New tank started today - tank #2

[Vorteil]

One of my jars sits in front of a sliding glass door. It does get direct sunlight for a good amount of hours a day. Mostly in the west for maybe 5hrs a day. Temps must fluctuate but for some reason it does well. Started with 15 & now there's over 50+ at almost 4 years old. This jar is self sustaining as all I do is top off which takes a while since I keep it closed most of the time.

[JoeG]

Thanks Vorteil. I paid more attention to the tank yesterday and while the sun was shining on it for a few hours I touched the glass and it was cool. I think they should be fine. The shrimp were going about their business and grazing on the algae on the glass.

[JoeG]

Update: we have our first berried female! Two months to the day of when the bowl was set up. There is plenty of algae growing in the tank and they haven’t been fed yet.

[attygirl]

Wow !! - Congrats .... seems like you have the magic touch

[JoeG]

The female released the first floater today (62 days from when I noticed her being berried). Hard to tell how many she is carrying but it looks to be at least 10.

The tank is doing very well, with lots of algae on the glass. I cleaned the front of the glass to make it easier to see the shrimp. I fed them some spirulina powder a couple weeks ago, tip of a toothpick, and they seemed to enjoy it.

I’m not real happy with the bowl itself, there is a lot of distortion around the sides and it gets really hard to see the shrimp, except for any that are directly in front.

[JoeG]

Started tank #3 today. This is going to replace tank #2. The bowl tank has too much distortion to be able to enjoy the shrimp. This became very evident when floaters started to appear. They are basically impossible to observe in the bowl. So the 1 gallon bowl is being replaced with a 1.5 gallon hexagon tank. I found the tank, in its original box, in the back of the fish closet, it was purchased in 1989 for $19.99 (31 years old!!). I set it up this morning with water at 1.012 salinity and moved a couple of the lava rocks and some water from the bowl to get it kickstarted. I will let it cycle for about a week, like I did with the bowl, and then move a couple shrimp into it to keep cycling for another week or so before moving the rest of the 10 shrimp plus floaters over.

Here is the “new” old tank (with the bowl).

[Bluemonk]

For 19.99 back then it is not considered a bargain is it? Is it glass? What came with it? Is it a whole set of filter/tank/light? Do you recall who gave this to you? Or you bought it?

Fascinating. Finding stuff that you once thought would be useful thirty years ago and then still end up using it. I don’t know why but I find this comforting perhaps because it tells me to hoard Christmas returned merchandise at bargain prices because 30+ years from now I will find a use for it. Kekeke

[JoeG]

It’s probably acrylic and in the box is a light, a tiny pump, and thermometer. I remember keeping betta fish in it for several years, then a goldfish or two. Then I think it went into storage. Forgot all about it until a few days ago when I was trying to look into the shrimp bowl and was getting dizzy trying to see the shrimp.

[JoeG]

It’s been a week since the hexagon tank was set up and the water is crystal clear. I moved some of the lava rocks from the bowl over during the week and added a MTS snail. Moved two of the shrimp yesterday and they looked good today so I moved the other 8 and their MTS snail along with some more of their ‘green’ aragonite gravel and about a 1/2 gal of their water. They should have plenty to eat in the new tank with the lava rocks and gravel from their old tank. It is so much easier to see them in this new old hexagon tank.