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Cherry shrimp woes


sarah

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I have a 10 gallon tank of red cherry shrimp that I think could be majorly improved.

 

Right now there are loads of babies at different stages of growth, but few seem to be making it to adulthood. To make things even worse, we treated the tank for planaria last week, and even though I only used 1/4 the recommended dose, somehow my adults seem to have completely disappeared (I stupidly did not do a water change until a week later). The juveniles seem to have been unaffected.

 

I am using tapwater with prime and replenish at the moment. I also dose with Azoo minerals and vitamins weekly. Parameters are all perfect, but I do not have a way to test TDS.

 

They don't usually swarm food, but I gave them some Han snowflake on Monday and most of them fed on it.

 

I have tantora mineral stones, but have yet to drop one in. I also have catappa leaves, guava leaves, and alder cones that I could use.

 

Can you all recommend the best additives, etc to try to get these babies to grow to adulthood without problems? Thanks!

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KH = ~6

GH = ~5

pH = 7.2

Ammonia, nitrite = 0

Nitrate = 0-5 depending on water changes

Copper = 0

 

Tank is at 72 degrees.

 

I have been feeding 2x/week, usually one Hikari mini algae wafer, a Ken's veggie calcium stick, or a small cube of homemade green veggie snail jello. The snowflake is new this week, and they seem to really like it much more than any of the others.

 

About 1/3 of their tank is filled with Java moss, so they’re pretty much spending most of their time in there munching on biofilm.

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Like RyeGuy411 said we need the basic info. Also what are your tap water paramiters before you add the minerals. You may not need them.

have a gneiss day

 

I was also wondering about the minerals, as Meta said you may not need them. I wouldnt reccomend adding any minerals to tap water. If you wanted I have used Seachem Trace in my neo tanks twice a week and that seems to make no difference.

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Not sure what KH the tapwater is, but GH is ~2.

Was using the API KH kit, and it never changed color no matter how many drops went in. Did the same thing for DI water. Strange.

(I emailed the company, and they did not reply.)

Ok, a common mistake with these kits at no fault of the owner is that you don't shake the bottle long enough initially and then don't shake the test tube violently enough after each drop. Run the tests again after shaking the bottles for 5 minutes. Then shake the vials for one minute between each drop this should be sufficient.

I just edited my reply - does that help?

have a gneiss day

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OK, will do (tomorrow, since tank is not at home).

I could easily make the switch over to DI water (not RO) or even Milli-Q water since I work in a lab. Would this be beneficial?

If you swith to DI you would just need a reminerizer I would go with a liquid one for ease of use. Not sure what milli -q water is. Never used that in the rock labs. Never mind found my answer funny I never heard of it as its used by geochems. Maybe we just called it DI even thought it comes out of that machine. http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milli-Q

have a gneiss day

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If you swith to DI you would just need a reminerizer I would go with a liquid one for ease of use. Not sure what milli -q water is. Never used that in the rock labs. Never mind found my answer funny I never heard of it as its used by geochems. Maybe we just called it DI even thought it comes out of that machine. http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milli-Q

have a gneiss day

 

In my lab building the DI goes into the Milli-Q machine, so it is even more purified. We can get DI out of a special tap on each sink, but to get the Milli-Q you have to go to the machine and run it from there.

 

I have been reading threads on here about remineralizers, and it seems people like the MK blue diamond. But that seems to be out of stock on every site I check. Can you recommend a source, or a different all-in-one remineralizer product?

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In my lab building the DI goes into the Milli-Q machine, so it is even more purified. We can get DI out of a special tap on each sink, but to get the Milli-Q you have to go to the machine and run it from there.

I have been reading threads on here about remineralizers, and it seems people like the MK blue diamond. But that seems to be out of stock on every site I check. Can you recommend a source, or a different all-in-one remineralizer product?

I'm not sure who carries mk off hand but I think discobee does and my be han. Check out our other sponsors as well. If you can't find a liquid you count get salty shrimp from www.theshrimptank.com

have a gneiss day

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It seems everyone is out of the blue diamond right now.

 

The blue wizard description says that it will lower the pH. This is not what I want for cherries, right? (Maybe blue diamond does too...?)

 

If I go with salty shrimp, which product would be right for cherries? I don't mind using a powder, as long as I know exactly how much to use and what levels I need to aim for...

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You could go with Salty Shrimp but it is a powder and is a little trickier to get consistent results. I wouldnt really be worried about pH as long as it remains stable, so if you switch over to a liquid remineralizer and RO water there will be an initial acclimation but will stll be ok for neos. I keep my neos in a tank thats 6-6.2 ph just dont change pH every water change.

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OK, I've done some more thinking, and I'm definitely leaning towards switching them over to DI water, especially since I am planning to move the tank soon (to a place with totally different tap water).

 

I think I will order the Salty Shrimp Mineral GH/KH+ since that seems to be good for Neos (right?).
The Shrimp Tank has it, so I'm planning to place one big order that should last me a while. Will I need to use any other products other than Prime?

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  • 2 weeks later...

Just an update - moving day for the tank will be Monday! My plan is to empty the tank to 25% (2 gallons), bring 3 gallons of water with me in a bucket, and slowly add 5 gallons of new water at my destination. For the new water, I have remineralized a 5 gallon bucket of DI using the salty shrimp KH/GH+ powder. I just got a TDS meter and am going to try to match their current parameters as closely as possible. Ultimately, what should my target numbers be for this tank to help all these gorgeous babies make it to adulthood?

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OK... update with some good news, some bad:

 

The move went very well. Got the tank set up in new location, kept 2/3 of old water and slowly added new remineralized DI water. TDS went from 337 to 309.

All the adults that I thought were gone last week have reappeared. All looked really good when I left them around 10PM last night.

 

Then something went very wrong overnight. I checked on them this morning to find that the heater somehow must have been knocked in the move and had heated the tank up to the mid to high 80s! I immediately turned it off and have started to slowly bring the temp down by replacing tank water with room temp remin water. In the past 2 hours, I've brought it down 8-10 degrees. Right now it's at 78, TDS 283.

 

What do I do now?? Keep lowering the temp to get it down to 72 (where it was before the move)? Leave the heater off till tomorrow and let the tank come to room temp before trying to get the heater set back up?

 

If they're all still alive right now, does that mean I'm in the clear? I can't believe this happened :(

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