Sorry for the long post.
I started a small tank (0.5 gal or less) two years ago with 10 shrimps, can’t really remember how many problems I ran into along the way but with the help from people and Mustafa of this site I managed to pull through every time. The tank finally settled and the shrimps lived happily ever after. Then I was leaving them alone, letting them thrive and not paying attention to them anymore for a long time, until recently when I discovered that one of the shrimps was pregnant. I was super excited and it reignited my passion about the shrimps again.
So long story short, I decided to start a new tank, way way bigger this time, a 10 gallon tank. I was thinking about tanks with hundreds of shrimps like those from Mustafa's breeding lab. With all the initial set ups done, once again I run into unexpected problems that I couldn’t figure out myself. I am listing them down and posting some pictures. I will try to be as detail as possible, please help me, thank you very much in advance. I really love the shrimps and to see even one die breaks my heart.
Detail information about the tank:
I understand that adding too many fancy stuff in the beginning increase chances to mess up things real bad, so I decorate the tank only with porous volcanic rocks, and aquarium soil, the type I see a lot of people use here, and super moss ball purchased from this site two years ago for my smaller tank.
All water used is bottled distilled water and salinity is calibrated to 1.012 with marine salt. I set up the smaller tank the same way two years ago.
Ammonia 0, NO3 NO2 both 0, pH 6.3 (all parameters are same as smaller tanks except the pH value, my smaller one reads 7.5+ and new one shows 6.3-, also sometimes I really wish someone could quantify the water quality, like a list of all required parameters you need to be aware, go ahead and make your own water parameters within accepted ranges from the list and you are all set, success guaranteed:))
I live in Hong Kong, the temperature recently is around 30 degrees celcius. The tank is by the window on the 7th floor, it has direct and adequate sunlight (when it's too strong I close curtains), I also have a 7 watt light bulb from IKEA in reserve for cloudy or rainy weather, or observation purposes.
Tank cycled for exactly two months, substrates and rocks rinsed prior to set up. Snails were put inside mid way during that period. Water is crystal clear, no smell. I do replace water from time to time to remove the biofilm floating on the surface when it gets too thick, and it get thick fairly quickly.
Problems with my tank:
1. No visible algae. I let the tank sit by the window with ample sunlight to cycle for nearly two months before I introduce shrimps into it, hoping to see green algae covering rocks and substrates. But nothing happens the entire time, all rocks and substrate remained same as they were two months ago. The water is clear and there is brownish thing growing on the glass (not the green algae I want), and some biofilm on the water surface. I introduced two snails to to deal with the brownish thing and they did a good job containing its growth. Is it possible that algae spores are rare in Hong Kong due to the climate? Because it took the smaller tank long long time to finally see some green.
2. Mustafa Super mossball turning brown. I thought not seeing visible algae doesn't necessarily mean that there isn't anything going on down there, after all it took my small tank at least 20 months to see something green grow. So I assumed that the cycling is near completion and went ahead and took the super moss ball from my smaller tank to the new one in hope to speed things up. And instead of that, the one hardy strong super mossball turned brown itself. I am really at a loss here since this mossball is supposed to be incredibly adaptive to any environment, does turning brown means it is dying?
3. Shrimps not moving and are extremely shy of light. Since I live in Hong Kong and there is no way for me to get shrimps from this site, I took the more expensive way to order shrimps from the only local vendor at around 8 USD a piece for 10 pieces. (I was thinking to use them as scouts, if they did OK I will introduce a hundred more, and I really didn't wanna use shrimps from my smaller tank, because they have suffered enough before and have earned their places there). I realized their can be something wrong with the water so I tested it, Ammonia 0, pH 6.3, salinity 1.012, it seemed OK but to be on the safe side I still had a 90% water change before putting the shrimps in. I slowly and carefully mixed tank water with water that the shrimps came in with, to let them have a smooth transition. Shrimps seemed to be doing OK initially but after a few hours they stopped being active, and preferred to stay very still where they are, for hours they didn't move at all, and then overnight they all hid behind the rocks, away from any light source. it's been four days now and they are still hiding, none of them was visible during day time, none doing any type of foraging and swimming like those in my smaller tanks. On rare occasions you can see one or two going out but on the first sight of light they retreated back to under the rocks. This behavior is not observed in my smaller tank at all. Although no shrimps died as of this moment I fear it was just a matter of time. It just felt they are sick and not happy, because they are not showing that burning red color, most of them stayed transparent and their spines turned white, a sign that they are stressed a lot.
4.pH value not ideal. I understand shrimps like water with higher pH value, preferably 7-8, but my water stays at 6.3-. I’m not sure if that’s the cause for everything but it is a possibility. I also noticed that most people from this forum get naturally 7+. So what did I do wrong or what can I do to improve the pH value consistently and harmlessly?
In the attachment one is my established small tank and others are from the bigger one, you can clearly see the brown mossball. Tank looks empty but there are 10 shrimps in there.
My other 100 shrimps is on the way here and I need to know urgently what went wrong here before they arrive, anyone can help me please? if you need information, ask your questions and I will be providing as soon as possible.
My 100 shrimps have arrived, 4 died on the way. I put the rest in the tank, they seem active in big numbers, but still 5 died over a period of 48 hours. I'm not sure if this is an acceptable death ratio, I really hope the rest is doing OK. I'm a little scared.
