Three Ecospheres Into One Tank?

[below_radar_00]

Hello,

I've reviewing your site pretty thoroughly and I've viewed most of the topics on the discussion forum to glean even more information but I'm in a bit of a unique situation and I haven't found an answer anywhere.

Backstory:
I purchased two small Ecospheres that came with four shrimp each a little over four months ago when they were on Groupon in my area. I'd never seen anything like that before so I was very interested in getting them. I figured I'd put one in my office and one in my living room. My wife ended up not being as impressed as me so we decided I'd just keep both in my office. A couple of months later both were still doing fine and I was amazed at how cool these little guys were so I decided to buy the large sphere which came with 16 shrimp. I put that one in my living room. I ended up buying another large sphere for my parents for Christmas as well but that's a bit off-topic.

Fast forward to this month...one of my small pods is down from four to two shrimp. The other small pod is down from four to one shrimp. The large sphere is down from 16 to 6 shrimp. I started doing some research and I came across this site and the Fukubonsai site. I now know that I need to pop open these containers and move the shrimp. They are all dying so fast and this site recommends a month to set up the tank. I've read some saying two months on here. I really don't want to wait that long since they are all dying so fast right now. My idea was the get a gallon tank, buy the 1/2 gallon setup from Fukubonsai which comes with more shrimp, the water already set up with algae in it, a lava rock, and some rock/sand for the bottom. Once it arrives I was planning on dumping that into a gallon tank (simply because I don't like the look of their cylinder 1/2 gallon setup) and then grabbing the shrimp from the other three containers and mixing them in there as well.

Here's where my question comes in...Putting a 1/2 gallon tank into a gallon tank means I'll need more water. Can I top off that tank with the water from these ecospheres or do I risk ruining the system since something is obviously off about these other three setups? If I can't top it off with that water, is it safe to just poor in (over time) distilled water like the site recommends for small top offs or do I need to mix some brackish water and use that since it’s more than a small top off?

Another question…do I risk messing anything up in the Fukubonsai setup if I pour it into a larger setup. I know these guys feed on bacteria that’s all over the place and I didn’t know if dumping the whole setup out would stir up the bacteria and mess it up. I don’t have any tank experience so all of this (salinity, nitrate levels, ammonia levels, algae) is new to me.

[KenCotigirl]

Hello. Happy you found this site. Maybe this would be opportunity for Mustafa to add an article on how release the supershrimp from their little spheres. I will let those who have successfully did this respond. Till then....

These shrimp are hardy. Setup your one gallon now. Order your shrimp from the Hawaiian vendor. ( please note that I have been talking to David recently and he may not be selling setups anymore. He is having problems with with the state of Hawaii that makes doing business difficult if not impossible.)

If you are topping off use ro water or distilled water. If you are adding volume you need to mix reef salt with water to make brackish water.

Keep the updates coming.

[below_radar_00]

Thanks for the reply!

I watched a couple of Youtube videos on opening those Ecospheres earlier this week so I felt confident that I'd be able to do it. I was just a bit worried about crushing the little guys if the branch or the pebbles in there hit them or if they refused to come out the very small hole and then were out of the water. I ended up taking the plunge last night and opening them as yet another shrimp died yesterday. It was in one of the small pods. So I was down to one in each pod when originally there were four. 24 shrimp to 8 shrimp in a matter of 3-4 months...just sad. Anyways, it was just like the Youtube videos out there show...there's a glass plug in the bottom that's held in with lots of glue. You just take a knife to the glue and peel it all off. Then you have to pry open the little plug. You can hear air rushing in when you do it. Also...these things smell pretty horrible since obviously they are just sitting sealed for months on end. I did a small pod first since there was only one guy in there and the other one had just died the same day...I thought maybe the dead one would revive if he had some fresh air. The other shrimp wasn't eating him so I thought maybe he was just on the brink of death and not really dead...either way it was worth a shot and if I screwed up I'd only have lost the one and I'd be smarter for the other seven. It took some time but I managed to slowly pour the water out into a bigger half gallon container I had (just a temporary setting until I figure things out). The little guy came out, I put his rocks and branch in there since there might be some bacteria there for him to eat. I also pulled out the algae and put it in there. The other shrimp was for sure dead when I dumped him in so sadly...that ended up. I was a day late.

Now the second small pod was a little more difficult. I was scared about pouring water into the bigger container since there was a shrimp in there already. I was worried that the rocks might fall out of the pod all the way into the new tank and crush him. So I took a plastic dixie cup and poured him into the cup and then transferred him into the bigger container. Then I beat the mess out of the pod to get out the algae and rocks and I planted those into the bigger container also. I had to pull the branch out with some pliers.

The third round was the big (half gallonish) sphere. This one had a huge branch in it and I didn't think the contents of the water would fit into the new container so I had to carefully pour enough water to fill that dixie cup and make sure to avoid getting shrimp into it since I needed some water sitting out. I took another dixie cup and managed to get the shrimp one by one out of the sphere and into the new container. Then I got the rocks and algae out of it and put it into the container also. I couldn't get the branch out of this one without breaking the sphere. I found that the Ecosphere glass is easily broken. I tossed the first pod into the trash and nothing happened but when I dropped the second one in it hit the first one and they both shattered. So I decided to take the large sphere and drop it on top of the other glass...it didn't break the first try but the second try it shattered and I was able to pull out the large branch. I just put it into a ziplock bag for now as I don't want to clutter the tank too much since I'll be transferring everyone out in the next week or so when I figure out my final setup.

I should have noted in my first post that I did already buy the Fukubonsai setup. I purchased it Monday night since I knew I needed to do something soon. It shipped on Wed and it's due to arrive today via FedEx. FedEx is normally here around 10:30am...it's 11:00am now so I imagine it'll be here any moment. Once I have that in hand I'll have a better picture on the setup I need.

I bought a refractometer on Amazon Prime and it should arrive today. I want to see what the salinity is in each tank so I can report back if it's outside the range this site says it should be in. I also bought some water tests from Amazon that test nitrate levels and ammonia levels. I have no clue about any of this stuff but the three things I kept seeing on the forums were salinity, nitrate and ammonia so I decided to test all of these things in each setup before trying to combine them. I'm sure it's on the forum somewhere but how should the nitrate and ammonia levels read? I don't even know what the test itself looks like so maybe it's just a simple pass/fail or does it have a color coded system and I need to have a certain color for the tanks to be healthy?

I'll keep updating as I get things going. The first bit of news is that everyone did survive the transfer and the night also. They certainly look much happier. They are all eating and all but one is the normal red color. I'm sure the guy who lost his color will adjust in a few days.

[KenCotigirl]

Nice post. You sound like an expert shrimp remover. Send some pictures.

[below_radar_00]

I'll post some pics in the coming days...still working on setting everything up.

Question about Ammonia, Nitrite and Nitrate:
The ammonia levels in the combined Ecosphere habiti is .25ppm, and the Nitrate is 10ppm. No Nitrite in sight. Are those levels okay and will they balance out? Everything I've seen on here suggests just leaving it alone and letting the tank correct itself. I'm wondering if I should hold off combining the new tank and the Ecosphere combined tank or if the new tank that should be 0ppm everything will help balance things out. I'm about to test the new tank now to make sure it's good. Salinity in both tanks are right where they should be so we're good there. Moving along nicely it seems. I was expecting levels in the Ecosphere setup to be through the roof but I guess since they are only a few months old they aren't quite as bad. Probably helps that I combined all three too and they've been sitting for a couple of days with fresh air.

Any thoughts?

[below_radar_00]

Just tested the new tank I received from Fukubonsai this week. Ammonia is 1ppm, Nitrite is 0ppm, and Nitrate is 160ppm! I tested Nitrate twice with two different test tubes to ensure that reading was accurate. So what's the verdict now that my two tanks levels are known? Should I combine them into one gallon tank and let the tank settle on it's own or do I need to be worried about the high nitrate levels?

[below_radar_00]

Latest update: I went ahead and combined both my Ecosphere 1/2 gallon tank (which was already the combination of three Ecospheres) with the Fukubonsai 1/2 gallon I just got. It's been a little over 24 hours and everything seems fine on the surface. The shrimp are all running around. I don't see any dead shrimp out of the 30 or so shrimp that should be in there. I tested the levels of the new tank for the first time and the ammonia went down but nitrites went up and nitrates stayed the same. Here are the new numbers: ammonia .5ppm, nitrite .25ppm, nitrate 160ppm. I've seen mixed advice on the forum. Some say leave it, others say put a treatment in the tank, others say do a 50% water change. It seems Mustafa usually says that if shrimp are moving and eating then to just leave it. So I'm assuming that's what I should do but I'd love to hear some feedback.

[Mustafa]

Wow...160 ppm Nitrate? 0.5 - 1 ppm Ammonia? That's pretty insane. Those are all 0 in my tanks. Anyway, observe the shrimp. If they are *picking* at surfaces in the next few days, then leave things along. Get some brackish Chaetomorpha and brackish snails, otherwise that 160 ppm nitrate is going to cause a mega cyanobacterial bloom...I'm talking *sheets* of algae peeling off of surfaces due to their own weight (given that you have a decent light source, of course). With that amount of nitrate you may actually get the bacterial/algal growth anyway, even with the snails and macroalgae. If your shrimp just sit there and aren't doing much...or, if they keep swimming around frantically for days and days (without ever stopping to pick at things), then you may want to do a 50% one time water change following the instructions on the "setup" page when clicking the "Supershrimp!" link above. Then just leave everything alone.

[below_radar_00]

Thanks for the reply Mustafa!

Yea these little guys are running all around. Some are picking stuff off the decor that were in the other tanks but almost all of them are just doing circles around the tank all day. I guess that means they are circling around looking for food?

I'll order some of those snails from you today. Should I also get some algae? The algae that came with the Ecospheres was probably the size of a dime all combined. So maybe that's not enough? I don't recall seeing any visible algae in the Fukubonsai setup.

As far as the water change goes I guess you mean I'd need to replace the water with a brackish water mix like on the setup page...not just distilled water right?

Thanks again for the reply. So far everything seems to be going good. I still don't spot any dead shrimp. Sure is fun watching them go round and round all day.

[KenCotigirl]

Remember when doing a water change you need to replace with brackish water. When adding water that evaporated use RO water or distilled water.

Mustafa said "If your shrimp just sit there and aren't doing much...or, if they keep swimming around frantically for days and days (without ever stopping to pick at things), then you may want to do a 50% one time water change following the instructions on the "setup" page when clicking the "Supershrimp!" link above"

The key is frantically. Not just swimming. If the shrimp slow down in a couple days great.

These shrimp are benthic. They spend most of their time crawling along the substrate, hardscape and tank surface feeding on biofilm. They will lazily swim in open water to get from one point to another. Swimming in circles is not a feeding activity.

If you have the few extra dollars get the algae with your snail order. The algae will help the cycling, add color and gives the shrimp more surfaces feed on.

[below_radar_00]

Just a quick update...

I purchased the snails and macroalgae from Mustafa and received them last Thursday the 16th. I put them in my gallon tank later in the day. I know one of the snails didn't survive the trip...he's been in the same spot in the algae since last week. I've only seen seven of the others out at once so I'm not sure if the other two didn't make it or if there are just always two hiding. I tested the water a couple of days back and everything is pretty much the same. I guess it'll take some time for things to level out. Every now and then the shrimp will settle down but they spend a good bit of the day swimming in circles. They are all bright red and I've seen two or three of them molt. They seem healthy. The water tests and the swimming in circles makes me wonder though. I took a quick video a few mins ago and uploaded it to Youtube so you all can take a look: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E7Bm3J5aVxQ

Keep in mine that this is a spherical tank so you'll see the shrimp as they make their front and back passes. Most of them are swimming around like this during the day. Every now and then I'll look and only a few are swimming but I think most of the day this is what they are doing. Should I keep waiting it out or should I look at doing a 50% water change now?

[KenCotigirl]

I would not consider that as frantic behavior. They are just swimming. Some people may find that appealing and think something is wrong when they settle down and mostly crawl arround. Check the ammonia in a couple of days and keep us updated.

[Mustafa]

As Ken (Cotigirl) already said, your shrimp look fine. They'll settle eventually. Just take out that java moss (or similar freshwater moss) that I see in the background. Yes, I know..it looks like it's alive, but it's just dying slowly. No moss will survive in a Supershrimp tank. It will just die and slowly mess up your water. As for the snails..I always put in 1-2 more snails in the bags, so there should still be at least 10 in there. These snails burrow and are nocturnal, so you're never going to see all ten crawling around. Now just wait...do nothing. The more you obsess about the tank and the shrimp, the more likely you are to mess things up.

[below_radar_00]

Thanks for the reply Ken! I was under the impression from reading other posts on the forums that these guys should be pretty still. Glad to know this much movement is okay since I obviously enjoy seeing them swim around all day. I'll keep an eye on the levels and keep everyone posted.

Mustafa, thanks for your reply as well! The greenery that you see in the background is actually a fake plant that came with my Fukubonsai setup. They included a ton of fake greenery and I decided to leave a little piece in there to brighten up the environment. The only living greenery in there is that algae I bought from you. I'm glad to hear you say the tank looks good as well. I'm just trying to make sure I'm doing the right thing with this tank after witnessing almost all of my 24 Ecosphere shrimp die in a matter of months. Hopefully everyone will stay happy and healthy.

Thanks again for all the help everyone and I'll keep you posted on any changes!

[Mustafa]

There's only one thing....light. Does this setup come with any light? (Your video clip shows a dark tank). If not, try to find an appropriate light source because both the macroalgae and the type of surface algae that the shrimp feed on absolutely need a light source. Keep the light on for 10-12 hours a day. The lack of light (before you got the tank) may explain why the water has 160 ppm of nitrate. Without light algae won't grow and "eat" up the nitrates.