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(non-ceph...again :roll:) pistol shrimp

Joined
Dec 14, 2007
Messages
655
In my 12 gallon, I currently have a pistol shrimp, a watchman goby, 2 hermits, and 4 snails. I cycled the tank for 5 weeks before putting fish in, I do at least one weekly water change of one gallon. My ammonia is at 0, Nitrites 0, pH 7.8-8, and nitrates are 80-140. The nitrates are worrying me because I cannot bring them down, does anyone have any suggestions? I feed half a frozen cube of mysis every other day. Secondly, I usually see my pistol shrimp out and about once in a while, especially when feeding, but haven't seen him since Saturday, this is really worrying me and I wonder what is happening or what I should do, should I add iodine? this has happened before when he's molted (i knew because i found the sheded skeleton) but it's only lasted about 36 hours before i saw him again and that was only 2-3 weeks ago.
 
Small tanks need more attention to keep them healthy. I have about an inch of course sand in our large nano and find all manner of stuff collects in it over a week's time (I have mostly clean up crew critters with a few soft corals). Even with the minimum bio-load I have to do a 5 gallon weekly water change with new filter pad AND vacuum the substrate.
 
I can try 1/4 of the cube, but I never find any left overs. I have a whisper 20i filter with the regular sponge pad and then a activated carbon fislter cartridege. Is this alright, or should I have something else?
 
I always like to use some polywool. You can squeeze that stuff in your filter anywhere. I have 2 pistol shrimp 1 I never see I only hear and 1 that disappeared for 3 months I thought it was dead then poof its back. My suggestion is keep doing what your doing and let the tank work out its own balance. Sometimes it takes a while let some bacteria build up so it can do its job. If all your tank inhabitants look okay leave it alone until you start to see a problem ( fish or corals acting different ).
 

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