New On Sulawesi Cardinal Shrimp Tank

[bugrakorkmaz]

My name is Bugra and I live in Turkey.I planned to setup a Sulawesi tank 4 months ago and started to search some information on internet for so long.After my google searches, I found out this website and I gained really good information.
At the moment, my tank setup is as follows;
Substrate of the tank is ( 0.1mm Coral Sand )
Filtration is a basic Tetra ex 600 External Filter
Lightining is Sera Brilliant DayLight T8-36W
O2 is provided by air pump with an air stone in the tank.
I have a driftwood of RedMoore planted anubias on it and some stones that had been collected by me from a freshwater river with Lava rocks.

In my sulawesi tank I have Sulawesi Snails at the moment, the species are ;
Poso Orange
Poso Yellow
Yellow Anthena
Sulawesi King Snail
Poso Yellow Fleck Snails


My Water Parameters are as follows;
Temp = 29 C
Ph = btw 8,0-8,2
Kh = 9
Gh = 7
TDS = I am not sure..
I use tap water and I dont have a RO systems.
I am planning to keep Cardinal Shrimp with my snails in this tank. As far as I learned from this website, I ordered SaltyShrimp sulawesi mineral 7.5 and i am going to recieve it in 2 days. I have some questions regarding my tank setup and I will be very happy to hear suggestions from you all.
Thanks in advance,
My questions;
1. How can I use this sulawesi mineral and how can I add to tank, since I already have animals ( snails ) in my tank.
2. Lava Stones, is it a must for cardinal shrimp?
3. Do we have to use Indian Almond Leaf? If so how can I use it, since it lowers the Ph and colors the water yellow.
4.Can you please comment about my water parameters?Is it okay to keep cardinals in my tank?
5.I am planning to use Seachem stability because, I played with my tanklayout alot to insert these lava rocks and also cleaned my external filter.So do you suggest any special bacterial liquid?
On some other forums most sulawesi shrimp keepers use Seachem Purigen in their external tank.Is it a must?
6.On my drifthwood I have anubias plants. Is it okay with these shrimp=? Should I also add some marimo moss balls?
7.On my driftwood there are some little things do appear like white cotton.will it make harm to these shrimps?
8.Some articles say that, Cardinals do need the dirt of snails.Is it true?Since I already have enought rabbit snails .
I attached some pictures of my tank,
Thank you.

[KenCotigirl]

Hi Bugra, nice to have you here. I can answer only a couple of your question since I do not have Cardinals. Here goes.
1. The purpose of the remineralizer (salty shrimp) is to set water parameters and not really be too concerned with water parameters if you properly follow directions. Your current water parameters exceed the product you bought. Your choices are a: buy RO water or distilled water remineralize and due multiple water changes, b: return or sell the salty shrimp and leave things alone.
2. Lava stones are for decorations.
3. The Leaf I do not believe is necessary. Adds surface area for biofilm. I do not believe the hype.
4. Caridina Dennerli
Temp: 76-82°F
pH: 7.4-8.4
TDS: 80-140
KH: 0-6
GH: 4-9
These parameters as per google search. Your KH is a little high as is your temp.
5-8 ?

Ken

[bugrakorkmaz]

Hello Ken,
Thank you for your reply.Well, as I told I dont have and RO system so I cant get pure water.Today I made some tests and my new parameters are;
Ph:8-8,4
KH:7
GH: not sure yet cuz I need to buy a test kit for that.
TDS: not sure waiting my TDS meter to come.
I also look forward to hear from Mr.Mustafa since he has a very big experience about these animals.Also other friends who have experience will be more appriciated by me.
One of the main problem or not , I m not sure is;
The formation started to appear on my driftwood.Its like white colored cotton algea.I know it occurs if your driftwood is not old or already used in a tank before.But this is almost a 1 year old being used redmoore.
The important question is; Will this make harm to Cardinals?
Thanks alot,
Bugra

[KenCotigirl]

Bruga, with water temps. at 29C you must have quite a bit of evaporation. You use tap water. What are your tap water parameters?

[bugrakorkmaz]

Hello again Ken,
I buy 10 lt of ready water from market.The water parameters of the water I buy are;
Ph:7,6
Gh:4
KH:6
TDS: 0

[KenCotigirl]

You got your TDS meter. Good. However I think you must have read it wrong. A reading of zero would imply that there are no minerals in the water and you would get a reading of zero on the GH and KH. Did you mean a TDS of 100? The value of the water you buy seems good for the Cardinals.

[Mustafa]

Welcome to the forum! Cotigirl actually gave you pretty good information. I'll add a little bit more. I'm not a big fan of any "Sulawesi salt" type of products, but if you want to use them you absolutely *have* to use RO or distilled water. Just dumping the minerals into tap water (or even bottled water) is completely useless...and will mess up your water to a degree where your shrimp will die sooner or later.

In addition to the leaf, take out the wood, too. As you can see, it's already causing problems. The white stuff you see are either bacteria or fungi eating something organic on the piece of wood. You want to minimize organics in shrimp tanks, *especially* Sulawesi shrimp tanks. They come from oligotrophic (=low nutrient) environments; practically, that means you need to reduce organics in your tank.

Having said that, my ideas about keeping Sulawesi shrimp (and most shrimp) are drastically different from pretty much anyone else out there. I recommend that you keep your kh at around 0-2 with a corresponding pH of about 7.2 to 7.5. The higher the pH, the more toxic ammonia gets. Don't worry about their habitats having higher pH levels....their habitats also have millions of gallons (or liters) of water and ammonia never becomes a problem there (or has anyone heard of an "uncycled" lake or river? How about fish/shrimp die-offs in natural surface waters due to ammonia poisoning? Exactly, I've never heard about it, either. ). Emulating the exact water parameters is a senseless and counterproductive undertaking. gh or TDS is not important as long as you aren't just keeping them in pure water without any minerals in it. And yes, TDS can't really be zero...that must be a error of some kind.

[bugrakorkmaz]

Hello Ken and Mustafa,
Thank you for these valuable information. I will recheck the TDS again It was my friend who tested and told me its zero. So I will check that again.
Unfortunately even my tap water or the water I buy from markets doesnt have a KH value of 0 to 2.. Since I also dont have an R/O System my only chance to use my tap water or the same brand of packed water I buy from market.
As I told, the water I buy from market has Ph:7,6 , Gh:4 , KH:6 parameters as you said it may be okay for cardinals at the moment.This will be going to be my first try on sulawesi shrimps so even if I am going to loose them, I want to minimize the risks before I add them in my tank. I have about 15 days left for my shrimps to arrive so I am trying my best to make most of the things ready.
Mr Mustafa, thank you for your answer too. Yesterday night ( Turkish time )I realized that that white algea which appears on the wood was caused by the Anubias plants I guess. When I check the roots of the anubias which I attached on the wood parts become white algea.That white algea started to spread from anubias roots to some parts of the redmoore(driftwood) as well. So I cut the plants off yesterday.Today I bought Seachem stability and I will add some positive bacteria and will see what will happen to the remaning white algeas on the driftwood.
Since you suggested me taking out the wood, I am abit worried my tank layout will become like empty.I also know that in these shrimps habbitat there are woods as much as there are rocks in the lake.
If I wont be succesful on eliminating these white formations, then I will take the wood out as you told.
I have a question in this part Mr.Mustafa,;

• You said Sulawesi Shrimp has a habbitat of "oligotrophic (=low nutrient) environments" adn you suggested me to reduce the organics in my tank. How can I do that? Even if I remove the wood will there be any checmical or something else to reduce this organics?

My second question is;

• As you may saw on the pictures, I have rabbit snails in the tank, is it okay with these Cardinals?I m not so sure but as far as I remember these snails stools are a very good food for these shrimps?Is that true?

My Last question is;

• Most of the people in Europe who keeps sulawesi shrimps uses a filter media called Seachem Purigen.What do you say about using this product?
  Thanks so much for all the help you share,

Buğra

[bugrakorkmaz]

Waiting for some replies thanks

[KenCotigirl]

Bugra, I will answer question two. The rabbit snails come from similar lakes in Sulawesi. Water parameters for the shrimp are fine for the snails.

[Mustafa]

• You said Sulawesi Shrimp has a habbitat of "oligotrophic (=low nutrient) environments" adn you suggested me to reduce the organics in my tank. How can I do that? Even if I remove the wood will there be any checmical or something else to reduce this organics?

My second question is;

• As you may saw on the pictures, I have rabbit snails in the tank, is it okay with these Cardinals?I m not so sure but as far as I remember these snails stools are a very good food for these shrimps?Is that true?

My Last question is;

• Most of the people in Europe who keeps sulawesi shrimps uses a filter media called Seachem Purigen.What do you say about using this product?
  Thanks so much for all the help you share,

Buğra

Hello Bugra,

It looks like you have to change your way of thinking when it comes to keeping shrimp (and aquaria in general). There is no ready made "chemical" or "product" for every problem or situation in an aquarium. So, the best way to reduce organics is to NOT put too many organics in your tanks to begin with. That's why I recommended that you take out the piece of wood. That's also why I recommend that people feed very little. If you have patience, everything will eventually settle just fine.

2. The snails are fine.

3. I don't see the point. Plus, "most people" is not an accurate statement. I'm originally from Germany and I know what's going on there...don't know many people using Purigen at all. In any case, if you want to constantly mess with recharging Purigen with bleach (and possibly messing things up in the process), then you can go ahead and use the product. I'm sure it's a great product, but it seems to be there to just fix problems the aquarium owner has created. The best idea is to just let your biological filter take care of the ammonia and not introduce too many organics.

Having said that..you said that you cannot really provide them with optimum conditions since you don't have RO water and even the bottled water comes with a relatively high kH. Since these shrimp are even more sensitive than other species, why even try to keep them if you can't provide them with optimal conditions from the beginning? If your shrimp are wild-caught they *will* die for sure anyway, so it does not really matter what conditions you provide them. Even if you have access to captive-bred animals, you need to at least give them optimal conditions. Otherwise it will be a waste of time, money...and the shrimp's lives...

[bugrakorkmaz]

Hello again,
Sorry for my late reply cuz I had a little surgery operation on my right arm.Im fine though.
Well Mr.Mustafa I thought u were from Turkey.Its so nice meeting with you all in here.
My new tank parameters ( withouth anything no mineral no nothng)
Ph:8
Kh:4
Gh:6
I guess these parameters are fine for Cardinals.I will be adding the shrimps in 10 days..
Thanks for all the help.

[bugrakorkmaz]

Hello Everyone,
After getting my 10 cardinals as you knew I lost 4 of them in 2 days and waited to see whats gonna happen. Its been I guess 2 months now and I have 6 adults still doing well and 1 berried female at the moment. I am so excited to see the cardinal babies..
Does any of you may suggest me what to do for babies? I bought Shirakura Chi Ebi powder food ( yellow color ). As far as I remember, on one artickle it says baby cardinals should be feeded with powder food.
I would like to get more information about how to keep baby cardinals and how to keep them healthy?
Thanks

[nick11380]

I'm still trying to work out some issues with my cardinal tank but for the other shrimp varieties and this should also apply to the cardinals. Don't feed the babies anything extra. They will eat the bio-film in the tank and the same food your feeding the adult shrimp. If you add extra food your not helping the babies and just risking over feeding and messing up the water.