The Secret Cave - Lowtech Aquascape (Tutorial) for Neocaridina Shrimps

Welcome back guys. Today I'm gonna show you how I build a cool aquascape with a little cave and therefore I'm gonna use this 3d printed part. So if you're interested stay tuned and if not stay tuned anyway. Hello everyone for this build I used the tank on the lower level of the shrimp wracking system next to my orange sakura tank. It is again my standard tank size of 45 liters or 12 gallons and my plan is to put in some really nice blue dream shrimps. As all my shrimp tanks this setup will be a low-tech tank that means that I will only use a simple sponge filter and an 8 watt led bar for lighting. I have already prepared the aquarium and attached some frosted window film to This 3d printed part is a key player for the scape. If you own a 3d printer you can probably produce it yourself. In my case I do not have a 3d printer so I bought it on Etsy. Finding a good place for the cave was pretty easy as there was only one position that made sense due to the shape of the part. This time I wanted to try a new combination of substrates. I wanted to use aquabases plus as long-term nutrient substrate mixture. On top of this I wanted to fill in brown monado substrate. I'm curious to see how the plants will grow in this substrate combination. I started to fill in the aquabases with a small glass. As soon there was enough aquabases I distributed it evenly with a sand flattener. Afterwards I started to fill in the monado substrate. It looks very similar to aqua soil but it does not lower the pH of the water. At the beginning I filled in the substrate with glass because I was not sure how much I would need. Then I distributed the substrate with a sand flattener and decided that I would need the whole bag of the substrate. As soon all the substrate was poured in the tank I positioned the filter inside the tank. As in all my other tanks it is my goal to hide the technical equipment as good as possible. Finally it was time to start with the hardscape. This time I decided to use maple leaf rocks. These are very appealing red stones which can slightly raise the water hardness. To me they look a little bit like a mix of dragon stone and lava rock. They are also very porous and its surface structure looks like spider webs or layers of leaves. I started by placing the largest stones and tried to create an interesting formation that would resemble a mountain landscape. Did you hear that noise? Somehow I managed to knock over my ring light with my right foot. The result was a broken ring light and a cut on the right side of my face. As you can see the life as a content creator is really dangerous. As soon as I recovered from the shock I started adding smaller stones to the layout. Guys if you appreciate my work under these life threatening conditions hit the like button. That's enough jokes for now. We are in Germany we have no time for humor. So let's go back to work. After all the stones had found their place in the aquarium I decided that the cave needed to be highlighted a little bit more. For this I filled some nice white sand into the cave. And I distributed the sand with a little brush. Okay guys the hardscape was finished and I prepared the aquarium for the planting process. I started the planting process with a little Cryptocoryne venti green. I found this plant lost in my plant storage tank and I thought it would fit well into the layout. This plant is robust and very easy to keep. The next plant I used is Storochryne repens. I still had some in vitro plants left from a previous build and I had to get rid of them. But that was not a big deal because this plant looks really nice between and next to stones and rocks. It is also not too demanding and it will survive in this low-tech tank. In the middle and the foreground section I wanted to plant only small slow-growing plants. My first choice was Cryptocoryne pava, a robust and slow-growing plant. This is the smallest Crypt you can buy and it forms a narrow leaf carpet. And my last plant for the foreground section is a small Cryptocoryne Marsilea grenata or also called Marsilea minuta. This is also a slow-growing carpeting plant with small roundish leaves. New leaves have always a brown color so do not worry they are not rotten or dead. As soon all the foreground plants were planted I started to fill the tank with water. Okay guys look at this mess. This substrate is so porous and light that a lot of grains were floating up to the surface and pulled out a lot of plants. Really annoying but shit happens. Before I cleaned the tank up I wanted to plant the stem plants on the background. I started with Ludwigia palustris super red. This plant has relatively small leaves and is the reddest Ludwigia. Even under medium light the plant can develop intensively red leaves and is rather undemanding. As contrast plant for the background I planted Heteranthera zosterifolia. It is a nice stem plant which is easy to keep. Especially the nice narrow green leaves contrast with the reddish round leaves of the Ludwigia palustris. Okay guys all the plants were planted and it was time to clean up the mess in the tank. The tank looked still very very ugly. Especially the cave looked really terrible. So I changed some water and removed all the small grains of the substrate from the white sand. I scooped out all the floating material at the surface. Finally I used a brush to remove all the grains which had fallen on the hardscape. Now the aquarium looked better again. I could start the cycling phase with a clear conscience. So I initiated the cycling phase by starting the filter. Okay guys it's been approximately two weeks, maybe a little bit more, since I set up a cave style build on my shrimp breeding rack in the basement. Meanwhile everything is fine, the water is clear. So what I'm gonna do next, I'm gonna scoop out some really nice blue dream shrimps out of my vampire crab paludarium in the background. And yeah in this tank it's really insane, I have several hundreds of them. It's really insane, let me show you in a second. And yeah I guess 20 to 30 is a nice group size to start. So yeah here we go. Okay guys look at this teeming with beautiful shrimps. So at least I don't have a of choice. So let's scoop out some nice shrimps. In Germany this color variant of Neocaridina shrimps is called blue dream shrimps. Let me know down in the comment section what these blue shrimps are called in the country you live in. Okay guys I have just caught a nice group of 27 shrimps and here they are. And some random ramson snails. Okay so all these shrimps are in the tank. Look how cool the blue shrimps look in this reddish hilly landscape. But now let's have a look on the whole tank. To scape a tank in this orientation is always a challenge, but I like the final result. But yeah to be honest this is not really the final result because some plants still have to grow. I have also made a few changes to the layout in the meantime. I added some additional crushed maple leaf rocks to hide the entrance of the cave. And I planted a pot of Alternanthera mini which was not too happy in my plant storage tank. All plants are slow growing so most of the plants have not grown much in the meantime. The Staurogyne repens has not really grown much but this is quite normal. The Marsilea grenata has developed some new small leaves. The Cryptocoryne venti green is also really slow growing and the change is not really visible. It is the same with the Cryptocoryne parva. The Heteranthera zosterifolia has grown decently but still not enough to hide the whole filter. The Ludwigia palusua super red has developed some new leaves and as you can see also some really nice red leaves. And the cool thing is that medium lighting is enough for the leaves to turn red. But let's check the feature of the tank, the cave. The cave is still a little bit empty. Only a snail and a single shrimp have found the way into the cave. I would say let's help out a little and see if I can lure the shrimps into the cave. Let's see if the smell of nettle sticks make them weak. The first shrimp totally ignored the food. Even the greedy ramshorn snail wasn't interested. After an hour I could see at least three shrimps in the cave but the food still didn't really whip up enthusiasm. So I was forced to come up with plan B. My plan B was a piece of catfish pellet. Not really spectacular but voila it worked. The cave was full of shrimps and even the lazy snail was joining the feast. Okay guys I hope you enjoyed the video and if you are interested in more content like this you should watch one of these videos next. Thank you for watching and see you in the next one.