# Shrimp dying in tank



## jon021 (May 19, 2009)

I've been losing my crystal black shrimp in my 3.5 gal planted tank, i lose 1 every couple days. I just recently picked up 10 more CBS from Anna (bettaforu) and i lost 1 of them already, it was a small juvie, I found it on the substrate and it had turned red and white. 

The tank is set up with a mix of fluval shrimp stratum and eco complete. The eco complete is the bottom layer, while the fluval is about a 1 inch layer ontop. The tank is planted with stargrass, sunset hygo, java ferns, phoenix moss, java moss, some crypt parva and some moss balls i got off ebay. There's also a small piece of driftwood in the tank that i purchased from Lucky Aquarium, which i boiled for 2 hours prior to putting it into the tank.

I run a RedSea Nano filter on the tank with a sponge prefilter. I feed the shrimp every other day with a mixture of foods, i cycle through blanched organic baby spinach, hikari shrimp cuisine, hikari algae wafers, and hikari sinking wafers. Water changes are done every 2 weeks, 20%, filter sponges are cleaned in old tank water, the new water is treated with seachem prime, allowed to stand at room temp before slowly dripping into the tank. There is also a diy co2 running on the tank. 

The tank has been running for over 7 months now, it was initially fully eco complete but i removed half of it and added the fluval shrimp stratum on top about over 2 months ago. The only test i have left at the moment is a ph and oxygen test. PH registers at 6.6, while oxygen levels are normal. The last time i tested ammonia and nitrites were about 3 weeks ago and they were both at 0 ppm and yet i was still losing shrimp. I did a large water change several days prior to adding the new cbs from Anna into the tank and i've already lost 1 of them. 

The tank sits right infront of a window and i've noticed some white stuff growing inside the filter intake tube and alot of bba inside the filter itself. I've tried cleaning it out as best as i can but i'm wondering if that might be causing my shrimp deaths. I also add a small pinch of koi clay into the tanks after water changes. My taiwan fire reds are in the same tank, but i havent lost a single one and i've had them for over a month now, it's only my cbs that are dropping like flies. 

I just can't pinpoint whats going wrong, does anyone have any suggestions or ideas? I'm considering tearing down my 10 gallon tank and turning it into a tank for my cbs but i want to figure out whats wrong with the 3.5 gallon tank because i plan on moving my green neocaridina shrimp in there along with my cpds.


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## jimmyjam (Nov 6, 2007)

that sucks bud. I think your culprit is the eco complete. I have used eco complete for a while for planted tanks with no issues, but it is known to leak nutrients into the water column. I also tried the eco 3 years ago with some CRS and it killed all 10 A grades within 5 days. I thought it was just the tank not being cycled enough, so I tried a few more couple weeks later, and same thing happened. Since then, I will never put crs with ECO. It also clumps, and doesnt provide the same microcirculation you get with ADA and maybe Fluval. I would remove it if I were you. WIth that being said, it could be a 1000 other things =P But Ill bet my sweaty shirt on it.


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## jon021 (May 19, 2009)

Hey jimmy, thanks for the response. I was thinking it could be the eco as well, might just leave that tank and give the green shrimp a try in there since they seem to thrive in any condition and i'll turn the 10 gal into a tank for my cbs and fire reds. I've moved my cbs into my crs tank for now, i'm hoping i don't lose any in the process


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## jimmyjam (Nov 6, 2007)

You will have no problems with the Greens or fire reds.. They bred like mad in my eco tank. 
I just choose not to use eco anymore in any of my tanks. It causes clumping and anarobic sectors in the substrate over time, it doesn't lower ph, and it secrete crap into the water column. Why not spend less money and get at least the fluval substrate, ADA or nisso. I also found it to deplete within 8 months of use. Then again, I do heavily plant a lot of my tanks.

CBS and Fire red will be ok until the fire reds start breeding a lot. Try to remove or sell some when they populated, otherwise they will outcompete the CBS. One of the biggest things I and many other shrimp keepers have found important is stability in the water column. I currently only do 5% water changes 3-4 times a week. It makes a life of a difference with higher grade sensitive fish, especially when your using tap water with conditioner while using a substrate that lower ph and softens water. If your using RO water, its not as big of a difference bc you can reproduce similar conditions. Some choose to drip the water in, I use to do it, but its too much of a hassle, so I just do quick 5% changes. I also only vac once a month, and feed them sparingly/varied diet (Im sure you know all about that). Good bio filtration is key as well, as you can see with some of Beijing/igor and franks setups.

I also tend to really heavily plant my tanks for 1 shelter, and 2 to suck up nitrates. Deep root feeders are great nitrate suckers, and HC cuba is also a heavy nitrate feeder (if your looking for a carpet plant). Anyhoot, I think I had too much wine tonight... I def wrote way too much. Good luck my friend. Let me know if you need plants, I got lots of potted plants coming up, including hc, blyxa, Hm, UG, peacock moss, l.arcuata, l aromatica, dhairgrass, taiwan moss, flame moss, riccia on mesh.. etc etc etc feww .. wrist hurts.



jon021 said:


> Hey jimmy, thanks for the response. I was thinking it could be the eco as well, might just leave that tank and give the green shrimp a try in there since they seem to thrive in any condition and i'll turn the 10 gal into a tank for my cbs and fire reds. I've moved my cbs into my crs tank for now, i'm hoping i don't lose any in the process


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## souldct (Nov 26, 2009)

Hey Jon, do you get a stable output of CO2 from the DIY? BBA can be caused by unstable level of CO2. With a tank that small and the fact that Fluval substrate can lower the kH and pH, which might result in pH swing overnight? But that doesn't explain why it dies off one by one... hmmm just thinking out loud ...


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## jon021 (May 19, 2009)

souldct said:


> Hey Jon, do you get a stable output of CO2 from the DIY? BBA can be caused by unstable level of CO2. With a tank that small and the fact that Fluval substrate can lower the kH and pH, which might result in pH swing overnight? But that doesn't explain why it dies off one by one... hmmm just thinking out loud ...


Hey, yea i'm using the 12 gram co2 canisters and i have a fabco needle valve on it so i've got the co2 pretty stable. Just to be on the safe side, i'm gonna drop by franks and pick up some fluval stratum for my 10 gal and convert it. Also gives me an excuse to mess around with my tanks lol.


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## bettaforu (Sep 6, 2009)

I just had something similar happen with my newly setup 20 gallon long. I have a clay base (Aquatic soil) and have glosso, bamboo, star grass planted, with moss and hygro, pennywort floating at the top.

I put some of the flourish tabs into the soil to help the gloss grow, but over the last week I have noticed that several of my dark blue OEBTs have died in this tank, while the Taiwan FR are doing just great. Its not competition for food, because they all get it spread over the tank and there's only say 10 TFRs in there.

I tested ammonia, nitrates/nitrites all 0, and PH was 7.6 which is fine for both types, yet something was killing the Tigers, and they are NOT easy to kill, they can handle most problems.

I also had lots of die offs when I kept them in Eco complete tank! 

Jonathan, I would take out your CBS and if you have another tank they can go into for now, then change out this tank and just use the Fluval Stratum, or ADA if you can get it.

It drives you nuts when you see your precious shrimps dying and can't figure out why....but when all the tests are as they should be, its got to be the soil or fertilizer. 

Keep us posted!


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## ThyrosineChoi (Apr 6, 2010)

Uh
did they die when they were molting? (u said they turned red and white, most crustaceans turn red/pinkish when they die, but just wanted to make sure)

bacteria infection? any funky colouration?


everyone u do seems fine to me.

------
also,
are your neocars alot bigger than ur cbs?
i've seen some large neocar. try to pick on the babies of my crs but they seemed to be fine with mine.


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## pat3612 (Jan 29, 2008)

I use to keep a lot of shrimp, but not crystals but the thing I noticed is all the foods you feed them are you overfeeding and not enough water changes. When I first got chery shrimp thats what happened to me I just over fed and didnt change the water enough. I read that crs need at least 2 water changes a week and the guys in Japan etc change 25 % of the water every day. Just somethink to think about.


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## jon021 (May 19, 2009)

bettaforu said:


> I just had something similar happen with my newly setup 20 gallon long. I have a clay base (Aquatic soil) and have glosso, bamboo, star grass planted, with moss and hygro, pennywort floating at the top.
> 
> I put some of the flourish tabs into the soil to help the gloss grow, but over the last week I have noticed that several of my dark blue OEBTs have died in this tank, while the Taiwan FR are doing just great. Its not competition for food, because they all get it spread over the tank and there's only say 10 TFRs in there.
> 
> ...


Hey Anna, i've moved the cbs into my CRS tank for now and I haven't lost anymore so far. I spent the whole day today tearing down my 10 gal and converting it into a tank for my cbs. I'll let it cycle for a bit, but the filter's already cycled so it should be a quick one. I think the eco-complete may have been the issue like jimmy said earlier, when i took it out of the tank it was clumped together and it smelled horrible. I've switched it to some fluval that i picked up from Franks this morning


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## jon021 (May 19, 2009)

choii317 said:


> Uh
> did they die when they were molting? (u said they turned red and white, most crustaceans turn red/pinkish when they die, but just wanted to make sure)
> 
> bacteria infection? any funky colouration?
> ...


I don't believe they died from molting, i didn't see any shells just the dead shrimp. They would just stop moving, and then keel over - almost as if it was ammonia poisoning but i'd lose 1 ever 2-3 days. I add koi clay during water changes so that should provide enough calcium for molting. No bacteria or fungus, and no discolouration.


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## jon021 (May 19, 2009)

pat3612 said:


> I use to keep a lot of shrimp, but not crystals but the thing I noticed is all the foods you feed them are you overfeeding and not enough water changes. When I first got chery shrimp thats what happened to me I just over fed and didnt change the water enough. I read that crs need at least 2 water changes a week and the guys in Japan etc change 25 % of the water every day. Just somethink to think about.


I try to feed them very minimally, every other day and i remove foods that they don't finish within an hour. I don't change my water as often, but i've noticed i lose more shrimp when i change too much water because of the ph differences. Hopefully now that they're going to be moved into a bigger tank, water quality won't be too much of an issue.


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## Beijing08 (Jul 19, 2010)

great to see it's working out for you bud.  Now...I want my group member back


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## jon021 (May 19, 2009)

Beijing08 said:


> great to see it's working out for you bud.  Now...I want my group member back


lol, he volunteered to join us to suit his sched - i'll trade you one of my other group members


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## Beijing08 (Jul 19, 2010)

jon021 said:


> lol, he volunteered to join us to suit his sched - i'll trade you one of my other group members


yea, I guess that was the reason but he was too nice to tell us. And he was also too nice to tell you that he felt bad for you guys. 
Anyhow, gonna go read them articles. Good luck with your assignment and your CBS.


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## bettaforu (Sep 6, 2009)

Jonathan, I think the eco was the culprit! All of mine are on Fluval Stratum and doing very well...I only feed every other day and use my little reptile dish to put the food in, so everyone can go in there and get some. I can then clean out what's left over (not that there is anything left over...little piggies )

Hopefully your shrimp deaths will be at an end now.


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## jimmyjam (Nov 6, 2007)

soundsl like your on the right track.. do yourself a favour and plant that background nice and thick with fast growing plants like stargrass to really suck up nutrients, then minimal up front or really low growing plants like glosso or hc (if you have the right lighting etc), dhairgrass (keep it thrimmed thin) so you can see the buggers. I made the mistake of planted the tank too thick in the front on one of my tanks and you cant see many shrimps until you feed. And moss.. gets lots =) Ill be posting my list of plants this week if u want to see what I got. Lots of pretty stuff.


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## coldmantis (Apr 5, 2010)

when you say clay base aquatic soil do you mean the soil by schultz? if so I been using it in my 29g crs/yellow breeder tank for a good 5-7 months and I had 0 adult deaths, but I also had 0 new borns surviving, but that's more due to water change shock then the soil.


bettaforu said:


> I just had something similar happen with my newly setup 20 gallon long. I have a clay base (Aquatic soil) and have glosso, bamboo, star grass planted, with moss and hygro, pennywort floating at the top.
> 
> I put some of the flourish tabs into the soil to help the gloss grow, but over the last week I have noticed that several of my dark blue OEBTs have died in this tank, while the Taiwan FR are doing just great. Its not competition for food, because they all get it spread over the tank and there's only say 10 TFRs in there.
> 
> ...


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## bettaforu (Sep 6, 2009)

NO Ive used Shultz aquasoil before, but couldn't get it this time...I get it at the horticulture stores here.

I picked up Pondmagic I think it was called...BA's had it for ponds. Its clay based too, and because its for ponds I was just going to use it to grow plants in originally. Then the tank looked so bare I decided to put some shrimps in it, started with the TWFR and then added the OEBTs, but when they started dying one at a time I took them out.

No deaths with the TWFR...so unless those were the culprits I don't know what killed my OEBTs, but haven't had any deaths in my OEBT tank since I put them back in there, so ?????


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## igor.kanshyn (Jan 14, 2010)

Jonathan how have you cleaned that tank?


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## jon021 (May 19, 2009)

Hey Igor, i use a gravel vacuum every 2 weeks when i do my water changes. I never stir up the eco complete/fluval stratum, i just get close enough to suck up any bits of food that have fallen inbetween the substrate. Since moving the cbs and taiwan fire reds out, i put some of my green neocaridina shrimp in that tank and they're breeding for me. 

Before putting the green shrimps in, I stirred up the substrate and removed as much of the eco complete as possible, topped it off with some fresh fluval stratum, changed most of the water and let it run for a couple days with a bag of activated carbon. I'm thinking the issues were caused by a combination of the eco complete clumping together, and just flucuations of the water parameters since it was such a small tank. 

My 10 gallon should be ready for my cbs and fire reds to move in soon. I have 2 SAE's in there right now from my 29 gallon tank to clean up some bba on my moss tree, it'll probably take a couple more days and then i'll move them back into their tank and move the shrimps in.


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## igor.kanshyn (Jan 14, 2010)

I asked about tank cleaning because I had dead CRS and blue/red tiger baby shrimps in tanks that were looking perfect. But I almost didn't clean that tanks. 
I'm not sure that it was a problem and I will see that soon with newborn red tigers babies.

Some small dirt in the soils is not a problem for adult or neocaridina shrimps, but soft water shrimplets were dying.
That's my observation, there is no proof yet


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## jon021 (May 19, 2009)

*update feb 15/2011*

The cbs and fire reds have been moved into their new 10 gallon tank, and they're absolutely loving it in there. They've moulted several times now and hoping to find a berried one soon.

BUT

after getting the issue solved with the cbs, my crs have started to die on me now. They're in a 7 gal jebo tank with the fluval stratum, alot of plants and a piece of driftwood. At one point i had a bunch of babies in this tank then one day they all just dissappeared and i started finding juvie and adult shrimp dying.

I found 3 dead shrimp this morning. I believe its 1 of 2 possible causes as i've only made a few changes in the past couple days.

1: Added koi clay into the tank, may have been too much causing a rapid change in the water params.

2: I fed them a piece of Hikari sinking wafers - the ones for bottom feeders, which i haven't used in several months now and has been sitting on my shelf for atleast more than 8 months. When i fed them last night they didn't seem to lively and were really taking a long time eating the food. removed remaining food after 3 hours.


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## Beijing08 (Jul 19, 2010)

second scenario unlikely. Food won't contaminate the water so quickly, if they were reluctant to eat during feeding it must have been caused by something else. Sometimes tanks just don't work, resetting it will give it a fresh start! Also check params. Not sure about the koi clay though


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## Cornputer (Dec 28, 2010)

I second what Beijing08 said about checking water parameters. I would even go as far as to suggest keeping a log of pH, GH, KH, NH3, NO2, NO3 and date.


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## bettaforu (Sep 6, 2009)

Jonathan, sooo sorry to hear of your losses again...geez what bad luck! Maybe something in the koi clay did not agree with them....too much and it could be an overdose! I did something similar yesterday and overdosed a small container and lost 4 shrimps! eek. These crystals are just way too fragile, they don't handle variations too well....not like neo-caridina shrimps at all. 

Only thing I can suggest now is to do a partial water change, don't feed any more of those wafers, just in case, and wait a day or two before feeding anything, then maybe just a tiny amount...see what happens. If all else fails you may need to change out the tank and start again.


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## novice (Mar 14, 2006)

John,

what water are you using - TAP or RO ?


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## jon021 (May 19, 2009)

Hey ricky, i'm using tap water, my shrimps were doing perfectly just until a couple days ago when they started dying. I think it may have been the food that i was feeding. I was concerned my baby shrimp weren't eating enough so i ground up algae wafers and sinking wafers for cories. I'm thinking maybe too much of the powdered food fell inbetween the fluval stratum and may have just rotted and contaminated the water. I've gone ahead and vaccummed the fluval, changing 40% of the water and the shrimp seem to be doing ok for now. They're happily eating some organic spinach and are more active then they were yesterday


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## jon021 (May 19, 2009)

Hey Anna, i'm hoping the shrimp will be ok and that i won't have to redo the tank. But if things keep going wrong i'll have no choice but to restart it. Oh by the way, the cbs i got from you are doing very well. They love the 10 gal and a couple have moulted so i might have some berried soon


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## novice (Mar 14, 2006)

jon021 said:


> Hey ricky, i'm using tap water, my shrimps were doing perfectly just until a couple days ago when they started dying. I think it may have been the food that i was feeding. I was concerned my baby shrimp weren't eating enough so i ground up algae wafers and sinking wafers for cories. I'm thinking maybe too much of the powdered food fell inbetween the fluval stratum and may have just rotted and contaminated the water. I've gone ahead and vaccummed the fluval, changing 40% of the water and the shrimp seem to be doing ok for now. They're happily eating some organic spinach and are more active then they were yesterday


Ok - thats much better news - watch the feeding schedule -


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## camboy012406 (Jun 11, 2010)

do you use 100prcent tapwater when wc or you mix it with ro?


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## jon021 (May 19, 2009)

It's just aged tap water, treated with seachem prime and slowly dripped into the tank over a span of 1 or 2 hours.


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## jon021 (May 19, 2009)

I've been keeping crs for well over 2 years now, when i first started, i got my crs from jamesren. I bred them in just regular tap water treated with prime, no special substrates. My colony grew from 12 to over 100. I sold off alot of my shrimps at that time, but after a couple months my shrimps stopped breeding altogether and then i started losing shrimp. Since then, i've tried different substrates, foods, and almond leaves, blackwater extract and nothing seems to be working to get them breeding as well as they used to. I'm thinking something must have changed in our tap water that contributed to these problems.


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## jon021 (May 19, 2009)

I apologize for the multiple posts, but i just needed to add that the shrimp that are dying are my lower grade crs - my A and B grades, my S grades and SS grades are doing just fine. The A and B grades were from a different source, so i'm wondering whether the genetics of those shrimps are just poor? I also saw a couple fairly young baby shrimp (1-2 mm) in the tank so if the ammonia was high in the tank - wouldnt my higher grade and baby shrimp be dying off before the low grades? I just find this really weird and confounding.


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## bettaforu (Sep 6, 2009)

I would say its your lower grades that have come to the end of their life cycle, you don't know how old they are when you buy shrimps from LFS etc.

I have mentioned this before because I know people who have had tanks crash on them because of this product....Prime for some reason is NOT a good product to use with shrimps. I lost all of my Bettas using this in the water, so I stopped putting it in my shrimp tanks too. I only use Amquel+ water conditioner and have virtually NO shrimp deaths in my tanks.

You can get Amquel+ at any Petsmart stores. IF you can't find it, then just use Big Als water conditioner or Topfin. Prime is an extremely strong product and I believe something in it doesn't sit well with shrimps....so I use a different product. JMO.


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