Petshrimp.com Discussion Forum

Hi I have a 5 gallon 5 compartment tank for my different color neocaridina shrimp. There is about 1 gallon in each compartment and I have a small air stone charcoal filter that I switch every few hours to clean all spaces. I recently did a 20% water change a in each compartment and I noticed all of my shrimp started to die so I quickly gathered the remaining live shrimp and transferred them to bigger and more stable tank. The water I used was regular tap water that I let sit for 4 days to get rid of the chlorine in the tap water, and I did not use any de-chlorinator because I was told it could potentially be harmful to the shrimp. I was wondering if it would be ok to use purified drinking water by sparkletts which I have a lot of, or if it would be better to use a brand like arrowhead water or distilled water to avoid any future water problems that would kill my shrimp.

Unfortunately, people like to give advice, even if they don't know what they are talking about. Letting water sit for a few days does not get rid of chloramines, which is what municipal water supplies have nowadays (at least in the US). That only works with chlorine. Get yourself something like Amquel+ or Prime and neutralize the chloramines in your water. The chloramines killed your shrimp...but the probably would have died anyway as your tank probably wasn't cycled. "Purified" water usually means reverse osmosis water, which has almost no minerals in it. So...not a good idea. If you must go with bottled water, you may want to try bottled spring water.

Thank you for your response, I have decided to use Sparklets natural spring water and all the shrimp seem to be fine now. I am keeping different color Neocaridina shrimp in each compartment but I did notice I have to feed them more often than my other big tanks, I'm not sure if its due to the water or size of the tank. But thanks for your recommendation Mustafa

You're welcome. Just be careful with the feeding as it can get out of hand quite easily and quickly. Since your tank is new, there probably isn't much to eat there yet...i.e. "natural" microorganisms (on which shrimp feed) have not established themselves. But once nutrients accumulate in your tank *and* these organisms start reproducing more, then you may have a snowballing algae/aufwuchs problem...which affects shrimp negatively (i.e. they may start dying). So...err on the side of caution.