Shrimp dying

[GoneCrazy]

I have a fluval flex 15 gallon with cardina shrimp. It’s heavily planted and has sl aquasoil for substrate. I set it up end of January beginning of February and let it cycle for over a month. I was using a cheap rodi unit I got off amazon but my new spectra pure unit should be arriving today. I started off with 32 shrimp and I am down to 5 or 6 as I just lost another 2 today. They will be eating then all of a sudden go kind of comatose and die. No change in color or odd behavior. I added extra oxygen and it didn’t help. The temp runs between 73/75 the light I believe heats it up. Ammonia, Nitrite, Nitrate is all 0. Ph is 6.5. Gh 5/6 Kh 0. TDS I thought was 120, but I bought calibration solution and getting crazy readings all over the place so I need a new TDS meter.  One of the shrimp that died today had its head start turning red after it died so not sure if that could point to something. I remeneralize with blue wizard. 

 

Anyone with an idea let me know TIA 

[ILikeAsianBooty]

Beautiful tank. Where did you get the shrimps from and how old were they? The # look find except that you dont know what yur tds is. With 5gh should be lower than 180. Any additives when you cycled the tank? Dosing and adding co2, if so you need o2/aeration?

[GoneCrazy]

7 hours ago, ILikeAsianBooty said:

Beautiful tank. Where did you get the shrimps from and how old were they? The # look find except that you dont know what yur tds is. With 5gh should be lower than 180. Any additives when you cycled the tank? Dosing and adding co2, if so you need o2/aeration?

Thank you 😊. I got them from a good breeder he has been trying to help but is out of ideas. The TDS meter says it’s 120tds but when I put it in the calibration solution it read highthen low then right then high. So no idea. No additives cycling other than a raw shrimp and fish food. I just bought sl aqua purify, aquavital, and tm-1 to try. I also use bing tsau plant fertilizer. I don’t use them on a regular basis as I don’t remember ever. But water changes are regular. I don’t run Co2 either. 

[madcrafted]

Are you remineralizing your water to the same GH as the tank before changing water? Does temperature match? These are far more important than trying to match TDS. I was hung up on TDS when I first starting keeping TBs to the point where I killed most of my stock. A single one degree drop in GH between the water that I was adding and what was in my tank caused an overnight die off, followed by deaths for the next 2-3 days. Mineral content is everything with these shrimps. I rarely change water these days (once a month maybe) and when I do, it's usually roughly 10-15% that is slow dripped at the rate of a drop every 2-3 seconds. I also feed very sparingly these days. Maybe I'm being extra cautious. Bad experiences tend to do that.

[Revaria]

I agree with Madcrafted, it could be that the water you are changing the shrimp tank with may be different than the water within the tank. If the pH in the tank is 6.5 and the water from the change is 7 or higher it could cause a pH swing which can harm them as well. Most of us don't change water too frequently and when we do, we do it slowly using a drip system to prevent large swings in tank parameters. Since your tank is planted you really don't need to change water too frequently, maybe 20% once a month if you feed infrequently perhaps not even once a month if the population is small. Feeding everyday for me led to high nitrates which usually eventually lead to me killing off a decent amount of my shrimp. What I noticed is that as long as shrimp are picking around they are getting enough food, and if a bunch of them start swimming around it may be that they are looking for a source of food so you can feed them then. 

[GoneCrazy]

14 minutes ago, madcrafted said:

Are you remineralizing your water to the same GH as the tank before changing water? Does temperature match? These are far more important than trying to match TDS. I was hung up on TDS when I first starting keeping TBs to the point where I killed most of my stock. A single one degree drop in GH between the water that I was adding and what was in my tank caused an overnight die off, followed by deaths for the next 2-3 days. Mineral content is everything with these shrimps. I rarely change water these days (once a month maybe) and when I do, it's usually roughly 10-15% that is slow dripped at the rate of a drop every 2-3 seconds. I also feed very sparingly these days. Maybe I'm being extra cautious. Bad experiences tend to do that.

I match TDS well try cause I assumed it would give me the proper GH. I let the water change water sit till it’s the same temp as the room it’s in and it matches the tank. I’m going to have to change stuff I do I guess. 

[GoneCrazy]

18 minutes ago, Revaria said:

I agree with Madcrafted, it could be that the water you are changing the shrimp tank with may be different than the water within the tank. If the pH in the tank is 6.5 and the water from the change is 7 or higher it could cause a pH swing which can harm them as well. Most of us don't change water too frequently and when we do, we do it slowly using a drip system to prevent large swings in tank parameters. Since your tank is planted you really don't need to change water too frequently, maybe 20% once a month if you feed infrequently perhaps not even once a month if the population is small. Feeding everyday for me led to high nitrates which usually eventually lead to me killing off a decent amount of my shrimp. What I noticed is that as long as shrimp are picking around they are getting enough food, and if a bunch of them start swimming around it may be that they are looking for a source of food so you can feed them then. 

I use RODI then remineralize it, but will start testing gh from the tank and the fresh water to see if that might be the problem. The crazy part is the shrimp haven’t been really active at all. They don’t move around and graze. The ones left seem a bit more active now that I added the airpump. Last time I put a little bit of food in the tank it was ignored and I had to remove it. I don’t feed everyday maybe once a week. I was showing 5 nitrates for a few weeks then they dropped to 0 when the plants took over.  

[madcrafted]

Sounds like you are doing things right. You can use TDS too, that's fine. Many shrimp keepers get by with doing this because they know exactly what makes up that TDS when starting from RO/DI water. I just wouldn't get too caught up in the actual numbers in the tank. Other things will contribute to that like fertilizers,wood, certain rocks, uneaten food, plant decay, waste, etc. I found that no matter what I did, I couldn't get my first tank below 170 TDS. I remember reading  that 100-130 TDS was recommended for keeping/breeding these shrimps, so I tried to alter my parameters by diluting my remineralized water with r/o water on water change day. I did a 40% WC and pretty much wiped my colony out. I have since learned that TBs will thrive in higher TDS, as long mineral content is bewteen 4-5 dGH consistently with no carbonates/bicarbonates detected.

[GoneCrazy]

21 minutes ago, madcrafted said:

Sounds like you are doing things right. You can use TDS too, that's fine. Many shrimp keepers get by with doing this because they know exactly what makes up that TDS when starting from RO/DI water. I just wouldn't get too caught up in the actual numbers in the tank. Other things will contribute to that like fertilizers,wood, certain rocks, uneaten food, plant decay, waste, etc. I found that no matter what I did, I couldn't get my first tank below 170 TDS. I remember reading  that 100-130 TDS was recommended for keeping/breeding these shrimps, so I tried to alter my parameters by diluting my remineralized water with r/o water on water change day. I did a 40% WC and pretty much wiped my colony out. I have since learned that TBs will thrive in higher TDS, as long mineral content is bewteen 4-5 dGH consistently with no carbonates/bicarbonates detected.

I tried raising my TDS at one point slightly, but after I did a water change the TDS ended up lower than they started lol. GH has always been 5/6. I matched the sellers parameters exactly but haven’t had any berries or a good survival rate with the ones I pirchases so I tried tweaking ever so slightly the TDS. I failed lol

[GoneCrazy]

Well this isn’t much, but I got a for real shrimp molt!!! Usually the pieces I see are uneaten dead shrimp. Not sure if something is maybe straightening up or luck but I’m ecstatic 

[Revaria]

Thats good, and from what you have been telling us you seem to be going in the right direction. The only other thing I can think of is that your shrimp may have gotten a bacterial infection, or they had a hard time adjusting to your tank. 

[GoneCrazy]

13 minutes ago, Revaria said:

Thats good, and from what you have been telling us you seem to be going in the right direction. The only other thing I can think of is that your shrimp may have gotten a bacterial infection, or they had a hard time adjusting to your tank. 

I had another die over night, but something must be leveling out for one to molt. I hope

[Revaria]

Sorry to hear that, but it gets better the longer you are in the hobby. Everyone here has had their set of failures where we couldn't find the problem, including myself. 

[HumanArtRebel1020]

Has the bottom been cleaned recently ??  Substrate and plants collect so much waste in a month its unreal . Do you drip your water changes?  

[HumanArtRebel1020]

Depending on where you arenas well, you mightt need buffering substrate. Im in Ny and have pretty good water, then it ups the alkalinity after it sits 

[GoneCrazy]

6 hours ago, HumanArtRebel1020 said:

Has the bottom been cleaned recently ??  Substrate and plants collect so much waste in a month its unreal . Do you drip your water changes?  

I use SL Aquasoil so I don’t do a deep clean. Whatever is loose on top gets sucked up. I don’t drip the water in but I do add it slowly back in over about a 3 hour period. It’s a 15 gallon tank that holds maybe 11 gallons and I change 2ish gallons during my water changes. 

 

I’m holding off doing a water change till I get my new tds meter in cause my others are wacked and I can’t recalibrate them