Hello! So I left my shrimp in the care of friends while I was out of the state for six months. Anyways, I've returned recently and noticed some changes in the tank. First, some of the macroalgae has turned white, which I'm assuming means its dead. It also appears that all my snails have died as I have not seen any moving around since I got back. My algae ball that I got from this site also seems to have disappeared which is quite unfortunate. All my shrimp seem to be doing tremendously well however, and are breeding like crazy. My questions are - should I remove the white macroalgae from the tank and empty snail shells? Since all the snails died does this mean theres something wrong with my tank? They were doing so well before and were very overpopulated.
Side note - this tank is 2 years old. I am aware that the substrate is too deep and have noticed discoloration in the lower surfaces of the sand. I plan on moving my shrimp into a new tank soon which will have just a half an inch of substrate as I do not know of any other way to fix this problem. Also, If you look closely in the picture you can see baby shrimp
I wouldn't be surprised if some of the snails are alive, and are simply staying buried and eating at the "discoloration" in the deeper parts of the substrate that you mentioned.
My moss ball disappears sometimes as it moves around the tank (due to air bubbles getting trapped in it at times and perhaps getting pushed around by the shrimp), but it always seems to show up again. Course my tank is a good deal larger than yours, I'm not so sure if yours has anywhere the moss ball could end up hidden.
Hmmm...if all the snails are dead and the macroalgae is dead (despite some nuisance hair algae growing in there), then maybe something "bad" entered your tank somehow at some point. These snails don't just up and die that easily. The macroalgae doesn't either. As for the mossball, are you sure it's not the dark green "ball" overgrown by light green nuisance algae right smack in the middle of the second picture?
You can remove the macroalgae or leave it in there. Doesn't make much of a difference. It will get eaten up eventually...slowly.
I just checked and I think it’s just dark algae. It might be bits of the moss ball...I’ll attach a picture. I want to remove the hair algae but I don’t want to hurt the babies in there :/ I did see one small snail alive and climbing up the tank yesterday which is good. I had an insane amount of snails in there 6 months ago so it’s sad to see so many empty shells:/ What should I do? I want to setup a new 5 gallon tank for them so should I just set that up and cycle it and then move the shrimp into it ASAP?
Just set up the tank properly. I don't think there's any reason to rush things at this point...unless you see the shrimp dying or something similar. You can move the shrimp when your 5 gallon is ready.
