[Whitesage]

In the last week I've lost several shrimp. It's making me a bit crazy because I just got 10 from the shrimp farm the other day and I found one of them dead this morning. I'm doing water changes, 10% every day since wed, I lowered the temp to about 74. Water chem has been steady for months. Nitrates 20-30, nitrites 0, gh 75ish, kh 140ish, ph 7.2-7.5. It's HEAVILY planted. No CO2 3 or 4 drops of excel a week and 1ml of flourish complete once or twice a week I have a snail invasion, literally hundreds if not 1k, that came in on some plants, 3 assasins to deal with the invasion. 8 neons and 6 to 12 RCS, cant count them because the tank is full of plants. The 2 older shrimp that died had cracks in the shell on their back. So I tend to over think well everything, but could all of these snails be taking up all the calcium leaving little for the shrimp to molt properly and killing them? I put a small bit of spinach in there for them tonight and they didnt even look at it. Or should I just chill out keep doing the water changes and order more shrimp next month?

 

[agro]

Parameters are off, water changes could be making things worse.

 

[ced281]

Are you sure that the 2 older shrimp actually died? Did you see their milky white carcasses? Sometimes they "act dead" when they are molting.

Also, how much is "3 to 4 drops" of excel in mL? And what is the size of your tank? Excel is can be shrimp hostile if dosed in moderate quantities. I always have ~5% or so of my population die off from a 1mL Excel to 3 gal dosing.

 

[52149]

What's your Tds?

Argo is right water parameters way off gh is pretty high kh way too high ph is pretty high too neutral is 7.0. You wanna have an ideal 7.3 if anything. For caridina sp crs, cbs, taiwans 6.5 - 7.0 is usually ideal. Temp is not too bad 75 is pretty okay.

Is your tank cycled? Driftwood? Substrate? Anything to drop ph to a lower level? Look at these things before continuing? But doing a heavy water change is pretty reasonable

 

[waterfaller1]

Are you removing the die off from your plants as it happens? If I had that many snails I would remove my livestock and do a good clean out.

 

[Raymond S.]

Are you sure that the 2 older shrimp actually died? Did you see their milky white carcasses? Sometimes they "act dead" when they are molting.

Also, how much is "3 to 4 drops" of excel in mL? And what is the size of your tank? Excel is can be shrimp hostile if dosed in moderate quantities. I always have ~5% or so of my population die off from a 1mL Excel to 3 gal dosing.

The recommended dose is 5ml per 60g so 1ml per 3g is 3 x recommended
at least.

 

[Raymond S.]

#1 far from being any kind of shrimp expert.
I have a ten g tank(x2) /w them and I have no idea if there is a male in one of the tanks. That tank gets 2x recommended dose of Excel and low EI ferts weekly instead of every day. There is no breeding in that tank. But males ?
Can't say on that one for sure yet. The other tank has about 8-10 adult RCS in it but dozens of juvies and you can see 4-7 berried when I feed.
#2 you didn't state which kind of shrimp. Post the type on the invert section and ask for the proper perameters for them.
I had a lot of snails and bought one Khuli Loach. Like most fish, they are said to need company. This one did act very shy from being "the only" and never came out in light. But when I got rid of him he was three times as stocky as when I put him in. I would only see hm when I turned on the light after dark. But slowly the snails went by by...effective natural cure.
Those things are getting calcium from somewhere so your hypothesis is not crazy by any means...just not proven. I wouldn't get more till you "fixed" this. But Walmart sells MGSO4(Epsom Salt) which can be lacking but the
usual symptom is a gap between the "head" of the shrimp and the rest of it.
But this too should be checked/w an expeienced person who has your type of shrimp first before you use it.
My shrimp(RCS) in the tank/w Excel get 2x the recommended dose of it
and don't show any signs that it bothers them but that no breeding thing is not yet completely investigated.
I would think that the right thing here is to first find out which perameters are correct for what you have and see to it that this is correct before you proceed any further.

BTW: E-bay sells Pipettes cheap so get some to see to it that the drop doesn't become an oops.

 

[Soothing Shrimp]

Cracking between the head and shell is usually a molting problem.

I'm going to assume you are talking ppm instead of degrees, so:

gh 75ish= ~4.7dgh
kh 140ish= ~8.6dkh

GH for cherries is best at around 6.

 

[Whitesage]

Thanks for all the replies, let's see where to begin. It's a 13g tank called a widescreen by aqueon it's 24" long very narrow and 16"tall. It's heavily planted with mopani wood. I'll include a pic but my photo skills are lacking. Yes the water parameters are strange but they are steady the one time i tried adding "neutral regulator" I had dead shrimp the next day. I don't like messing with water chemistry and I was told that slow acclimate would be fine as long as it's stable. Excel is 3 drops from a 5ml medicine dropper which doesn't come close to even 1 ml dose, but I'd rather slow down the plants than lose the shrimp. I worried some about flourish complete copper even tho it says it's safe. Yes the crack on their back was right below the head. I noticed another one yesterday with it that is still alive. That's what put me in panic mode. I don't think it's possible to break the tank down with out losing the shrimp. And the floating leaf doesn't work due to all the lovely plants the snails have to eat.

 

[ctaylor3737]

If your parameters are stable then the water changes shouldnt be everyday. Even cherry shrimp are hard to kill but if you change the parameters daily it can and will kill them. If you only lost one shrimp it is most likely due to shipping and be aware that they usually die in a few days up to a week from shipping. Confused if you lost more than one. If its only one I would let the tank be and get your parameters stable. I change 10% once a week if that, sometimes I go a whole month without changing. Your nitrates are a bit high though, suprised because of the tankload. Could be wrong though.

 

[Whitesage]

I lost 2 of the older shrimp I got them as juvies about 6 weeks ago. They had the cracks in their back and died Monday. I was just going to ask Brad at the shrimp farm to wait on sending the new ones when his email came in that they had just been shipped. I got the new babies in on Tues. Did a 2g water change out of a 13g tank on wed when I found a new one dead. I wasn't panicked till I saw one of the older ones had a crack in his back. Then I did a 2g wc on thur and fri and i'm sitting here debating one today. I dont see any dead but there are lots of hiding places. Yes nitrates have always been high in the tank not sure why since there is plenty of fast and slow growing plants. It's always been at safe lvls tho. I set the tank up at xmas so it's plenty aged. I usually just take 3 1/2 g a week out for wc.
daboss what are tds? and it's eco complete sub with mopani wood. It still leeches tanin but not much. The tap water is basically same parameters before i put it in the tank. Oh and i do age the water a couple of days before using it.
If it IS a calcium problem due to all the snails how can you fix it? They are ignoring the spinach which has plenty of calcium. I noticed some of the snails have rather transparent shells that's what has me asking if it could be calcium as the shells shouldn't be see through.

 

[Oceangirl]

TDS is total Dissolved solids, You need to measure it because its ALSO very important to Shrimp well being. you can get a meter from Amazon. What are you feeding them? I would nix the Excel and Ferts for a while. I would get a TDS meter ASAP. I figured out my TDS is too low. I now keep them around 300 TDS. What are the test results from Tap? or are you using RO water?

 

[Charlest]

Another person on here had the same problems cracked shells then they die. His ended up being a rare earth magnet in the tank. Check for heavy metals lead,copper,zinc, anything like that.

Sent from my LG-D500 using Tapatalk

 

[Whitesage]

Thanks I'll check into the meter tonight. The substrate is eco complete and other than plants there's one piece of plastic deco tree stump and real mopani so i don't think theres anything weird like an earth magnet. I've been serfing and found a shrimp mineral block on alphaprobreeders. Has anyone ever used it? That could solve the molting problem if it works.

 

[52149]

Mineral rocks are very good for your shrimp. Quoting oceangirl keeping Tds around 200 -300 keeps shrimp happy. Low Tds will get your shrimp blah. Lacking nutrients and trace minerals things they may need in the aquarium gets them non active. I really noticed that after water changes. I always replace minerals when water changes are done.