Thomas Raccoon

Look at how cute this tiny shrimplet is! #shrimptank #aquarium #shrimp

It's been a minute and we had 2 shrimps dying in the last couple weeks, so seeing the first birth in the #shrimptank got me so emotional 🥺 #shrimp #aquarium

And @3lfig.bsky.social and me are going to see #ocean from #attenborough this evening! Can't wait to cry all the water in my body.

We now have 2 berried shrimps!

Meet the Manefish, Caristius macropus. Named for their distinctive shape, macropus means large foot. This fish was observed in Monterey Bay 483 meters (1584 feet) deep in August of 2018. #MBARIFromTheVault

Thanks! Very happy with how it turned out. Most of the aquascape is @3lfig.bsky.social doing, I'm just taking algae out haha

And this morning, she was berried! #preganante #shrimptank

And yesterday evening, we also noticed the first mating panic dance-chase-whatever-the-fuck-that-was in our aquarium with our 6 males harassing one female 😬😬😬 #shrimptank

We also got a little horned nerite! So it's now also a #snailtank

Yesterday, we increased the population with 5 new shrimps, they're darker and some of them have a racing line! #shrimps #aquarium

It's time for #shrimptank update!

I think there is too much food in the aquarium now with biofilm and all, so they don't really react if I give them anything.

Ma here's some post workout pump for the non shrimp audience!

And now get ready for a drop of little red #shrimps!

It's a bit hard to catch them and my phone struggle to focus. But look at how cute they are #aquarium #aquascape #shrimptank #plantedtank

The #shrimps have also been so hard at work. Cleaning a lot of the tank, and most notably the big wood piece.
This is the one week evolution! #shrimptank #aquarium #aquascape #plantedtank

Time for an #aquarium update! Today we did a big trimming, cutting about half of the plants and quite a bit of height. #shrimptank #plantedtank

After a few days, I can say that it was the first and probably last time that I'll see them all together 😅🦐

First shrimp to molt in the aquarium. She looks good and healthy and isn't even hiding that much 🦐😊 #shrimptank #aquarium

Look at how much they ate in one day!? And people said neocardina were not that good of a cleaning squad! #shrimptank

Here is the first pic! There are ten young ones (for now) and they got straight to work the the green ugly algae! #shrimptank #aquarium #aquascape #plantedtank

We finally got shrimps! It was a bit on impulse and we didn't get the colour we planned for (I urgently messaged any private seller around and took the first who answered) but they are red, they are cute and we love them! #shrimptank #aquarium

However, all water parameters are now looking as they should and the aquarium seems ready for some shrimps. We'll try introducing 5 this weekend or the next, to see how they settle (aka, if they survive), and if all is good for a couple of weeks, we'll bring in more. #shrimptank is coming!

During the time I was away, algae developped (not a lot but more than than before), the population of worms developped strongly and the very high population of copepods disappeared. Wondering what tipped the balance in the #aquarium but I can't say I'm thrilled with the tradeoff.

Leaving the aquarium for a bit more than a week without being home. It's still not stocked and I put the lid so evaporation should be reduced but still feeling a bit nervous about it.

Today was aquarium trimming day. It had been a few weeks and the plants had grown a lot. We also took out the drowned floaters (decomposing leaves) which were not looking good. The tank is full of food cause we're still ghost feeding, but I like the way it looks otherwise! #aquarium #aquascape

Still no shrimp being added to the tank (we're going on holidays soon, so it'll wait for after) but the copepod population is thriving! #aquarium #aquascape #plantedtank #shrimptank

I'm also excited to give plants a trim and get it all back to looking a bit more orderly, but this isn't urgent.

Will keep testing daily for the whole week while keep adding as much food, but if ammonia stays at 0, we'll assume that it's cycled and ready for the shrimps (which we will only add in a few weeks anyway, because we are both away for a week early March)! I'm so excited!

So we decided to cycle it at a higher level of fish food and after more than a week at over-ghostfeeding (with still very low ammonia level), we reached a 0 ammonia, 0 nitrite and some nitrate (which don't come from water cause we've only been adding distilled water this whole time).

Because we got the water test kit three weeks late, we were unable to know if the tank had been cycled and all the plants were eating the nitrate or if we just never added enough ammonia to properly start the cycle.