# RCS dying one by one - help!



## Teemote (Aug 13, 2016)

Hello all.

About a week ago, I started to have some of my RCS dying one by one everyday. Based on my research it looks like they're dying from molting (a small white ring on their neck area) - I have no clue on what's going on..

Been reading about the KH/GH level needs at a certain level to assist with molting, this is the only thing I haven't tested as I do not have the kit for ...

Other parameters are good, Ammonia - 0 , Nitrite - 0 , Nitrate is ~5-10, PH is about 8.0 and its pretty much kept there.
Temp is around 74 F without a heater, the room temp is keep the tank temp fairly stable - I would suspect this goes up a bit when heating kicks in in a month or so.

I do dose the tank (15G) with Seachem as it's medium planted - (flourish, N,P,K and Excel).

I don't think the water chemistry is off based on the API Master test Kit - and all this started to happen after a regular water change of about 15% (used prime, temp was pretty much the same as the tank when it went in)

I have no idea what's going on, but in about 6 days I've lost ~ 11 or so RCS and its pretty frustrated... 

I will be picking up a KH/GH test kit today to see if I need to up or lower the GH to help with molting..... and also read that Almond Leaves may help with boosting immune systems / killing bacteria - I am hoping that this can solve the issue... 

Any thoughts? and experience in this?

Thanks for 2 cents!


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## Teemote (Aug 13, 2016)

So just did the KH/GH test.

KH is about 5-6 and GH is about 8... should be fairly normal... now I am beat.


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## woopderson (Feb 12, 2014)

Can you see any sort of cloudiness within the shrimp at all? What sort of water are you using for your water changes?


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## shrimplife (Jul 16, 2016)

Neocaridina are very hardy so something is off. How long has your tank been up and running?
Also where did you get the shrimp?


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## Teemote (Aug 13, 2016)

No cloudiness - they seems to have molting issue but can't really tell. The tank is about 1 month old with gravel / plants from my other 20 gallon tank - which is about 3 months old.

I think i may have triggered something when i did a water change.. i did notice two of my shrimps have eggs so... something is okay....
no clue really..


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## fishyfriends (Feb 20, 2015)

I had a similar issue - turns out the ph was too different from what they were used to.

Shrimp were gradually dying - eggs didn't hatch. Most shrimp are used to relatively soft water - 6 to 7.5 - driftwood helps but gradually work the ph down (wouldn't bother with ph additives as the ph tends to fluctuate too much) - live plants also help.


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## Ding (Jul 3, 2016)

Have you been medicating the tank? Many medications are poisonous to shrimp.


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## Teemote (Aug 13, 2016)

Haven't really use any Meds.

Seems to be better now, got some baby shrimps running around but some adults are still dying randomly here and there, can't really explain the deaths - but it wasn't as bad as before.

The tank is been running for 4 months now.

My suspicious is some shrimps just aren't as strong as others?? I don't know.. really can't explain random deaths -

There are some that died of molting issue cause I can see it, but rest are molting fine..


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## Teemote (Aug 13, 2016)

Quick update; I got a TDS meter off amazon for like 15 bucks and found out the following

My tap water is 160-170 which seems to be normal... but then my tanks (3 of them) are at 250-260....

What's going on? I use eco-complete / drift wood... that's about it.

Why did it get so hard?


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## Harry Muscle (Mar 21, 2007)

Teemote said:


> Quick update; I got a TDS meter off amazon for like 15 bucks and found out the following
> 
> My tap water is 160-170 which seems to be normal... but then my tanks (3 of them) are at 250-260....
> 
> ...


A lot of things slowly dissolve in the tank and increase the TDS. If you do more frequent water changes you can bring down the TDS usually to be closer to the tap water TDS.

Thanks, 
Harry


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## infolific (Apr 10, 2016)

In your original post you mentioned adding fertilizers. I believe some components of what you're adding will affect TDS readings.


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## fishyfriends (Feb 20, 2015)

*Substrate - causing high PH*

Check your substrate. If it is black gravel from national geographic or crushed coral then you've found the cause.

I lost a bunch of nice blue shrimp this way. There are only a few things that can raise the ph - hard water, mineral supplements and substrate (plants and driftwood will not raise ph they lower it).

Good luck.


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