The Asian Style Breeding Tank with UGF for Caridina Blue Bolt Shrimps

Welcome back guys! Today we're gonna set up an asian style breeding tank for blue ball shrimps and if you want to know what this mysterious box has to do with the build stay tuned and have fun with the video. Hey guys as already mentioned today i'm gonna set up an asian style breeding tank and you probably wondered why asian style what does that mean and it just means that i'm gonna use this under gravel filter box which i've mostly seen in asian breeding tanks i hardly see it in europe or german tanks and yeah that's why i call it the video asian style breeding tank so for this build i'm gonna use this tank right behind me it's a 45 liter tank or 12 gallon tank as all my tanks in my shrimp breeding rack and in this case or for this build the shrimps are in the focus not the escape so it will be a pure breeding tank and yeah i want to set up this tank for blue ball shrimps and they are caridina shrimps so they are soft water shrimps and they definitely need soil and therefore i bought this soil from glass garden or in english glass garden sometimes english and german are very similar and yeah it's a german supplier i guess the soil itself comes from japan but it's sold by a german company and yeah that's what i'm gonna use and for hardscape i will only use a little bit of bark wood maybe a coconut shell nothing special i want to have a well-arranged tank where i can see all the shrimp and select the shrimp and yeah just to have a good overview and for planting i will only use some moss java moss probably and a little bit of anubias and some floating plants nothing special so yeah today i want to create the perfect breeding tank and yeah here we go hey guys it's me from the future unfortunately the hard drive of my pc broke so unfortunately i lost some of the footage and can i cannot show you everything i filmed so that's why i'm helping out now basically i filled the whole under gravel filter box with soil i removed the sponge of the box and yeah didn't i didn't use any other ceramic materials for the different layers in the box so soil only i removed the sponge of the box because i will install a sponge corner filter anyway because shrimps they like to sit on the sponge they like to graze on the sponge especially the shrimp lids and yeah so guys we haven't spoken about the advantages of such an under gravel filter box in my opinion there are three main advantages and yeah and number one is that it's really easy to handle so the day will come that your soil is depleted and you have to replace it so in this case you only have to grab your under gravel filter box you have to replace the old soil by the new soil and put it back into the tank and that's it so it's not really time consuming and yeah it's very easy to manage the second advantage is due to the fact that there is a lot of soil inside your under gravel filter box you do not need a lot of soil on on the ground of your aquarium so as you might already know a high layer of soil or substrate can always be a risk if it's not cleaned regularly leftovers can fall in the soil and they can rot and they later can cause serious damage to your shrimps or especially the shrimp lids they are really sensitive and the third advantage of such an under gravel filter box is that it requires really low maintenance so the only thing you have to do you have to replace the soil but yeah that's it and nothing else to do so in my opinion it's a great method of filtration and i can understand that it's really popular in asia so yeah okay guys so now i'm gonna position the sponge corner filter the air tube we need it later let's go on let's fill in the soil as i've already mentioned i will only fill in a thin layer of soil because we have a lot of soil inside the under gravel filter okay so i guess that's enough soil so let's go on with the hardscape okay so now the soil and the filters are inside the tank i'm gonna prepare the hardscape and the plants it's not a lot of hardscape it's just a little bit of bark wood and a coconut shell and a little bit of moss and anubias yeah and that's the next step hey it's me again from the future unfortunately the footage of the planting process got lost as well but it's not a big deal because the planting process in this case is really easy most of the plants were glued to the hardscape with cyanoacrylate super glue it's absolutely fish safe and plant safe and you can use it without having to worry okay guys the coconut shell is vegetated and yeah so far it's good i guess and the next step i gonna vegetate the bark wood okay guys um that's a piece of bark wood i gonna use as you can see it's much bigger than the coconut shell so i will need more plants i all in all i have three pieces of anubias and a lot of java moss and in this case i will use a cotton thread to wrap the moss around the bark wood and it's because i want to support the horizontal growth and not the vertical growth and then yeah in most cases it works good with a cotton thread at least at the beginning and yeah okay all the plants are fixed to the hardscape i would say let's moisten the plants a little bit and then i gonna look for a nice position for the hardscape in the tank okay so the hardscape and the plants are prepared so in the next step i will position everything in the tank and yeah i will fill the tank with water add some floating plants and also connect both filters to my pressurized dispenser and that's it for the moment and it's time to wait for approximately two weeks until the tank is fully cycled and then hopefully the tank is ready for the shrimps okay i guess this is my final layout all the hardscape is positioned in the tank in the front area i need a little bit of free space to feed the shrimps later and also to catch the shrimps maybe so far i'm really pleased with the result but it's not finished yet so let's go on i have one of these little moss balls left i think it fits really well into the layout it's not really a moss it's a kind of green algae but it's very beneficial because it has a huge surface for beneficial bacteria and microorganisms and the shrimps they like to graze on it okay guys so the tank is filled with water and now it's time to add the floating plants to the tank especially in the cycling phase they are very beneficial because they suck up all the nutrients in the water column it's been two weeks since i set up the asian breeding tank for blue bull shrimps and yeah meanwhile the aquarium is fully cycled the water parameters are perfect the water is crystal clear and yeah it's time to put in some shrimps i've already ordered them and i've already received the parcel so we can open it together and check if everything is fine but yeah and then afterwards we have to the shrimps have to get used to the new water and therefore i'm gonna use the dripping method so it needs to be very slow because the shrimps are sensitive and yeah and they are not not cheap at all so yeah but first of all let's have a look on the tank okay guys basically that's how the tank looks like now to be honest not not much has happened in the meantime because all the plants are slow growing and yeah it's only a little bit of anubias and moss inside the tank and yeah the moss has grown a little bit but but maybe you can see this ugly white spot on the bog wood it's because some moss came off and that's the rest of the hardened super glue so very ugly but in this case it's not a big deal because it's a it's not a competition tank it's just a breeding tank and yeah maybe i will cover it with some additional moss or anubias or i leave it like it is because the moss will overgrow the spot anyway what also happened is the floating plants they propagated massively i've only added a handful of plants and in the meantime meanwhile the whole surface of the tank is covered with floating plants and yeah so i would say let's check if all the shrimps are alive and yeah put them into the tank okay guys so all of the 10 newborn shrimps are alive and yeah they look a little bit pale due to the stressful transport but i hope they will recover soon in their new home and let's put them into the tank okay so all the animals are inside the tank some of the snails are floating at the surface because there's probably too much air inside the snail shell but yeah i guess the problem solves itself so it's not a big deal so in the next step we're gonna add some beneficial bacteria yeah just to be on the safe side okay guys so now that all the animals are inside the tank i made a short film for you with nice cinematic pictures so that you can see how the tank looks like and you can get some impressions how the animals look like inside the tank and how they of blue is so cool the tank itself is set up very simple but this is exactly what i wanted to achieve a simple and functional breeding tank with low maintenance but yeah next time we're gonna build something more spectacular i promise okay guys i hope you enjoyed the video let me know what you think down in the comment section and yeah if you want to see something more fancy you should definitely watch this video right there and that's it for today thank you for watching see you in the next one bye bye