[Smalltank3]

Hello shrimp owners!
I have a 10g tank that has been setup since October of 2005. I have kept ghost, cherries and amano shrimp before. Its just that I can't keep them alive. The longest shrimp type I ever had living was cherries, but they died 2 months later. Then I tried ghosties and they died right away.(this was about 6-8 months ago). Ever since, I've been buying ghost shrimp maybe once ever 2 months to see if shrimp would be okay in my tank, but have always died the next day. I made sure I had not put any chemicals like algae destroyer in or other things that say "do not use with inverts" before putting ghost shrimp in. 4 weeks ago, I had a nasty case of GW that would not go away with everything I tried. 2 weeks later(2 weeks ago), I drained my tank, rinsed the shulz's, did not change filter cartridges, and put all the plants, shulz's aquatic soil, and new water back in.
TODAY:
The tank has a little white tint of cloudiness. I added my mystery snail from my 1g to this tank yesterday to see if the tank needed to cylce from the nuke 2 weeks ago. I tested today for ammonia, and there is no visible ammonia from testing, so maybe the tank didn't need a cycle? I will test tomorrow for ammonia before I go to my LFS.
Okay now that you're up to date, heres the main questions-
1. I plan on visiting my LFS tomorrow. If I see no ammonia, do you think my tank after all this time of not adding chemicals and doing weekly 30% waterchanges, would be safe for shrimp?
2. My main objective is to have a Cherry shrimp breeding colony in this tank. If question 1 is yes, then should I go with my normal routine with testing with ghost shrimp or getting cherries?
Sorry for the exta long post. I love shrimp, but its sad that I fail in keeping them alive.

:help: <--please:tongue:

Smalltank

 

[oblongshrimp]

could it be copper in your water? Possibly from copper pipes in your building.

 

[Smalltank3]

No, there is no copper in my water. Thanks for asking though.

Smalltank

 

[frozenbarb]

yea there is somethin probably you should do a deep clean, new gravel new everything and wash the tank

 

[Smalltank3]

Alright, I'll go with you frozenbarb. I'll just completely start over. I'll save up to about 30-40$ so then I can get all the new materials I need.

Smalltank

 

[Color Me Blue]

"The little white tint of cloudness" comes into question. This could be from your Shultz aqua soil, but I have a feeling you have a bacteria bloom since you broke down almost everything and started "fresh". Even though you didn't change your filter cartridges, you probably killed most, if not all of your beneficial bacterial. What kind of filter are you using? Nevermind, I just looked at your 10g link. Tetra Whisper......are you using the carbon cartridges??

Anyways.....if you replanted, then let your plants settle in to do their job. Are you dosing ferts? Any source of CO2?? Excel maybe??

I would defnitely wait til that "cloudiness" is gone and at least test to make sure there is no ammonia before even attempting placing cherries in there. BTW, what brand are you using for ammonia? How old is it? I would double check it by taking a water sample and add ammonia to it, then test that. Your test/kit should read ammonia. If not, your test is no good.

Sorry, but this is just weird. Your shrimp die off so easily yet your fish are fine??? Cherries are pretty hardy, but if you have poor conditions, they don't make it. I'd first check your ammonia kit and go from there.

Keep us posted.

 

[Smalltank3]

Should of been more specific lol.
I put my mystery snail to see if he would help cyle my tank. Any, to keep you posted, I am selling all my current plants to my brother and tearing down the tank, cleaning it, then just have no 10g tank for about 3-4 weeks to save up for getting new stuff. I plan on having a Cherry shrimp only tank. Look into future threads of mine to keep updated.

Smalltank

 

[Solstice]

Am I understanding correctly that all you have in the tank right now is a snail? A single mystery snail is not nearly enough to cycle a tank.

You have no measureable amounts of ammonia because there's nothing in your tank to produce ammonia. Ammonia doesn't just appear it water, it's excreted from critters. Your tank is probably not cycled at all. Either:

a) move some filter media from another tank in the day you move shrimp in
b) add some fish from another tank, leave them in there for a few weeks and remove them when you add the cherries

Either that or I misunderstood and you still have the neons and the oto in there in which case, you're probably fine to add shrimp

What are your other water params? KH, GH, PH, temp?

 

[cornhusker]

Cherries:to buy or not to buy

Seachem has a great product for establishing a new tank.its called STABILITY.follow directions.it takes all the guess work out of cycling a tank.also use PRIME to treat your water.also if you start up a new tank with plants use EXCELL to start with and you can eliminate any algae issues.clean ALL hardware for your tank very good to make sure that is not causing your problem.you can allways boil your substrate to make sure that problem is taken care of. regards,cornhusker:icon_smil

 

[A Hill]

Also A thing I think everyone may have overlooked....

What you're buying:icon_lol:

Yeah sounds crazy? Well it isn't. First thing first, Ghosts are "feeders" so aren't expected to live very long and are treated horribly by most places. The ones you may be getting could also be the SW variety. As for your cherries dieing I would hazard a guess they probably aren't the best of stock either. I would suggest only buying shrimp from other members of the forums you visit and well known venders. Once you get better with shrimp you will be able to tell if the ones in the store look good or not. You might be getting bad stock.

To top it off, other members usually have better deals than your LFS:icon_wink

So It could just be you're getting 'bad' shrimp as well..

-Andrew

 

[Solstice]

Good points, Andrew. roud:

 

[sandiegoryu]

Well, I dunno about bad cherries. I've had cherries in the worst of conditions. Once a female got sucked up by the canister filter and it lost its tail and attenae. It looked like it would die at any moment. I moved him to my 2 gallon and now she's had children and her tail has partially regrown.

I also had a cherry in my net not knowing that she was there for around.... 5 min? Of course the net was wet so that may have contributed, but she was fine as well.

I think you first need your tank cycled. Or go get some weed plants from the start. I've had weed plants in a new uncycled tank and dropped some cherries and none died. I even had freaking ADA AS, known to leach ammonica... Weird.

Stop doing drastic changes. That's what I did in my younger days and found out that its the stupidest thing you can do and a HUGE waste of your time. Well you probably know its bad now too :-D.

Well if you're going to buy Stability, then don't bother with that and go with Bio-Spira. Bio-Spira has the real bacteria and it cycles your tank overnight. That is what it claims and that is what it does for most people who have used it.

 

[A Hill]

Good points, Andrew. roud:

Thanks:icon_wink

Ryu, Your shrimp where in good health though.. At times what you see in the LFS is just slowly dieing...

-Andrew