die-offs either way, but at least if you do things the "recommended way" your tank will stabilize. If you want to speed things up, get some of the brackish water snails and macroalgae. Or....you could take a chance and dump everything back into the tank you already have. But I can tell you this...in all these years of setting up tons of Supershrimp tanks, I have NEVER seen unidentified white slimy stuff anywhere. There is something definitely wrong with your tank.

The first weeks I had set up the tank there weren't any cultured rocks in the tank yet, the white flakes and slime already appeared before that. I already removed the source where the slime was coming from , so hopefully I won't be seeing that again.

The package of the substrate states that it's 100% natural gravel. I do admit it looks a little odd being all round but I supposed the package wouldn't be lying to me ...

I'll be clearing out the entire tank and wash the rocks again. the shrimps'll have to do with the plastic container for a longer while. I'll be seperating the snails from the shrimps, I wasn't really intending to keep them together in a small container for a long while.
I'll put the marimo in a seperated container, because I do like him And I still want to find out if it's able to survive in the same brakish water the shrimps live in.

Besides all that the shrimps are all healthy, the dead rate stayed at 3 and they've been all molting over the past days.

I'll keep this topic updated on how things go.

Thanks for the input

[Mebious]

Little update again here

My first attempt of setting up my tank didn't go pretty well, everything went pretty bad after my last post here
I threw out the sand + cultured rocks and only kept the lava rocks and decoration pieces which I boiled before using again.
The new tank has been running for a little more than a good month now.
In the meanwhile I moved to a new place so moving the shrimps with me was a difficult job.

The new setup seemed fine to me so I decided to add the shrimps a day later.

Again, sad to say, couple days later I believe 3-4 shrimps have died so far
Right now there's one shrimp that's swimming up and falling down the entire time. It's really a sad view.

I'll wait this out again, the other shrimps seem to be doing fine...

Either way, below the new setup with shrimps.
I know, Mustafa said there were too many snails, but since I don't really have any place for these little guys I'll be just keeping a close eye on them. 3 of them didn't make it from my first tank so I felt pretty bad about it...

[Mustafa]

Thanks for the update. Just wondering...are you sure you are actually getting healthy animals? (both shrimp and snails). Even in a new setup these guys should not be dropping like flies like that. I know you animals are from the wild (and I'm pretty sure about the source, too), so there is a good chance that you are already getting stressed out animals. If you followed the instructions on this website to set up your tank, then you should just wait it out. Even if you have perfect conditions stressed out shrimp will still die. So, just let the tank sit and allow a biological flora and micro-fauna to establish. After that things should start looking up.

[LeShrimp]

Have you tested your ammonia, nitrates, nitrites?