Yup the fishless cycle definitely paid off in the end now I have a beautiful tank. I don't plan to carpet my tank with moss, but it would be a very cool idea and would look pretty awesome imo.
Ram, I don't know if you browse other forums, but The Planted Tank is where I ordered my shrimp from in Power Sellers section of the forum. They have very trust worthy members on there that strictly deal in shrimping I would recommend you getting shrimp there. The shrimp weren't cheap at all, but for $6.00 a pop for SS+ I thought it was a deal and couldn't pass it up I didn't even get express shipping for these delicate species they came priority in about a day perfectly safe from one of the members of TPT. This is my first time raising dwarf species it isn't hard at all as long you maintain perfect water conditions with temperatures around 69-74 degrees fahrenheit and supplement the water when needed during water changes with RO/DI. This is my current water parameters that house 15 CRS, 3 Oto's, and 1 nerite.
pH: 6.4
gH: 6
kH: 0
TDS: 145
Ammonia: 0
Nitrite: 0
Nitrate: 5ppm - I'm trying to bring this down close to 0 as I can with 10% weekly water changes and more thriving plants obviously i.e. moss, floaters, etc.
P.S. I just found one berried female (pregnant) CRS this morning, oh happy days!
