Barclaya longifolia comparison Green Magenta Red

After what seems like an eternity the warmer weather is finally triggering the regrowth of my green and red Barclaya longifolia. Although they are still small you can see the distinct difference in the colouration of the top surfaces of the leaves.

Green Barclaya is a beautiful light lime green on the top and pale pink under side.
Magenta Barclaya has an olive green top and beautiful magenta underside.
Red has a red top and bottom (mine will go deeper red as it gets bigger and closer to the light). I might have to move it further away from the monster magenta that is shading it.

Every book and website will only mention green vs red. I got the magenta from a forum member on AquariumLife (the forum shut down in 2021). 

Blackworm culture

Here is how I culture blackworms. The first pic is from 2007.

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The worms are in the 2 flat plastic boxes (about the size of an A4 page). At room temperature with 1-2cm of water. I kept the cultures going for 3 years, but when I moved house and lost all my fish I poured them into my pond. About 3 years ago I started again using Aussie Blackworms stock from the LFS. I used to feed vegetables but now I feed mulberry leaves (pale green in the photos below) which seem to be much better at producing fat healthy worms. Its very easy to over feed and putrify the water with zucchini and especially with pumpkin. I include broken up Loquat leaves as a long-term substrate for the worms to crawl around in (dark brown leaves). I use the Loquat leaves in my shrimp tanks like Indian Almond Leaves (IAL). They release less tannin and last longer that IAL and are very nutritious and I have a couple of trees in my garden.

The shallow water in the trays is because a high surface area is needed without aeration. Honestly a bubbler would probably have allowed these containers to produce more.

I do a water change every couple of weeks (when I remember!) or more often if the water goes sour from overfeeding which happens a lot. A water change is very quick and involves carefully pouring all the water out one corner and down the sink and refill straight from the cold tap. No dechlor or minerals, the worms are tough.

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There is also a healthy population of freshwater limpets (Ferrissia sp.) that have thrived in the boxes and been there for a couple of years now. (I get them in my tanks too but never this big!).

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If you over-feed, the water quality drops and the worms all crawl out of the water. Under-feed and they wont reproduce. Sometimes I put 1/2 of a new mulberry leaf and its too much and within 2 days the water goes bad and the worms crawl out and congregate above the water line. A couple of water changes make them happy again. Its a lot of maintenance for very slow growth and not a lot of worms. It takes me a couple of months over winter, or 3-4 weeks in summer to build the population up to get a good feed... Its a hobby - not really worth the effort TBH.

So this small scale malarkey is too much work for very little gain so lets ramp it up a notch....

Two 60 L tote boxes ($10 on sale at Bunnings!) stacked inside each other. The top one is sitting on two bricks in the bottom one. There are two 20mm bulkheads (el cheapo 4$ ones from the irrigation section in Bunnings). The long threaded stem of the bulkhead extends down and with the bricks there is a 5mm gap between the end of the bulkead stem and the base of the bottom tote box to let water flow in and out. On the top side, I screwed in a 19mm director to give a bit of height and to set the water level ~ 60mm deep (you can see this better in the last pic). An airstone on the end of a sprinkler riser is dropped into one bulkhead to create an air lift. The other bulkhead acts as the drain. The boxes are filled so the water level is ~10mm below the top of the drain standpipe.

So... The bottom tote holds a reservoir of water. The top tote holds ~60mm of water and the worms! The air lift draws water up...which then flows (very slowly) to the drain at the other end. A small sprinkle of coarse gravel 1-2 grains deep gives the worms something to crawl in without creating anoxic pockets. Something I read suggested crawling in the gravel helps the worms to fragment and divide (not sure I believe this). All up ~50L of water which provides a much greater buffer against the water going bad so I can feed a bit more aggressively.

Harvest coincides with a water change. The worms crawl around a lot in the fresh water before they settle down again. They tend to ball up in the two back corners which is why I didn't put gravel there. Their crawling behaviour makes them congregate in the corners where I suck them out with a big syringe. They never seem to crawl up the small round standpipe of the drain because they head to the side walls (this is why I put the bulkheads in rather than just cutting a drain in the side wall.


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You can see a whole mulberry leaf under a stone at the airlift end among the other debris.

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I *might* have gotten away with just using an aquarium and a big airstone - but I like that this system gives a bit more water movement over the gravel and has the additional reservoir of water which I might end up putting some filter media into or a sponge filter to keep the water quality up (worms are messy).... or moving to a bigger deeper reservoir. I'm hoping to get to the point that I have an unlimited supply but its fun just trying to make it all work...

Not all original ideas - I've borrowed heavily from a few YouTube videos.​

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I need to raise them a bit higher off the floor to make water changes easier (tap is too close to the floor). I just drain off the bottom which leaves the top tub with its 50mm or so of water in it - then I just pour a bucket of fish tank water-change water into the top slowly which drains down to the bottom. No chlorine in old tank water ​ I refill until the water level at the top is just filling the drain hole as in the picture a few posts above. If I put too much water in the tap on the bottom container lets me drain the extra off. Once the water level settles is moving as it should I only top up every couple of weeks as the level in the "drain hole" drops.

Second photo you can see a pebble that was weighing down a mulberry leaf - mostly just stringy veins remaining. I pick fully expanded green mulberry leaves, air dry them till crispy (washing basket full in the shed) then just put in ad weigh down with a pebble. They take a few days to soften. Slices of zucchini and sinking fish pellets are also good - people on the internet use brown paper towel. Use your imagination. Pumpkin in moderation only as it seems to go bad very quickly. Ok if eaten by worms quickly.

When I harvest I take a handful of gravel and swirl around in a small container and pour the "floaties" which includes the worms into a takeaway container. I throw the gravel back where it came from. The takeaway container includes worms and leaf fragments and mulm and it just sits on my sink and I pipette out a few worms as needed over the course of a couple of weeks.

To start I had just a couple of "serves" from the LFS $10 worth? - two table spoons full? More is better. They multiplied up over a few months so I split off the second culture. My first one did get full of snails which was a PITA. So when I pulled it down to make these two I got fresh gravel and did a lot of swirling and sorting in trays to only repopulate with worms.

I cant picture how big 250g or 500g of worms is. I suspect 250g would be oodles.

P.S. I normally have the air running a bit harder than the pic above. I must have opened a few taps elsewhere.​





​ The indoor systems above with the air-lifts worked but I found the growth rates of the blackworms was slow if I didn't constantly feed them and push the culture along. Having the tubs on the floor made it very difficult to change the water .. and the more you feed the more often you need to change the water. So a better system would have been to put the tubs on a bench with the drain tap piped to the garden.

Instead I decommissioned the two tubs (good chance to remove snails and clean the gravel) and set up one of the black tubs with water pumped from my 4000 litre glasshouse system. A small flow of water comes in at the bottom and flows back to the tub at the top. Last year I used clear tubing to pipe the water in and it clogged with algae and with no flow the worms cooked. So now using black poly.

Every few months I move the drain to a bucket and stir up the sand the worms are in and drain the muck into a bucket. Still not a massive producer of worms.. but I harvest some every 6-8 weeks to treat the fish and the maintenance is v low. I'm feeding them mulberry leaves and sheep pellets at the moment.

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..but I want more worms.

eBay was good to me and I found a pallet bin v cheap so I've plumbed it into my recirculating aquaculture tank (trout for Christmas lunch this year!) and now I have worms eating fish poop. ​

I've used the principles of a radial flow separator where water from the fish tank comes UP the 25mm PVC standpipe in the centre that opens just below the water surface. A sleeve around the outside (100mm pvc pipe) contains the incoming water and directs it back down to the bottom where it then spreads radially out from the centre losing velocity. The change in direction and low velocity allows the poo and any uneaten food particles to settle out... for the worms to eat. Directing new water to the bottom constantly should provide oxygen for the worms. There is about 1cm of sand on the bottom with the worms.

Has been set up now for a couple of months and really its an experiment but seems to be working OK. I want a lot more worms before I harvest any so I wont know how effective it is for a while.

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Panacur for camallanus worms, hydra and planaria

use fenbendazole in the form of Panacur sheep/horse wormer to safely clear hydra and planaria from shrimp tanks but I don't know how effective it is on internal parasites that are insulated from the water column.

1.5ml / 40 L Panacur 25

Putting this in perspective I think that is a very conservative dose. I dose about 8x this amount (Panacur100 at 8ml/100L) to shrimp tanks for Planaria, about half of this rate (4ml/100l) for Hydra with no negative effects. At 2-3ml/100l Panacur100 I do sometimes get a few surviving planaria.

 

I think its better to go gently and then determine if you need a repeat dose rather than overdose but knowing the high end is good too.

New 6x2x2

​ Today was a very good day.

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Empty new aquarium

Eurobraced 12mm starphire 1830x640x640 = 700L
(drilled base)

Todo: plumb to rain water supply and drain (lazy water changes)
Swap halides for Kessil Tuna Suns

Edit: 1 year +2 days since the old tank split! 😒​​




​ Got it dirty today.

Started with a base of DIY Grubs "Power Sand". Just a 1-2cm layer of re-used gravel from old tank, still filthy and full of clay and a small amount of shell grit, mixed with some fresh red clay, about 15 osmocote "aquatic gardens" tabs broken up into smaller fragments and a 1-2 teaspons of Aquagreen's trace nutrient mix. This is topped with a thin 1cm layer of LFS "midnight" gravel, more red clay and sprinkle of blood'n'bone and then the whole lot is mixed with fingertips. The midnight gravel raises PH and KH and with some red clay mixed in has proven to be great for growing aponogetons. The final result is about 3cm of over-fertilised sand and red clay. Rocks are just local river rocks (Silurian mudstone). Not particularly charismatic, but convenient from the creek in my back yard.

red clay = red. Black = filter inlet and outlet (described later below)
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"powders" = blood'n'bone over the grey/black LFS "midnight" gravel
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On top of this nutrient rich base goes a commercial substrate for the first time in a Grubs tank. Subscape in Melbourne are selling this Kaito substrate that is essentially the same as Cal Black Earth - harder grains than ADA so claimed to last a few years without turning to mush and nutrient rich without the ammonia spike. I used 4 bags. I know pulling plants up later will mix sand/gravel into the substrate but I don't see this as a problem as it should all have plants covering it and its quite deep (~7cm on top of the base mix). I considered mixing my magic red clay into the substrate too but didn't. I can always push some clay balls in later if needed.

Why go commercial when I've DIY'd since... well.. forever? ... well that's why. I just wanted to give a commercial substrate a go and so why not jump in with both feet with my main display tank (forces me to make it work).

I put the gravel and red-clay mix under there because I know it works for some of the big rooted plants I like to grow and it will be interesting to see where the plant roots end up. I'm planning to keep water column ferts to a minimum (hence the high dosing of the base layer).

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The round object is a filter intake. I wanted to remove all hoses from sight, so the tank is drilled through the base for 2 canister filters (4 holes). I siliconed some "midnight" gravel to the top of the strainer - it goes black when wet and will blend in a lot better with the black earth (you wont see it for the plants anyhow). The strainer has some 90mm PVC stormwater pipe around it that I've sprayed with black vinyl dye. I can easily fit a siphon hose into the circular gap to clean, or the strainer just lifts out. It is only sitting in there using the Hansen 20mm bulkhead nut as a locator to keep it centred. I have taps on each bulkhead under the tank so I can shut off the flow to isolate all the under-tank plumbing in case of leaks or for maintenance. These look a bit "Captain Obvious" now with nothing in the tank, but I'll be planting right up to the PVC gravel barrier and it should hide the inlets pretty damn well. The far inlet is also behind the wood. The little "periscope" you see in the bottom of the top picture is the filter return made from 19mm poly fittings. These are a bit of a work in progress until I see how the flow behaves.

yes I expect these circular "caves" will be favourite hiding place for shrimp... and I might come to curse the idea. If that happens I can just screw in some 10cm extensions, pull out the circular guard and fill the hole with fresh substrate. ​

The experienced campaigners among you will see the one substantive design risk. If a hose splits under the tank the tank can drain almost the entire volume (to the top of the nipple that is screwed into the bulkhead inside the strainer). This will leave only 30mm of water in the tank (probably enough to keep some shrimp and smaller fish alive if they are lucky enough to make it to the sand area). With a "normal" over the side canister filter inlet a leak can cause the tank to siphon down to the inlet strainer which is normally above the bottom of the tank. You get a wet floor but keep most of your livestock. So yes in my quest for less clutter I'm taking a risk - but in my defence I've never had a hose split, or major canister leak in 30 years of fish keeping (*touch wood*). I've installed isolating taps and a DIY leak alarm (smoke detector with contacts) in each cupboard
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So this is where I'm at... I still have some playing to do with the rocks to incorporate some more natural looking elements to the sand area. Currently its only ~5-10mm of dirty used DIY tank sand - but its not dissimilar to the local creek sand.

I've temporarily taken the light poles off because I need to thread the Kessil power and sync cables up them. So this clean look will be cluttered a bit once the poles are re-installed. The Kessils are a smaller fitting compared to the old halides and hopefully look a bit better.

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..for scale - the tank is 640 high ... so yes the wood is very "sticky outy"
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Planting plan is slowly forming in my brain.. but will be relatively low maintenance.​

​ Let there be light! ...again

These are the OLD light poles I made in 2007 (construction details).
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While the halides have been awesome, I've never been happy with the smaller round sunrise/sunset lights made from under-cabinet lights. I replaced the 20W G4 halogen globes with various LEDs from ebay and changed from warm to cool white but in the end they have always been too dim to the point of not noticing they were even on. Pathetic! ... but fixing was a non-trivial task, so I lived with it.

This new build has given me the opportunity to over-think the problem and I came up with a cheap solution replacing the lights with an MR16 downlight socket allowing me to re-use the existing wiring and 12v transformer. The MR16 bases are $5 for a pack of 5 from the hardware, and the beauty of these is I can now buy a range of LED downlight bulbs in different wattages and cool and warm tints. The base grips the pins on the bulbs very tightly (they won't fall out) and are held in position just by the tension on the cable. I've opted for 5.5W Osram LED Warm White 36 degree spread ($10 ea). These are equivalent to a 35W halogen downlight and gave me the option to go up in power (7W) or down in power (3W) if needed. I resisted the urge to install a dimmer. These are not to grow any plants, they are just to give the tank some spunk either side of "lights on".

I swapped the 150W metal halide shopligters to Kessil Tuna Sun A360WE's thanks to a last minute splurge on an AoA (site sponsor) sale.

I couldn't get the Kessil power cable plugs around the sharp bend in the tubes - so I had to cut a small window in the back of the pole (cant be seen). I threaded sync cables (non-genuine ebay stereo AV leads) along with the power leads and sunset light leads. The sync cables allow the controls on one light, or the Kessil spectral controller, to simultaneously adjust the brightness and colour temperature of all three lights.

Window to help with cable threading. You can see the white MR16 base out of focus on the pole on the ground.
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Neat and tidy. ​
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Nice warm sunrise/sunset.
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Kessil only
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My ONLY complaint is the noise the fans in the Kessils make. Maybe I can only hear it because I don't have the filters running yet. For the money I think the fans should be thermally controlled but they are not. Much queiter than the Ledzeal lights and similar in level to a fridge compressor running. Not obnoxious...but there.

This is all taking longer than I'd want due to work commitments (familiar story). Plants from various people floating in other tanks now so need to get a scoot on.


[QUOTE=shakti;542037]Looks good.

Will you grow any epiphytes on the wood thats sticking out? Like orchids, pitcher plants, ferns or tillansia?[/QUOTE]

I'd love to. Its a dark corner and the lighting is probably hanging a bit low but hoping there is enough light reflecting back upwards? Not my area of expertise at all... will look at once the fish are in and I have a breather!​

​ Very happy with the starfire glass and the look of the tank itself. No cross braces on the top is win win win. I'm often leaning in for a look ​

Very happy with the filter setup through the base. The outflows that push water up from the bottom at ~45 degrees angle with sufficient force to ripple the surface (shimmer) and create a good circular gyre in the tank.

Very happy with the low maintenance (nothing but weekly water changes so far - garden hose in/out and done. (still haven't connected the pipes under the house). No pruning, no algae woes. Suits my busy workload at the moment.


Still only about 2/3 planted and very simple (not really 'scaped'), and there is a big chunk of bolbitus pushed up against the wood that is just sitting there for cover for shrimp until some of the java grows a bit more.

Playing it slow and planting a few more things over time as there are a couple of unexpected early observations.

1) the congo Tetras have been grazing heavier than I'd like (too many of them).
There are two small Ottelia ulvifolia on the far RHS struggling to get up above the blyxa before the congo's eat the tips off. Hydrocotyl grows back over a couple of weeks then gets defoliated. I was planning to have Aponogeton capuroni, Barclayas and Mad Lace in there but holding off a bit. Maybe 24 congo tetras is too many ​ I'll probably reduce the congo numbers a little....but not yet.

2) the Kaito aquasoil is still taking a little understanding. No nutrient problems ​ but seems to shock some plants when fresh. Stauro repens and sp. purple and AR mini growing great, Aponogeton crispus "red" powering along, but I've lost a lot of crypts and Pogostomen helferi (insta-melt to oblivion) and those that are growing back are taking a long time - quite a bit of that bare soil in the pics is/was a crypt carpet of C. x willisi with green gecko overhanging all the rocks at the front. I've planted a few C. wendtii "red" and C. becketti 'Petchii' that have just dissolved and not come back. Pogostomen helferi melted to nothing early on - testing with a couple more that are now gaining ground so I'm waiting another month or so for the soil to mature more before replanting. A few crypt leaves coming back up... but much much slower than plants I repotted on the same day into gravel in other tanks.

A little green coating on the rocks/gravel only this week because I may have been heavy on the first fert doses... but otherwise tank is clean. barely need to wipe the glass at all. Wood still clean which is almost onheard of in my house - normally the wood just keeps getting BBA... but not this time yet so happy with progress.

I'm not enamoured with the "scape" (its a bit fake looking with the aquasoil/gravel split... nothing some more plants and rocks cant fix)...but for now... it'll do as I'm enjoying the the fish.

I've got a tank full of Corydoras sterbai in the shed I want to add but its already very fishy so again holding off until I decide if I'm going to reduce the congo numbers (currently 24).

Onward and upward.

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​ I think I've proven myself incapable of getting a good photo. I'm happy with the tank in real life just not the pics. These were the best of about 30 ​

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​ overgrown?

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​ Everyone loves a low maintenance tank......


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Due to work this has become a no maintenance tank..... ​​

​Aponogeton rigidifolia - Tank Busters

This is my "Aponogeton Tank" - a 4x2x2 which is about 1/3 as big it needs to be!


^ Aponogeton rigidifolius - has leaves 1.8m long in a 1.2m tank - and like a total dufus I put 3 plants in the right back corner. Aquascaping genius I am...



^I normally have 3 light fittings on top - but light struggles to penetrate the Apon leaves. Aponogeton crispus (green) up this end getting overshadowed by the A. rigidifolius that is planted 4 ft away at the other end.



^I have my Barclaya longifolia planted up this end (pink and green leaves). The tank is 60cm high so some of those Barclaya leaves are 1m long (50m of frond and 50cm of petiole). I have two wavemakers pushing the current around in a big whirlpool but most of the flow is against the glass because of the mass of plants in the middle. Aponogeton undulatus has the little clear windows in the leaves and the plants are rooted up the other end but those leaves are nearly a metre long too. Right in the middle Aponogeton elongatus is peeking out trying to get some light! All those stems at the top are the A. rigidifolius heading west! The white blob in the Barclaya is a bag over a flower to catch some seeds.

I'd love a 3ft deep tank - but my arms are not that long... and I don't have shares in the electricity company... so I think I need to start potting some of these into little pots to cramp their style.

Substrate is DIY gravel and magic red clay. Soft water, but quite alkaline - pH 7.5-8 due to the gravel. No water column ferts at all. Osmocote and blood'n'bone added to gravel on setup 12 months ago. (there is potassium in the hardness booster I add to my rainwater)



Left to Right: Aponogeton vanbruggenii, Aponogeton tofus, Barclaya longifolia "magenta", Barclaya longifolia "red" (hiding in a pot in the corner) ...and some where in the shadows there are a couple of small green Barclaya too.

A little crowded!



Sold an Aponogeton rigidifolia to make some space (there are 3 of these planted in the tank pictured above!). The buyer has an 800mm high tank with Altum angels and wanted something big to arch over the surface and give some shelter. Perfect!

Breeding Caridina typus "Australian Amano Shrimp"

2015 sometime


I recovered my first batch of typus larvae this evening. From mating to release ~15-18 days. Transferred to a slightly salty green water but not holding a lot of hope as the green water has crashed due to cold weather and doesn't look right. I've got another 4 berried females isolated so once each releases I'll set up a new coffee jar with a different water brew. The DAS are not going as well either (2 weeks in salt today) with high mortality which also points to the algal mix being wrong. I have a compound microscope now... hopefully some time over the break to look at the water!







Week old Caridina typus larvae taken through poor resolution kids microscope. I'm using the microscope to get a feel for the size of algae particles they might eat - the quality is too poor for much else but I have been able to rule out some of my green water sources as inappropriate because the algae was just too big. I'm guessing the algae needs to be in the 5-20 µm size range. I'm passing green water through a 50 µm mesh and the cells that get through are still way too big.

If many survive just a few more days it will mean they survived the first moult.... which is a big milestone. (the first three batches didn't make it! This one is showing promise)

I'm trying to rear them in seawater. I can see some larvae still in the "mother" tank clinging to the dirty glass - I'll leave them, and leave it dirty and see if any make it in the fresh water.

The main thing with these pics is the guts do not look empty... so I'm hoping that means they are eating.



The larvae are a little smaller than DAS larvae - about 1.5mm long. Yes living (until this one dried out on the slide) ... plenty more where he came from.

here is a picture of the green algae from my duck pond that is too big. Its the same higher magnification as the bottom two shrimp larvae pics ^ and as the larvae don't have well developed mouth parts yet they cant chew. - eating this algae would be like us trying to swallow apples whole.



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Powdered spirulina from the health food shop has some smaller fragments that may be the right size but most are too big and settle out.

I think the larvae need to filter small particles as they don't have the mouthparts yet to chew on filaments.​



01-03-15, 08:53 PM


Success at last after the tank developed its own suspended food supply (all artificial diets failed). Saw my first juveniles tonight. So ~5 weeks as planktonic larvae (in salt water) metamorphosing at ~3-4mm. Definitely swimming forwards like a shrimp (too fast to photograph). Similar development as for DAS but a little slower to develop and metamorphosing as smaller juveniles (may be a real difference or may just be less favourable conditions in the rearing tank). If they follow the same growth pattern as DAS they should grow much more quickly as little shrimps compared to the larvae.



01-03-15, 10:13 PM

I did look at some more local prepared foods - live cultures and phytoplankton pastes can be got from http://www.reefculture.com.au and if I'd had too many more failures I would have pulled the trigger on some. In the end I set up a variety of tanks and coffee jars with different water sources (+salt) and different lighting and let nature take its course until something bloomed in one of them. It looks like the Seachem product has similar algae - would provide more certainty if it works... next time perhaps!



Just to show how damn small juvenile Typus are despite 6 weeks growing as planktonic larvae. Settled DAS are twice the size.

This guy is approx. 2 months old.​



​ Oh my. I've put a lot of very blurry phone camera photos up of shrimp larvae over the last few months. Tonight I re-acquainted myself with my old 7MP point and shoot camera (Canon A720) that as it turns out has a pretty good macro mode. I wish I could go back and start over. My C. typus released another bunch of larvae tonight. Tank was clear at 9pm and I found these just before midnight. Its impossible to get them all in focus but for the first time I snagged a photo of "0-Day" larvae where you can see they look like baby shrimp swimming vertically. Unfortunately I had to stop taking photos because they started to drift towards the filter and I wanted to catch them. Definitely room to improve further. More light will make for sharper exposures as these are hand held without flash in a dark room with only an LED torch on the tank (POS camera flash just reflects off the glass).







I cleaned the glass of a nearby fish tank and squeezed the cloth into my salt water C. typus lavae tank to add some algae and diatoms to the water as food for the planktonic shrimp larvae. The metamorphosed juvenile typus shrimp took that as a signal to "migrate upriver" and they congregated in the current of the air bubbler swimming madly "upstream" against the current. I only added a few drops of dirty rag "juice" to the tank but it must have smelt like "home".

Current is flowing left > right. Each baby shrimp is ~3-5mm long.

There are still some larvae that have yet to metamorphose into shrimplets, but I expect to migrate these into fresh water next week.



27-04-15, 04:42 PM



Today I put them into a bigger freshwater tank to grow (there were 10-15 slowpokes that either took a long time ... or died without ever metamorphosing).

So this marks the completion of my first C. typus breeding. They took 6-12 weeks as planktonic larvae in salt water before becoming juveniles, which is much slower than DAS (4-7 weeks).

Mortality was pretty horrendous this time around - at a guess 5% made it but I never counted the larvae.
6-12 weeks is a long time for a small unfiltered container and a second tank I had going with the same original water became colonised by blue-green algae and the water quality went to hell and the larvae perished.

Just sea water ~33g salt per litre but I use an el cheapo floating glass hydrometer that has a green stripe around the specific gravity of sea water. The time is probably right to do a few tests with 1/2, 2/3, 3/4 sea water etc.. again. Last time I tried everything died at 2/3 seawater... but that also happens when the algae mix isn't right so I need to run a bit of a sequence at the same time to resolve the salinity requirements better.

The problem with adding a filter is I want the micro particles for the shrimp to eat, so it has to be biomedia only - perhaps a fluid bed filter... but that would mean much bigger volume containers than I use now (2l coffee jars & 10l aquariums). I am playing around a bit with the air rates (=flow) a bit..but no clear winners yet.



11-06-15, 11:17 PM

Breeding typus is still a bit hit an miss for me. Last few batches trying lower salinities (~ 20ppt) didn't work very well (only a handful made it). The same algae cultures and salinities worked brilliantly for DAS at the same time. The Typus are smaller larvae so maybe the algae is too big. Now trying another run at higher salinity of 34ppt.
29-08-15, 06:52 PM
​ This is the first reproductive female that I've reared from hatching all the way to maturity. She's from the batch photographed ^^ 11-04-15. So now we know it takes approx 1 month for larvae to settle as juveniles and then approx 5 months to grow to sexual maturity.
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And today I just completed migrating the second successful batch to go all the way through... 2nd from ~15 attempts. Ive had a few batches where only a handful survive and many where all died. This batch salinity ~24ppt, and temp 28C.

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