A SHRIMPle Life: Día Uno

Hello peeps! Wait you're actually still here?

Lol just messing, thank you for sticking with the post and growing with me on this.

Just took some measurements.

Ammonia

NH3 / NH4+ 0.1 ppm.

Looking good! Ok because I have the variable of the floating plants and the previously mentioned BN7 bacteria with active microbial with active microbial enzyme yeast for quick ammonia nitirifying effect.

I cannot affirm which is giving me this great result, but because I was just told by a nice forum friend that unless I have like frogbits that cover 60-70% of the tank surface it would not have much of an effect on nitrate levels. I am guessing that BN7 is working hard for its money.

Anyhows to work it harder I decided to run an experiment to see if BN7 really does what it says. I will be taking out the 6 frog-bits for now and conduct the same measurement tomorrow.

Soil Qualities

Now alot of people in the forums seem to know about the quality of the RAC soil already.
Which sets me thinking what are the benchmarks on good Shrimp Soil.

Following the ShrimpNow!!! - Shrimp Soil Guide Comparison Table that I am sure many are already familiar with, I attempt to weigh how RAC fairs up.

Substrate Name	RAC Active Soil (Normal & Powder)
Color	Greyish
Granulometry	Medium grain (Normal) and Small grain (Powder)
Filtration Compatibility	All types of filtration including UGF (This was shown at Aquarama at the Aquarist Chamber Booth)
Opinion & Remarks	Nutritive substrate. Made for shrimps.
Set Up Recommendation	For Normal Soil Option of rinsing or not to. Up to user. - Recommendation is that there isn't a need to. 1. Place base layer of Nutrients if like me you are tad more over zealous. 2. Lay the soil to the bottom of the aquarium. 3. Put on top of the soil the plastic bag it came in or some tray and slowly fill with water up to full. 4. Install filtration system. Slight turbidity will be filtered. 5. For 2 days and during which release trapped air bubbles in the soil by agitation. 6. Remove 85% of the water on day 2 after releasing bubbles. 7. Fill the tank with water (aged preferable). So far no plants at the setup and I am yet to see toxic levels.

PH Buffering

On the set up day when I poured in my aged water the PH readings were at 7.1 (My tap hovers around 7.2)
And when I took measurements earlier it got to 6.2 (26 Hour Period)

Toxic Air!

Trapped air in the soil can be toxic so I stirred up to release them.

Remember my mistake I spoke about layering my powder soil on set up? Well here you see why and hope you won't be as big as a goon as me. During this process many of the finer soil would have sifted itself into the nooks and crannies of the bigger base layer soil therefore disrupting my very nicely laid finer granules layer.