I have a Fluval Spec V 5-gallon tank, currently with an isolated betta fish (going to be moved out of tank) and 3 (2 berried) red cherry shrimp. Yesterday I received my shipment of 5 more cherry shrimp (blue velvet, sapphire, orange rili, yellow diamond back, etc). I drip acclimated them, waited until the water was doubled, poured out half, and waited until the water was doubled again before I netted them and introduced them to the tank. They were in there all day, no problem. Everything seemed fine until today--fast forward 12 hours, I check up on them, and there's one dead on a leaf. The first thing that seems odd to me is that the head shell is red, the middle seems orange, and the very tip of their tail is blue. I net them out and take a better look at them. I can see the head shell clearly enough, so I think it molted the other half of its shell (which is why it's so pale in the middle, it looks pink out of water), but I guess it couldn't molt the head shell off? It doesn't even look like it had started molting at all, it just looks like he's missing the rest of his shell. I know trouble molting is a bad sign, usually an indicator of GH being too high or low; earlier this month I had too much calcium so I used water softener to bring the GH down. I've been doing a couple water changes prior to this incident and the day of, about 3 this week, to try and lessen my brown algae. I did a general test strip of my water,
Water Parameters - 1/21/17
Nitrate: around 80 ppm
Nitrite: about .5 to 1 ppm
GH: 4.2
Chlorine: 0
KH: 4.48
PH: between 7.2 and 7.8
TDS: 335 ppm
Water Parameters - 1/25/17
Nitrate: about 60 ppm
Nitrite: .5
GH: 4.2
Chlorine: 0
KH: 4.48
pH: still between 7.2 and 7.8
Ammonia: 0
TDS: 306
Water Parameters - 1/28/17
Nitrate: 40 ppm
Nitrite: 1 ppm
GH: 4.2
Chlorine: 1.0
KH: 4.48
pH: still between 7.2 and 7.8
Ammonia: 0
TDS: 311
Water Parameters - 1/21/17
Nitrate: around 80 ppm
Nitrite: about .5 to 1 ppm
GH: 4.2
Chlorine: 0
KH: 4.48
PH: between 7.2 and 7.8
TDS: 335 ppm
Water Parameters - 1/25/17
Nitrate: about 60 ppm
Nitrite: .5
GH: 4.2
Chlorine: 0
KH: 4.48
pH: still between 7.2 and 7.8
Ammonia: 0
TDS: 306
Water Parameters - 1/28/17
Nitrate: 40 ppm
Nitrite: 1 ppm
GH: 4.2
Chlorine: 1.0
KH: 4.48
pH: still between 7.2 and 7.8
Ammonia: 0
TDS: 311