# Shrimps dying



## keitarosan (Apr 21, 2010)

Everything seem to be fine then all of a sudden they started dying 1x1. The tank has CRS and RCS. Help!!!! 

Nitrate - 20
Nitrite - 0 
Ph - 6.0
Kh - 0
Gh - 30

My CRS is down to 3 from 7 in just 2 days. RCS is more hardy but I've seen 2 dead in a week. Water params above are consistent during those times. I dose TA amazon elements, iron and excel very minimal. Last night I fed them and their appetite seem to be reduced as well. They left the food almost untouched but I've seen them swarm on it last night. Looks like they left it after a few bites. I fed them shirakura shrimp food.


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## ilam (Apr 28, 2011)

amadeo, is your GH 3 or 30?


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## rescuepenguin (Apr 21, 2010)

How often do you vacuum the substrate? I have noticed that when I get lazy with the vacuums and water changes my shrimp population decreases.


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## Tarobot (Jun 27, 2010)

Im havin the issue recently with shirakura food as well. I cant tell if im overfeedin because the amanos drag the food n dissappears somewhere. My ph is 6 gh 6 kh
4~5


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## effox (Apr 21, 2010)

What is the size of your tank, could temperature fluctuations be the cause? That happened last year with my shrimp population.


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## Tarobot (Jun 27, 2010)

Thats very likely my 5g went up to 82f from 79 this week. I uplug the heater durin the day.


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## Kei (May 4, 2010)

dd u feed/do any thing different in the last 7 days? i lost 10 shrimp in 1 week as well as all the berried. because i feed them seaweed.

i changed 25% - 40% every 2ed day for 1 week straight. then did 2 gravel vacuums. they seem fine now.


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## Tarobot (Jun 27, 2010)

I lost a berried one last week as well and ill randomly see half a dead shrimp but im afraid to gravel vac cause there are lots of babies. Maybe ill try changin water more often. My guess is that the big shirakura pieces take too long to eat and it fouls up the water.


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## rescuepenguin (Apr 21, 2010)

Tarobot said:


> I lost a berried one last week as well and ill randomly see half a dead shrimp but im afraid to gravel vac cause there are lots of babies. Maybe ill try changin water more often. My guess is that the big shirakura pieces take too long to eat and it fouls up the water.


based my my experience with my Yellows, and the paranoia I have over losing my colony of over 100, I would still vacuum and do your best to avoid the babies, then do your best to get the shrimplets out of the bucket after the vacuum. In my case I could not access half of the 40 gal tank. I had plants and stuff decay back there. All of a sudden all the shrimp and 6 dwarf corys including Hastatus, died over a period of 1 week.


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## charles (Apr 21, 2010)

I am not a shrimp person. Patrick or Frank or CRS would know more. Isn't ph6 a bit low for shrimp?


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## keitarosan (Apr 21, 2010)

Gh is 30. Just lost another CRS awhile ago. I don't do WC on my shrimp tanks. Just top up and they're ok. This actually the first time I experienced deaths that happen so fast.


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## Tarobot (Jun 27, 2010)

30ppm im assuming, mines around 80 or so. does it seem like theyre having trouble molting?


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## Kei (May 4, 2010)

i hope its ppm...

mined around 60-80


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## keitarosan (Apr 21, 2010)

Yes it's ppm. I use API test kit. RCS seem to be fine.


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## jiang604 (Apr 21, 2010)

keitarosan said:


> Gh is 30. Just lost another CRS awhile ago. I don't do WC on my shrimp tanks. Just top up and they're ok. This actually the first time I experienced deaths that happen so fast.


what water did you use to top off your tank? RO/ distilled or tap? aged tap? cold water from tap? warm water from tap?


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## keitarosan (Apr 21, 2010)

jiang604 said:


> what water did you use to top off your tank? RO/ distilled or tap? aged tap? cold water from tap? warm water from tap?


from tap, not aged, same temp (by feel only), used seachem prime. the death appear to have stopped for 2 days now. RCS are all fine. 1 CRS left. 

water params remains the same. i've just added almond leaf from greenganja last night.


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## jiang604 (Apr 21, 2010)

keitarosan said:


> from tap, not aged, same temp (by feel only), used seachem prime. the death appear to have stopped for 2 days now. RCS are all fine. 1 CRS left.
> 
> water params remains the same. i've just added almond leaf from greenganja last night.


pouring prime directly into tank to treat the water and not treating it before putting it into the tank can be a cause of the problem. second is the luke warm water, contact mananap for reason as I discussed it with him before i had left for my trip.


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## jiang604 (Apr 21, 2010)

a highly recommended way of changing water or topping off is just run cool tap water into a container and let it bubble overnight. You can use prime to treat it as well and bubble it overnight.


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## keitarosan (Apr 21, 2010)

jiang604 said:


> a highly recommended way of changing water or topping off is just run cool tap water into a container and let it bubble overnight. You can use prime to treat it as well and bubble it overnight.


so basically, the top up water must be bubbled overnight regardless of using prime or not? for WC, how much is recommended for that? i normally WC 10% on my 10g iwagumi low light tank. i dose ferts 1x/week of TA elements and iron as suggested dosage for 10g.


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## 2wheelsx2 (Apr 21, 2010)

I believe the overnight aeration is for CO2 offgassing and pH stabilization.


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## jiang604 (Apr 21, 2010)

2wheelsx2 said:


> I believe the overnight aeration is for CO2 offgassing and pH stabilization.


everything Gary has said + even without using prime, your getting rid of the chlorine by letting it evaporate out. Reason I say cool/cold tap water is generally speaking if you have copper pipes, chances of it dissolving in your water is extremely minimal its probably undetectable unless you got some nifty gadget that measures extremely low levels of copper. So that wouldn't be the case. And on average cold water remaining stationary in your household pipes/ system is far lower than for example hot water in your hot water tank. Whatever the hot water tank is lined with I don't know but i just don't risk it and just stick with cold water. And hot water almost always dissolves substances far faster than cool/ cold water. Besides overnight in a container your waters going to be up to room temp.


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## keitarosan (Apr 21, 2010)

how much WC can i do? i never experienced this in the past when i was just lazy and doing top up. then again, i don't have CRS back then. only 2 "test" CRS from shaobo that lived for a long time until i tore down the tank and replaced it.


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## GreenGanja (Apr 27, 2010)

effox said:


> What is the size of your tank, could temperature fluctuations be the cause? That happened last year with my shrimp population.


i think its the heat also


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## keitarosan (Apr 21, 2010)

GreenGanja said:


> i think its the heat also


tank temp is 77 deg F. i think it's the recent WC that i did.


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## tang daddy (Apr 21, 2010)

Sorry to hear about your losses man, summer time is never good for CRS, especially when the tanks are in an area where it gets warm.

Next time you top up water or even do waterchanges, let the Cold tap water age for a couple days. I usually let my water age for a minimum of a day if i am in an emergency otherwise 3 days with aeration and water conditioner and ph buffer, longer the better. Another thing I heard from Stephan long ago was that prime was strong so he used less than the recomended dose to do water changes. 

1 other thing I noticed is you dose ferts, when I did EI dosing before I lost alot of CRS. Some don't seem to have a problem losing shrimp with dosing, however I did! so I stopped dosing and things are fine now.


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## jumboshrimp (Aug 12, 2010)

I concur. PH 6 is on the low side.


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## keitarosan (Apr 21, 2010)

jumboshrimp said:


> I concur. PH 6 is on the low side.


ok, how do i up my ph a bit? it is consistent ph though since i started this hobby. though this is the 1st time i kept CRS in numbers. i had 2 test CRS in the past from shaobo that did very well together with RCS. they only died when i tore up the tank to replace it. same water params as mentioned. no mineral block, no almond leaves. just plain ADA soil with plants.

i noticed another dead RCS last night. a small one. i did a little bit top up the night before last night so i think it's my tap water. i'll try aging the water first this time. i've never aged my top up and even my WC before and no problem at all. only this time.


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## effox (Apr 21, 2010)

I learned from experience just to leave the ph alone.


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## keitarosan (Apr 21, 2010)

effox said:


> I learned from experience just to leave the ph alone.


that's what i thought too. i had this ph for like.... 5 yrs for both community and shrimp tank without any problem. but like i said, this is the 1st time i kept CRS in numbers. just don't know why the RCS are now affected as well.

1 RCS died again today. another small one. last thing i did was top up of water from tap with prime like i always does. i guess it's the tap. i'll try aging the water first by aerating it for the next top up with no prime.


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## tang daddy (Apr 21, 2010)

Something definitely wrong with your water to have cherries die, CRS are more sensitive so I can understand but cherries are bullet proof. As I said before maybe try to not dose ferts, also what have you been feeding your shrimp? Maybe the food contains traces of copper? I know alot of fish food have copper in it to help with the immune system of fish. I saw you fed the shirakura but is there anything else?

I also made a mistake on my previous post, I meant gh buffer not ph. I use the cichlid buffer found at K eds, I don't touch the ph either, ada soil takes care of that!


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## keitarosan (Apr 21, 2010)

i know... something is definitely wrong here. i never had RCS dying like this. there was a slow growth in population in the past but not dying. i feed them shirakura, algae tabs and sometimes shrimp tabs.

i did not change anything on my routine eversince that's why i'm puzzled. oh.... there's one addition!! i started using fluval shrimp mineral supplement but i don't normally use it. only when i remember. the tank is around 4 mos old and i believe i only used it 3x with very minimal dose.

what i'll do is 1) stop dosing ferts from now on (though it wasn't as usual as my planted tank. i dose like 2x/mo only), 2) age and aerate my top up water. should i try out the gh buffer as well???


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## effox (Apr 21, 2010)

I also use the cichlid buffer for GH and would recommend it.


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## keitarosan (Apr 21, 2010)

is it the kent Tanganyika Cichlid Buffer?


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## effox (Apr 21, 2010)

I use Nutrafin's, but I'm sure they're all similar.


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## jiang604 (Apr 21, 2010)

pH of 6 wouldn't matter, there are breeders that have both shrimps in pH of 5 regardless of what the information out there is for what the living conditions of shrimps are. Likewise, me and a friend have kept CRS in sulawesi water params of pH 8+ with success, just slow. Using African cichlid water conditioner or RO Right is the right direction to go as well. If you have a TDS meter, just make it to about 120-180. Lower higher doesn't really matter so long as water is stable.


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## Tarobot (Jun 27, 2010)

i add slight bits of KH to increase the KH/PH. i have lots of driftwood and indian almond leaves that i hear lowers ph as well.


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## qyrus (Apr 21, 2010)

Not sure if this will help, but have you tried adding a small amount of buffer during your WC's? I use to have shrimp die offs till I used Seachem's acid/alkaline buffers in a 1:1 ratio, 1/16 tsp for a 7G tank. Shrimps became alot more active with no more deaths after that.

Jim


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## gtec2775 (Mar 5, 2011)

All my Fire red shrimps died last week after molting in my 10g and 5 g tanks and I did water change but my CRS ( 10g ) and CBS ( 5g) survive. maybe the water change plus the temperatures??? no sure, I am just a newbie.


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## keitarosan (Apr 21, 2010)

ok, i'm dosing Fluval shrimp mineral supplement. i'm guessing that this is also somewhat similar to RO Right or African cichlid water conditioner. any ideas???

they stopped dying now but all CRS are dead. the RCS are now fine but i noticed they are still low on appetite.


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## keitarosan (Apr 21, 2010)

So.... Does anyone know what Fluval shrimp mineral supplement does aside from raising GH? I was hoping this would do the same as the RO right or Cichlid buffer.


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## tang daddy (Apr 21, 2010)

Just as the bottle says, mineral supplement!

I would assume it also adds trace minerals into the water at the same time as raising the gh....


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## keitarosan (Apr 21, 2010)

Ok. So it does not buffer. Hmmmm... I guess I have to buy those buffer stuff. I wonder why Fluval did not put any info on this product. Maybe because it's straightforward thing. It raises GH and adds mineral just like Chris said. I was hoping to see something like raises GH to x ppm and adds x minerals to x ppm. Oh well....


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