MrNoahCount Posted June 28, 2003 Share Posted June 28, 2003 Hi everyone, Well, I'm 4 weeks into the cycle on my 29 gallon with 10 gallon sump now and water parameters are looking good. I have lost two Damsels in the process though. One never looked good after I got it home, just basically hid all the time till it died. The other lived for a week or so and swam all around the tank but then he died also. I left everything alone for awhile till today only replacing evaporated water. Everythings been looking good. I resisted the urge to buy a percula clown today and decided to try some shrimp. I bought one peppermint and one camel shrimp. They have kind of staked out places in the in the LR but haven't completely hidden. I hope the lady at the LFS didn't steer me wrong , she said the pep and camel were basically the same thing just that the markings were different so the camel cost a dollar more. I s there anything special I should do now to keep these guys healthy? Should I use iodine supplements now? Thanks as always, Michael Link to comment
Dennis_said Posted June 28, 2003 Share Posted June 28, 2003 What are your water parameters? Link to comment
MrNoahCount Posted June 28, 2003 Author Share Posted June 28, 2003 Ph is 8.2, ammmonia is 0, nitrites 0, nitrate is 10ppm I think....darn Aquarium pharmaceuticals test kit is hard to read! really it could be 0 also. It's the only one I'm not positive on. Link to comment
Aware Posted June 28, 2003 Share Posted June 28, 2003 inverts shouldn't be added this soon, it's too early in the cycle, if you've already lost fish, you'll highly likely lose shrimp because they are more sensitive. There must absolutely no ammonia or nitrite to give them a look in! hope all goes well! Link to comment
Angel Posted June 28, 2003 Share Posted June 28, 2003 The camel and peppermint are totally different. If you want to keep corals, get rid of that camel. They are known for eating them and are not found to be reef safe. A quick search will show that several times. I feed my peps frozen brine, mysis, and occasionally a brine shrimp pellet. They are scavengers, so they will also find stuff on the bottom, if it is there. If you do your regular water changes, they should be fine (I do weekly and have no problems). You can also just key in peppermint on the search engine and find a lot of info about them. Good job on resisting the temptation for the percula Good luck! Edit: I didn't notice that you were still cycling, they are fragile and will probably not make it. Angel Link to comment
MrNoahCount Posted June 28, 2003 Author Share Posted June 28, 2003 Well I guess I got some bad information then, I'll live and learn but unfortunately my shrimp probably won't. I was under what I guess was the wrong impression that 4 weeks was well into the cycle. It's been a week and a half since the last damsel died. I saw the ammonia spike and after that it seemed that everything had pretty much stabilized. I started with already cured LR and I added some of that pre-bagged live sand into my sump as well. The only test I've really questioned the results on was the one on nitrates and they weren't real high. Ph, ammonia and nitrite have remined stable. I don't mean to sound as if I'm doubting the advice given here. I'm just trying to give as much information about my situation as possible. Thanks, Michael Link to comment
MrNoahCount Posted June 28, 2003 Author Share Posted June 28, 2003 I should have clarified that ammonia and nitrite remain stable at 0 ppm. Also, anyone know how long it might be before I know if the shrimp are going to survive or not? Link to comment
Aware Posted June 28, 2003 Share Posted June 28, 2003 i'd think you'd know inside a fortnight, at least if they make it that far they may have a good chance if the nitrates are low'ish, but you should start getting nitrate spikes soon ,so that'll be the test. They'd tolerate nitrate up to 100ppm for a very very short time, ideally get them down below 25ppm, try some polyfilter, it can help take the edge off nitrates,phosphates and metals too. cheers Link to comment
caja Posted June 29, 2003 Share Posted June 29, 2003 A fortnight? People still use that term in the UK? Link to comment
MrNoahCount Posted June 29, 2003 Author Share Posted June 29, 2003 Wow, I thought I knew what a fortnight was but looked it up out of curiousity. Two weeks? That's what the dictionary says anyway. BTW the shrimp are still kind of half hiding out. hanging upside down on some LR. They seem fine but that could mean absolutely nothing. The camel sure is pretty, if he does survive I think I'll keep him until I'm ready to start adding corals. I wonder too, why are fire shrimp 5 times the cost of a pep? At least they were at one LFS I went to. Link to comment
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