Filter Air Line

Hey FC. What's causing the oil slick? I never had any issues with the hikari shrimp food...

The air tube is a venturi. It is designed to suck air in and create bubbles. Several filters I've had over the years have had venturis; some of them worked fine, some didn't work at all - in the latter case the tubing was so limp the top end kept falling in the water, and obviously it can't suck air in from there     I don't use venturis at all now I just remove them from the filter.

What filter do you have then I can see if it is actually a venturi and if it is removable.

Hi,

I've had a good look on line for the filter and it doesn't exists!!!  It came with my 19 litre PAH tank and has no manufacturers name on it and the closest thing to it I can find is this;

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Hidom-Aquarium-Internal-Filter-Filtration/dp/B00BCLD21U

My filter is 250 l/ph and has no spray bar but is pretty much the same otherwise.

I have removed the Venturi as I found a good article on how they work and what they actually do and I have decided I don't want increased aeration in my flow, just more surface agitation which it does without it. The back flow, I've decided, was caused by the fact that I have filter wool across the water outlet so it thinks it's blocked.

http://hopealexander.hubpages.com/hub/How-To-Use-A-Venturi


Unless someone tells me I need the Venturi to prevent damaging the filter I'll run it without.

With regard to the feeding, I'm still getting used to how much to feed the shrimps and they do seem to be cleaning up everything I give them, bearing in mind they are sharing the tank with about four snails.

Thanks folks.

FC76

That's a good question and one I am still deciding on the answer too!!!

I think I shall do 25-30% water changes, which on a 21 litre tank isn't going to be much and I shall try tying muslin, like you use to make jam, over the end of the siphon and be ready to stop my flow if anyone gets stuck to the end!!!

I'll let you know how I get on!!

Incidentally, if anyone has any suggestions or sees anything wrong with my proposed idea, speak now, or forever hold your peace!!!!

 

Can't help with fishcake's original post (haven't got a living thing in the tank yet- not if you exclude plants)
but as an observation on Diz's last post, I think (Sue?) said she sometimes vacuums up shrimp and puts them back.
I bought two new buckets for my fish tank maintenance one black and one orange from B & Q. 
I did that on the basis that if I use the lighter coloured one for siphoning into I would be able to spot shrimp of whatever against the colour of the surface, which I wouldn't be able to do very easily in the black bucket.
Well that's the theory.
Of course, I'll have to be sure not to get the orange shrimp or I'll be in trouble.

Good idea RichardW, and do you think changing around 30% is about right. I think fishcake is right, I normally do 30-40% per week for my big 180 litre tank.

I'm known for my advocacy of smaller and fewer water changes, I change about 20% every 4 or 5 weeks. I do have heavily planted tanks though.

I don't use a net to catch the siphon water in as I am notoriously clumsy and would only knock the net complete with shrimps off the bucket and all over the floor. As I have snails and wood in the same tank, there is a lot of large bits of snail poo so I wouldn't find the baby shrimps in a net with all the mess 

It is easy to see adult or even juvenile shrimps in a bucket if you use a light coloured one (grey in my case) but you can't see the transparent babies. I empty the bucket with a jug and check every jugful before throwing it away. Tiny babies can be sucked out using a medicine pipette with the end cut off to make the hole wider. Larger shrimp have to be poured back in. When I find shrimp in the jug, I empty the water into a cheesecake tub (individual portion size) as it's easier to catch the babies and I can suck out the muck before pouring the larger ones back in.
I know this sounds obsessive but I can't bear the thought of emptying tiny shrimp down the drain.

Natalia, who used to be a member and helped me greatly with my shrimps a few years ago, said that shrimp poo grows 'things' on it which are very nutritious for shrimps, so don't worry about too much cleaning. Smaller water changes are better for shrimps, so if you find you need to do big water changes, do 2 smaller ones a week instead.

I am going to link to a couple of old threads, my learning curve with shrimps. There is quite a lot of info in them.

The first started out as a plant topic and morphed into a shrimp one, so I started the second topic.

First thread
Second thread


Diz, in 23 litres I would think of changing a total of 10 litres a week. If you split that into 2, 7 litres, twice a week should be more than enough for just shrimps. Probably 5 litres twice a week would be sufficient.