Shrimp Tank Question

1020 Views 9 Replies 6 Participants Last post by DMAXNAZ, Oct 23, 2016

DMAXNAZ

Discussion Starter · Oct 19, 2016

I dedicated my 5G Edge to shrimp about 10 months ago. It consisted of RCS and Fire shrimp. The population was going crazy and growing in numbers by the weeks. I had a few different types of plants and mosses. It was a snail free tank until my very last order of moss a few months ago where snails were brought in. They look like ramshorns, but they never really grow in size. The largest one might barely be a 1/16". I noticed after the snails were introduced my shrimp population started decreasing. So I had maybe 60-70 prior to the snails and now there is maybe 3 or 4 left. I check the tank every day and have only had to remove maybe 5 dead max. Any ideas of what is going on?? I'm ready to break this down this weekend, but I'm still trying to figure out how to house the shrimps in one of my other tanks. I might just use a breeder box or something until I can get my Edge back up and running.

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Zoidburg

· #2 · Oct 19, 2016

Do you know what the tank parameters are?

Ramshorn snails are harmless, although it's possible that the snails or plants may have introduced something harmful to the tank that negatively effected the shrimp.

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nel

· #3 · Oct 19, 2016

My answer didn't send. I'll try once again...
With those plants you could bring not only snails, but some disease too. It's best to dip new plants in potassium permanganate. Maybe snails are producing too much waste and it's ammonia problem?

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KayakJimW

· #4 · Oct 19, 2016

DMAXNAZ said:
...I had maybe 60-70 prior to the snails and now there is maybe 3 or 4 left. I check the tank every day and have only had to remove maybe 5 dead max...

Could they be hiding out in a filter chamber or something? Going from 60+ to 3 or 4 seems like you'd have seen more carnage than just 5 dead ones

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DMAXNAZ

Discussion Starter · #5 · Oct 19, 2016

KayakJimW said:
Could they be hiding out in a filter chamber or something? Going from 60+ to 3 or 4 seems like you'd have seen more carnage than just 5 dead ones

Nope. I have a HOB which is frequently cleaned, and a mesh sleeve from Han on it. I truly believe these darn little snails are eating up all of my shrimp. The only other option would be that they just die, and the snails eat them up in the night before I am able to remove them.

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DMAXNAZ

Discussion Starter · #6 · Oct 19, 2016

Zoidburg said:
Do you know what the tank parameters are?

Ramshorn snails are harmless, although it's possible that the snails or plants may have introduced something harmful to the tank that negatively effected the shrimp.

My parameters are fine. If something was introduced it sure would be taking them out very very slowly....

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Opare

· #7 · Oct 20, 2016

Snails are pretty slow so them eating shrimp which aren't either dead or on the way to dead is super unlikely.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

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Zoidburg

· #8 · Oct 20, 2016

DMAXNAZ said:
My parameters are fine. If something was introduced it sure would be taking them out very very slowly....

So the KH, GH, TDS and temperature are all fine? That's good.

It could be that the plants were treated with copper, or maybe they were treated with pesticides, or maybe your shrimp got a parasite or bacterial infection? Could try treating the tank with something like Seachem Paraguard, BorneoWild Rescue or similar products. Try Purigen and/or Activated Carbon.

I don't recommend PP to dip plants in (did 2 dips in PP on some plants, second dip the water was so dark purple it took *days* to clear! still got snails... snails in the PP solution didn't die, either) , and more fragile plants may not be able to handle bleach, alum and vinegar dips very well. Fenbendazole (dog dewormer) *might* be a better option, if you overdosed the quarantine water or dip solution. At the recommended dosage, it doesn't harm certain aquarium pests.

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Anchor

· #9 · Oct 20, 2016

Any changes in plumbing, or any other way copper is slowly leaching in? Sounds to me like a few bad snails left in the tank turned toxic or spawned disease.

How are the remaining inhabitants acting?

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DMAXNAZ

Discussion Starter · #10 · Oct 23, 2016

Tank ran exactly the same for over a year. I actually just broke it down and moved the shrimp to another tank.

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