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I've been lurking around the forum for a while, but problems are always an incentive to post.  I have problems with some new painted fire red neos. They came in Friday from Rendo by mail together with blue tigers. All of the RCS are beautiful and mature. Except one of the 5 was DoD, ah well :(... Sunday I come home and see another one of them dead. Monday morning another one not moving in the plants. This one had "the white strip of death". Maybe it  is unable to molt. So now I am down to 2 of the ordered painted fire red. Thing is ...

 

The blue tigers are all ok. The painted fire red were  active and eating algae. I have some other RCS for almost a month in the aquarium with no deaths.

 

My thinking is  because the other RCS have no problems yet , is it just adaptation stress or something done wrong from the supplier ?  Can I help the remaining survive in any way ? What can I do to create better conditions for the types of shrimps I have ?

 

 

Details on the aquarium:

30L, 7.5g nano cube

high light, co2, EI dosing

substrate: ADA Aquasoil

filter: Eheim 2213

temp: 23*C

fish: 8* Boraras brigittae, 3* Ottos

ph: 7( in the morning) - 6.5 after CO2 addition ( late evening) ( tap 7.58)

kh: 7-8  (tap 14.5)

gh: do not trust the results of the test ( tap 15.8)

 

 

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Drip acclimation for both types. 10% of original volume added, wait ,add, wait, add ... until almost 3x the original volume, took around 90min. I tested the water in the bags they came in : ph 7, kh 4. So I was quite aware that I was introducing them to a big dif. They were eating all day and relaxing all over the tank on saturday. No frentic swimming or jumping.

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90 mins is too quick for that much of a difference in GH/KH (TDS). Invertebrates are very sensitive to osmotic shock and when you swing that much, their systems can not cope. I would have drip acclimated for at least 3 hours and 2x original volume.

 

Your GH and KH are pretty high and the pH swing due to CO2 is too large for PRF and Blue tigers. RCS can adapt to just about anything but more sensitive varieties like PRF and BT will not be happy. I've never had luck breeding shrimp (other than standard RCS) in high tech, high light, EI dosed, planted tanks and I've tried more than a few times.

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I use this.. or something like it. Pretty sure this is the same brand but its been a while since i had the packaging    http://www.ebay.com/itm/Innovative-Marine-AuqaGadget-AccuDrip-Acclimator-Single-Pack-/151687815200?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item23514c6020

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Thank you all for your replies. I hope in the future I will have more time at hand when acclimating. Jandenlea thank you for the link, Chiumafu I agree with you that shrimp are hard to breen in EI dosed planted tanks. I think the high NO3 are a problem for shrimps. CO2 will also cause problems with any shell/carapace. I do not aim at a shrimp farm, just want some diversity and some algae eating.

 

Just to be clear, the kh of 14 is what comes out of my bavarian tap water. I mix it 50-50 with bottled RO water and get a kh of  7 . So is the change from 4 to 7 a drastic one ? I understand it is harder for living organisms to go the other way eg. from 7 to 4, is this true ?

 

From previous experience with fish I know that osmotic shock can be seen in seconds to hours... Cells are unable to hold water from going in or going out. Depending on the size of the organic system (small=fast) and bariers available, organ failure starts in minutes and death occurs. Because all shrimp were eating and the first death occured >36h after introduction I do not think osmotic shock was the main problem. Also how would this explain the white band on the second dead shrimp? If somebody has a better explanation of why osmotic shock takes this long in shrimps please help a noob.

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The main difference with osmotic shock in shrimp vs. fish is the exoskeleton. From what I have read the shrimp cant truly adjust for a large differential until they molt, increase the volume of water the tissues inside the exoskeleton can hold.

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