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Ghost shrimp and red algae



I recently added a dozen ghost shrimp to my 55g tank (I had some in my 20 for
quite a while) for two reasons:

1.  I'm under the impression that either ghost shrimp or ottocinclus eat red
ramshorn egg sacs or babies.  I'm leaning towards the ghost shrimp, but I'm
still not sure, so I'm doing a test to find out.

2.  I had a red algae infestation on some fine-leaved plants that my apple
snails couldn't handle.

Since I added the ghost shrimp, I have noticed that the amount of red algae on
my lilaeopsis has decreased markedly.  This is good, because the lilaeopsis
didn't take off quickly at all when I added it to the tank.  I have seen ghost
shrimp picking up and chewing on baby apple snails.  I don't know whether they
were dead before the shrimp got to them or if the shrimp killie them, but I do
find this interesting.

In my 20g setup, the main tank (20g) is currently heavily red algae-infested,
but only has apple snails and ottocinclus in it.  The 10g settling tank for
this setup has a 15w Power-Glo tube on it, has perhaps 3 dozen or more baby
apple snails, at least one ghost shrimp, probably 3 ottos, a kuhli loach, and a
baby platy or two.  It has zero algae.  The front portion has 80w lighting too.
I'm considering a water change and renewing CO2 to this tank, with a major
transplant of fish/snails back to the 20g portion to see if it has any effect.

My 55g has lost 2 adult apple snails and one adult platy to date, but is busy
growing hundreds of babies of both.  I hatched out several hundred ghost shrimp
not long after I purchased the dozen that I added, but I have no idea what they
look like in their larval stages, and I can't find them in the tank yet.  I
also have 50 or more baby snails and 15-20 baby platies in the settling tank
for this system.  Recently, I noticed a little cyanobacteria at one point in
the tank and I'm hoping that this doesn't become a trend.  I plan to mix up
some PMDD formula soon, because I believe the blue algae is due to some trace
phosphates in one of my fertilizer additives, and I don't have much of a good
way at this time to dose with trace elements other than iron (Duplaplant 24).

Hair algae growth has slowed down significantly, but I still need to clean the
front glass periodically.  

After adding some Tetra initial sticks to my nutrient injection system, my
plants are really beginning to take off.  The rotala rotundifola (I thought it
was indica until I purchased a Baensch I & II set) has begun to grow arain, the
H. difformis is now filling out, the H. polysperma (sunset) is beautiful, my
val. spiralis is sending out numerous runners.  The H. leucocephala isn't
behaving well.  It's leaves are getting smaller, and its stems seem to be
rotting.  I now have several little 2-3 leaf whorls floating around the tank.
I'll comment more on that as more information develops.  My aponogetons are
beginning to make a comeback, and my nymphaea has about a dozen little 3/4"
long leaves, flat against the substrate.  My crypts are all doing very well,
including a spade-leaved species (ciliata?) and a reddish, crinkled species
(affinis?).

For the last 2 years, when the time changed, my aponogetons flowered.  I'm
interested in seeing how they do this time.  I'd also love to get some floating
leaves and flowers from my nymphaea.  What does it take to get A. barterii var.
nana to flower when it's emersed?

David W. Webb
Enterprise Computing Provisioning
Texas Instruments Inc. Dallas, TX USA
(214) 575-3443 (voice)  MSGID:       DAWB
(214) 575-4853 (fax)    Internet:    dwebb at ti_com
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