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CRS SS - SSS dying off one by one .. seeking experience advice

12K views 73 replies 24 participants last post by  frontosa88 
#1 ·
hi all,

I dont post much but I go through the forums posting quite often on planted tank. I am seeking some advice in regards to why my SS ~ SSS grade CRS keeps dying off one by one. last year around the same time I started with 6 SS grade and grew the colony to about 20 SS~SSS grade CRS; today I have 6 left again. for the past 2 month i lost about 5 adult CRS.. I dont know the reason this is why I am seeking help.

I often see them get berried but for the past 7 month; eggs either have been dropped or the shrimp just end up dying.. they are molting however is molting in 1 full piece fashion (I read some where that this was bad ? suppose to molt in separate pieces?)

just test my water parameter:
ammonia = 0
ph= 7.6
nitrate = 0
Nitrite = 0
GH = 2
KH = 3
TDS = 48
temperature runs between 70-73F
I dont pump co2 however pump air only with air stone.

I am using fluval shrimp stratum substrate (going for a year now), have one giant piece of ada african with some attached java fern and java moss.

filter wise- its just the build in internal filter that came with the eheim tank. (see picture below)

I do weekly water changes of 15% -20% + top off daily because the cooling fan is on about 6 hours a day due to evap. I use RO water only and when I do perform water change i add 1 tsp of kent's RO right to bring the water chemistry back to normal status.

here is what i have found and cant seem to figure out why (and perhaps is the main reason contributing to why my shrimps are dying off slowly but surely; they're not eating much and dont move much) : PH out of the RO water jug is 6.4 .. however ph parameter in the tank as I test weekly remains 7.4 to 7.6. I dont know what is causing the PH to rise ? I dont know whether or not the substrate has lost its buffering ability or the drift wood is causing the ph rise. even if the substrate has lost the buffering ability - the RO water I put in is 6.4 why does it remain at 7.6 even after I do the water change weekly.

im all out of ideas.. any suggestion or recommendation in to what Test I should be performing to solve this problem is greatly appreciated!!!..
 

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#49 ·
Aloha,

Your ph is out of whack for sure. Rmove the air stone and watch the ph drop. Oxygenating the water rises the ph drastically. Tds is too low ideal is any where 90-120 ppm

Gh looks about right I you can lower it to 0-1 that's better
Kh is too low for ideal breeding and other purposes get to about 6-7 that's ideal.

Filtration seems to be over the required gallons per minute so the beneficial bacteria looks healthy. I hope ;).

I have one question when doing water changes do u use a vacuum to stir up the substrate?

I have been breeding high grade cardinas for over 2 years it's taken me over 1 years to get the system down. I also Took a weeks course watching and learning in Japan with the shrimp king mr Suzuki.
 
#50 ·
Aloha,

Your ph is out of whack for sure. Rmove the air stone and watch the ph drop. Oxygenating the water rises the ph drastically. Tds is too low ideal is any where 90-120 ppm

Gh looks about right I you can lower it to 0-1 that's better
Kh is too low for ideal breeding and other purposes get to about 6-7 that's ideal.

Filtration seems to be over the required gallons per minute so the beneficial bacteria looks healthy. I hope ;).

I have one question when doing water changes do u use a vacuum to stir up the substrate?

I have been breeding high grade cardinas for over 2 years it's taken me over 1 years to get the system down. I also Too k a weeks course watching and learning in Japan with the shrimp king mr Suzuki.
hi daboss808,

i believe u got the GH and KH reversed? where do you live in hawaii? i used to live in wahiawa.. now in los angeles..

when i do the water change i basically just draw the water from the middle portion of the tank.. i never stir substrate or vacuum the substrate? am i doing something wrong.. yes i suppose all the dirty stuff is in it but i thought disturbing it would make the situation worse? any comment would be appreciate it!

mahalo!
 
#54 · (Edited)
+1 to Soothing. Furthermore though I have read about airstones and extra oxygenation increasing pH I have NEVER had that occur in ANY of my tanks...even when I was trying to raise pH. I added 3 oxygen sources in the ways of airstones, air wands, and spray bars breaking the surface in a 3 gallon tank and NOT ONCE noted an increase in pH. LOL. So there simply has to be more to it than just adding an air stone increases pH. Trust me, I've done it in all my tanks, from 2 gallons to 12 gallons with no noted difference. Everyone else may have a different experience, that's just mine;)

And for every person who brings up FSS as a problem I'd really like to know if those folks actually have any firsthand experience of the product itself or if they are going off stuff they read back in 2010-11 when the product was quite inconsistent. I ask that honestly and would love to know EXACTLY what folks found wrong with it. It's a substrate, it's not magic, you still need to understand parameters and how they work. I find that people quick to blame certain things like substrate (generally in 'it doesn't buffer enough or it wears out in 6 months) don't have a good handle on understanding buffering substrates in the first place and think tossing 8+ pH water on top of those substrates is a really great idea. I admit that I am still learning about water chemistry and how certain things interact or affect one another but one of the first things I did learn was the fastest way to trash your buffering substrate was to toss really high pH tap water in the tank with it.

There are tons of things that could be the culprit here. Yes, even down to substrate (there can ALWAYS be a bad batch of ANYTHING when it comes to products you purchase, just nature of the beast). At this point you can start making a list and changing one thing at a time and risk killing more shrimp OR do a full tank teardown and redo. Honestly, if every single batch of shrimp I bought was dying in the tank before their 'time' so to speak, I'd redo. It's a HUGE pain in the butt but I have had to do it myself more than once. When you try to fix things as best as you can and still watch animals in your care dying left and right there has to be a time you stop putting them in a death chamber and start over. I say that not as an attack on you OP, I've said it to myself. My husband has said it to me 'oh, bought more shrimp to put into the tank of death huh?'. LOL, it happens, you gotta know when to give up the ghost and start anew.
 
#56 ·
thanks for your input .... learned something from it!!

i think i am in that bracket of people who have exhuasted the buffering capability in this substrate due to my own lack of understanding and abuse from the beginning. when i first started, i did not use RO water; i used 100% tap with prime. anyone from cali could agree with me that PH is super high here with 300 TDS right off the bat. must have used tap water for atleast 6 month until i switched over to RO. hence the problem now with this substrate.

this is a learning lesson for me; though i have ran out of ideas of why the PH go from 6.4 RO water jug to the tank ending up with 7.6 i think i have a pretty good idea and can conclude it is the substrate (worn out). there is nothing else i could think of that could have contributed to this huge swing everytime. rocks are out, checked substratpro media (no problem), did a test on ph/kh after mixing ro water with kents ro right.. not much difference either..

i just have to bite the dust and hopefully cycle the ada substrate i already have sitting around.. and start new
 
#55 ·
Everyone here doesn't look at the fact that shrimp are scavengers all picking at the substrate bed. If ammonia and nitrite are leaking then who do u guys think is getting the harsh end of the bacteria? Shrimp like to roll the sand substrate or any substrate in their mouth picking up the bad bacteria.
 
#60 ·
Hi Ravensgate,

yes i read in many forums that hobbyist have experienced RO right raising the KH level in RO / TAP .. however for me it didn't so i dont think that is a contributing factor .. its something from my tank that is raising it.. though its really hard to use RO right to even raise GH (IE. 6 drops to raise it up to 3-4 GH) i prob wont be using this anymore as soon as i get the Bee's shrimp mineral GH+ to me it seems ro right is not consistent from batch to batch.. this is the information i have gathered from reading through multiple forums and experiences with this product.

ITS THE SUBSTRATE raising the PH and KH - 100% my fault too lol!

sure picture would be appreciate it ..:red_mouth:red_mouth
 
#62 ·
There has to be a spike in the water. How can it be that his ro tap is 6 something and when he adds it it shoots to 7.6......... Has to be something major. I would agree with blue planter. Substrate. Something so mass could be the culprit raising the ph that dramatic. Rocks raise ph in points but little.

How new I'd the substrate? Is it less than 6 months?

If you are mineralizing the ro water and the substrate is new then stop. You shoul not be dosing only adding calcium to the water. The only trace mineral that should be even added to the ro water is calcium.

If your only adding what's needed then substrate is your big uproar
 
#64 ·
My question to everyone is why mess with mother nature? If tap is above 7 bring it down naturally. There are many ways to remove hard metals in the water with simple additives. Why remove all? Ro water is basically taking out all your minerals so only to replace it? Money wasted. $100 system and another $30 and replacing canisters refilling minerals. Waste of money. More headaches more to control.

K.I.S.S ( keep it simple stupid)

Ravens has her method of shrimp keeping and it's seems a little expert for what we are all trying to figure out. But ones person experience may be another persons demise. That why I say start fresh. Go back to the basics. Don't get all caught up in expert advice. Different states have different quality. That's why I keep it simple. Moss, low tech plants driftwood, medium girt substrate, and ceramics.

Go back to the basics
 
#65 ·
With that type of mind set, you are better off keeping fish not shrimps.

I don't understand what you mean by messing with mother nature when we use Ro water and remineralize it, and some how taking ph 7+ water and lowering it with additives is not messing with mother nature?

The basics is that shrimps need a certain parameter, just taking tap water may not work for many people. My tap water is ph 9, tds 110, gh 1, kh 1. Even if i lower the ph to 6.5, i still need to remineralize to keep shrimp, but after i remineralized my water to gh 6, my tds is 250.

So the only viable way is to use RO water, and remineralize to gh 5, and tds 120. I much rather waste 100 bucks in a RO machine, and 30 to replace the filter, than hundreds of dollars worth of shrimps that will die because i cannot provide them the correct parameters and because i dont want to mess with mother nature.

What the op need to do is, determined what is the parameter his shrimps needs, and what is the easiest and most cost effective way to get there. Don't try to force the shrimps to adapt to a parameter to which they are not suitable to.

Experiment outside of the tank.

1. Take your ro water, Test it make sure its gh 0 kh 0.
2. Take your ro water remineralize with kent's ro right, test gh, test kh. See if kh is increased
3. Take your ro water and put it in a container with one of your seiyu rocks let it stay over night with a bubbler or something to give it some water flow. test gh test kh.
4. Take your ro water and put it in a container with a small scoop of your substate (carefully remove some). Let it stay over night with a bubbler or hob. Test gh, test kh.

See which ones increases your kh. Replace the ones that is affecting it. Once you figure out the kh problem, then see if your ph will stay low. If not then we can figure out what is casuing the ph. Do one thing at a time. Solve one problem at a time.
 
#67 ·
We're all giving him something to try to solve his issue. We are not him, none of us are ever going to know exactly what is wrong with his tank. All we can do is give him suggestions as to what we think is wrong and what he can try to fix the problem. We could be right, we could be wrong. We won't know until he has tried it.

Telling him, go back to the basics, keep it simple, work from there. Really tells him nothing and helps him with nothing. Unless you are telling him to start over, which considering he already has some shrimp in the tank, is not a very good idea.

Also, i don't know about others, i have never been able to lower my ph sigificantly with tannin (driftwood, IAL, alder cones, etcetc) Maybe 0.1-0.2, and that is with LOTS and LOTS of IAL, where there was so much tannin my water was deep brown. (i experimented before i turned to RO water) Anyone else has sucess with lowering ph with tannins?
 
#71 ·
Update

ok guys so for the past week this is what i have done...

did about 5 water changes 10% each.. with RO water that has the following parameter: GH 6 KH 0 PH 6.4

I also added a small bag of eheim tort peat into the internal filtration system and a air driven sponge filter

today i tested the water: here is my parameters:

PH 7.6 GH 4 KH 1.5-2 somewhere in that range

NO IDEA why the PH is still so high.. i dont know if its the sponge filter pumping O2 into the water and i dont dose excel or pump co2 in to the tank. the good news is KH is dropping and GH is rising. I really want to lower the PH to move into the "acidic" side though atleast for the crystal red that is berried.. since then two shrimp has molted saw a couple of babies popping out and now is hiding somewhere in the moss.

but can anyone suggest how i would go about lowering PH at this point? keep changing the water? 5 times a week? dont use sponge filter as it pumps too much oxygen into the tank? dose excel?

any suggestions would be appreciate it!
 
#72 ·
Hi. California water has a high PH. The only way to lower it from my experience is to start out with a thick layer of substrate. I have used ADA, FPS, UP AQUA, substrates with no problems. You don't have enough substrate to lower the PH and keep the water consistent to make your shrimp happy. I know you tried a lot of things to try to stabilize you water. Don't get discouraged. You are half way there. You have babies! Your tank is small so it is harder to keep the water stable. Stop changing your water. You have a light bioload. I would personally reset the tank. I hope this helps.
 
#74 ·
Yes. use RO water. LA tap water has too high TDS. Alot of folks in the LA area have water softners in their homes. Do not use tap water. Remineralize with Nutrafin African Cichlid Conditioner. 5 mL for ten gallons RO. Remember to start with a nice thick layer of substrate min. 3 inches. Get a larger tank at leat a 2 foot tank. Use sponge filters. Keep the temp low. Get rid of that internal filter. It will heat up your water. Unless you have hundreds of shrimp don't change water just top off. Keep the TDS around 150. Check out SCAPE. There are a lot of folks down there keeping shrimp. Neos love LA tap water for some reason. CRS, Taiwan bees a different story. I hope this helps.
 
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