New Tank Questions: Advice welcomed!

[Cubscruff]

Hi all,

I've been really fascinated with Opae Ula for a while and I'm finally in a financial situation to get everything I wanted together, however I had some questions:

-For my substrate is it alright to simply use Caribsea brand Caribbean Live Sand by itself?
-Should I add another substrate as well??
-Am I missing anything from my set up (don't want to hurt any shrimp!)

As for the tank itself it's a simple tetra 3 gallon cube tank
I have my instant ocean marine salt
I have a lava rock
An LED light that has both white and blue lights
A refractrometer
A ph tester
Malaysian Trumpet Snails
Marimo Ball
Some hair algae nice and green and growing (borrowed by an established fresh water tank)
And may experiment with a water sprite Ceratopteris thalictroides to see if I can keep a live plant in the tank (a future endeavor)

I appreciate any and all advice since I'm new here, even a point in the right direction.

Thank you again everyone!

[Varanus]

Well most of that sounds fine but a few things to note:

1. The trouble with live sand is that a lot of what is in it is likely to be dead by the time you use it and thus contaminate the tank. Hence it'd be better to use other sand (cheaper too most likely), though if it isn't aragonite then you may need to add another calcium source such as limestone.

2. The freshwater Marimo balls are unlikely to do well in brackish water (though some dispute this).

3. Hair algae can easily grow out of control, as well as potentially trap young shrimp. And since yours was grown in freshwater I don't know how easily it will adapt to brackish.

[Cubscruff]

Thank you for the response Varanus!

The live sand I have has aragonite in it as well as: calcium, carbonate, magnesium, potassium, and strontium.
How would I know whether the sand is still "alive" or "dead"?
Also, would it be alright to have a layer of this sand underneath a layer of finer black gravel, not quite regular gravel nor sand sort of in between (so I can show off the shrimps natural color)?
Side question: where might I purchase limestones/ any links to appropriate alternative sand?

[Varanus]

Yes the live sand is aragonite (basically coral skeletons ground up to the point of becoming sand) which makes it unfortunate that I know of no way of knowing if a particular bag is safe or not. But consider this as well, the live sand is meant for marine aquariums. Even if the organisms in it are still alive when you get the sand, they may not be able to adapt to a brackish aquarium.

Having some gravel on top of the sand is fine, though if you are only doing it to show off the shrimp's color then you could always get black sand like I did. The Carib Sea Super Naturals black tahitian moon sand is what I used: https://www.amazon.com/Carib-Sea-ACS058 ... B003JW54TS (note the main picture for some reason doesn't show black sand, but the product is black sand).

Limestone (itself made up of coral skeletons and such) is often sold as "holey rock" for aquariums and can provide a lot of hiding and exploring nooks for the shrimp, though a quick search on amazon suggests getting a small piece may be a problem (the small ones sold seem to be fake rock rather than limestone). I got mine from pet and fish stores, so you should see what is available in your area. That way you can pick out rocks that fit best or look best, as each one is unique.

You can see what the sand and rocks look like in my tank here: viewtopic.php?f=16&t=5771

[Cubscruff]

Thank you again for the reply @Varanus ! So it sounds to me I'm going to ditch the live sand. And unfortunately there doesn't seem to be any fish supply stores near me, at least none with live rocks or limestone or holey rock and online I don't feel comfortable spending 50-150$ on a product I can't physically see the shape of.

While I scour my area for an aquarium store I think I'll just go with black sand and some aragonite sand if that's acceptable. I bought I "live" lava rock from petco but it was only 4 bucks or something:

https://m.petco.com/shop/en/petcostore/ ... -lava-rock#

Though it says "real lava rock" I'm not sure it'll buffer at all.

Re: update:
Returned my live sand for pure aragonite sand.
Found something I'd be a little more comfortable with but not sure if this is acceptable: http://www.aquacave.com/reef-saver-dry- ... -rock.html

But if I'm using aragonite sand with black sand over it do I still need a calcium carbonate rock of some kind??

[Varanus]

Lava rock doesn't really do anything to the water good or bad as far as I know, but it looks nice and gives a tank more of the "Hawaiian" feel.

As far as I know the dry live rock is basically the same as holey rock, just being closer in form to the original coral skeleton, so it should work fine. And a sizable piece should provide all the calcium your tank will ever need.

But yes, alternatively just using some aragonite sand should provide the same function. Having the calcium source as a rock just lets it also function as a increased surface area for biofilm to grow, hiding places for the shrimp, etc. Nothing wrong with including both either, as its my understanding the water will reach a equilibrium with the calcium regardless so that you don't end up with too much dissolving into the water.

[Cubscruff]

Perfect! Thank you so much I ordered a few good pieces of the rock and will have some aragonite sand as well. I'm going to establish this 3 gallon tank first but I'm already thinking ahead for a bigger 7.5 gallon tank! I'm so excited!! There's so many tank options out there I get overwhelmed especially since they hike the price for filters that I wouldn't be using.

Oh! And any tips on growing just green algae. I know there's upwards of 70,000 different types of algae out there but I seem to have a knack for growing hair algae.

[Varanus]

My tank hasn't grow much visible algae at all so can't help you there. Most people just wait to see what manages to grow in the tank, in addition to getting some water (and thus likely algae) from Mustafa's tanks by ordering snails and macroalgae/moss balls. One user remarked that you can increase the chance of algae colonizing by leaving the top off the tank for a while.

[Cubscruff]

Sounds doable since I'm going to be ordering the macroalgae to help thing along.

Also how long should I wait to put the snails and algae in the tank? Is there a wait period?

And will adding water from an established freshwater tank help cycle any faster? ( mix the freshwater with distilled water and salt til the correct salinity)

[Varanus]

I think the best thing to do is just use distilled water, the bacteria and such in freshwater may not survive the change (and thus will not speed cycling) plus you could introduce a chemical or something else you don't want (recall ideally you should never have to do a water change in the supershrimp tank, so starting with the cleanest water you can is best).

The snails are extremely hardy so you can pretty much introduce them and the macroalgae from the start. Their presence will speed the cycling as well. You may want to add a bit of food after you add them just in case, I know I was worried about them having no food at first. They would likely be fine as it only takes a matter of days for biofilm to develop, but the snails certainly won't object to a bigger source of food to start them off with. After that it should only take a few weeks to cycle. Testing the water for ammonia after that time is the surest way to tell, but in general algae growth is also a sign that it has cycled.

Also be sure to dump into the tank the water the snails/algae come in as that will transfer extra good stuff from the tanks they came from.

[Cubscruff]

Update on tank!:

I found some really nice holey rock that sent a beautiful variety. I'm seeing discourse for marimo balls so we'll see if I can keep them in the tank or not.

Edit: on pay day I'll be able to order the macroalgae and I'll be replacing the regular marimo balls with the supershrimp one's from this site.

Salinity is at 1.010. Should I raise or lower that?
Ph is 8.0.

Also, apologies for the sand. It was concentric circles of black sand and aragonite at one point but messing with salinity made it a little avant garde.

[KenCotigirl]

Supershrimp certainly will have a good home.

KenP

[Cubscruff]

Thank you @KenCotigirl ! Can't wait for them!

[Cubscruff]

It's been a little over a month and I'm finally seeing algae growth, however, it's (apparently) the only thing I can grow in all of my fish tanks which is hair algae.

-Anyone have any advice for growing any other type of algae?
-Will the hair algae be a danger to my shrimp when I receive them?

Good news is my parameters haven't changed and I'm still at 1.010 salinity and 8.0 pH (will check on ammonia and nitrite/nitrate levels tomorrow)

[mike.d]

I got a lot of algae growth after 2 weeks but I have a fairly strong LED light. I'm not sure exactly where the algae came from. But it's green and growing on the aragonite substrate, on the lava rocks, and starting to cloud the glass.

In the tank itself I have:
4 fresh water marimo, from Amazon.
Lava rock from two other freshwater tanks. (It was mostly dry, and had been sitting in an empty bucket for a few days while I rinsed out the aragonite.)
1 freshwater bullhorn snail, died instantly. (I used him for biomatter.)
1 gallon of "starter" water that I left outside for about 2 months. (See this post: viewtopic.php?f=16&t=6067)

My guess is the LED is what did most of the work. It's the Nicrew 20"-27" 11 watt on Amazon. This used to be a freshwater shrimp planted tank. It got overgrown because of the lighting and my lack of desire to trim it all the time.

I'd love to know if you get water sprite growing in brackish. I had a ton of that and hair algae in my planted tank.