Cherry Shrimp Passed After Molt

[Tihsho]

Hello everyone! 

 

It's been years since I've had Cherry Shrimp, but recently I was able to pick some Painted Fire Red's from a LFS and I couldn't pass them up. I've been setting up a fish room and had a spare 10 gallon tank that was cycled and had been running for about 2 months with a sponge filter, bare bottom and has floating Water Sprite. I moved out the fry from another species that I have that spawned from that tank in order to set this up as a temporary holding tank for the shrimp. I tested the water, pH is at 8.0, ammonia is at 0 ppm, nitrite is at 0 ppm and nitrate is in between 0-5 ppm. As for TDS it is at 180. I currently don't have a value for GH or KH as my test kits i believe are contaminated and were not providing good numbers and I'm waiting on new kits to arrive. 

 

I started with 8 shrimp about a week ago and one of them were berried when I picked them up. Over the past few days I've noticed molts in the tank and yesterday ended up seeing more molts and a dead female. Besides that I noticed that the berried female was no longer berried and saw a handful of baby shrimp on the sponge filter. I've not done anything in regards to a water change since I've had them, nor have I topped off. They have been sparsely fed Omega One flake and a fraction of a Hikari algae wafer. They seem to be more focused on the biofilm on the sponge, tank base and on the plant then any food I offer. I'm currently waiting on some GlassGarten BacterAE to arrive to start feeding them, as well as a mineral stone and cattapa leaves to add to help with nutrients. Is there anything else I can provide to stop death post molts?