OK, I'll clean out the plants and the undergravel today, siphon crap and then tomorrow do it again and put salt in. I don't want to rush too fast and kill it after it made it so long in the sphere. So I may take another day or two.
And of course, DOH! I have thread algae, it's in the sphere. Calling the eco ppl tomorrow morning. Hoping I can open it over the tank, the shrimp is so small! I'll let ya'll know when it's been freed.
I have to get the aquarium salt tomorrow, still could not get out of my driveway over the ice today (dam firebird).
Will freshwater bactieria in the tank live and continue once I change over to brackish?
I ended up cleaning the little tank completely then putting in sand/gravel and water from my 46 gallon. This water is tannin rich from bogwood, will that cause any issues?
My brain wants to asplode over the idea of providing no filtration or water movement in the tank but I know Mustafa would not steer me wrong. Ahhhh.
Oh lovely, just got off the phone with the ecosphere ppl about opening the thing. I was handed off to a manager to talk to when I insisted I was going to open it....
They use a military grade of silicon on the bottom piece that is unlikely to be cut open. They themselves do not attempt to do this because the bottom glass is thicker than the sides and even if they break through there it will still shatter most times. They place it in a container, put a towel over top and tap with a hammer until it breaks. He said do not put my hands on the sphere doing this, do everything through the towel. When I asked if I could crack it a little to allow the co2 to escape he compared it to a shaken soda, and said it would still explode.
The gentleman warned me that when the sphere cracks/breaks it will likely explode due to pressure from pent up co2. Given the age of mine (4 years) and the algae growth in it he was sure it would break explosively. He re-iterated this a few times. He said they wear goggles and gloves when they open the returned ecospheres. He also said that 90% of the time the spheres break and cannot be re-used. That explains why a "re-charge" cost nearly as much as a new sphere.
The sphere has "filtered sea water" I was so taken aback by the difficulty of opening the sphere I forgot to ask him about the gravity and salinitiy. I left a msg and will call again tomorrow.
I told him why I thought his product was bad and he said he respected my opinion but he had a sphere with 10 year old shrimp in it that had bred and he disagreed that it was a torture chamber. He told me about other spheres they had that were older than 10 years with living shrimp. He wished me luck and said to call again if I needed any more information.
I really wish I knew someone who had opened one of these before, I am now even more worried that I'll kill the shrimp trying to save it.
I told him why I thought his product was bad and he said he respected my opinion but he had a sphere with 10 year old shrimp in it that had bred and he disagreed that it was a torture chamber. He told me about other spheres they had that were older than 10 years with living shrimp. He wished me luck and said to call again if I needed any more information.
Time got away from me when that came up and then my husband said all the shrimp were dead and stuck the sphere in the office. I remember and I went to look at that thread when I found a still living shrimp, but there was never any conclusion.
I have the tank set up and it's at upper parameters Mustafa said he keeps his Ulae. I am really concerned that the change in pressure, if great enought to shatter glass is going to shatter the shrimp as well. I wonder if that's why icelightning never finished...
I'm assuming the whole thing isn't solid glass, but has some other material somewhere? You (or your husband) could probably drill through it at the seal line to release the pressure before breaking the glass.
Todd, it has a small glass disc held by what they said is "military grade silicon" I can attest it is not like what we use for tanks. It is indeed solid hand blown glass and very thick.
Latest from Ecosphere on my query about salinity/gravity of the water:
"Thank you for your interest in our EcoSphere. I receive many question regarding the EcoSphere. Unfortunately, I cannot answer your question because that information is proprietary to EcoSphere Assoc. Please let me know if you have further questions."
Don't worry about what salinity they have in their spheres. It's not important at all. Just set up the tank with the salinity values from my shrimp varieties page and put the shrimp in there if you ever get it out of there. If it dies it's not because of salinity issues but because the tank might not be cycled yet.
Wow..I would get a leather apron, face shield, leather gloves, and a sweater. Put the sphere in a bucket, drape a towel over it. Cut a small small hole in the towel for a punch or chisel, and just try to put a nice clean hole in it with one strike. Shrimp are fairly hardy..It would probably get shaken up, but if you act quickly the only threat to it after the initial explosion will be getting stuck in the towel. That shouldnt be as bad as you think. I'm not saying it will be easy..but it doesn't seem you have to many options. Good luck!
I am undecided at this point. Afraid that I will kill the shrimp, will probably drink one too many beers some night and just do it!
I have the brackish set up but am not sure how to cycle it. No good info on brackish. put gravel from my established freshwater tank and have an airstone in it but I dont' know how much freshwater bacteria will transfer to brackish.
A single shrimp isn't goimg to produce much waste. As long as you feed an appropriate amount of food, there should be sufficient bacteria present in the material from the orb to seed the new setup, and support the nitrogen cycle necessary for one shrimp.
I'll let ya know, so far every time I've gotten ready to smash the thing my husband has taken away my tools. Why hurry he says and reminds me I don't have goggles, but I just thought of my snorkel mask! Maybe next weekend I'll get up the nerve. (I know you guys think I'm crazy but I gotta tell you "Murphy" tends to just hang around me like you would not believe!) I don't want to end up on fark! You know, headline: "Virginia woman admitted to hospital with glass shrapnel embedded in face, saved shrimp, lost eye" LOL.
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Let us know if and when you do it 