Help! Contaminated plants arrived? Baking soda?

[AdoraBelle Dearheart]

What is that pink leafy plants? I love he looks of it.

Sorry, I've just seen this. Do you mean this one?

That's alternanthera reineckii , although not a very healthy looking bunch of stems. It's a beautiful plant usually, worth getting, just not from where I got it from. None of this survived.

 

[AdoraBelle Dearheart]

I've lost nine shrimp this month, three of those this morning Mostly females, but a couple of juveniles too.
I think I saw the white ring of death on the two of the females from this morning, but hard to tell if it really was a moulting thing or if they'd been picked at by guppies after they died. Also two otocinclus and a couple of guppy sub-adults.

They seem to have been fine with my water up until now, and I'm still seeing the odd perfect moult. I don't know if the medications I've used might be the cause, I did re-dose eSHa ndx yesterday, the second treatment of ndx. They're supposed to be shrimp safe, but the eSHa 2000 sounds a little less confident about that.

The contaminated plants from this post never went anywhere near my tanks, they were in a bucket then added to a fish only tank in a different room, and the bucket bleached, declorinated, dried etc, and no cross contamination between tanks. I've been religious about that since dealing with worms and medicating.

However, I did add four new plants I got from my LFS uly 30th. I've bought plants from there before without problems, and I didn't know they might not be shrimp safe until I made this post about different online plants. But when I learned about it, I called my LFS and asked where he sourced his plants from. He said usually a wholesaler in Holland, but recently he hasn't been able to get from there, so he's had to order from somewhere in Indonesia. He said he didn't know about the pesticide thing, and can't confirm where the plants I picked up came from.

So I'm suspecting those plants, or maybe not enough calcium or something in the water? But I have a GH of 253ppm, and they were fine in my water before, so I'm suspecting the plants.

@essjay, please help! I'm so tired of losing fish and shrimp, I feel like a murderer here, no matter how much I try to give them the best possible care. Would you suspect the meds, plants, both, or something else maybe? My population was booming until recently, but haven't seen a berried female in a while, and now these losses and potentially white ring of death... what should I do now?

I've now removed the newer plants, and I'm doing a large water change now. Contemplating whether to move the shrimp out of that tank altogether, who knows what pesticide the wholesaler may have used, and what may be contaminated

I just went to order the shrimp safe plant pack from pro-shrimp, and of course, they're out of stock now that I'm ready to buy.

 

[Essjay]

It may be the treatments, shrimps are very sensitive creatures. Is there any chance of a small tank for them, even if it's later used as a quarantine tank?
I first got shrimps 7 years ago and they died one by one with a white ring across their backs. I was told by someone that this is caused by a shrimp-specific bacterium and to get some beta-g (beta glucan) to boost their immune systems to help them fight it off. I can't say if it worked because by the time it arrived (first one lost in post) the last bought shrimp had died, though it was a berried female which died just after the babies hatched and most of them survived. Unfortunately, when I google the product that was recommended, everyone including Ebay and Amazon is out of stock. Plenty of human beta g but none for aquarium use
Other than putting them in a totally uncontaminated tank, I don't know what to suggest.



Plants - you could try doing a search on Ebay in the fish & aquarium section for 'in vitro plants' They won't be contaminated.

 

[AdoraBelle Dearheart]

It may be the treatments, shrimps are very sensitive creatures. Is there any chance of a small tank for them, even if it's later used as a quarantine tank?
I first got shrimps 7 years ago and they died one by one with a white ring across their backs. I was told by someone that this is caused by a shrimp-specific bacterium and to get some beta-g (beta glucan) to boost their immune systems to help them fight it off. I can't say if it worked because by the time it arrived (first one lost in post) the last bought shrimp had died, though it was a berried female which died just after the babies hatched and most of them survived. Unfortunately, when I google the product that was recommended, everyone including Ebay and Amazon is out of stock. Plenty of human beta g but none for aquarium use
Other than putting them in a totally uncontaminated tank, I don't know what to suggest.



Plants - you could try doing a search on Ebay in the fish & aquarium section for 'in vitro plants' They won't be contaminated.

Thank you!
I do have a new tank I can move them too, I was worried about moving any of the old plants with them, since I have no idea whether the pesticide used might have gone into the water column and contaminated my old plants, you know? So I hoped I could order new ones and at least try to get them by in a brand new tank with clean plants by feeding extra shrimp pellets and stuff, you know?

Ooohh, how about I split the population? Some in the new 'clean' tank, and some in the original tank after a big water change and now the culprit plants have been removed? Hedge my bets so to speak. If there are some males, females and shrimplets in each tank, hopefully I won't lose the entire colony. I'll keep searching or the beta g, thank you. Sounds like it wouldn't hurt to try it at least.

 

[Essjay]

Ooohh, how about I split the population?

That would sort out whether it's the plants or not.