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2K views 13 replies 7 participants last post by  starlett 
#1 ·
Hi, I recently started a new tank (my first one) just over a month ago, it's
2 gal
0 ppm ammonia
0 ppm nitrites
<40ppm nitrates
28-30 degrees

In the tank there is
a small piece of driftwood
two patches of christmas moss
two mossballs
one unidentified fast-growing stem plant with fine leaves
shrimp safe substrate

The tank gets 12 hours of light a day and I don't dose fertilisers.

I thought it would be alright to add shrimp so I got 10 RCS and floated them in a cup in the tank and used a dropper to manually drip water from the tank into the cup for an hour before releasing them. They seemed fine, picking away at the stuff in the tank and eating the food I dropped in but one by one they stopped just stopped moving and fell on their sides :( the last two that died seemed to die after molting because there were shells nearby but the others just keeled over. The shrimplets that came in the bag died too although they were picking at the biofilm on the walls of the tank.

(Before I added the shrimp) the plants were growing well but I wasnt around for 2 days and now there seems to be some brown stuff on the smaller moss ball and the leaves of the unidentified plant are brownish too. What is the brown stuff? Could this be why? Or is it gh/kh?
 
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#5 ·
Sorry this is so belated :x How would I get rid of diatoms? :eek: I just got the test kit today and and the gh is 100ppm. I fed the shrimps one pellet hikari crab cuisine/ 2 days and removed it after 2 hours. The water source is dechlorinated tap water and I do a 20% water change weekly.
 
#8 ·
It means that for some reason the tank can't keep up with toxins, and it throws stuff out of whack until it can stabilize again. In this case some dead shrimp undetected may have cause some spikes, and threw things off an otherwise healthy tank.

Cherry bodies are really meant to be in 7+ ph water. They are great at acclimating, but there is a point where acclimation is just too much.
 
#10 ·
Does your temp shows highest temp 30°C?
I'm not sure which part of Asia you are from, but sometimes, the heatwave can be really bad these days.
I have very humid days and with 2ft running 2 fans, my temp is 27.7, I can imagine how high my temps will go if I do not have the fans.
Why don't you try adding a small fan and see if it helps?
 
#12 ·
For cherries, they can adapt to widely varying parameters, but that doesn't mean they can handle fast changes. It is best if you know what the breeder's parameters were and match them as best you can to begin with, then slowly change over a few weeks to get to your local water parameters... Here is a site that gives recommendations for parameters for various shrimp types.
http://shrimpkeeping.com/water-params/
 
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