How often should shrimp be dying of natural causes?

[Cheeseball]

(This might be a dumb question)

       So I have seen people before saying not to worry if a shrimp dies every now and then. That makes sense, they only live a couple years and some will just die. But I'm not really sure what sort of death rate should cause alarm. I'm new to shrimp and am trying to get a stable colony of Yellow Neocaridina shrimp. It has been a bit of a rocky road, but things have been going better lately. But sometimes I still have the occasional death, about 1-2 per month I think. At any given time there are abut 10 shrimp in the tank (10 gallon). This seems like more death that to be expected from natural causes, but I'm not sure. The main issue I can think of is TDS swings; I top evaporation every week along with the water change, so it goes from about 305 ppm to around 270.

 

Is there a problem with death rates? If so, could it be TDS?

[Shrimp Life]

That seems like too many unless they are all really old, especially for a small colony of 10 shrimp. What are all of your Parameters

[Cheeseball]

1 hour ago, Shrimp Life said:

That seems like too many unless they are all really old, especially for a small colony of 10 shrimp. What are all of your Parameters

That's what  figured, I don't think they are that old either (although I'm not great at guessing their age). pH is about 7, NO2 is 0, NO3 looks about 20, TDS is somewhere within the rage I mentioned earlier. GH is 11 and KH is about 4.

[Vorteil]

Where did you get your shrimp from? I see you're in California as well. There's quite a few hobbyist down here in Orange & LA county that breed and sell locally which is the best route when it's comes to buying in my opinion. If it's store bought you never know the history. I've always had the brackish water shimp Opae Ula. One hobbyist got me into the FW hobby. Started with orange neos, then blue, and now cherries. On top of that I've got a tank of CRS, & Super Tigers from Tom Quinn off this site.All my tanks are shrimp only tanks other then the ramshorn & pond snails. My tap water is fine for neos. I use RO and then remineralize for the CRS. How old is your set up?   

[Cheeseball]

1 hour ago, Vorteil said:

Where did you get your shrimp from? I see you're in California as well. There's quite a few hobbyist down here in Orange & LA county that breed and sell locally which is the best route when it's comes to buying in my opinion. If it's store bought you never know the history. I've always had the brackish water shimp Opae Ula. One hobbyist got me into the FW hobby. Started with orange neos, then blue, and now cherries. On top of that I've got a tank of CRS, & Super Tigers from Tom Quinn off this site.All my tanks are shrimp only tanks other then the ramshorn & pond snails. My tap water is fine for neos. I use RO and then remineralize for the CRS. How old is your set up?   

Thanks for the advice. I got my shrimp from an online store called The Shrimp Farm that seems to have decent reviews. I have also gotten some from a local aquarium store but they didn’t seem to do any better. The setup is about a year and a half old. I had a lot more issues at first, but things have been better for the last couple months other than the mystery deaths.

[Shrimp Life]

For Neocaridina, There is a big difference in terms of health, quality and mortality between import shrimp(bred overseas) or those bred by hobbyists locally. I wasted so much time and money on import shrimp when I started out years ago. One of the common issues aside from diseases (and rarely discussed) is DIE OFF which is them dying 1 by 1. (they don't acclimate well, stress etc) Ofcourse, parameters are major factor too, so if your parameters are what they should be, then I would look at source next. Try homebred next time, see if that makes a difference

[Cheeseball]

2 hours ago, Shrimp Life said:

For Neocaridina, There is a big difference in terms of health, quality and mortality between import shrimp(bred overseas) or those bred by hobbyists locally. I wasted so much time and money on import shrimp when I started out years ago. One of the common issues aside from diseases (and rarely discussed) is DIE OFF which is them dying 1 by 1. (they don't acclimate well, stress etc) Ofcourse, parameters are major factor too, so if your parameters are what they should be, then I would look at source next. Try homebred next time, see if that makes a difference

Good to know, thanks. I checked the website I got them from and their water parameters are a lot different than mine. Would it be worth trying to (gradually) adjust my parameters to be more like that to help the shrimp I currently have (they have been in my water for about over two months) or would that just add more trauma?

[Shrimp Life]

8 hours ago, Cheeseball said:

Good to know, thanks. I checked the website I got them from and their water parameters are a lot different than mine. Would it be worth trying to (gradually) adjust my parameters to be more like that to help the shrimp I currently have (they have been in my water for about over two months) or would that just add more trauma?

Your nitrates at 20, you should do a water change. I would not change your parameters, your fine there for Neos. Plus it would just stress out already stressed shrimp.