[MadgicBug]

Hi All,

I like to share my Sulawesi experience with everyone. I did a spur of the moment decission in Apr and turn my Discus breeding tank to a Sulawesi tank mainly as IPU was going to bring in some Cardinals.

Hope you enjoy the pics... Photography is not one of my skills

Setup
Tank: 47 bow

Filtration: Sponge and 20Gal u\g filter connected to a couple of HOB

substrate: 40lb Florida crush coral, 20 lb Eco complete african mix (why the eco complete...it was on sale for $7 and I figured it would add break up the white colour), some lava rocks

Wood: Manzanita

Plants: various vals, Anubius, 1 moss ball

Water Parameter: PH= 8.0, Temp= 81F, KH=10+, GH=10+

Livestock: Shrimps\Snail from IPU, Zhima, Jaing604: Cardinals, Harlequins,
Orange Poso, little black ones.

Food: spirillina powder, spirillina flakes, ON shirmp tabs, shirakura, shimp shell based concoction I made.
Don't think they like the shirakura, but I throw one in there now and then.

Cycle time: 3 weeks for the first 2 test cardinal. They are still alive.

Mistakes:
1. Figured that CC was enough for KH\alk and GH, but was not. I was lucky as I was squishing pond snails and noticed that the shells were really soft. Cranked up the GH and the shells were hard within 1wk. Lucking I didn't loose any shrimps then. Cranked up KH and GH more as Frank told me to.

2. Jump the gun in acclimitizing Harlequins and lost quite a few, but the remaining ones looks good (knock on wood).

 

[MadgicBug]

I was pretty lucky with my shirmps as they started to berry one after another within 3 weeks in the tank. I started to get shimpettes 2 weeks ago and now they are starting to come out. To my surprise, their rate of growth is faster than the cherries....probably the water temp.

You have to look really hard in the last two picks for the babies. Its hard to get a good picture of them.

 

[MadgicBug]

Bad news update on the Sulawesi shrimp tank with a good learning experience. I figure its good to share the good with the bad rather than holding out.

My Harlequin started to die off one by one even the berried ones, which Frank tells me are very hardy when berried. I couldn't figured out why as the water parameters were perfect. Then all of a sudden I lost 2 of my really heathy berried cardinals and all the shrimps look a little lethargic and had not seen any really small baby shrimps. Examined the tank and realized the tank was spotless. They were starving to death. Going on vacation and not feeding them for a few days did not help the cause.

Soooo...I started giving them more food, fed them twice a day and upgraded the lights from 20W to 80W (47gal tank). Dosed a little phospate in the tank and the diatoms started to grow.

I was so worry about water quality I continued to feed the same amount of food, which was very little, however my population (shrimp and snail) had increased 3 to 4x.

After a week of heavy feeding (watching my NO3) and the diatom growth was in full growth mode, the remaining shrimps and babies are more happy and are out grazing again. The largest baby shrimp is a shade over 1/2" now and it looks like I have around 40 to 50baby Cardinal and more to come with better survival rate.

 

[Ursus sapien]

good journal and info, thank you for posting. good looking tank.

 

[beijing2008]

Are you going to be selling off some of these? hehe..*drool*

 

[user_error]

ya that would be very nice

 

[MadgicBug]

Hopefully when I get the population base up.

Its a big tank for shrimps and they hide really well. I haven't been giving it as much attention as I should over the summer. A bunch of the babies are getting up there is size.

 

[Rastapus]

Hopefully when I get the population base up.

Its a big tank for shrimps and they hide really well. I haven't been giving it as much attention as I should over the summer. A bunch of the babies are getting up there is size.

After this Tuesdays shipment I think you will be spending more time on this aquarium......

 

[MadgicBug]

Just an update...sorry for the novel.
The babies are all grown up and are having babies. I had a little problem earlier on about feeding or lack of it. I think I kind of straighten that out by starting to does the tank with some ferts and being a little bit more liberal with the food. I guess I was also lucky that I used a 47gal tank as water parameters is more stable.
Keep in mind this is what I noticed and I have no factual data to prove it. Unlike the cherries which can subside mainly on dry food, I think my Sulawesi’s need to graze for 75% of their food which consist of algae, diatoms and whatever else that grows on the surface. I managed to get them trained to eat a little Shirakura and Spinach (if you keep throwing it in they will eventually eat it). I also feed them a whole assortment of dry food and noticed they seem to like the Ocean Nutrition Spirulina flakes and shrimp wafers the most.
My little experiment:
I have a 90 gal (w/ 30gal sump) planted discus tank with some good sized discus and a bunch of other fish (cory, cardinal tetras, kuli loaches, ottos). The discus are trained to eat a beef heart\sea food mixture I made. I have a ton of cherry shrimps in same the tank along with quite a number of Green, yellow, Amano and 1 really old Gold bee. Around 8 to 9pm some of the plants look like a Christmas tree with all the shrimps hanging off it. The discus ignores the shrimps for the most part, unless I forget to feed them for the day, which then the pick off the odd dumb ones. The discus breeds every once so often, the shrimps multiply proficiently and the tank is pretty stable. (81F, 7.4 PH, GH 6, KH2). The shrimps were eating so well that one of my Green ( possible yellow ) looks like a small Amano shrimp (gave it to Tang daddy). I figured that if the Gold bee hasn’t died, why not try a Sulawesi. I put one in (3 hrs to acclimatize) 5-6 weeks ago. I saw it regularly for the first week. It even crawled up the glass to 2” in front of an 7” discus and it left it along. It was then spotted once the week after and then MIA thereafter. I had lost hope, but sure enough, it was spotted again this past weekend doing really well and had grown quite a bit, as I guess it was eating well. They are timid and hide very well. On that note, I added 2 more in shortly after hoping that the 3 will connect and that I have a male and female within that group and they can breed.
Will see how that goes as I know the odds are not in my favour. One was spotted today....Its like where’s Waldo.

 

[seanyuki]

Thanks for sharing your value information.......very nice set up too.

 

[effox]

Looks great, just kind of hard to find the little guys.

 

[MadgicBug]

Thanks for reading….Here are some pic's I took today.

Here are a bunch of cherries cleaning away

Here is a cherry tempting faith and lived to tell about it - they ignored her (sorry about the dirty glass). Same shrimp in previous picture in upper left.

Here is the lone gold bee - old lady in retirement

Here's one of the Sulawesi coming out for a guest appearance in the community tank