Start an Opea Ula tank, need advice on substrate and cycle.

[Mech]

Hey guys, I've been on your forum for a few weeks mainly lurking and reading. I'm not new to shrimps and have a community tropical freshwater Setup with cherry shrimp who are breeding

I've decided to setup a Opea Ula tank and wanted to ask some opinions. Now I'd like to discuss substrate and cycling shortcuts. Is there a strait winner when it comes to sands or gravels for these guys? Do I need a shrimp substrate that buffers the PH and knowing full well needs replacing every year or two? Or normal sand/gravel and add calcium carbonate blocks to do the same job? I've read you can just use crushed coral?

If I've read wrong please set me strait as I'd like to give the shrimp the best start I can. The topic of cycling the brackish tank, the same as I have my tropical tanks but using marine test kits? When I mentioned shortcuts can I seed my new tank with the freshwater media or will the salt kill off any beneficial bacteria?

If not should I use ammonia or a flake of fish food? Or nothing at all? Do some substrates have ammonia released by them when new?

I'm setting up a 67litre tank with led lights, substrate and lava rock. Intend to use Ro water mixed with saltishrimp nutrients without a heater. When I do top ups do I just put pure RO water back in or should I mix more micro/macro nutrients?

Sorry if this is a long 1st post! I like to do my reaserach well in advance

Best regards.

[KenCotigirl]

Mech nice to have you and welcome. Since you have been reading the posts you probably know my opinion. I have not tried any short cut method. Thin layer of substrate less than a half inch. One pound of aragonite sand, the stuff the salt water people use. Make your brackish solution wait about a month till you see bio film. Order then add snails(10 max as they will multiply) and macroalgae. When you see the snails multiplying order and then add shrimp. Having an ammonia and nitrite test is useful if any problems occur. pH test not really necessary as the instant ocean or the like is buffered to 8 or so. Salinity refractometer also nice to have to verify the salinity 1008-1016.

Ken

[Mech]

thanks for your input, unfortunately i live in the UK so its quite some way to order from the store here as much as id like to and im not sure anything would survive the long travel over the pond?

what sort of substrate would you recommend?

mech

[KenCotigirl]

Is it legal to import from the States? Substrate. I have used caribsea brand I believe. Tried black. Showed any and all debris. A white but that was booring. A Hawaiian blend of black and white. Not bad. I pinkish one. Unfortunetly not pink like bermuda sand but nice. I bought left over bags or stock from a local fish store. You only need small covering on the bottom for aesthetics.

[Mech]

I'm not sure to be honest, I think I'm going to spread a very fine layer of gravel which is very fine in diameter, then put in some ocean rock for the shrimp to graze off when algy has stated to grow. This should also stop my water becoming to acidic too.

Bought the tank, lights, lid, foam air filter and an air pump for it. Next will be the salt, containers to transport Ro water, substrate and ocean rock. Then I will just need something to test the salinity of the water and a test kit for ammonia, nitrite, nitrate and pH etc.

I'm going to aim to have our all up and cycling by November.

[Rhynno]

I'm very much a newbie here so please take my experience with a bag of salt (Ken or the others please correct me if I'm out to lunch!) but I started with four containers and had nothing but trouble with the ones that tried to cycle for a month + (most likely because I stupidly had aquarium wood in it that seemed to release a tonne of tannins ). However, I had a ridiculous amount of luck with my "last minute" container which I started only three days before the shrimp arrived (bad of me I know ). I put in some 'base' rocks for buffering and dosed with nutrafin cycle for three days prior and the shrimp seem to be the happiest in this container than in any of my other three-bright red, swimming normally and picking up everything. I know that the bacterial culture method of cycling seems to have conflicting results.

Oh! I should note that while I didn't get any filter gunk from a petshop or try to use freshwater substrate, I did manage to get some live gravel/sand from my local shop's salt water tanks.

[Mech]

Yea tannis can be annoying to look at of its unwanted in the tank, I soaked mine in a bucket with very hot water and used clean water everyday for around a month to stop it leaking.

I've got 2 tropical tanks already one has cherry shrimp which are now breeding like rabbits lol, I will be cycling the new one with pure ammonia. From what I've read you can't seed a brackish tank with media from a freshwater tank as the salt will kill off the good bacteria?

How many opea ula did you start off with?