…continuing on from the Big Fireplace Aquarium Rescape, it was clear after only a few days that the Rotala ramosior ‘Florida’ wasn’t going to make it. That meant a new prime-position real-estate opportunity for some lucky plant. Blyxa japonica to the rescue! New plants from nelson131 (ebay) Nelson131 is another new vendor for me and […]
Read more →You’ll see a lot of mention/discussion about ‘total dissolved solids’ (TDS) in the hobby. I must say, I’m not a fan and have said so publicly. In the general case the feeling usually goes that ‘high TDS is bad’, particularly for sensitive(?) species like Caridina shrimp. I understand the intent here (mostly) and how that […]
Read more →It was time to fresh up the look in the Fireplace Aquarium again. The last major rescape happened 8 months ago and things had pretty much gone over to jungle status. I also was noticing some of the dreaded black beard algae coming up on the roots of the Anubias barteri ‘Mini Coin’ on the […]
Read more →I picked up a set of 10 wine red panda shrimp a little over 3 months ago. These are a super-attractive Caridina species with dark wine-red patches alternating with pure white patches. This is a showy shrimp that stands out against any type of aquarium background. The pandas have done well but historically I haven’t […]
Read more →The new Caridina babies are getting bigger and it’s a little easier to see what they look like. Because they have a stripey appearance I thought they were wine red panda children but they have no real white colouration anywhere on them. To me they look like tangerine tiger shrimp that have some black stripes.
Read more →Successful caridina breeding! Baby wine red panda shrimp Shrimp love rocks! Woo-hoo! The neocardinas in the Shrimphaus have been breeding at a pretty steady rate for a year, but not much luck with any of the caridina species – CRS, Tangerine Tigers, Wine Red Pandas – until now. Three possible reasons below.
Read more →You might notice your web browser has a small picture next to the page title on the browser tab. This is a pretty old-school thing from the early days of the web called a ‘favicon’. They are a nice to have and most sites will have one. In the super-early days of the web these […]
Read more →Filed under “never seen that before” it looks like green spot algae (GSA) is in retreat in the Shrimphaus. The conventional wisdom (and my previous experience) is that algae colonies, once established, never spontaneous regress. You can remove damaged leaves to allow for new growth, and you can spot-treat hardscape and you can prevent new […]
Read more →Schismatoglottis prietoi, apparently increasingly known as ‘Philippine anubias‘, is a brilliant aquarium plant with an unpronounceable name so don’t let that put you off! Schismatoglottis prietoi requires almost no maintenance This what makes this plant so special. A lot of aquascaping plants go through a number of stages. You first get them and they are […]
Read more →TL;DR: Problems with algae? Turn down lighting intensity Sometimes there is wisdom online if you know where to find it and then actually listen to it. Clive at UKAPS for example advises against the “photon cannon” approach of blasting your aquarium with too much light. Too much light causes problematic algae. Lately I haven’t been […]
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