Petshrimp.com Discussion Forum

My established tank had five cherry shrimp, four amano's, one crystal red and a couple of other shrimps which are a clearish brown colour although I am not sure what they are.

They were all fine for a few months and then the cherry shrimp all died off one by one. I got another batch and the same thing happened over a couple of days, and another batch and the same thing!

I stopped buying them and carried on maintaining the tank with the others in it and tried again a few weeks later but they died too. I aclimate all the new shrimp by adding tank water to their exisiting water and then netting them into the tank.

I do regular water changes, have the same water test results as when they were all happy, but can't seem to keep the cherry shrimp. Some of them die at the tops of the plant, I watched one happily wandering around and then just keeled over and died.

I use a dechlorinater which also removes metals and have a carbon filter in the nano filter. The temperature seems fine, I also have a fluval moss ball to help with phosphates.

I really don't know what could be wrong, the other shrimp are fine including the crystal red. I introduced an orange colour shrimp which came randomly with the cherry shrimps and he is fine and happy.

Any suggestions?

Hmmm...red cherry shrimp are usually hardier than crystal reds. It looks like your tank may not be the problem at all. There is nothing specific about red cherry shrimp that would make them more sensitive to a specific tank parameter than other shrimp. Have you measured your Ph? Is it really low? CRS and Amano shrimp can live at really low Ph, but RCS can't go quite that low. What did the shrimp look like before they died? Did they kind of bleach out? Finally, do the shrimp you keep buying arrive healthy? It may be that your original shrimp died because of some issue in your tank (possible, although your other species survived) and you may be getting already weakened shrimp that keep dying off. That can be the case no matter if you get your shrimp from a store or online.

Photos and some more information may help in the diagnosis, although I assume you did not take pictures of the shrimp right before they died. Are your shrimp running around the tank and picking or do you just see them run around once in a while and they are hiding or sitting still the rest of the time?

I have a photo I can upload later of one of them a few hours before it died and a photo of the tank.

When they die and I remove them they are still quite red, some have been dying whilst sat in the plants. Of the last three I introduced, they were really active when I introduced them and two remained active. One hid under the moss ball but would come out from time to time.

The PH is 7.5, the KH and GH in the tank are high but the other shrimp are fine with it, as were the old batch of RCS.

As you say, the other shrimp are ok so it is odd that it is only the cherry shrimp that keep dying.

Here's a photo of my two before they died. I have a fluval nano shrimp habitat with the fluval shrimp stratum. I put a carbon insert into the filter to replace part of the sponge to make it more efficient.

I have 10 shrimp in total in the tank at the moment and the light comes on for an hour in the morning and then around four hours at night.

I have two Norman's lampeyes in the tank, I have noticed them pester the shrimp when it's feeding time, they try to steal the food. Maybe they are stressing the cherry shrimp?

i love to know what causes the shrimp dying......



___________________________
20 year term
life insurance company of georgia
life insurance ages 85

I can't really tell anything unusual in the picture. I would go ahead and do a 50% water change using a chloramine remover such as Seachem Prime. Perform 20-25% water changes every 4-5 days after that for a while. Then switch to every 7 days and stick with it. Water changes usually resolve whatever issues you may have...unless the issue is your source water, of course, but that is highly unlikely. Also, I would recommend leaving the light on for 10-12 hours continuously. The light is not just there for you to be able to see the shrimp. The algae in the tank, which help maintain acceptable conditions for the shrimp and serve as food, absolutely need the light. My experience has been that lightless tanks or tanks that receive very little light never do well.