Asilva93 Posted December 11, 2018 Report Share Posted December 11, 2018 Hello everyone, I’m pretty new here and was wondering if anyone could have an idea of what’s going on in my tank. I have 2 crystal red shrimp tanks running the exact same way, I do everything on the same day feed, top off, water change and so forth. Recently I noticed lots of berried females but no shrimplets surviving. I decided to add seachem purigen and after 2 weeks or so finally I start seeing the newborn shrimp, but I also have plants Java moss, cryptocoryne, Anubis nana, java fern, subwassertang and water lettuce and a pothos plant hanging off the side. After about 3 weeks of adding purigen the survival rate of newborn shrimp started rising but some plants like java moss, crypto and water lettuce started turning yellow and dying along with the pothos plant, the java moss started turning brown as well. I decided to remove the purigen as that is the only new thing I had added to the tank. In doing so plants seem so have stopped yellowing, and the moss stopped turning brown. The shrimp that were born within that three weeks seem to be doing well along with adults and no losses there, but again the main issue of new born shrimp not surviving is happening again. Also I use RO water and re-mineralize. Just wondering if anyone has experienced something similar and is it possible that adding fertilizers while having the purigen may fix both of my issues? Thanks everyone! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aotf Posted December 12, 2018 Report Share Posted December 12, 2018 Are you monitoring nitrates while doing this? It could be that the purigen is stripping the water of nitrates (which plants need to grow) and other nutrients. If you had other junk in the water as well (or nitrates >20-30ppm), that might have explained the baby shrimp deaths. Fertilizing with Purigen in the tank seems... wasteful? I'm guessing you'll burn through both Purigen and fertilizers. That said, maybe your nitrates were low the whole time and it was something else in the water that was killing off the shrimplets. Either the source is still there (different problem you have to solve), or the Purigen took it out (problem taken care of). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Asilva93 Posted December 12, 2018 Author Report Share Posted December 12, 2018 Thank you for the reply! Just re checked to make sure, my nitrates are at about 10ppm, I did decide to so weekly water changes since I couldn’t get the baby shrimp to survive, do you think I’m doing that I’m stripping the water of too much nitrates that the plants need? And if so is there any fertilizer you may recommend that is shrimp and snail safe ? Thanks again! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wyzazz Posted December 13, 2018 Report Share Posted December 13, 2018 On 12/12/2018 at 8:06 AM, Asilva93 said: Thank you for the reply! Just re checked to make sure, my nitrates are at about 10ppm, I did decide to so weekly water changes since I couldn’t get the baby shrimp to survive, do you think I’m doing that I’m stripping the water of too much nitrates that the plants need? And if so is there any fertilizer you may recommend that is shrimp and snail safe ? Thanks again! 10PPM is too high for shrimp, you'll want those under 5PPM. If you want to dose ferts you should do so with something shrimp-safe. Thrive-S or Easy Green have worked fine for me. Just ensure that you are doing everything slowly and finding a balance in the tank. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Asilva93 Posted December 13, 2018 Author Report Share Posted December 13, 2018 Thank you! Figured that last night and have started to lower it with slow w/c. Just thought it was odd that only one tank was having this issue. Thanks! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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