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Most recent picture of the left tank, as of 02-24-2013


Most recent picture of the right tank, as of 02-24-2013


These two tanks are right next to my desk on a entertainment center. Making for easy viewing


Most recent picture of moss tank, as of 03-17-2013


Left Tank (PFRs) Progression
Right Tank (Yellows & Malawas) Progression
20L Growout Tank Progression
And to end off this cover post, some shrimp shots I really like
SS CRS
Babaulti Black
Berried Tiger
Yellows-Orange shrimps


Any advice, critiques, and compliments are welcome

Just thought I'd post pictures showing the progression of the left tank.

Progression of the right tank. This tank was the first one I set up and has gone through much more change than the left tank.

Progression shots. Most recent shot at the bottom.

Initially, this started from a single jar for extra moss.


And then this turned into multiple jars for different types of moss.


However, I noticed that the mosses didn't grow as well in stagnant water (might just be my experience) so I decided to set up a spare 10G tank with dividers. Initially I just threw the jars in with a long bubble wand for water circulation. However, the water wouldn't actually circulate into the glass jars, for obvious reasons. Thus, I changed it to dividers.



This was my first attempt so the dividers were made out of cloth mesh from Walmart and suction cups. The holes within the cloth allowed for water circulation. The long bubble wand was still present. This setup had great moss growth, but there were several problems.

• the moss would grow attached to the cloth mesh, becoming very hard to take off
• the cloth dividers began to smell really bad, maybe due to fert-saturated water column

So I decided to redo the dividers. This is how the cloth dividers looked after ~2 months.




Now, for the new boundaries. Made with cut up ziplock freezer bags (thicker). Also cut holes in them to allow for water circulation. For those wondering, a ziplock freezer bag is the PERFECT size for a divider in a 10g tank.




And finally, I started to cull my cherries into this tank. Moss was doing great, but the cherry culls... not so much. The water was really dirty with the snail/shrimp poop. So the shrimp I threw in would all slowly die over a week. We're talking 20+ shrimp dying. So obviously something was wrong. Decided to redo the tank completely, add substrate (thanks to xenxes's idea), and a filter as well.






Ultimately, I decided to upgrade from a 10G tank to a 20L, moving the tank into my room for the AC as well. I also did not want to use tank-wide dividers as they forced shrimp to cluster in specific sections, being too dumb to escape. This, I made tube dividers seen in the pictures below using the same style as with the 10G dividers. I also added 2" of substrate, instead of just 1", as this made planting stems much easier. No more need to use plant weights! Lot of work, but I think the tank will stay this way for a longer time.

AC20 Modification

Where's the 20L!??

And how are those carbon packets working out for you, how often you changing them? I'm not sure if they actually reduce ammonia...