I MADE A NO FILTER CRYSTAL RED SHRIMP TANK

Welcome back everybody. Today we're making another little nano aquascape for some beautiful shrimp. I'm thinking to go for a no filter style setup again. Let's get started. We're not wasting any time today, I've already prepared everything. So we have a nice little empty tank. This is a Strideways 36P, so it's a standard size measuring 36 cm from left to right, 26 cm tall and 22 cm front to back. So it holds roughly 20 liters or 5 US gallons. And I really like this size, especially for the shell. When we're done making this aquascape, I'm going to put it on the shelf as well and I'm going to replace it with this one. This is the Thai Micro Crab aquascape that I did a while back. I'm not really enjoying this one anymore. Also the Thai Micro Crabs, I'm basically seeing them like once a month if I'm lucky. And I have a feeling that I'm constantly seeing the same one as well. So it could be that we just have one left. So there's no real point of keeping this entire tank just for one Micro Crab. If we find them, we can just put them in the vase or something. Yeah, back to this setup. So it's a 20 liter tank from Strideways. And this is actually the Sado range, which is the budget range. So if you have to buy this tank new, it's 40 euros, which I think is very affordable, especially because it's still optic white, high quality glass, really nice. And then the light. This is the Skylight Intense 40, I'll put the exact name on the screen, pretty powerful light and has a little remote here as well. So we can change the intensity and we can also change the color. So we make it a bit more cold white or warm white. So just a nice simple setup. Okay, let's continue with the hardscape. The hardscape for this setup is going to be very simple, basically just going to use one single piece of wood. I found this piece a few days ago at my local fish shop and I think it will fit perfectly in this tank. Yeah, I think we can make it work, maybe slightly tilt it so the branches are kind of just coming out of the water. Yeah, if we're just using this piece of wood, then there's no way that we can glue it down to anything or we could glue it down to the glass, but I don't really feel comfortable doing that. So I was actually thinking to glue one rock to the base of the wood, so just so it doesn't float up anymore. And then we have ourselves a very simple hardscape. Okay, so I found a pretty flat rock, this will definitely be enough to keep the wood down. So if we just glue it on like this, then I think that should work, right? It might be slightly elevated, but that's fine. Yeah, let's see if we can glue it together. Of course, best to do it from the backside so we don't see it from the front. So I'm going to try to wedge some cotton pads in between here and then saturate the cotton pads with liquid super glue. And then hopefully that will work. If it doesn't work, we can always use zip ties or something, but usually this works pretty well. And five minutes later, we're all done. So I glued it here, glued it there, and one in front here as well. Really love this super glue method, super quick, super cheap as well. I mean, cotton pads don't really cost anything. I'm using very cheap liquid super glue from like a local dollar store, basically. Yeah, and I think everybody knows this already, but this method is super safe as well. Like it becomes completely inert, so it doesn't affect the water parameters or it's not toxic for fish or shrimp or anything. Perfect. Yeah, so it sits a little bit higher right now, but I think that actually works quite well. I was going to have quite a thick substrate layer, so yeah, I'm happy with that. Let's move on to the substrate. So I've started with some old aqua soil. I've basically took down the previous layer that was in the tank a few days ago, and I've kept most of this substrate. So I'm doing this because I kind of want to jumpstart the cycle. I'm hoping that there's still a lot of beneficial bacteria in this old substrate. And since this is going to be a no filter setup, we need a lot of beneficial bacteria. So right now we can cover this with a fresh aqua soil. And I'm actually going for the Dennerle Escaper Soil this time. Haven't used this brand in a while because it's not as nutrient rich as I personally like. But I think for a no filter setup, it's going to be good. I've also chosen mostly easy and slow growing plants, so yeah, let's give this one a go. Okay, there's the substrate in. So that means we are now ready for planting. I'm not going to add any rocks. I was kind of contemplating it, but I think I'm going to keep it simple this time. So as always, I have a beautiful selection of really healthy plants from Dennerle Plants. So a few nice Invitro Cups, Marsilea Hirsuta, we have some nice Weeping Moss. I have the new Anubias from them. This is the Anubias Jade. It's really beautiful. I'm going to show you in a minute. And I also have this one, the Anubias Nana Kirin, really interesting with these curly leaves. They've recently also added some Phycidins to their assortment. So we have some Phycidins on a little mesh pad. And then I also have two stem plants, the Hygrophila Sunset and the Ludwigia Repens. And the idea with these stem plants is that I want them to kind of grow out of the water. So I'm going to plant them all the way in the back and I would really like them to grow out of the water and kind of sit on top of the water level. I've never really done that. And I kind of want to like have plants coming out as well. I think that will look really cool. Okay, I've prepared all the plants. Looking good. I forgot I had this one as well. Nice little Trident Java Fern already attached to a little piece of spiderwood. That's how they sell it, they're Dennerle plants. Really nice. So we can actually add this in somewhere as well, but I'm not sure if this piece of wood will fit here. Now, I don't think this piece of wood really fits there. So I'm actually just going to remove the Java Fern from there and just attach it to this piece of wood. Yeah, I think that's a nice little spot for it. Okay, let's move on with the rest of the plants. Let's continue with this one. This is the Anubias Kyrin. I've used the Mini a few times, but this is the regular one. I really like this plant, love the curly leaves. Let's find some nice spots around the wood. Then the next one is the Anubias Green Jade. This one is quite new. Really interesting color. Some kind of white tones to it as well. Really light green. Yeah, let's see if we can find a nice spot for it. I'm actually going to glue one of the Anubias to a little tiny rock, so I can place it a little bit lower on the substrate as well. I think that will also look nice. So there's just a little bit of gel super glue on there, and then we'll just press it on there. Wait a few seconds, that should be good. Okay, looking good so far. Definitely a little bit different from my usual style as well. Normally I would go for smaller plants and kind of really focus on that sense of scale. I kind of threw that out the window and just, yeah, tried to do something different. We love those two types of Anubias in here. Next up, I want to start adding some moss on these branches. I have a Weeping Moss and I have Piscidens Moss. So I'm thinking Weeping Moss for sure on this big branch and the Piscidens maybe only the one below that. A little bit of Piscidens on this side to hide that ugly twig. Let's give that a try. Okay, so I have two of these Piscidens pads from Dandelion and I've just tried bending it. It actually works really well. So I bend it and I actually glued it on a stick over there. I'm going to do the same and do it on that branch over there. Yeah, so that might look a little bit silly for like the first few weeks, but it actually grows quite fast and once it starts growing, it will completely cover that mesh and we won't see it anymore. I have a little bit of Piscidens in this tank as well, a little bit, quite a lot actually. It actually grows quite fast. Let's move on to the carpet. For that I'm going to use Marsalea Herzuta. Really cool plant. Kind of looks like a four-leaf clover and I'm going to cover the entire foreground with it. Yeah, it's starting to come together now. It's the carpet done as well. I forgot to mention, we are of course doing a low filter setup, so that means no CO2 as well and the Marsalea is quite a good carpeting plant for low-tech setups. It does quite well without CO2, so it's a little tip for you guys. If you want to do a low-tech carpet, go for Marsalea. So let's move on to the stems in the background. So first up the Hygrophila polysperma. I think everybody knows this plant, it's quite a fast grower. This is the Sunset variety, so you can see that the leaves are a bit different and actually this can grow pink as well under a strong light. And then the last one, the Twigia repens Ruben, probably one of the easiest red plants as well. So it's going to go in that little corner over here. All right, I think we're done with the planting. Really like how it looks right now. It's quite green, but I think once the stem plants in the background start growing, it might give us a bit of a red touch as well. And hopefully those stem plants will start growing out of the water, that would be really cool. Yeah, I'm happy with it. You can already see some nice shrimp kind of moving around here. Hopefully the carpet will grow in soon as well, we can have a nice green lawn with Marsalea. Yeah, I'm looking forward to that. Okay, let's move it to the shelf and start filling it up. Okay, I thought I might as well share this with you guys as well. Just finished taking down the Thai microcrab tank. We have a bunch of cherry shrimp here. We have all the hardscape and the moss balls here. And we have just one Thai microcrab left. Really small one, super tiny. Actually, it wasn't the one I've been seeing because the one that I saw was much larger. But I just noticed that there's a small body over there left. So that was the one I've been seeing. He didn't make it unfortunately, but yeah, it's just something I wanted to share with you guys. So if you're thinking of getting Thai microcrabs, just know that they're very good at hiding and also very nocturnal. So you won't really see them during the day. Yeah, that's it. This one is almost ready, almost done filling it up. And the next step, you guys are going to see this tank after three weeks or so. And just like that, it's now roughly six or seven weeks later. Because this is a no filter setup, it took a little bit longer to develop and it took a little bit longer to get to a point where I was happy to show it to you guys. So yeah, roughly six, seven weeks later. And we now also have shrimp. A few days ago, I picked up a group of 10 crystal red caridina shrimp. These have been on my wishlist for quite a long time. So super happy to have them. So yeah, considering the fact that there's no CO2 in here, and I'm keeping the light levels pretty low as well, the plants have grown quite okay. I mean, we still need a little bit more time to get a full carpet with Marsalaea, but it's starting to spread nicely. And I really love what the stem plants have done. That was exactly what I wanted. I love the red touch with the Ludwigia. The Hygrophila is growing immersed as well, but the Ludwigia is definitely growing faster. But I've also added a little bit more moss on this branch right here. So I've wrapped it first again with Tera tape, like I've done a few times now. And then I've added some different type of moss, I forgot the name, but I'll leave the name on the screen. Yeah, I really love the immersed section. Just adds another dimension to the aquarium, you know. Now I do have to make a little confession. After about two or three weeks, I did run a little filter on the setup, but just for a few days. I have a clip from how the tank was looking at the time, I'll overlay it right now. And as you can see, the water was very dirty, it was very cloudy, there was lots of waste organics. I tried to do a few water changes, but couldn't really get rid of it. So I decided to just add a small filter just for a few days. And after the tank cleared up, I removed the filter again. So it's still a no filter setup, but technically I did cheat a little bit. Yeah, I'm really happy with these Crystal Red Shrimp. Just love the white and red color combination, just looks so good. They are a little bit more sensitive to like standard Neo-Caridina Shrimp. So I'm hoping that they will do well in here. I am using reverse osmosis water in here, so most of my tanks are using tap water. But in here, I decided it's probably best to go with RO water. Yeah, let's hope they'll feel comfortable in here, fingers crossed they'll start breeding as well. And that is the end of the video guys, really hope you enjoyed this one. If you did enjoy it, don't forget to smash that like button. I'll see you next time. Take care.