I don't have a lot of money at all, so I bought a secondhand tank (the seller kept turtles in it), turned out to be 110 litres. I cleaned it with vinegar inside and out, rinsed it well and then filled it with tap water treated with conditioner (there was still some green stains in at the corners I couldn't get rid of, I thought it was just algae and a good thing for the shrimp anyway).
I bought black aquarium sand as a substrate:
Fluval shrimp safe water conditioner:
Charcoal breeding tubes:
An apparently good filter:
Moss balls:
And a sword plant for them:
These are the exact purchases. Before thinking about getting shrimp I had the tank running for a month, it was out of direct sunlight, and kept at a constant temperature of 25oC. A white film started developing over the heater etc, which I read was a good thing as this is what happens before turning to algae. I tested the PH and it was around 8 I think (I used strips as I couldn't afford to buy anything more expensive). I live in Scotland and knew the shrimp would be coming from England so there would be definite water differences.
I carried out a 10% water change every week before getting the shrimp, so that I could get into a routine and get used to doing it. After a month I then bought 6 very nice red cherry shrimp from down south (I'll keep the seller secret, because I'm sure this was my fault and don't want to wrongly incriminate him). The shrimp arrived in good condition, and they were not as pale as I thought they'd be. I thought was a good sign, they also seemed lively. I used the drip method to acclimatise the shrimp over 3 hours following the clear instructions given by the seller. I put a moss ball in with the shrimp as they were acclimatising and they seemed to react well to this, using it to grip on to and forage on. The shrimp were eating off the moss ball, so I thought that was a very good sign.
After acclimatising, i tipped the glass bowl slowly into the top of the tank and allowed the shrimp to swim out by themselves. At first they seemed very happy and started exploring the tank and eating off of the substrate. I did notice that a couple of the shrimp were very clumsily landing after swimming, but was not sure if this was normal. One of the shrimp kept going up to the surface and swimming upside down. Finally it died. Two other shrimp after an hour did the same thing, started swimming up to the surface, along the glass sides, being clumsy and finally dying. At the final stages of death they were upside down kicking. The other three were very still at this point. I thought it might have been a problem with shock, and the remaining three had just adjusted better than the three that had passed on.
Finally the other three became more active, then one started following the same behavior as the previous dead shrimp, then died, and then the 5th one started the strange behavior with the last looking very cagey at the bottom of the tank. I thought I had to do something about this. So I removed the last two shrimp carefully and put them in a bowl with new tap water and some boiled tap water mixed to get to 25oC. I didn't use anything but tap water and had nothing in the bowl except a moss ball. I can't be sure but the 6th shrimp seemed a little happier after a little while, but the 5th shrimp looked well on its way to dying.
I totally stripped down my tank, cleaned it with my hand and the new water and didn't use conditioner. I Put in the heater, filter, and the moss balls. I then used the same method of using cold tap, and boiled cold water tap to get the tank half filled with water of 25oC. I then allowed the bowl with the shrimp to float on the surface to acclimatise even although the water wasn't that different in temperature or makeup. I tipped the bowl and allowed them to swim out. Both shrimp looked to be in the final stages of dying. And the last two shrimp are now at the bottom of my tank dead.
I feel stupid and horrible, and I don't know what I've done wrong. I was so happy when I got the shrimp this morning, but it's been a day filled of me constantly staring into the tank and worrying while witnessing shrimp suffering and dying. When I can afford to I'd love to get some more shrimp, but I'm not going to unless I find out what I've done wrong. Do any of you have any advice for me?
Thanks for your time.
(edited to remove links to my purchases, sorry about the breach in rules)
