[HeavyUser]

Water Parameters

kh 0*
gh 6*
PH 5.85
0 ammonia
0 nitrite
10-20 nitrate
TDS 180

Filtration - 2xaqua clear 30s, one filled with purigen

Dosing - PPS Pro, Excel

Bi Weekly Water Changes, 5 gallons at a time, re mineralized distilled water, temp matched to tank temp

Issue - For the last 2 months I have been having a steady stream of shrimp deaths. It has been effecting the Red Cherries predominantly but lately a few Cherry Reds having been dying as well.

The RCS having been breeding like mad with the population growing, the CRS have also been breeding but much slower and with a smaller newborn survival rate from what I have been able to tell.

The strange part about all of this is that 99% of the deaths always happen on the same side of the tank. It's like clock work, once maybe twice a week I find a dead shrimp on the left side of the tank.

I really have no idea what could be causing this. My water parameters stay very stable. One thing I have noticed is that some night a lot of the shrimp turn clear on me, within 5 minutes of the lights coming on in the tank they all color up again.

What do you guys think :nerd:?

Also disregard the assassin snail eating the dead body, he was not the cause of death. The snails are a new addition to the tank to help with my pond snail population.

 

[bsherwood]

PH? I know the CRS like a lower ph but the RC's??
my water is dang near 9.0...(it is 9.2 out of the tap) I RO it and airstone it and add leaves etc....to try hard to get below 8.0

all my Neo's are breeding like crazy....

 

[Zoidburg]

PH is rather low... especially for cherry shrimp.


Could be an issue with the PH, or something you are dosing the aquarium with that is slowly causing harm?

 

[HeavyUser]

So I thought PH as well, but that wouldn't explain the CRS deaths. The CRS deaths really started after I began to mess around with removing water from the tank. Earlier in the week my GH was at 7* to take it down to 6 I removed close to 2 gallons of water and added straight distilled. This may have caused the CRS deaths, I did not think about the drop in TDS, the temp drop was only about 1 degree :/

The PH has been very stable since I started doing Water Changes with Distilled. From what I have read about keeping shrimp, stable water parameters take precedence over preferred parameters.

I was thinking maybe not enough water movement in that area of the tank, possibly a build up of something in that area killing off whatever lingers in that area for too long?

As far as dosing, it's the same since I added the little fellers. .25ml of Micro and 2ML of a Custom Macro Mix excluding Nitrates and Phosphates.

It should be noted that all the deaths occur overnight.

 

[Yukiharu]

I think it's possibly your low kH coupled with the water changes. Have you tried taking pH tests both during the day and at night? 0kH means that your pH will swing from slight changes.

 

[No.92]

Could they be hosting their own version of Gladiator games where 1 shrimp die a week? And they hold the event on the left side of the tank? Sorry... couldn't resist.

 

[HeavyUser]

If that was the case this would be awesome, unsightly that they slaughtered a mother carrying her unborn child last night though.... :O

Everyone's ideas seem pretty much on par with mine at this point, I am going to go out and buy a air stone tonight or tomorrow and install it over where the shrimp seem to be having issues.

 

[Nuthatch]

I was wondering if you are a co2 user? (in your tank, that is) I'm very hazy on the specifics but I've read that there are issues re its use at night and killing off livestock due to the gas??

Mind you, I have no idea what I'm talking about but someone else on here should! LOL And using an air stone is usually then suggested.

 

[HeavyUser]

I am a c02 free planted tank user.

 

[Zoidburg]

I am a c02 free planted tank user.

This includes Excel.... are you still dosing with Excel?

For a 20 gallon tank, it should be 2ml daily or every other day.



If you are dosing daily, cut back to every other day.

If you are dosing more than 1ml per 10 gallons, cut back on your dosing.

 

[HeavyUser]

I was dosing about 3ml of Excel a day for awhile with no problems, I did back down to 2ml to see if that would make a difference.

Today I lost 3 more, 2 RCS and 1 CRS :/

Same spot as usual, Ill stick in a bubble stone tonight and see what happens...

 

[The Big Buddha]

How do you remineralize the water? I ask because I always had issues with shrimp randomly dying when I used equilibrium, since I switched to salty shrimp things are much better. Also, what are you feeding them?

.

 

[HeavyUser]

Salty Shrimp GH+, they get a Shirakura wafer twice a week.

 

[HeavyUser]

Ok, so I did two things today to help rule out what could be the issue.

I upgraded the impeller on my 2 aquaclear 30s to aquaclear 50 impellers. There is wayyyy more circulation going on in my tank now and it seem the fish love it.

I also added an air stone to the side of the tank where all the deaths have been occurring.

Lastly, I will continue to update this thread until the deaths stop....

Keep suggestions coming guys if you have em all the help thus far has been greatly appreciated.

 

[houseofcards]

Might have missed it but how big is the tank and what are you dosing?

 

[HeavyUser]

20 Gallon High, PPS Pro .2ml of Micro, 2ml of Macro excluding Nitrate and Phosphate, 2ml of Excel.

Shrimps where fine for about 2 months of dosing, the deaths have start relatively recently.

I tried to list everything about the tank in the first post.

 

[houseofcards]

Did you add any fish that might be doing it? Is it usually the smaller shrimp that are dying?

 

[HeavyUser]

I have CPDs and 2 Ottos, I doubt they could be picking the shrimp off.

The larger Shrimps seem to be dying, I have a lot of baby RCS maybe some baby CRS but I can't tell.

 

[HeavyUser]

1 Red Cherry Shrimp death this morning, that's an improvement I guess.

It should be known that I do have assassin snails, I doubt they are killing of the amount of shrimp that are dying on me.

One thing I noticed and I'm not sure if this is normal or not, but when I turn on the lights a lot of the shrimp and the fish are pretty clear/white looking. Within 5 minutes everyone colors up. Is this normal?

I did test the PH at 5 in the morning to see if there may be a shift from the daytime PH but it tested the same

 

[randym]

It is normal for fish to go pale at night when they are sleeping, then color up when the lights go on in the morning.

Since your shrimp are breeding, I am baffled at what the problem could be. Could they just be dying of old age, and their bodies settling in the same area due to the flow in your tank?