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Causes of molting problems


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Hey,

Can anyone tell me what can cause molting problems? I have been feeding stuff that is supposed to help and I have mineral stones and some crushed coral in tank. Never seemed to have a problem before, but I've lost several shrimp over the last week and it looks like molting issues.

Not home, so don't have my water parameters handy. Well established tank with several berried mamas and several others with saddles. Have cherry and red Rili shrimp.

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Most times when your shrimp are having difficulties molting it all boils down to water parameters. GH/KH/TDS are very important. Diet and supplements come next. May I ask why you have crushed coral, wouldn't that raise your PH ?

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I don't have much crushed coral, maybe 1/8 of a cup. When I first got started I just had ghost shrimp and a couple of Apple snails. I did minor research and saw they both needed calcium. pH is usually around 7.4 to 7.6 which from what I understand is okay for cherries/rilis.

I'll check the parameters when I get home.

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  • 1 month later...

I'm having the same molting issue. I've got 3 casualties at a rate of about one every 10-15 days. My parameters are as follows:

Ph= 6.8

Ammo= 0

NO2= 0

NO3= 0

Kh= 2

Gh= 6

TDS= 183

Temperature= 70 fahrenheit

Food= Shrimp King (Mineral, Protein, Color, Complete, Pea & Leaf Loops) & Mosura Graze Active

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I'm having the same molting issue. I've got 3 casualties at a rate of about one every 10-15 days. My parameters are as follows:

Ph= 6.8

Ammo= 0

NO2= 0

NO3= 0

Kh= 2

Gh= 6

TDS= 183

Temperature= 70 fahrenheit

Food= Shrimp King (Mineral, Protein, Color, Complete, Pea & Leaf Loops) & Mosura Graze Active

 

What kind of shrimp are you keeping? Tigers?

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Hi Rye!

Yup, Royal Blues, OEBT's and their culls. I forgot to report another thing. They all showed the "white band of death" between the carapace and tail, struggling to get out and then dropping on their side exhausted before dying. Another curious thing is that it happens one or two days after I dosed Seachem Flourish Excel.

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Also TDS is 290 with a meter.

The temp was 77, but I unplugged the heater last night. So it is sitting at around 72° for a few hours now.

 

A TDS of 290 with GH6 and KH2 doesn't seem to add up to me. Either there is a lot more stuff in your water or the test wasn't done right. Are you using RO? Did you measure the RO or tap before remineralizing?

 

 

 

Hi Rye!

Yup, Royal Blues, OEBT's and their culls. I forgot to report another thing. They all showed the "white band of death" between the carapace and tail, struggling to get out and then dropping on their side exhausted before dying. Another curious thing is that it happens one or two days after I dosed Seachem Flourish Excel.

 

I have a theory that the "white band of death" is caused by too much high protein food. The shrimp grows too fast before the carapace is ready to open. What is your feeding regime and how many shrimp do you have in the tank?

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Hi Chiumanfu:

I just have a 15 gallon tank with about 30 shrimps. They have Mosura Grace Active all the time (because of the fungi that grows on it) and I feed them Shrimp King twice a week, just about a pinch each time and remove it 3 hours later. I have tons of biofilm and I provide Bacter AE twice a week a little less than half the recommended dose.

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"White band of death"? Please explain

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"White band of death"? Please explain

A section of clear shell forms between the carapace and abdomen looking like a white band. It is debatable whether the white band actually indicates an issue but some people believe it indicates a pending molt problem. I have had shrimp develop the white band and molt fine so I can't say for sure.

You can see a minor white band forming here. This shrimp molted fine.

20150512-2285-WEB.jpg

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peeps, mentioned kh in respect to shrimp keeping... what should the ideal kh be to keep neos... i monitor my GH but hardly my kh.... i know kh has value in terms of ph control.... so say if my tank kh reading is low say 2 or 3 but my tank ph is 8.... how do i lower the ph if i need to increase my kh?

 

reason i ask about kh, is i would want to know if there is any significance of kh in respect to molting problems.... i know GH for a fact... and learned the hard way about adding remineralizers to the tank... only to mess up my water paraters with too much salts in the water...

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In regards to the white band of death here is a pic of a shrimp that died this week. My 1st loss ever. Seemed like a molting issue to my untrained eye and has the white band. I think my gh is a bit low in this particular tank as it is 4. Im going to try to raise it a bit.

20150527_221200.jpg

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Hello.

 

In my experience the white band of death occurs when water perimeters change to fast.e.g doing a water changes to quick.

 

I do my water changes over the course of hours and never see this problem anymore.

 

Infact i am doing a 70 liter water change right now in a 140 liter tank thats been dripped back into the tank over the course of 4hrs.

 

The reason for such a large water change is to remove any bad elements in the water and also to induce the shrimp into breeding.

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This is one of my deceased shrimps. I found it struggling to get the shell off but died trying. At least on my own experience, when I see one of my shrimps showing a band this thick it means life or death.

The color on this shrimp looks purple. Is it really that color? What do you call it?
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