Losing a shrimp about every week and half...update post #42

[mordalphus]

Tank been setup for 2 months and shrimp been in for 7 weeks, maybe there was a mini cycle and nitrites got to a few of the older ones? Maybe not even detectable if you only check params once a week

[ravensgate]

Tank was started at the end of November, cycle hit as expected and leveled out after about a week, shrimp were added 2 weeks later. So it was running for 3 weeks before livestock was added. Tank was seeded with sponge filters from other tanks as well as Safestart and BT-9 used once it was flooded. The shrimp dying are anywhere from juvies, subadults, and breeding adults. All shrimp were juvies or subadults when they arrived second week of december. I can't imagine a mini cycle hitting once every week though. The shrimp are active, not acting poorly or anything.

[sbarbee54]

Might try dosing with Calcium Montromilite.... I feed Bio plus weekly and EI every 3 days and my nitrates stay at 0... But I do have tons of floaters

[ravensgate]

Originally Posted by sbarbee54

Might try dosing with Calcium Montromilite.... I feed Bio plus weekly and EI every 3 days and my nitrates stay at 0... But I do have tons of floaters

I dose that with water changes once weekly. Teensy pinch.

Oh, and testing nitrates in my other tank right now that gets fed more powdered foods due to the amount of babies in it and Nitrates are reading at 5ppm. So nitrate test is looking to be fairly accurate (quite a bit more plants in this other tank that are fast growers that probably helps compensate for the powder foods).

I have some Shield on hand but have never had any luck using it or rather haven't noticed it helping much. But at this point I'm a little desperate to stop the random deaths. I've got two batches of babies in there right now with the oldest batch being a week old so no real way to see how survival rates are going to be just yet.

And Liam, I just started feeding baby food to this problem tank last week. My other tank has had babies in it for 3 weeks so I've been feeding it for longer and more of it. And the TDS has gone up on it as well. Funny enough, I WANTED the TDS higher in that tank...LOL. I didn't realize the powdered foods would raise the TDS. Something for me to keep in mind next time I need to raise it without altering the GH. Learned something, thank you!


so I guess with the guesses being thrown out nobody really sees anything glaringly wrong with the parameters I listed??

I'm willing to hear any and all guesses just know I've got two other shrimp tanks and this is the only one that is being an issue right now. All tanks are treated equally, again, except for the cray and shrimp tank which is fed daily so as to keep the crays from killing each other or killing all the shrimp

ETA: The shrimp that I have been losing the most of are the CRS. I have lost one CBS since the start (and one died during overnight shipping) and one golden. The rest have been CRS. Mainly small subadults except for one older adult and the breeding age adult I lost today that had her babies last week. Granted she had been stressed during her pregnancy but I would have expected the problems while she was berried, not afterwards.

[mordalphus]

Yah, who knows, maybe it was just a bad batch of shrimp. Good news is, usually when adults die like that the ones BORN in the tank usually are fine. Same with Taiwan bees I've noticed, even if the adults have a hard time adjusting to your water, any babies born into the tank seem not to have any problems like their parents.

[ravensgate]

I am hoping and counting on that! It will be the only way to replace the poor little dudes and dudettes I've lost. So far about 20 babies in the tank but still too soon to know survival rates but I am very hopeful. Started out with 19, down to 11 but have had 4 berried females so far. I would think if they hated it in there or if there were something severe going on they wouldn't be berrying but I'm not sure on that. Strangely enough the CBS in the tank are what I've always felt were weak as they are very slow growing and not as active as the CRS. But I still have the 3 of them (lost one in the first week or two).

Thank you everyone for trying to help, I just wanted to make sure there wasn't something obvious I might have been missing. Right now I'll just continue on with crossed fingers and knock out that Sunday feeding of Bioplus. I never feed the recommended amounts on those baby powder feeds because I feel it's just WAY too much they recommend. I'll probably combine my Ebiken EI and Bioplus on one of the baby feeding days instead of feeding an extra day. Just to keep the TDS from keeping too much and don't want nitrates getting out of whack either.

[Betta Maniac]

This sounds exactly like what's going on with my Taiwan bee tank. I've lost three of them so far. And I know it's not bad stock. *sigh* I'm just hoping some of them live long enough to breed!!!

[ravensgate]

Sometimes I think when I do everything right that it simply comes down to luck at some point. Just hoping my luck gets better with these guys!

[Betta Maniac]

Here's to both our luck getting better! *fingers crossed*

[sbarbee54]

Sometimes deaths just happen and cannot be explain. Humans same thing sometime, bad genes not lucky.. All kinds of things

[Loumeer]

Change out the Fuval mineralizer. In my experience the amount of good stuff in the Fluval for your shrimp compared to TDS is fairly low. I would go with a better brand gH solution and I think it will do wonders for your shrimp.

[Loumeer]

I also think you should consider cutting down on your feedings. I think baby foods 3x a week may be a bit too much. Maybe do baby food 2x a week and when you feed the babies one of the those days also feed the regular food. When you do this larger feeding do it on a water change day and try and remove as much food as possible. I have had shrimps die before from overfeeding.

[ravensgate]

Thank you! Got some Salty Shrimp GH Soothingshrimp sent me to try that I'll be giving a whirl next week. Hopefully I won't have a death between now and then. Also going to cut out the Sunday feeding BUT, PLEASE if you didn't read all the posts, I have only had babies in there for ONE WEEK and hence only been feeding that schedule with baby food for ONE WEEK. Prior they had been getting fed 3 days a week, dried one day, repashy one day, fresh veggies the other day. No powdered foods at all. So I really don't think the feeding has a thing to do with it since I was not feeding ANY powdered foods, baby or otherwise, prior to last week and had been experiencing deaths for the last 6-7 weeks. And again, when I feed they consume everything within 1-2 hours, anything left if siphoned out of the feeding dish. I feed VERY small amounts so there is generally not much left unless its food they don't care for.

[alexopolus]

Originally Posted by ravensgate

Thank you! Got some Salty Shrimp GH Soothingshrimp sent me to try that I'll be giving a whirl next week. Hopefully I won't have a death between now and then. Also going to cut out the Sunday feeding BUT, PLEASE if you didn't read all the posts, I have only had babies in there for ONE WEEK and hence only been feeding that schedule with baby food for ONE WEEK. Prior they had been getting fed 3 days a week, dried one day, repashy one day, fresh veggies the other day. No powdered foods at all. So I really don't think the feeding has a thing to do with it since I was not feeding ANY powdered foods, baby or otherwise, prior to last week and had been experiencing deaths for the last 6-7 weeks. And again, when I feed they consume everything within 1-2 hours, anything left if siphoned out of the feeding dish. I feed VERY small amounts so there is generally not much left unless its food they don't care for.

I think salty shrimp GH is the best you can get form your tank, I use this stuff and I love it (I hope shrimp too). Just be careful to don't overdose it because it will spike your TDS (I use one measure spoon for each 4G and it gets my Gh to ~5 and TDS around 140). Also why don't you try some barley pellets? For some reason shrimps love to graze on this stuff and you can leave it in the feeding dish.

[Bananariot]

Maybe it's what you are boiling your food in and your CRS strain is just weaker than your other shrimps?