All larvae die. HELP

[JennyPenny]

My ph is also at 8.2. I use aragonite sand and several dead corals. I also know that marine salt contains something to help maintain a constant ph. I do not know how that works though.

[camaronqueseduerme]

Hello everyone

I have been doing water tests daily. Ph seems to be a bit higher since I put the egg shells in the tank. Hopefully it'll keep ticking up. I appreciate what Ken was saying. The shrimp seem to be happy. In fact a second female is about to get berried, I have seen her swimerettes distended and I'm sure by tomorrow there's going to be two berried ones. So they can't be that unhappy.

I am enclosing two pictures of the tank. You can see the big chunk dead white coral and the egg shells. I am going to be away for two weeks hopefully when I get back things will be normal.

Thanks for all the advice, guys.

[KenCotigirl]

I know you cannot judge water quality by looking at but your tanks look fine. I am hopeful after two weeks things will turn out well.

Ken

[Mustafa]

Alright...just read this thread. And here's my advice: Do nothing! Stop measuring, stop worrying and stop feeding altogether and sit back. You don't need the egg shells either as your large chunk of coral and the shells will do a good job of keeping the pH where it's supposed to be. You *will* eventually have surviving larvae...there is no way around it if you stick with doing basically nothing. I'll clarify a few things in this thread in separate posts....

[Mustafa]

people seem to be under the impression your tank will cycle and finish it just by leaving the tank to age, this isnt correct, if you have no ammonia source then you wont get the nitrogen cycle going, even once its started and has complete it will still need a source of food or you will get miniature cycles.. if you can read ammonia or nitrites then you need to be doing 50% water changes.

That's not true. Yes, if you leave the tank alone the cycle will be just fine. There are always organic materials in these tanks including the biofilm, shrimp and snail excrement, algae...etc...etc. In the process of decomposition bacteria turn that into ammonia...tiny amounts of it...and other bacteria turn the ammonia into nitrite and others into nitrate. Yes, this all happens if you wait long enough. There won't be any mini-cycles unless you introduce 100+ shrimp into a 2 gallon tank and start feeding heavily. I've been doing this for way over a decade. It works.

[Mustafa]

Thing is you want some nitrates, as it means your ammonia is being converted into nitrite and then nitrate.

Nah...I well-running Supershrimp tank has 0 nitrates. Whatever nitrates are produces get immediately utilized as food by algae and other biofilm organisms. My tanks all have 0 ammonia, nitrite, nitrate and phosphates. Nada.

[Mustafa]

Mech I need to research this more. Not really sure why we add carbonate products. I thought that shells, coral and limestone buffered against going below a pH of 7 or neutral. The acid would react with the shells and neutralize the acid leaving a ph of 7. .

ht.

That's not quite right. The pH doesn't just get buffered to 7. There is also carbon dioxide dissolved in water which is carbonic acid...it reacts with the calcium carbonate rock to dissolve it and thereby actually increases carbonate hardness and thereby pH. That's why a Supershrimp tank tends to always have a pH around 8 even after years and years.

[camaronqueseduerme]

Hello Mustafa, hi everybody!

First of all thanks for your advice and all your replies as always. It's been a long time but I am back with some good news, finally

Since my last message quite a bit has happened. My shrimp kept getting berried but no larva would survive their first night. I bought the strips and stopped feeding anything at all. I did my weekly tests and parameters were ok except for ph and alkalinity, which kept stubbornly low. I still awaited to see if any of the larva batches succeeded. After my 8th or so batch failed I had enough. I understood it wasn't working so I decided to change strategy.

I bought crushed coral and covered the bottom of my tank with it. I had to remove and then put back rocks, macro-algae, etc, all while avoiding dumping the stuff on top of the terrified shrimp. It was a bit traumatic, but they survived the cataclysm. I gave it some time. A new female got pregnant. Awesome. Parameters were ok but the water was still slightly acidic. Losing the larvae again was not an option so I decided to go for the ultimate drastic measure: I added a very small quantity of baking soda to the tank et voila, parameters were perfect at last.

The eggs hatched after a bit more than a month and the larvae survived the first few nights. I read about the two weeks to metamorphosis and awaited in anticipation. So a couple of days ago it finally happened. The floaters became minuscule semi-shrimp and started acting benthic. Amazing!

The survival rate is not exactly stellar. Of the 15 original eggs I got about 9 or 10 larvae and I think some 5 of them have survived until metamorphosis. But still I am beyond excited that at least a handful of them were viable. Until I see fully developed young shrimp grazing around my tank I know we won't be out of the woods. However things seem to be working at last.

I am attaching some larva pictures and also a couple I took this morning where you can see post-metamorphosis features appearing, such as tiny legs and antennae.

I'll keep you posted of further developments. Cheers!

PS I got a new berried female so hopefully there's more babies on the way

[Varanus]

Awesome! It is odd that it was so hard to get the ph up though.

Don't be surprised if more of the larva made it than you think. For weeks I thought I lost half of my first batch, but was proven wrong once they got big enough to be more active and come out at feeding time (it turned out a majority had survived). Newly metamorphosed shrimps are VERY good at hiding and rarely move about until they get a little bigger.

[Mustafa]

Glad things worked out! Whatever caused the acidification, it should not be an issue from now on anymore.