Dwarf Shrimp Dying Daily - please help!

[scteel24]

Hi all – I have a 6 gallon freshwater tank with various neo cardi shrimp. I stated with 8 adults and at one point I had 80 shrimp! They bred like crazy. I’m now down to 40 and am finding 1-2 dead every day. I have so many cool colors as they have inter-bred and I hate to keep losing them. I noticed the Ph has dropped for a perfect 7.2 to 6.0. I’m not sure why. I also noticed that all of the new baby snails (a ball of moss I bought was loaded with eggs now I a zillion snails) have a lot of white on their shells. The adults don’t – is that odd or do I have a calcium issues? I just don’t understand as everything has been great for the past 8 months.
Parameters are:
Tap water with Prime conditioner
25% water change once every 3-4 weeks
Kh – 80
Gh – 120
Nitrates – 5
Nitrites – 0

Lots of live plants – I use a half a capful of plant fertilizer once a week.
I cut back on feeding them baby shrimp food from 4 times a week to once.
I did switch from a carbon filter to a sponge filter but my shrimp were dying off before that and I kept the old media in the tank for 5 weeks along with the new sponge filter. Any ideas what is going on or more importantly how I can raise the ph?
Thank you!

 

[Naughts]

Hi all – I have a 6 gallon freshwater tank with various neo cardi shrimp. I stated with 8 adults and at one point I had 80 shrimp! They bred like crazy. I’m now down to 40 and am finding 1-2 dead every day. I have so many cool colors as they have inter-bred and I hate to keep losing them. I noticed the Ph has dropped for a perfect 7.2 to 6.0. I’m not sure why. I also noticed that all of the new baby snails (a ball of moss I bought was loaded with eggs now I a zillion snails) have a lot of white on their shells. The adults don’t – is that odd or do I have a calcium issues? I just don’t understand as everything has been great for the past 8 months.
Parameters are:
Tap water with Prime conditioner
25% water change once every 3-4 weeks
Kh – 80
Gh – 120
Nitrates – 5
Nitrites – 0

Lots of live plants – I use a half a capful of plant fertilizer once a week.
I cut back on feeding them baby shrimp food from 4 times a week to once.
I did switch from a carbon filter to a sponge filter but my shrimp were dying off before that and I kept the old media in the tank for 5 weeks along with the new sponge filter. Any ideas what is going on or more importantly how I can raise the ph?
Thank you!

More water changes of bigger volume ie. 50% per week. This will get rid of the organics that are lowering the pH.

 

[scteel24]

More water changes of bigger volume ie. 50% per week. This will get rid of the organics that are lowering the pH.

thank you - I just read the complete opposite on 3 different sites. All of the info is confusing. Is my Kh an ok level or do I need to raise that as well? Does higher Kh also increase Ph?

thanks!

 

[Scarlett123]

thank you - I just read the complete opposite on 3 different sites. All of the info is confusing. Is my Kh an ok level or do I need to raise that as well? Does higher Kh also increase Ph?

thanks!

Higher kH stabilizes pH which can drop due to excess organics. Fluctuations in pH aren’t great for shrimp. Large water changes can also mess with shrimp (temperature needs to be exact and other parameters similar so no large fluctuations) so I recommend if you are doing larger water changes then make sure you slowly add the new dechlorinated water to the tank.

I added aragonite to my substrate and have an Oase filter to get the water flowing over it a bit to assist in slow dissolving and maintaining my kH at about 4. I think your kH may be in different units so I’m not sure what yours equates to. Note dropping ph that low (6.0) can starve the good bacteria because the minimal amount of ammonia they feed on become a different form (ammonium) that they don’t eat. This can send you into a mini cycle and shrimp are very sensitive to ammonia and nitrite.
It’s possible there are other issues but the pH is a big red flag. I had a similar issue for 6 months until someone at my LFS suggested adding aragonite.

What is the pH and kH of your tap water after sitting out for 24 hours? Do you have public water or well water? Fluctuations in water quality can cause issues too (such as new treatment systems, source variability, seasonal fluctuations, etc). good luck!

 

[FishGuest5123]

I add Tums to my tank...1/2 tums a week to help with calcium. I also clean my gravel with a gravel vac each week and do a 70% water change. Babies like crazy! I don’t use fertilizer in my shrimp tank.

 

[Colin_T]

Any chance of a picture of the shrimp so we can check them for disease?

Do a 75% water change and gravel clean the substrate eveyr day for a couple of weeks.
Make sure any new water is free of chlorine/ chloramine before it's added to the tank.

Clean the filter if it hasn't been done in the last 2 weeks. Wash filter media in a bucket of tank water and re-use it.

Remove as many snails as possible because they will compete with the shrimp for food and make the water quality deteriorate faster.

If you're trying to breed a species, get all the other species out of the tank.

 

[Naughts]

thank you - I just read the complete opposite on 3 different sites. All of the info is confusing. Is my Kh an ok level or do I need to raise that as well? Does higher Kh also increase Ph?

thanks!

Your KH and GH are fine. Don't try to change them, water chemistry is complex and has knock on effects. Higher KH buffers PH so it shouldn't fluctuate much. Once you are doing regular weekly water changes the PH should return to the normal 7.2 and your GH level at 120 should provide enough calcium for the snails.

Like Deanasue I don't add fertiliser. It could be adding to the problem, especially if you add a lot in relation to the water volume.

A water change of 50-75% will have no negative effect as long as the temperature is matched within a degree or two and its dechlorinated. I do not recommend more than 75%.

 

[utahfish]

Agree with everything thats been said, and check your plant fertilizer for copper. Copper is toxic to inverts.

 

[scteel24]

Thanks for all of the replies - I will do a large water change tonight. I didn't know the snails would be harming the water parameters so I'll get out as many as I can but they have been in the tank for 6 months so I don't know if they are the issue. The fert has no copper and is safe for inverts (or so the bottle says). Some of my plants were dying so that's why I started adding it and then the plants grew like crazy and nice and green. So frustrating and confusing since the tank has been thriving for 8 months.

 

[Essjay]

Snails don't harm water parameters (pH, Gh and KH)or conditions (ammonia, nitrite and nitrate). Colin does not like snails.
If you had a ton of snails, yes they would create ammonia the same as fish, but you keep snails under control by not over feeding the tank and by keeping the bottom of the tank, and gravel if that's what you have, clean from uneaten food and poop.

But I don't know why your shrimps are dying. Have started doing anything differently, other than using the fertiliser?

 

[scteel24]

 

[PheonixKingZ]

Wow! You have quite an assortment. Blue velvet shrimp, yellow (or gold) shrimp, cherry shrimp etc.

Have you recently been adding anything? Like a slime coat or a medication?

 

[Colin_T]

Lots of sediment on the bottom, that won't be helping them.

Just try some water changes and if they keep dying, post pics of the deads and add some salt.
Use 2 heaped tablespoons of salt for every 20 litres of tank water. Keep the salt in the tank for 2 weeks and see if it helps.

 

[scteel24]

I have recently been vacuuming the bottom more - my guppy grass is dying after months of being lush and green and was taking over the tank. The stuff at the bottom, I think, is the dead grass which I try not to let lie there. I wonder if the dying grass is related? I did trim it and then it started to die - maybe I did it wrong? Also, unfortunately, the shrimp and snails seem to eat the dead ones and I find leftover pieces or see them eating it - yuk - but I'll try to get a photo.

 

[Munroco]

I'm not sure why putting salt into your tank would help with this problem. If you do decide to go down that route, don't just dump it in, add it very gradually.