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
May 29th, 2008 at 1:01 pm
The plant looks like HM I believe, or is it HC? Its not the tiny one but its that you have pictured.
The PH flux is interesting because its talked about in Ecology of the Planted Aquarium…
-Andrew
May 29th, 2008 at 3:38 pm
I think it is HM, but I am not sure. Either way, it is not in my shrimp tanks anymore!
May 30th, 2008 at 9:27 pm
I think another issue with fast growing plants is their ability to “scrub” the nutrients that bio-film needs to grow from the water. This in turn robs the young shrimp as well as adults of their natural food source.
Bill
May 30th, 2008 at 11:03 pm
That is a good point that I never really considered!