Some time ago I’ve got a perfect piece of branchy driftwood from aquarium store.

Shrimp-tank.com Branchy terrarium wood

It was terrarium driftwood and I omitted paying a fortune for it.

The first thing I did before putting it in a tank was boiling the driftwood. It’s a good preparation for any thing you buy and like to use in a tank.

Shrimp-Tank.com Boiling driftwood

Shrimp-Tank.com Boiling driftwood

The next challenge I faced was floating wood. Of course, this new wood was not going to sink easily, but I needed it in a tank fast.

So, I select some of small rocks I had and inserted several on them between small bottom root. Look at the pictures.

Shrimp-Tank.com Inserting stones into a wood. View 1

Shrimp-Tank.com Inserting stones into a wood. View 2

Shrimp-Tank.com Inserting stones into a wood. View 3

As a result driftwood became part of underwater aquarium landscape. With time, the wood soaked enough water and can hold itself underwater without help of rocks.

Look at the aquarium I had with this nice piece of wood.

It become even better after I’ve added some anubias nana plants on the driftwood.

Shrimp-tank.com Snowball neocaridina shrimps collage

I found that making pictures of snowball shrimps is not an easy task. My camera can’t focus on their white, semi-transparent bodies.

Pygmy Chain Sword or Echinodorus tenellus is a small (up to 4″ high) rosette plant. It propagates with runners and with time will cover bottom of you aquarium with a lush green carpet.

Shrimp-Tank.com Pygmy Chain Sword

Echinodorus tenellus is a perfect carpeting foreground plant. It’s one from several low and medium light carpeting plants. It doesn’t require CO2 injection or fertilization. However with high light it also grows well and tends to grow red tips on end of its blades.

Echinodorus tenellus has been popularized by well-known Japanese aquascaper, Takashi Amano. This plan doesn’t require special conditions and can live in ordinary tropical aquariums. Hard water with high PH is not preferable. Fine gravel or rich soil will promote growth. Extra Iron fertilization will brings more red colors on Pygmy Chain Sword blades.

Shrimp-Tank.com Echinodorus tenellus

Shrimp-Tank.com Echinodorus tenellus

Live plants purify aquarium water by creating extra surface for beneficial bacteria and using metals and minerals for its growth. Carpeting plants  help to dissolve shrimp waste and aerate soil or sand with their roots.

Initial planting of Pygmy Chain Sword should be done as for other carpeting plants. Bunch of Echinodorus tenellus should be separated to individual plants. The best way is plant them one by one with 1″ or less distance between plants to cover all required area.

I was extremely lucky today and found the following promotion on TFH magazine web-site.

In honor of Earth Day, Tropical Fish Hobbyist Magazine is offering a one-year subscription to TFH Digital for only $2.99.

Click here to subscribe now and make your watery world a bit greener today!

PROMO CODE

EDAY12

As soon as you subscribe, you will receive an email with a temporary instant-access link.

TFH Digital can be accessed through www.tfhdigital.com directly, and we will send you a notification email as soon as your subscription is fully activated. Your digital subscription is searchable, accessible from your Web-enabled tablets and mobile devices, and even allows you to share articles with your friends!

A subscription to TFH Digital also includes access to all archived TFH back issues dating back to September 2007–that’s over 45 issues of TFH readily available at your fingertips!

Earth Day promotion Terms and Conditions

Earth Day offer valid for new subscribers and non-active subscribers only, from April 20-27, 2012. Offer is for a digital-only one-year (12-issue) subscription and must be pre-paid online with valid credit card through www.tfhmagazine.com. Subscriptions ordered through this promotion will begin with the July 2012 issue and cannot be adjusted. Order must be paid in USD. Valid email address required. TFH reserves the right to cancel any orders that violate the terms of this offer. Must use promo code EDAY12.

I’m posting here several new videos of my orange sakura shrimps.
They are truly nice creatures. I’ve also found that unlike cherry shrimps, orange neocaridina males are keeping orange color perfectly.

And some pictures as well:

Shrimp-tank. Neoracidina heteropoda var orange

Shrimp-tank. Orange sakura shrimp