Green Shrimp Surprise

[shrimpbaby]

I've been on a quest to acquire green shrimp for about two years now. I've stayed away from purchasing any from larger shrimp distributors since I've read that they'll die shortly after arriving.

I finally bought 10 a couple of months ago and when they arrived five of them were already dead. The remaining five died within the first 3-4 days. The guy agreed to replace my shrimp minus the cost of shipping, but he was out of stock.

So I purchased another bunch of green shrimp from another source a couple of weeks ago. After a significant die-off the first week, the remaining shrimp seem to be doing well. I thought that my remaining shrimp were all females, and all of the ovigerous females had all died. I pretty much abandoned all hope of getting offspring.

The guy that I had originally bought from sent me 10 replacement shrimp and I got them a few days ago. There were no egg-laden females that he sent me.

Last night as I was staring at the tank, I found babies zipping around. They are so tiny! I'm over the moon. I don't know how I missed a pregnant female unless she stayed hidden the whole time.

The only thing that disturbs me is that upon closer inspection it appears that I have quite a few dead shrimplets, unless I'm seeing their first molt instead (they are so small). I know that my water quality is good. No ammonia, nitrite or nitrates. There's also plenty of algae and microorganisms in the tank, so I know it's not a food supply issue. The only thing that I can think of is that my source water has a very low kH and only a moderate gH. My cherries breed like crazy though, and I've successfully raised ghost shrimp here as well. I know that green shrimp supposingly like harder water.

So, do you think the softness of my water is the issue, or not? If you've gotten this far, I really appreciate it.

[Baby_Girl]

congrats!!! I know you've been working so hard to find good green shrimp. I bet I felt exactly as you did - surprised because I didn't know any of the gals was carrying eggs, and elated because the babies are thrilling!

Unfortunately, I can't give advice on the hardness issue. I've always had at least fairly hard water, and have never tried to fudge with it.

[Mustafa]

As long as your shrimp are healthy and not "pre-stressed" already, they should do fine in any normal, dechlorinated tap water. No need to to mess around with it. This specifically *excludes* places like NYC where basically the only thing that the water has is sodium hydroxide and almost nothing else (almost no calcium, magnesium and other minerals and a TDS of about 40 out of the tap)....in such places I recommend the addition of some crushed coral or sea shells.

[shrimpbaby]

As long as your shrimp are healthy and not "pre-stressed" already, they should do fine in any normal, dechlorinated tap water. No need to to mess around with it. This specifically *excludes* places like NYC where basically the only thing that the water has is sodium hydroxide and almost nothing else (almost no calcium, magnesium and other minerals and a TDS of about 40 out of the tap)....in such places I recommend the addition of some crushed coral or sea shells.

Our TDS is 212ppm, kH is 45ppm. I'd prefer not to mess with my water if possible.