Upgrading My Shrimp Tank

[Mamashack]

I did an 85% water change the day before yesterday when the first shrimp had died.
I'm getting some R.O water tomorrow so I'll do another decent one then. Can only think that I've knocked off the bacteria somehow and/or it's the cholla wood that's in there.
Am getting some snowflake food tomorrow hopefully - in theory it can be left in there without spoiling the water so if they eat that I may try taking the cholla wood out too and see if it makes a difference.

 

[Dandyman3]

Hey all,
 
Sorry in the delay. Trouble in paradise here too!
 
Sadly I lost two of the new red crystal shrimps the other day too and have being trying to piece together why. Now looking into my water stats the two which cause for a bit of concern was amonia (0.25ppm) and nitrate no2 which was 5ppm... 
 
I am not sure which caused such a huge drive in nitrate so now working on trying to reduce that. Added a bit of freshwater salt into the tank which is from API products too hopefully help reduce any chance of others catching disease. 
 
In relation to the questions. With regards to cucumber, I just simply cut a small slice of the end 2-3cm width and then put it straight into the tank. Drop it in and try and anchor it down. It is quite a finicky job but is really that simple. 
 

 

 
@dandyman - that is very interesting you have black & red crystals as well as cherry as i have been having secound thoughts on my shimp to have i may jave 3 types now, fantasy blue, red cherry & blacl crystal, your shrimp look amazing 

 
Well fingers crossed none of the other's will be affected. One of my amano shrimps shed there skeleton the other day which is at least a good sign. 
 
Temperature wise, my tank varies but usually is in the range of 25-30 degrees Celsius. All my fish seem to be doing fine with that and the shrimp from what I can tell. I too wouldn't think that it would affect it, but any major change in water parameters. Hope you get everything back up and running soon. 
 
 

 

[Mamashack]

Sorry to hear about your losses too, Dandyman!
Did you know that salt also neutralises the toxic effects of nitrites?
Not sure how aquarium salt differs from table salt to be honest, but in the Cycle Your Tank section of the forum under Rescuing a fish-in cycle gone wild part II, there is a section on how much table salt to add for whatever the nitrite level is. It's the chloride that neutralises it apparently and it doesn't seem to matter if it's iodised.
I haven't had any more deaths since those 2 and tho my ammonia still reads 0.25 ppm on testing, on the free ammonia calculator for my pH and temp, it's 0.007 ppm so I don't know if that's the cause of all the problems or whether the 2 that died were older ones. There were mixed sizes when got them
Hopefully the R.O. water will help keep my nitrates lower for longer if the starting point is 0
Looking forward to getting the snowflake food soon too - then we'll see if the claim that you can leave it in without fouling the water is true.

 

[Mamashack]

Just reread your thread, Dandyman - is it the nitrite or nitrate that's 5ppm? You said nitrate then put the chemical symbol for nitrite.
If it's nitrate then ignore my comments about nitrite. 

 

[Mamashack]

This morning's API ammonia test was a resounding yellow with not a speck of green!!! Woohoo!!!
The cholla logs can stay. Am pleased about that as the shrimp do seem to like eating from it.
Bit disappointed about the leaf litter tho! Would love to be able to use it, not least because it would sit in my cupboard doing nothing otherwise!
Wonder if it's worth using the spare tank to get the spare filter cycled and have some leaf litter in the tank at the same time so that it is included and the beneficial bacteria are able to adjust to the increase in demand. Then transfer the sponge into this tank along with the leaf litter.
Does that sound reasonable or am I shooting at the moon?

 

[Zikofski]

awesome MAMA and can i mention with handyman I'm pretty sure its nitrate, as 5ppm of nitrite would kill everything and anything
 
i am so glad your tank is back to normal now mama so hope no more dramas 
 
with setting up your other tank for the leaf litter its a good idea, also is handy to have some extra bacteria lying around just in case something else happens to this tank, may i ask why you add the leaf litter my personal preference i hate the stuff haha just wondered if there  was a reason behind it other than aesthetics 
 
can i note my shrimp even tho my tank is riddled with algae and the algae is slowly getting less and less, my shrimp i notice do love to sit on my rocks not sure why maybe they like the hard surfaces maybe they feel more secure there

 

[Mamashack]

Glad they are sorting out your algae problem. Maybe they are playing King Of The Castle on the rocks, Zik! lol
The reasons I tried the leaf litter are to provide extra hiding places and also it gives the biofilm another surface to grow on and also the shrimp sometimes eat the leaves themselves.
Am still paranoid they aren't getting enough to eat with it being a relatively new tank! Think they must be tho as they ignore any food I put in in favour of what's on the substrate, cholla logs, moss-balls and pre-filter sponge. Doesn't stop me worrying about it tho! lol

 

[Dandyman3]

Just reread your thread, Dandyman - is it the nitrite or nitrate that's 5ppm? You said nitrate then put the chemical symbol for nitrite.
If it's nitrate then ignore my comments about nitrite. 

 
Sorry. I was referring to Nitrite oops... Wish it was nitrate NO3 as API test kit recommends that should be 40ppm... 
 
It is quite strange. Unless my fish have become really hardy but the only thing which I seemed to have lost was the recent addition of the shrimp. I am wondering if a slight mix of the two waters a bit from the other tank and mine during accumulation could have caused a spike. I can't see really any other reason. 
 
Going to do a water change again though tomorrow to hopefully aid in bringing that back down to reality. 
 
Glad to hear they are still living a life of luxury though Mamma!

 

[Mamashack]

Just check that your test-tubes are spotless before you do the testing. I've had spurious results and think it was due to less than adequate rinsing after the tests.
If the nitrite is still up after rechecking your results, check out that link for chloride neutralization.
I wouldn't be happy with nitrate as high as 40 for shrimp - fish maybe be able to tolerate it but shrimp are much more sensitive to nitrate. 
The snowflake food didn't arrive yet, but I did get the R.O water which created another situation I had to deal with as an emergency.
Now I've got you wondering what it is I'm going to bed and I'll post all about it in the morning (Wicked aren't I? Lol 

) 

 

[Mamashack]

Sorry I didn't post anything this morning as promised - I didn't get to sleep til 5am as one of the dogs wasn't well and the building site across the road from me started being noisy at about 6.45am! Groan!!
I was walking round like a zombie all morning. Work this afternoon and evening wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be, but I'm totally trashed now so I'm going to have a relatively early night and I'll spill the beans tomorrow

 

[Dandyman3]

Look forward to the update. Gave my tank a huge water change today adding a bit more salt. Seems like everything has settled in paradise at the moment. Just need to do another water test. No further losses yet which is a good sign. Just upsetting about the former shrimps 

. 
 
One of the largest amano shrimp in there I haven't seen in a few days but saw his shell which he had shed. I saw the other mini amano shrimp, and today one of the cherry shrimp. But I think they've gone into hiding with the high spikes and changes in temperature environment. With water changes they always seem to go into hiding then come back after a few days. 

 

[Mamashack]

@Dandyman They also go into hiding once they've moulted as it leaves them more exposed until the new one hardens.
Hope the nitrite situation settles soon. Have you any idea what caused it?
 
Ok regarding the R.O. water debacle - If you recall I was trying to keep the nitrate level as low as possible so i thought I'd try R.O. water so that the starting point is 0. I prepared it to the 250 TDS the shrimp are used to and did a 35% water change which sounds like a good proportion doesn't it? Wrong! The pH in the tank plummeted to 6.4 from 7.8 and put me in a right old panic! It never crossed my mind that the pH would shift altho thinking about it logically if all the buffering agents have been removed then it's bound to change. I guess the hydrogen comes from the water itself.
Was advised by members of a dedicated shrimp forum that I really should have aired the replacement water for a day to get rid of the CO2 which itself reduces the pH. Have been airing another lot of water for 36 hours and the pH only rose from 6.0 to 6.4 which is too acid for Neos - ideally should have slightly alkaline water Have had a spare empty filter aerating the shrimp tank and in the same 36 hrs the pH in there has risen from 6.4 to 7.0. To elevate the pH would need something like crushed coral, but to be honest I can't afford to spend any more as I'm going away for a few days soon. and really I'm thinking why take everything out of the water just to put it back in again! I know it removes all the cr*p we don't know about but to my mind it causes more problems than it solves.
So I'm going to forget using R.O water - stick with the tap water and the shrimp are going to have to learn to tolerate a nitrate level of up to 20 tho I still endeavour to keep it as low as is reasonable..
I have learned one very practical  lesson - when adjusting parameters, such as TDS, GH, pH, make the replacement water parameters what you want the tank to eventually end up with and do 10% water change daily until the desired parameters are achieved in the tank. Since I've messed up the pH I shall have to do this using tap water until it gets back to at least the ideal 7.5 tho my shrimp are used to 7.8. They have tolerated the sudden drop extremely well I think.
The story doesn't sound so dramatic in the retelling but I've learned a very powerful lesson from all this, don't mess with the water parameters if at all possible!
I am happy to say that amazingly no shrimp were lost during this episode of madness on my part.

 

[Dandyman3]

 
@Dandyman They also go into hiding once they've moulted as it leaves them more exposed until the new one hardens.
Hope the nitrite situation settles soon. Have you any idea what caused it?

 
Thanks for the response and interesting story! I am not too sure what caused the peak. But have posted another topic in one of the forums here to try and see if this could be anything related. As many of the plants seem to have an almost rotting or melting affect. One of them has what seems to be black spot but more pictures and info on that there. 
 
A few more snails have come around as they do.... Not sure they would have any influence on anything like that. Not really too sure apart from the slight mix of waters from the LFS and my tank... 
 
With regards to the story, I think they should adapt just fine, I don't see many of the LFS going into as much work as you have put into with reference to the water. And many of these use the normal bog standard tap water just well conditioned. Hopefully will ease your pocket a bit and still give the shrimp a prosperous future. 

 

[Mamashack]

It seems I spoke too soon this morning - just got home from work to find 2 more dead shrimp 

 and again they were the biggest 2 of remaining ones. I'm wondering if they too were older and maybe less tolerant of the chaos I've created . On the other hand the little ones which you'd expect to be more susceptible to water parameters seem to be doing ok. In fact the remaining smaller ones are scoffing away at the snowflake food I put in this morning. It seems to be very popular!
Wish I knew for certain why they died and whether it's something I'm doing or not doing, so I can change it.

 

[Zikofski]

oooh noo sorry for the loss again mama i don't know how long shrimp last for but i would be surprised if they died of old age i have also lost one of my cherries and an amano, i have no idea how but i found my amano around 2m from the tank can shrimp walk a little but out of water? and sadly i found my big daddy ammano  eating one of my cherries , yowl haft to send us a pic of this snow flake food, for some reason i have a picture of an actual snowflake in my head haha
 
i also think that going back to tap water is more ideal given your situation and i still think 20ppm of nitrate is perfectly fine, still confused to why your shrimp are dying so randomly and with no nitrite or ammonia in the tank. 
 
i am starting to log some stats with my tank, before the WC my TDS was 270, and after the WC my TDS was 110, thats a 50%, i am going to try and remember to test my TDS day and night and record the results and see what happens to my TDS levels during the day this morning after dosing my usually ferts yesterday is now 193
 
keep us updated mamashack