It came complete with the Lecca, Charcoal, Water Treatment Tablet. What surprised me is that it even include the Fish Food and Pea Seeds as Free Gift too. We can start Sprouting Micro Green while we wait for the availability of the live stock.
The Crystal Shrimp also adapt well in the Tank, there had been no fatality for few days. The first batch got only 10% survival rate while the second batch greatly improve to 50%. With the stabilization of the Water Condition I can plan for the third batch when sales of live stock is available next month.
Aquaponics Aquarium
Instruction for Aquarium Setup
Instruction for Micro Green Sprouting
My Wife start Sprouting Pea Micro Green with the Aquaponics Aquarium, should be able to harvest in 7 to 10 days. A Yellow Bumble Bee Crystal Shrimp seem to have Eggs under her belly, My Wife is very excited about it and keep watching for whole day. About 5 days later another Orange Rili Crystal Shrimp also seem to have Eggs under the belly, My Wife became even more excited and keep taking a lot of Photos and Videos to send to me for record and documentation.
We are very hopeful with the new surprise and think it will be a great success if we manage to breed two type of Crystal Shrimp in such a short time. The Eggs will take about a month to hatch, I wanted to transfer both the shrimp into Breeding Tank but my wife is afraid that they will feel lonely. So we decided to leave it as it is and let nature take its own course, if there are anything abnormal we to react accordingly and save the situation as it develop.
6th June 2020 Pea had Sprout
7th June 2020 Bumble Bee with Eggs
12th June 2020 Orange Rili with Eggs
12th June 2020 Pea Sprout after 8 days
Decided to change the water for the Aquaponics Aquarium as it had turn brown with powder from the broken Lecca. My Wife finally decided to Harvest the Pea Sprout after 10 days as it had grow taller than the Crystal Shrimp Tank. She had transfer a few longer one to pot for further growth, the dirty water will be use for watering the plant as it is rich in nutrient.
We have also been collecting Rain Water for the watering of the plant since the beginning, it is very pure without any impurity if there are no pollution in the atmosphere. The water also will improve the PH Value of the soil to make it more acidic for the plant to grow well.
14th June 2020 Pea Sprout Harvested after 10 days
14th June 2020 Pea Sprout Harvested after 10 days
Collecting of Rain Water for Vegetables
A Orange Rili with Eggs was dead, we had to remove the Eggs and place it into a Breeding Box. I position the Breeding Box directly under the Filter Outlet for the Flow of Water to hatch the eggs. Notice two Yamato getting restless and trying to get out of the tank, one of them was found inside the breeding box the next day morning.
As the Tank is getting dirty I decided to clean it, and we continue to observe the two restless Yamato in the night for any abnormal behavior. They continue to be restless and still trying to break through the water surface near to the breeding box. My wife thought the breeding box might have affected the water flow and so ask me to remove it.
They resume back to normal for a while, but a few moment later I notice they dive into the water plant and got some yellow stuff to eat. I fear that it is the eggs and decided to remove them from the tank and transfer them to the small Aquaponics Aquarium. We had a hard time trying to catch them as they can swim really fast.
After all the effort we manage to transfer six Yamato to the Aquaponics Aquarium, then My Wife discover a big surprise that a few of the eggs had already been hatch into Baby Crystal Shrimps. It was about two weeks earlier than we had expected and the higher temperature of the water might be a contributing factor for the early hatch.
We manage to see about nine of them, but it is very hard for us to spot them as they can only be seen against any background that is not white like them. They will be hard to spot if they stay still in the white sand, I am glad that I had already clean the tank in the morning as it will be difficult to clean it now that there are Baby Crystal Shrimps inside.
18th June 2020 Birth of Baby Crystal Shrimp after 11 days.
Decided to add new batch of Crystal Shrimp to Big Tank after transfer the Yamato to Small Tank. The Big Tank look empty with only 6 Crystal Shrimp, the algae had built up excessively as there are not enough Crystal Shrimp to clean it up. Brought 10 Red Rili, 10 Red Fire and 10 Sunkist Orange, I wanted the color to be more balanced as the new born Baby Crystal Shrimp will mostly be Yellow Bumblebee.
I wanted to get Orange Rili instead of Sunkist Orange as Neo Caridina are more hardy and more tolerance of the water condition. But due to unavailability of the stock I had to get Sunkist Orange instead. What came as a surprise is that one of the Red Rili already had Eggs, with the addition of new Crystal Shrimps the Aquarium became more lively and the Crystal Shrimps will not be shy and hide away in the water plant so often.
I brought a TDS Meter to measure the Total Dissolved Solid in the Water, after trying out on different type of water I realized that Rain Water actually had very good quality of only 1 PPM. Tap Water indicate a reading of about 117 PPM and Aquarium Water indicate a reading of about 246 PPM. The normal range is between 101 to 300, anything lower that 100 indicate good quality and anything higher than 301 indicate bad quality.
22nd June 2020 Red Rili with Eggs
Red Fire
Sunkist Orange
Rain Water TDS 1 PPM
Tap Water TDS 117 PPM
Aquarium Water TDS 246 PPM
Notice that there are new Crystal Shrimp Baby, was expecting it for the past two days. Not really sure if it came from Orange Rili, as only a few can be seen and it might not hatch all yet. The temperature had been lower for the past few days and it might had slow down the hatching process.
The Eggs should be completely hatch within these two days and the next batch should be around 3 days later. First and Second batch different by 5 days, Second and Third Batch different by 3 days. Third and Fourth batch different by 3 days too, and Fourth and Fifth batch different by 7 days.
If every batch have about 15 Babies, then I will have 45 Yellow Bumblebee from First, Third and Fourth batch. I hope the Orange Rili offspring is also Orange Rili instead of Yellow Bumblebee as it is mixed breed, so I will get at least 15 more Orange Rili to balance up the numbers. The Red Rili also not sure when it had Eggs as it already came with it, so I will just take the first arrival date as reference for the Fifth Batch.
25th June 2020 New Crystal Shrimp Baby after 13 days
25th June 2020 One Week Old Crystal Shrimp Baby
Two Yellow Bumblebee hatching Eggs
A Praying Mantis came for a rare visit, Sixth Aunt say it is there to hunt for pest and told me to keep a close look out for any pest. I think it is just hiding from the birds as it is safe place due to most of my deterrence installation.
29th June 2020 Praying Mantis Rare Visit
The Praying Mantis decided to stay for good, it seem to fancy the Long Pot where we plant the Sweet Potato. We had shift the Long Pot from the corridor outside our home to the area near to the lifts. Not sure what is the reason, the pots located at the area near to the lifts doesn't seem to grow as well as the one at the corridor near to the house.
The reason could be due to exposure to the harsh weather condition, or it could be due to the other reason which is related to Chinese Feng Shui which we doesn't know. We had been more focus on the Crystal Shrimp Aquarium now as the Eggs start to hatch into Baby Crystal Shrimp. We had also turn from Farmer into Breeder although the success of breading the new Crystal Shrimp which is not what we had expected.
30th June 2020 Praying Mantis decided to stay
