What Am I Doing Wrong? So Fed Up Now.

[minxfishy]

So yesterday received my second lot of shrimp (not from same seller) 1st lot I put in with guppies, cories, but alas within 2 days all gone presumed eaten.

So set up a tank with nothing else in, for shrimp only, with alot of Java moss, fern, bogwood etc. 24 Cherries arrived yesterday, all looked healthy and once acclimatised happily racing around the tank, thought great no problems.

this morning, finding lots of dead bodies, a few that I can see alive, dont look good, they seem to try to swim, but flop onto their backs and fall to the floor!!

I dont know what Im doing wrong, the ph in the water they came in was 7.6ish my ph is 7.8ish depending on the tank - obviously this one was 7.8 as I had to rush set it up for reasons which I wont go into here. But not such a large shock for them I would have thought. I wont be trying anymore, I cant bear to see them all die like this, plus they are not cheap critters.

To make it worse, they were for my 4yr old, he loves shrimp, so he's been happy as a pig in muck, sitting watching his little tank with his shrimp, this morning, he's very upset to see the bodies.

Oh mature media from betta tank used in filter for shrimp tank, Am = 0, NitrI = 0, NitrA = 5 (out the tap).

 

[Aphotic Phoenix]

Is there a possibility that the tank or anything in it has been contaminated with copper?

The reason that I ask this is...while copper isn't toxic to fish, (and it's used in certain medications), it is very toxic to invertebrates.

 

[minxfishy]

All the moss/Fern was thoroughly washed and the tank has not been treated with anything. So no copper The water was treated with dechlor, thats it.

 

[jnms]

Is there a possibility that the tank or anything in it has been contaminated with copper?

The reason that I ask this is...while copper isn't toxic to fish, (and it's used in certain medications), it is very toxic to invertebrates.

How much copper is toxic? As most household pipes are copper, would that be too much?

 

[justjon]

I have amano shrimps mixed with mollies/pleque/clown loaches and they are fine, got 2 live plants, gravel and a boat ornament aswell as a tunnel type ornament, i do regular water-changes and shrimp have been doing well for about 2 months... seems strange.

Perhaps you could try taking everything out of the tank, apart from the shrimps (i mean wood, ornaments etc) and maybe a live plant or two and see how that goes?

 

[@ombomb]

House hold pipes are generally made from Copper (in the UK at least) but the mains pipes are not. As long as you run your tap few a couple of minutes, there's little to no danger of any copper making it into the water and certainly not enough to wipe out a tank full of shrimp.

Saying that, there's nothing to say that there aren't other substances in the tap water which could be causing this. Inverts do tend to be that bit more sensitive to contaminants than fish.

What about using RO water with the correct buffers?

 

[Aphotic Phoenix]

It was the bogwood that I was most suspicious of possibly harboring a contaminant if it'd been used in a tank previously. Really a contaminant is the only thing that makes sense to me to cause such devastation, because a bacterial infection shouldn't cause all of them to become so ill over night. Sorry for your frustration and hope that someone can help you find the answer.

 

[minxfishy]

There is nothing in the tank apart from the moss/Fern/Bogwood with the shrimp. The tank was rushed bought yesterday as I wasnt expecting the shrimps arrival but was cleaned out using plain water, the moss/fern/wood had been soaked for several days as they arrived before the original expected tank, so they were clean. Could have been copper from the pipes - this is an old house.

TBH I dont know what it was, maybe just the stress of travelling/ph shock I dunno, but I wont be trying again, cant bear to see this.

 

[rocknurworld2006]

There is nothing in the tank apart from the moss/Fern/Bogwood with the shrimp. The tank was rushed bought yesterday as I wasnt expecting the shrimps arrival but was cleaned out using plain water, the moss/fern/wood had been soaked for several days as they arrived before the original expected tank, so they were clean. Could have been copper from the pipes - this is an old house.

TBH I dont know what it was, maybe just the stress of travelling/ph shock I dunno, but I wont be trying again, cant bear to see this.

how long did u acclimitise them for?

are your water stats defo accurate?
and what is your ph and temp?

 

[minxfishy]

Acclimatised by putting the bag water and shrimp into a container, (came in a breathable bag, so couldnt acclimatise by floating the bag, then slowly over an hour added small cupfuls of tank water. The netted into tank. All seemed very active and happy last night when I last checked them. Ive raised the filter slightly to aerate more this morning, see if that makes a difference.

The stats are definately accurate. Ph is 7.8. Temp at 25. The remaining shrimps are still active, just dont seem right to me, like they are having problems swimming. There is soo much moss in there, its hard to tell how many survived.

 

[rocknurworld2006]

Acclimatised by putting the bag water and shrimp into a container, (came in a breathable bag, so couldnt acclimatise by floating the bag, then slowly over an hour added small cupfuls of tank water. The netted into tank. All seemed very active and happy last night when I last checked them. Ive raised the filter slightly to aerate more this morning, see if that makes a difference.

The stats are definately accurate. Ph is 7.8. Temp at 25. The remaining shrimps are still active, just dont seem right to me, like they are having problems swimming. There is soo much moss in there, its hard to tell how many survived.

there is defo a problem somewhere this happened exactly the same your describing to me with my first batch o bought from someone but the ones i have now are all good i have over a hundred breeding away

 

[minxfishy]

Im keeping my fingers crossed that the remaining survive, I can understand a couple of losses, sometimes it happens, but from 24 to about 6 that Ive seen today is weird, the last ones I had were much smaller and as I say put in a 10g with guppies/cories, who it appears ate them, found others in the filter dead. With this small filter in this tank, I put mesh over it so no chance of anybody escaping into it or being sucked up. Also the bodies Ive found were half eaten, surely the shrimp still alive couldnt have eaten them that quickly?

 

[Gilli]

It could be that you have just been unlucky with the sellers. Try again from another seller. In general, shrimp are a lot more sensitive animals than fish. Minute changes in their environment can mean stress and ultimately death for most shrimp. Your water stats sound fine. You have the same Ph as me and I have 3 x amano shrimps with no problems. Try those they are quite a tough little shrimp an full of character.

Dont use the hot water tap to up the temp of your water changes as this comes from the holding tank and may contain copper - use the kettle instead! Other chemicals are also added to the boiler which, helped by the temperature of the water, release heavy metals into the water. Whereas fish will be fine (in the short term anyway), shrimp will react adversely immediately.

Just a thought they are definately dead yes? When they shed their skins they look like dead shrimp but it is just the skins. Also sometimes people cant see them in the tank for ages and think they have gone but then they pop up!

 

[minxfishy]

I did think could be skins, but def looked like actual shrimp. No more dead since this morning, hopefully they are all just hiding well.

 

[Gilli]

When they shed the whole shell comes off in one piece complete with the feelers! It will look like a transparent dead shrimp!