Newbie with Red Cherry Shrimps, need help asap!

[boobiebutt]

6/28
Ammonia - 4 ppm
Nitrite - 0 ppm
Nitrate - N/A

Okay, so there seems to be a build up of ammonia and it is not being converted to nitrite. =| I guess I'm waiting for the nitrite spike for a third time... *facedesk*

 

[boobiebutt]

6/29
Ammonia - 4 ppm
Nitrite - 0 ppm
Nitrate - N/A

No change today. I'm about to stop testing for nitrites as well until I see the ammonia drop. *sigh*

 

[boobiebutt]

6/30
Ammonia - 4 ppm
Nitrite - N/A
Nitrate - N/A

No change today.

 

[fishy714]

do you have anything in your tank? If not you can always increase the temps to increase production on your bacteria colony.

 

[boobiebutt]

Plants are the only thing in the tank. Tank is kept at 78.

 

[fishy714]

What are you running for your filter? You dose ammonia everyday to 4ppm until your tank can get it to zero ppm the next day. You kinda want to have it scheduled for dosing at the same time of the day. You should have saw some change but there might be something else effecting your cycle.

 

[boobiebutt]

I'm running a 20 gallon rated filter in the cycling 10 now. The ammonia has built up to about 4 with no change so I haven't added any until I see a drop in ammonia.

Ammonia - 4 ppm
Nitrite - N/A
Nitrate - N/A

No change from yesterday to today.



Updated on the 2.5 gallon that currently houses the 4 RCS and 5 snails -

The shrimp are constantly grazing and so are the snails. I believe I have 2 different types of snails from what I can tell. 1 seems to be a bladder snail that loves to hang out in the sponge filter tube and airline tubing a lot. There are a few (2-4) 1mm size snailed that hang out with the bladder snail in the filter tube and on the air line tubing. I'm not sure what kind of snails they are yet. The other 4 snails I'm pretty sure are Ramshorn snails. Those are constantly zipping across the glass and sand.

The shrimps and snails seem extremely healthy from what I can tell. The shrimp swarm the algae wafers/veggie pellets I toss in and the snails swarm any semi-boiled veggies I toss in within 2-5 minutes. I have also tossed in (2) 1 square cm pieces of egg shells for a source of calcium. I have no seen them graze on them so I'm not sure if its working. But I can't see any harm in keeping them in there so I'm going to keep them in.

If anyone else has other suggestions to add a calcium supplement that do not include cuttle bone and liquid calicum. I'm trying to find a free or cheap way to add a calcium source if the shrimp/snails need it

 

[blue2fyre]

Fruit flavored tums
Also veggies high in calcium are good, such as spinach

 

[boobiebutt]

Update: (mostly for those who actually read this)

The 10 gallon:
Because my cycle restarted itself, I have decided to start from scratch with the water parameters of 0, 0, 0, being ammonia, nitrite, nitrate respectively. My tank's water parameters on 7/5 was 0, 0, and off the charts. I did a 60-70% water change and did a nitrate test and it was still off the charts. I did a second 60-70 water change and the nitrates was still off the charts (180ppm being the highest). I've been doing 60-70% water changes once a day since 7/5 and my nitrate reading yesterday was 20 ppm. When my nitrates hit zero, I will start a new cycling journal I suppose.



The 2.5 gallon:
I did my first sponge filter cleaning today along with my large weekly water change. I took out the 3 marimo balls I had and I squeezed them out repeatedly in fresh clean dechlorinated water (Holy cow, these marimo balls tend to collect A LOT of gunk overtime. More then the sponge filter.). I took the sponge filter apart and squeezed it repeatedly in old tank water just taken out of the 2.5 gallon. I left the sponge filter in the old tank water as I poked around the sand under the sponge filter to stir up the sand and finish my water change. I replaced everything back in and I seemed to kick upsome snail/shrimp poo but I left it alone for the sponge filter to clear up.

I'm going on a limb here to say that my 2.5 might be cycled because the snails seem to be reproducing. I assume if there are ammonia/nitrites present, it would stress the inverts and cause them to be unhealthly or possibly not sexually mature for preoduction. Or it could be due to the fact that since I know the 10 gallon is uncycled, I do a 30-40% water change and a 50-60% water change once a week. So far I have seen the snails 'getting busy' 3 times and I've noticed some clear bubbles/honey comb kinda sacks or whatever you may call it on the silicone parts where it holds the aquarium class together and I've noticed one sack on the plastic base of the sponge filter. I can visually count at least 5 clear honeycomb sacks that are about the size of a pea, if not smaller. I also have noticed 2-3 small baby snails roaming around about 1-2mm in size.

Are snails able to reproduce asexually or must there be a male and female snail in the same tank?

 

[boobiebutt]

Update:

10 gallon (fishless cycling tank):

I've been doing huge 70-80% water changes daily for the past week to remove all the nitrates I had in the tank. Most of the plants were wilting but has bounced back and are starting to grow nicely.

Yesterday I tested all water parameters and everything was zero. I added approx. 3 mL of ammonia and it read about 1-2 ppm ammonia. I added another 1 mL and will retest later tonight to see the results. As of now I'm only testing the ammonia to keep it leveled at about 3-4 ppm until ammonia disappears over 24 hours.

2.5 gallon (currently housing 4 cherry shrimp/5 ramshorn snails)

The snails are 'getting busy' pretty darn often. I found 7 little sacks of egg's and more as the days go by. I've noticed at least 10-15 baby snails (1mm in size) roaming around as well. I've also been wondering when the heck will my cherry shrimp beery and have some baby shrimps for the longest time. Finally it happened. I only have 1 really red cherry shrimp and the other 3 are almost clear. At first I thought I had 1 female and 3 males since females are generally redder then the males. Then since the 1 female (so I thought) would never berry, I thought that those 3 clear shrimp were ghost shrimp but weren't any larger then the female cherry. I noticed one of the clear shrimp is actually berried with black'ish looking eggs. Can anyone confirm of these are actually cherry shrimp eggs cause I thought they were suppose to be yellow/green'ish in color, not black. Anyways I hope they are cherry shrimp and not ghost shrimp as I don't think they will survive the larva stage.

That is all.