another dead shrimp Help!

[TigerBarb1017]

I started out with 13 Taiwain Bee shrimp on sept 22. They were fine for the first two weeks.  No deaths.   But this past week or so it seems like I've been losing a shrimp almost every other day and I have no clue what's causing it.  I think I'm down to 7 or 8 shrimp now.   My parameters seem to be within acceptable ranges but my pH is really low from the Tropica soil.  5.5 pH to be specific.  Is this too low?

 

pH 5.5

gh is somewhere between 3.4 and 6.7 (my test strip only tells me this range which seems acceptable range, waiting for liquid test in the mail)

kh 0

temp 72-74

115 ppm

 

 

I started with ro water and re mineralized it with SL Aqua blue wizard.  I also added half dose of TM-1 and I didn't do any water changes since getting them, only ro topoffs.

 

oh ya.   0 ammonia, 0 nitrite and <20 ppm nitrate.

[ahboram]

Unless the ph dropped drastically from day 1 to today, I doubt thats the problem. I have PRLs in ph 5.8 and they are fine. Consistency is key. If your gh is 3.4 that is extremely low and probably the reason. I use sl aqua blue wizard as well and I try to aim for 150 tds with 5 gh. 
https://gyazo.com/180c3fc369195c379f33b3404fd88d1e Found this picture on the site and works really well. You also want to wait and test tds yourself. The only problem I can see is gh or sudden ph/temp/water swings. Did you do a huge water change? Any chemicals around your tank? Any temp swings? 

[TigerBarb1017]

Hi ahboram Thank you for your response.  My pH has not changed at all it's been a steady 5.5 since I installed that substrate. That chart looks very useful for me since my test strip is not very accurate.  That very well may be the solution.  My water could be too soft!  Ok I will slowly raise it over the next few days. 1 pump a day till it's up to 150 or should I do more than that? *edit* one pump gave me 4 ppm in my tank.

 

I haven't done any water changes yet but I have added a little bit of ro to the tank a couple times when the tds creeped up a tad from minor evaporation.   My temperature seems to swing 1 to 2 degrees slowly from midday lights on to nighttime. 72-74.   Is this acceptable or is that too much change for them?

 

[Maurice]

Your nitrates are to high, TB shrimp are very sensitive and you should try keeping it less than 10

is there a reason why you dont do water changes?

[TigerBarb1017]

High Maurice thank you.  I don't know exactly how high the nitrates are.  The test kit just says under 20.   It's very few shrimp in a 20 long and I have only had them for 25 days.  

 

How often do you recommend doing water changes??

 

I will get a liquid nitrate test kit.

[wyzazz]

Here is what I'd do, keep in mind I'm just running off of the little information we've got here since you've just got test strips.  I'd do 10%-20% water changes (slowly) with remineralized RO water every day until you raise your TDS to the 150 mark.  I drip my water back into the tanks with a Tom's Aqualifter Pump or Dosing Pumps.  This will do 2 things:  1.  Lower your Nitrates if they are too high.  2.  Bring your gH up to an acceptable level for the shrimp you are keeping.  

 

 

[TigerBarb1017]

Hi wyzazz thank you!   Great plan.  I  remineralized some water last night and let it sit overnight after Maurice mentioned my nitrates may be too high..   I'll do exactly as you described. 👍

[TigerBarb1017]

I'm proud to report I have not lost any more shrimp since receiving excellent advice from you fellas and my tds is almost up to par.

 

AND  my berried mama gave birth!     

 

Thanks fellas.

[wyzazz]

Awesome news, hopefully the trend continues!

[TigerBarb1017]

Everything was good for a week or so but I've lost a few more over the past week now.  Seems like one death every other day.  My gh, kh and temperature all seems to be on point.   I'm down to 3 adults + however many babies are in there.  Most I have spotted was 10 babies at once.

 

Also I've spotted some planaria in the tank.  There aren't many, they are far and few between but could this be a contributing factor to the shrimp deaths?  I bought a planaria trap at my LFS but hadn't caught a single planaria in a few days.  So I ordered planaria zero it's in the mail.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[wyzazz]

Planaria will seek out and kill baby shrimp, if you see one or two, rest assured that there are quite a few more in the substrate.  How are you A/N/N readings?  What is your temp?  Can  you shoot a picture of the tank for us?  One up close and one farther back?  Thanks!

[TigerBarb1017]

Hi wyzazz thank you for your help.   Last I checked my Ammonia and Nitrite were 0 but I'm not sure about nitrate levels.   I am about to run some errands so I'll pick up a test kit on my travels.   My temp is 72 average.  Never dipping lower than 70 or higher than 74.    Pictures coming right up!

 

 

 

 

 

[wyzazz]

Thanks for the Pics @TigerBarb1017, that's a clean looking tank!  How long has it been running again? 

 

Are you dosing any powdered foods or Biofilm/Bacteria based foods?  

 

I see bubbles and lots of flow in one pic, shrimp prefer gentle waters IME, maybe the flow is too high?  

 

What substrate are you using?  

 

Please let me know what your test results are!  

[TigerBarb1017]

40 minutes ago, wyzazz said:

Thanks for the Pics @TigerBarb1017, that's a clean looking tank!  How long has it been running again? 

 

Are you dosing any powdered foods or Biofilm/Bacteria based foods?  

 

I see bubbles and lots of flow in one pic, shrimp prefer gentle waters IME, maybe the flow is too high?  

 

What substrate are you using?  

 

Please let me know what your test results are!  

 

Thanks again for the help wyzazz.  You are my savior here . 

 

The tank has been running for 6 or 7 years.   I had cherry barbs in there for 6 years and over the course of the past year they all slowly died off of old age.    Once they were all dead I swapped out the substrate on Aug 25.  I got shrimps on Sept 22.   The substrate  is Tropica Aquarium Soil. 

 

I am feeding both SL Aqua Baby Shrimp Food and SL Aqua Magic Powder.   Very little because there are so few shrimps.  I put the spoon into the baby shrimp food and dump it back in the bottle then flick off the dust from the spoon into the aquarium. I do this twice a day. I do pretty much same with the Magic Powder but only once every 3-4 days. 

 

I am using a HOB filter that I was using for the cherry barbs which I modified by putting a breeder sponge on the intake once I decided on shrimp.      I will work on slowly removing the filter media over the next couple weeks as to not kill off a large percentage of my beneficial bacteria and shut the HOB down.

 

 

 

I just got home from Petsmart.  I bought a Nutrafin Nitrate test kit and the color barely changed.  It's under 5 ppm. 

 

parameters are currently:

 

pH 5.5

GH 5

KH 0

Ammonia 0

Nitrite ?

Nitrate < 5ppm

temp 70-74 normally no more than 2 degrees change in a day.

 

 

[wyzazz]

No problem, I'm happy to assist in your troublehsooting. 

 

I don't see anything glaringly wrong here but since you kept fish in here I've got another question for you.  Did you ever dose Malachite Green or Methleyne Blue in this tank?  Any meds with copper in them that you can recall?  Medications like this can embed in the plastic and silicone bits that are in the tank and last for years.  I've seen these cause issues for shrimp in the past.  

 

[TigerBarb1017]

I had never dosed any medication into the tank.

 

Could there be some kind of bad bacteria or viral pathogen in the tank left over from the cherry barbs?   Should I maybe try a H202 dose into the water column? 

 

What about immune products like glassgarten betaglucan + immunglobulin type product?

 

 

So many products out there for shrimp I never know what is necessary vs what is snake oil.  I've tried to stick to the bare essentials.  Anything you would recommend that may increase my success?

 

[wyzazz]

5 minutes ago, TigerBarb1017 said:

I had never dosed any medication into the tank.

 

Could there be some kind of bad bacteria or viral pathogen in the tank left over from the cherry barbs?   Should I maybe try a H202 dose into the water column? 

 

That is possible but not terribly likely.  You could do that, just make sure you turn off your filters so you don't kill off the beneficial bacteria in your tank.  Here is a decent video on how to utilize H2O2.  

[TigerBarb1017]

No video showed up, the link didn't work.

 

 

I found a video on Marks Shrimp Tanks channel. I did a 3% h202 treatment last night and all seems well. I went slightly lower than his suggested dose to be safe. I put 1 mL per gallon.

[TigerBarb1017]

Good news is that my shrimps have stopped dying.   i stopped adding magic powder.  Could that be the cause?