Petshrimp.com Discussion Forum

Hi, usually I just stalk the boards but I'm getting a little tired of this problem not going away and maybe someone here can help.

My 5 gallon red cherry shrimp-only tank has been running for about 6 months. I started with a mixture of adults and juvies shipped to me. Black gravel, java moss, anubias, marimo moss ball, another floating plant I have tied down (which I cannot remember the name of) but is moss like, and a couple sprigs of water wisteria floating around on top. Over the past 6 months I have lost shrimp regularly, one maybe 2 a week. Sometimes it would be fine for a couple weeks but then one or two more die the next week. No notable change in water params or behavior. I test regularly. Normally no trace of copper, ammonia, nitrite, nitrate usually under 5 sometimes gets up to 6 - 7. The temperature is around 79. I do at least weekly water changes of 20% using prime and temperature matched water. Thinking this might be stressing them I have started doing so more often/smaller amounts, and this has not seemed to help.

At first it was just the largest shrimp. I thought maybe they were extra stressed by shipping or were just old shrimp. Things couldn't have been too bad in there though, as I did get a couple of 'batches' of babies. By now the adults that I had originally are gone, I lost two more over the last couple weeks, they were probably about six months old, very young when I received them or maybe born in the tank and just starting to color up really well.

Last week I noticed that a shrimp was struggling to get out of its exoskeleton, I think it managed to eventually but it looked horrible and didn't last much longer. Could my GH (4) and KH (2) be the problem. I added cuttlebone a couple of weeks ago because I read it would help but I just pulled another one out tonight.

All the shrimp eat well when i put food in the tank small amounts daily or every other day, sometimes just algae I have growing on some rocks (There are probably 15-20 left in there none full grown, still more than i started with, interestingly enough) They seem active and normal until they keel over. Any idea what could be going on. I thought when the last of the adults died it might just be the end of a natural turnover, but that doesn't seem to be the case...

Hola, and welcome!

As an immediate measure I would add a double dose of prime for the gallons you have in your tank..i.e. 10 gallons worth of prime dosage. That should neutralize any remaining ammonia and chloramine that you may have in your tank. Gh is not really important, your Kh sounds just fine. Measure Ph and make sure it's close to 7, but for sure under 7.5-7.6. Next, purchase a chlorine/chloramine testing kit sold for swimming pools. Measure how much chloramine your water has. Then test dose prime for given amount of water in a bucket...some amount similar to the change water you would be using. Measure for chloramines again. You should be measuring no chloramines. If you measure any chloramines at all, you will have to double dose Prime in the future. And that remaining amount of chloramines, in connection with the ammonia that is always in tap water treated with chloramines, may be the problem with your tank. A slow but steady killer at low doses.

Unfortunately, once shrimp have been "damaged" by adverse conditions, their fates are sealed. So, even if you correct everything, many more shrimp may die. You will just have to wait and see once you have done what I told you above. Most tanks tend to fix themselves once you wait long enough without messing with the tank.

I dont have a chlorimines test kit right now, but I have been dosing a little under 1.5 x just to be safe, even though prime says it neutralizes the maximum amount of chloramines allowed in the water, theoretically. If chloromines were the issue wouldnt my tests measure positive for ammonia after a water change? Any potential problems with just dosing 2x to rule that out?

Just in case thats not the issue ...

Will overfeeding kill shrimp on its own or is it just the decrease in water quality that does them in. I ask because sometimes I put in rocks covered in algae, thats a lot of food for small shrimp, but I cant imagine it would mess up the water as it is still living algae.

Also, given that it is such a small tank with quite a bit of moss and plants, could oxygenation be a problem at night?

Perhaps it is more likely that its just the fall out from early on ammonia or nitrite problems. Ive been pretty good at testing, but at the begining i didn't have a great idea of how much they ate or how i often i should be testing, so its possible i had more of a problem than i realized back then. Could they still be dying due to damage from that long ago?

libertybelle wrote:...prime says it neutralizes the maximum amount of chloramines allowed in the water, theoretically.

What it says and what's reality are often two different things. The city here suddenly increased chloramine levels without telling anyone last year. I started noticing deaths and diseases among my fish and shrimp. They would not grow, not reproduce, the fish started getting gill deformations, bloat...all signs of ammonia/chloramine poisoning. The the while I was dosing prime at normal dose. I could not wrap my head around why ALL of my lifestock were showing similar symptoms. Then I measured the chloramine levels in my tap water AFTER dosing prime...and it showed 1-2 ppm still. Lesson learned...I'm always dosing twice the amount recommended now.

If chloromines were the issue wouldnt my tests measure positive for ammonia after a water change? Any potential problems with just dosing 2x to rule that out?

Depends on how good your test kit is. You will always measure ammonia with a test kit that measures total ammonia. It's just that Prime has converted the ammonia into its non-toxic form. With a test kit that measures only free ammonia (i.e. not bound to some other compound), then you probably won't measure anything. Just get the chloramine test kit...it's pretty cheap and will last you years. And no, there is absolutely no issue with dosing twice the amount of Prime.

Will overfeeding kill shrimp on its own or is it just the decrease in water quality that does them in. I ask because sometimes I put in rocks covered in algae, thats a lot of food for small shrimp, but I cant imagine it would mess up the water as it is still living algae.

It's the decrease in water quality (bacteria bloom --> decreased oxygen, excessive ammonia formation, excessive nitrates etc.) that affects shrimp. They can eat all day long and as much as they can possibly fit into themselves as long as their water is ok. Putting an algae covered rock in there is generally ok, but keep in mind that the algae should be eaten up within a day or so. Otherwise your algae will probably die and start polluting the water. Just because the algae are alive and well where you "farmed" them does not mean they will do well in the water where your shrimp are swimming and walking around. Different parameters.

Also, given that it is such a small tank with quite a bit of moss and plants, could oxygenation be a problem at night?

Possibly. I keep my plants and moss in my tanks at a minimum.

Perhaps it is more likely that its just the fall out from early on ammonia or nitrite problems. Ive been pretty good at testing, but at the begining i didn't have a great idea of how much they ate or how i often i should be testing, so its possible i had more of a problem than i realized back then. Could they still be dying due to damage from that long ago?

I doubt it. The shrimp affected by that should have already died off by now. You must have some other issues going on. As I said...the best thing is just leaving the tank alone and not messing around too much with it until the tank fixes itself.

Ive started using 2x prime until i find a chloramine test kit.

The algae covered decorations are always cleared in less than a day. And some of the plants have been removed, the floating ones were just making a mess anyway!

Lost another one today, are you sure the gh/kh is ok. I ask because i have seen shrimp having trouble molting and some of the ones i pull out do kind of look like they have cracks in their shells.

There is really a lot of crap information out there about water parameters. Yes, I know some people think Gh is important...but it's, for the most part, irrelevant. I have Crystal red and tiger shrimp breeding in both zero Gh RO water and 12+ Gh (treated) San Diego tap water with conductivity over 800 (400+ TDS). They really don't care. Kh is in so far important that it partly determines what your Ph is. And Ph is only really important because it determines how toxic the ammonia in your tank is to your shrimp. So, measure your Ph and see if it is somewhere in the 6.8 to 7.4 range. If not, start doing daily (or every two days) water changes of maybe 30-40 percent with RO or destilled water. Do that until your Ph is in the right range. Put something like a little bit of crushed coral or a small piece of cuttlebone in your tank so the Ph does not go into the acidic range in the long run. After that just leave the tank alone. What you are describing sounds like Ammonia and/or chloramine issues (even if you can't measure any ammonia..not much is needed to harm shrimp)...nothing to do with Gh or any other things people speculate about.