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Tank health declining?


Lyana

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So I've been having issues in my prl tank for a few months now, shrimp not breeding, small ones barely growing and random deaths.

I've never vacuumed the substrate because I thought that wasn't needed. I don't do a lot of water changes either. TDS and nitrates are starting low, 140 and close to zero.

But I can't figure out why the shrimp don't seem to be thriving anymore, they did good for a few months. The tank is ten months old with controsoil. At first I thought the ph was raising but now everytime I check it it's at 6.3 with pen and API test. I had readings for 7 with both a week ago so that's confusing.

I have a canister filter that I haven't cleaned for a few months but I was trying to keep everything stable like I thought I was supposed to.

I did a restart of the tank next to it were I cleaned the soil and added it back in and the tbs are doing good in that tank.

Anyone with some wise advice that has older tanks, what am I doing wrong?

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Sometimes I notice a tank that was thriving for a long time, after about 8 months to a year, the tank starts to decline. I'm not sure if others have experienced this. I talked to someone at my local aquarium club who noticed the same thing in their neocaridina tanks.

 

This is definately interesting as my parameters were reading as they always did and as good parameters yet the shrimp were not thriving as they once were. 

 

So I did cycle a new tank and then tediously remove all the shrimp from the old tank and acclimate to a new tank AKA restart! and within a month they were crazily reproducing and buzzing happily around.

 

I think disturbing the soil/substrate is not a good idea while the shrimp are in that tank. I think a complete restart might be in order....

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Sometimes I notice a tank that was thriving for a long time, after about 8 months to a year, the tank starts to decline. I'm not sure if others have experienced this. I talked to someone at my local aquarium club who noticed the same thing in their neocaridina tanks.

 

This is definately interesting as my parameters were reading as they always did and as good parameters yet the shrimp were not thriving as they once were. 

 

So I did cycle a new tank and then tediously remove all the shrimp from the old tank and acclimate to a new tank AKA restart! and within a month they were crazily reproducing and buzzing happily around.

 

I think disturbing the soil/substrate is not a good idea while the shrimp are in that tank. I think a complete restart might be in order....

This is what seems to be happening to me, interesting. Thanks for the advice guys, I will be doing a restart if nothing else works.

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unfortunately I had the same thing happen to me with disastrous results....all but 6 of my 20+ something Pinto Mischlings/Fancy Red titaibees were lost due to the soil leeching something nasty.  Unseen but deadly.  I too didn't vaccum the soil or disturb anything too much in the tank, and all was going fine, breeding was starting and babies born.....but disappeared after a few days, then slowly one or two died, then a few more, until most of them were gone.

I never saw the bodies so didn't know what was wrong until it was too late and then I didn't have another tank to transfer them into.  I ended up setting up a Fluval Ebi bare bottom with just plants and cholla wood and 3 sponge filters and transferred the remaining shrimps into that.  Todate they are still alive and surviving.

 

I had Fluval Shrimp soil in the original tank and this all happened around 10 months.  Shrimp Daddy was the one that told me what was happening in my tank, thank you...sorry I didn't get the info soon enough.

 

Try to save your remaining shrimps before its too late!  Move them and restart.

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Found another dead today after a water change, I think I will do a restart and hopefully save the rest of them, I still have quite a few so if I can get them to stop dying they should be able to start rebuilding a colony soon.

@monty703 did shrimpy daddy tell you it was something in the substrate?

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I'm reading the stratum only lasts for up to a year and has to be renewed. I only use Black sand in my tanks to avoid this problem. Temps will affect breeding/ fry survival as well. I too had this happen in a wild neo tank which was a 5.5 gallon.

It was running strong for about 9 months, shrimp everywhere! then it started to decline in about 3 weeks time. I didn't clean much or do major water changes and just decided to tear it down and feed the rest to the Cichlids!

These super shrimp soils the market puts out has all kinds of goodies added in but in the end it disapates and all's you have left is only clay balls! An "Inert" clay soil left. You could vacuum it all out, rinse it lightly With dechloralized water add it back in mixing with new stuff &/or sand substrate and re-seed it with benifical bacters.

I don't need to worry about the de-chlorilinizers as I'm on Well water...

I also use Turface as a substrate rinse it well (dusty at first), seed it with a few inches of warm water, let it stand for and hour then slowly add the rest of the water in. It renews a tank in an instant. Done this many times in my fish tanks at about once a year or so. Good luck and keep posting what decided on and the results.

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I also have seen a decline with deaths , my thoughts are with very little water changes especially with longer running tanks surely we would give bad bacteria an opportunity to multiply and gain a foothold , compared to fish keeping whereby we use gravel cleaners , most shrimp keepers don't vacuum substrate and rely on good bacteria so although all water parameters remain good will water quality deteriate , The subject of water changes when you read post and question is so diverse including the Europeans who contribute on breeder keeper mags, what is best how often, what percentage , do you drip,slowly or not , but I also seem to lose shrimp following water changes.

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Though I hate to read that others are having problems I'm glad I'm not,the only one, I was feeling so discourage I was thinking about giving up on shrimp :( but I really like them and just want a nice colony.

@clansman I think mine too is due to not much water changes, too much plant growth and not dosing traces.

@soothing Shrimp and a lot of work wow!

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Don't give up! Lyana, You have what it takes especially after reading your site and others should as well... I have failed many times and did give up for about a year with any shrimp (I couldn't even keep a Ghost shrimp alive!) but was renewed by an "impluse buy" {with my Hawaiin red rili's}. These are hardy and very nice and live in a 2.7 gallon Fluval spec III It's been going strong since June of 2014. I had a pre-set 25 watt heater fail just last month and realized nobody was eating, put my finger in their water and wow it was very cold! They were slow as bugs in winter! Its replaced with a much better 25 watt Hydor now set at 74o. NO deaths either. I'm suprized too as the bio-load may have crashed abit {out-of-balance}. I also deal with alot of power outages here and my room where this nano is get cold in there....

It made me step up to the plate!

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Thanks! I also had a four day power outage here that kill off a few shrimp, but most of them did survive. I had some super hardy blue dream rilis like you're talking about but I added in some others from a bad source (not here) and they got an infection and haven't been the same since lol. They were breeding so much it was crazy, now they aren't really growing or breeding.

Glad you got back into shrimp too :)

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Yah,, you are the one that made me aware of adding in new shrimp to an existing setup. I know not to with fish, but never thought about it for shrimp!!!

I need to ask a key question here though reguarding you drop-off of numbers in your shrimp... What species are they, and do you keep any fish in with these?

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I also have seen a decline with deaths , my thoughts are with very little water changes especially with longer running tanks surely we would give bad bacteria an opportunity to multiply and gain a foothold , compared to fish keeping whereby we use gravel cleaners , most shrimp keepers don't vacuum substrate and rely on good bacteria so although all water parameters remain good will water quality deteriate , The subject of water changes when you read post and question is so diverse including the Europeans who contribute on breeder keeper mags, what is best how often, what percentage , do you drip,slowly or not , but I also seem to lose shrimp following water changes.

Have you tried dripping slower to see if that prevents death after water changes?

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pfffff

first step is always to test your water parameters and show it to us, so we can help you further

second step, did you do anything unussial then you normally do with your tank.....

third step, did you noticed something wrong....

so on .......

 

im sorry to say this but you havent give really valid information to say it is defenitly caused from this........

 

do you stab the soil to let air out and if you do this do you see air comming out of the soil and does it smell nasty?

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Nuri,

You have a valid point here! I was informed by an Oriental fish shop keeper to do this very thing,,, I laughed it off but it does have merit If it smells check your water parameters. I now check mine before and 2 days after doing anything with water changes, plant additives....

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Another one died :( Okay here are the results for the tests I have

Gh 6

Kh 0

Ph 6.6

TDS 134

Ammonia 0

Nitrate 5

Temp 71

I poked the substrate and no bubbles just a bunch of gunk. Tank doesn't have any bad smell st sll, but substrate doesnt smell that good if messed with a bunch, you can kind of smell it in the air around the tank if that makes sense.

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NO3 is not important cause it has to be very high dose to harm shrimps and fish 

i want to know your NO2 parameter cause this is a big NO GO ZONE it will kill your shrimp slowly with a painfull dead!

 

next question: (i wont stop asking questions! hihi !)

 

did you poked the substrate only at 1 spot? poke the substrate at every corner, every place you can poke it. especially underneath decoration.... 

 

next step is while you are poking the whole substrate remove the whole upper layer of the substrate and check if you see (black) moldy spots! 

 

it will look like this 

 

http://postimg.org/image/uxsy0ampj/

 

this is caused trough food that drops between the substrate and starts to rot .......

 

last question, do you have a youtube channel named christine ha? sorry had to ask :P

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Nitrite also tested zero. Poked around more and nothing, no bubbles or black mold. I also forgot to mention, they weren't doing very well before but since we had a four day power outage they've been dying off more. This happened a month ago.

Haha, no that's not me but I've watched her stuff :)

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Poppians I have now started dripping in new water matched tds and temperature if I change 6 litres it takes about 70 minutes , I am monitoring different changes,

I have been adding beemax to support good bacteria , midweek I add a little purify, an extra Indian almond leaf now 2 per tank , a few alder cones and a little fulvic water , deaths have stopped and lots of thriving Taiwan bee babies from days old up, doing 10 to 12% water every 5 days to try and improve water condition, would you drip longer

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Nitrite also tested zero. Poked around more and nothing, no bubbles or black mold. I also forgot to mention, they weren't doing very well before but since we had a four day power outage they've been dying off more. This happened a month ago.

Haha, no that's not me but I've watched her stuff :)

Well I imagine that affected the cycle, but I guess if test now show 0...?

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