Cherry shrimp deaths.

[frugalfish]

Well I'm puzzled on this one. In the last 10 days I have found three adult female cherries with bellies full of eggs dead. This is also the second batch of eggs these females were carrying after having a successful first hatch. I have not lost any males and all the juveniles are thriving and growing rapidly. I have seen no signs of stress or illness, just sudden deaths. This is a well established tank with java fern, java moss, bolbitis and driftwood. Temperature in the 76-78F range,pH is in the 7.8-8.0 range, GH is around 16, KH is around 5, ammonia and nitrite are zero and nitrates are nearly undetectable. All water changes are treated with Prime. Besides the good supply of algae they get form the tank I substitute with flake or spirulina pellets about everyother day and with only enough that is eaten in a short span. What am I missing?

[grandmasterofpool]

How old are these females? Cherries don't live much longer than a year or so, so it could be a natural death. That is why Mustafa and many others sell juvenille shrimp online instead of adults.

[frugalfish]

I bought these as juveniles, they were maybe a 1/4 inch in size and have had them since April this year. Your right, if they had been a year or so in age I wouldn't be troubled, but unfortunately that's not the case.

[GunmetalBlue]

Hi Frugalfish, I take it they haven't suffered any recent stress? Logic (not that I'm a logical person!) would tell me it was just a strange coincidence. Let us know if anything more happens and whether it concerns only berried females.

I don't know what your water routine is, but perhaps try a partial water change to try and stave off any more losses. Make sure you don't have anything weird leeching into your water, like metals, either (and I know it's not always easy to figure this type of thing out). I take it you're pretty sure your driftwood isn't causing any problems? No new recent plants? Hope this mystery can be solved, that's really too bad about your loss.

-GB

[frugalfish]

I have not had any further losses and the problem may have been stress due to a nutritional deficiency. I was not feeding the shrimp and instead I was having them make do with the large amounts of algae that was in the tank. For the last three weeks plus I have been feeding them various fish foods in very small amounts about three times a week and they are all doing well. Actually they are doing too well as I now once again have an exploding population. The change in feeding is the only one I made, so unless it was a fluke this is my best guess as to what may have caused my losses.

[bulrush]

It seems to me that any organism that makes eggs needs extra calories and extra nutrition. And I seem to recall that most shrimp do not use algae as their primary source of nutrition.

My guess is your female shrimp did not like the algae, they needed other nutrition, they didn't get it, and died.

[edinjapan]

It seems to me that any organism that makes eggs needs extra calories and extra nutrition. And I seem to recall that most shrimp do not use algae as their primary source of nutrition.

My guess is your female shrimp did not like the algae, they needed other nutrition, they didn't get it, and died.

As sometimes happens algae can throw off toxins, most common in the summer months. Crustaceans are more susceptible than fish and egg carrying females moreso than males. Could be your algae has become slightly toxic.

[GunmetalBlue]

Hmm, interesting, Frugalfish, glad to see the update. I'm not agreeing or disagreeing with your possible conclusion, but rather, wanted to balance this out by expressing that I've observed and experienced the opposite.

Early in my Cherry shrimp ownership, they did not get directly fed, though they *might have picked up a few pieces of fish food (though I've never seen them do so) from when I've fed the Bamboo shrimp, which is only every four days. I've thrown in a wafer before, which they've ignored at the time. Yet they've grown into 60+ shrimp. It hasn't been until very recently that I've started using algae wafers - simply because they're beginning to outstrip my algae supply. Please check out this thread: viewtopic.php?t=775 It's another example of shrimp eating only algae/biofilm.

Now, my experience with shrimping is still less than a year. But please check out this thread: viewtopic.php?t=708 In that is a quote from Mustafa, who I know has many many years of experience: "Shrimp do not "need" calcium supplementation at all."

I know that some form of calcium is why some people go out of their way to feed manufactured food, but I wonder if it's something that's "truly" necessary. Where I *may agree with manufactured food, is perhaps - just perhaps there is additional matter they eat in the wild that are not found in the hobby aquaria, be it micropic bits of dead insect or something of which I don't know about (which is why we encourage leaving some molted exoskeleton in the aquarium). In that sense, perhaps the manufactured foods offer trace amounts of possible nutrients they could benefit from using?

Actually they are doing too well as I now once again have an exploding population. The change in feeding is the only one I made, so unless it was a fluke this is my best guess as to what may have caused my losses.

My comment is that stimulation from extra food/change in diet or water parameters (some of which is not always considered good) does tend to cause molting which in turn creates a situation for pregnancy. A simple law is if there is food readily available, procreation happens.

Getting back to the point, I've had 3 deaths since directly starting to feed them BUT my conclusion isn't that the supplemental food is bad, rather, it's the water parameters. And I guess I could say food can be a contributor to water quality going south. I've concluded from reading threads and my general experience that a glitch in water parameters tends to be the number one fault in shrimp deaths. I've no proof or anything, it's just my opinion.

I try to look for visible signs of stress on my shrimp rather than merely depending on test kits which sometimes don't show anything amiss, and sometimes, if I understand this correctly, water parameters can flunctuate during each 24 hours and you may not catch it. So if I see my shrimp racing around the tank or any deaths, whether tests show anything or not, I'll usually suspect something's wrong with the water first, including temperature and try to fix it if I can. Not always, but a small water change is usually what helps, which points back to water quality. Of course a small water change won't help if the water you're putting in is bad, or if the offending cause is still inside the tank.

Again, your theory may be correct; just that my personal experience has not yet supported that algae and bits of biofilm isn't enough for algae-eating shrimp.

-GB