Tale of a dying shrimp

[KenCotigirl]

In my previous post I expressed my frustration with shrimp deaths. While I wish to get Halocaridina rubra it maybe foolish if I cannot keep CRS alive. Here is a observation of a dying shrimp I made today. I have seen this behaviour before.

The last three pair of legs appear to be paralized. They are not limp but rigid. They look like they are clasping something. The front legs seem to be fully functional and at times the shrimp looks like it is feeding. The shrimp attempts to swim but has difficulties. It swims sideways, verticle or upside down. Occasionally the shrimp spasms and darts rapidly in all directions. In other shrimp that I observed doing this they were still alive the next day. However they were often found lying on their sides or back. 24 hours after that they were dead and being cleaned up by the other shrimp. The shrimp I am looking at today is a juvenile. I do not notice any color differences between the sick and a normal shrimp. The body is transparent.

Other casual observations are that the limpet numbers are on the decline. The seed shrimp are increasing. The little pond snail numbers are stable. Very little to no algae growth on the glass. Algae growth apparent on the sponge filter, rocks and on parts of the substrate. Water chemisty is stable. 73' F, soft water, tds 93ppm, ammonia, nitrite and nitrates not measurable, ph 7.4, 5% water change every other day. I do not feed the shrimp.

[Mustafa]

How long was the tank in operation before you put in the shrimp?

[KenCotigirl]

I started the tank in April. I used water from my koi pond. Added some baby trap door snails. Kept 4 Chinese high fin sharks in tank for about 2 weeks befor they were placed in the koi pond. I added shrimp in late May.

[Mustafa]

Since the shrimp have been in the tank for that long, obviously it's not an initial cycle issue (although it could have lost the cycle). Even if you aren't feeding at all anymore, if you had been feedin excessively, then it takes some time for the tank to recover. Unfortunately, shrimp die in the meantime. Also, if you have *anything* in the tank that could be rotting (drift wood, leaves, dying/decaying plant parts)...take it out immediately. Finally, stop the water changes...if you have been doing excessive water changes lately and your source water happens to have *any* level of phosphates, ammonia, nitrates etc...the water changes will do more harm than good.

[KenCotigirl]

I removed all my Java ferns in the tank, 6 in total. Many had a dead or dying leaf on them. I was suprised how much they had grown. The tank looks very open. I left a nice bunch of moss in the tank, about the size of a fist. I will not do a water change for a week. I also removed the larger plant debris on the tank floor. Some bit and pieces I could not easily remove. I will monitor water chem. daily. I hope this resolves the shrimp deaths.

Ken P