Petshrimp.com Discussion Forum

Sadly, the population of my Amano Shrimps in my 26 Gallon planted tank is slowly diminishing. My nitrate and ammonia are 0, pH is 6.8, temp is 80F. I cant seem to figure out why that is happening. I read somewhere that the shrimps in general need iodine to survive the molting process. So i decided to add 2 drops of Kent Marine iodine into my tank after doing a water change. A couple of days later, i see two shrimps dead. Is there something Im doing wrong? Should i not have added the iodine? Any advice will help.

Thanks

It is not proven that shrimp actually need iodine at all. What they do need are trace elements like calcium in the water to rebuild their exoskeletons. New York City water has pretty much no Calcium (no hardness measurable whatsoever), so I am putting crushed coral in my tanks to make up for it. My shrimp are healthy and happy with that. Certainly the crushed coral raises the PH from 7.0 to 7.6, but that is ok with me since I do not have many plants and those I do have are not very PH sensitive. So..I guess Iodine cannot hurt if your water has no trace elements, but if you water is reasonably hard, lets say 4-8 GH or KH, then you should not need any Iodine.

As to your Amanos dying, there are several possibilities why. For one, they might just be living out their natural lives. Or, they are slowly being poisoned. Shrimp are very sensitive to copper, so if you are using plant fertilizer in your tanks which contain copper, it might be killing your shrimp. That's all I can say from my vantage point.

Mustafa

THe fertillizer that i use contains a very small amount of copper.. like .000005%. Im not sure if thats enough to affect the shrimp. Maybe its my tap water? I dont know whether it contains copper or not.

Where do you usually get your shrimps? Do you order them online or from your LFS? Any reputable online dealer that you could recommend?

Thanks.

Even tiny little amounts of copper can kill shrimp over time. Maybe you should use something that has no copper.

LFS don't usually have any shrimp except for Amanos and Wood/Bamboo Shrimp once in a while. I got my shrimp from Frank Grecco at http://www.franksaquarium.com . His shrimp are very high quality and he is very reputable. I've met him personally and he is a very nice guy to boot.

I am also going to get shrimp from Germany soon, hopefully the Crystal Red, the Green Shrimp and a very good algae eater (but not much color) shrimp from Sri Lanka among others.

Take care,
Mustafa

Just an update.. I havent purchased any shrimps since my last post. As far as I can tell, i dont think i have any shrimps left in my tank. Also, since then my rainbow fishes have gradually died off..one by one..i cant seem to find out what was wrong in my tank. All the main water parameters were normal. Just a few days ago, as I was cleaning my tank, I noticed that the stuff I was using to hold my riccia was rusted! I understand that it added unnecessary amounts of iron into the water column. Does it also add copper? and could that have lead to the demise of my shrimps and my fishes? Thanks again in advance.

Ouch! Sorry to hear about your shrimps and rainbows. My guess is that the rust might have been your problem. From my understanding, Rusted metals in the tank are bad for fish and I can only image that shrimps would be worse off with it in the tank. Most people I know that have ricca use stainless steal weights or plastic mesh netting. I don’t believe that the rust added copper unless the "stuff" you were using was made of copper or contained copper.

Pete

Many metals can be toxic to fish and I would not add any to your tank. If you want to hold down riccia - use cotton thread. Also if you use water from your hot water tap -- the pipes can have copper in them. At least that's what I've heard. Not quite sure why hot would have copper and cold would not.

I use the same fertilizer that I think Bingo is using....Seachem Flourish, it has 0.00005% copper. I have never had any problems with any of my shrimp dying in that tank. I'll post my comments in the other thread.