Lesson Learned

When TheShrimpFarm.com’s hatchery expanded I changed many of the aquariums over to Aqua Soil Amazonia II (ASA II) to help control pH and hardness.  The water that comes out of the tap her is very hard and has a pH over 7.8 so controlling the pH is very important to speed up breeding for most species of dwarf shrimp.

After switching to ASA II I decided to put a fast growing plant that grows out into a nice looking lawn.  I am not sure what plant it is (I am no plant expertif you know what the plant is please leave a comment with its name) but I did like the appearance of the plant.  After about 3-4 weeks the aquariums with this plant had a full, lush lawn grown in and they all looked great!

In this picture you can see the plant I am referring to:

After the shrimp being in these aquariums for a month I noticed breeding slowed to a crawl and the young shrimp were having very low survival rates.  I was unsure what was causing this so I check my other aquariums that I put the ASA II in and those shrimp where doing GREAT!  So what was the problem?

Well, this plant was so fast growing that is sucked up all Co2 in the water and caused the pH to skyrocket during the day, and the plant produced Co2 and night causing the pH to crash.  During the day I was getting readings of 7.8 and at night 6.9.

I have since removed this plant and am slowly replacing it with slow growing plant! 

Lesson learned!

Helpful Resources
- Growing Pains
- Cycling Aquasoil Amazonia

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