aquascape1987
Member
Hi. I'm looking for a bit of advice on a shrimp problem that I'm having. In that I appear to be poisoning them.
I've had a heavily planted scape running since December, using EI ferts and CO2, which became overrun with brown algae. On Wednesday and Thursday this week I ripped out and replaced my hc carpet with new, and reprepared and then replanted a lot of the other plants I had as well. Refilled the aquarium and i added a double dose of both my macro and micro ferts as well as 5ml of liquid carbon. My drop checker is lime green. The intention behind the initial high fert and carbon dose was to hopefully help get things moving with the plants rooting since the tank was completely emptied for the replant and therefore I didn't want to wait for the nutrients in the water to build up. I ordered 10 amano shrimp which arrived and went into the tank on Friday as well as the correct fert and liquid carbine dose for that day.
Initially the shrimp seemed fine but after a couple of hours 1 or two seemed to be dying. (Becoming inactive and then progressively becoming listless and just lying on the bottom twitching their legs)
The next day I came home and most were dead leaving 2 or 3 appearing to be still active (although going slightly pink).
I fished out the dead and did a 75% water change, but over the next couple of hours the remaining few seemed to have all died.
After a bit of reading, I concluded that I had made a massive school boy error with the initial liquid carbon overdose I had in the water when I added the shrimp,so I reconciled myself to giving the tank another week without shrimp, and adding some more after my next weekly 75% water change and then cutting the liquid carbon to strictly no more than the 1ml per 50litres. Previously I had been double dosing with no ill effect to my betta,the only fish in my aquaroum currently.
Today I arrived home and realised I had 1 survivor,which I was pleased about. It seemed active and walking round fine working at the Algae etc. I added my usual micro fert dose and within 30 mins,my surviving shrimp appeared to also have gone from healthy to dying,which made me reconsider my original diagnosis of the carbon overdose,in light of the fact that to my joy,I had one seemingly healthy survivor,which basically withered and died within the 30 minutes after I had discovered it,and had been watching it. The only thing I changed since discovery was that I added my micro trace mix,which is made from the apf ei starter kit, although it is 1.5 more concentrated than the recommendations.
Could my micro trace mix be poisoning the shrimp? I have read that the level of copper in ei micro mixes, is less than 10 % the potency approx,than that which would cause problems with shrimp.
Please help. I need to add my clean up crew to get the tank in order but I really don't want to kill anymore of the staff!!
Richard
I've had a heavily planted scape running since December, using EI ferts and CO2, which became overrun with brown algae. On Wednesday and Thursday this week I ripped out and replaced my hc carpet with new, and reprepared and then replanted a lot of the other plants I had as well. Refilled the aquarium and i added a double dose of both my macro and micro ferts as well as 5ml of liquid carbon. My drop checker is lime green. The intention behind the initial high fert and carbon dose was to hopefully help get things moving with the plants rooting since the tank was completely emptied for the replant and therefore I didn't want to wait for the nutrients in the water to build up. I ordered 10 amano shrimp which arrived and went into the tank on Friday as well as the correct fert and liquid carbine dose for that day.
Initially the shrimp seemed fine but after a couple of hours 1 or two seemed to be dying. (Becoming inactive and then progressively becoming listless and just lying on the bottom twitching their legs)
The next day I came home and most were dead leaving 2 or 3 appearing to be still active (although going slightly pink).
I fished out the dead and did a 75% water change, but over the next couple of hours the remaining few seemed to have all died.
After a bit of reading, I concluded that I had made a massive school boy error with the initial liquid carbon overdose I had in the water when I added the shrimp,so I reconciled myself to giving the tank another week without shrimp, and adding some more after my next weekly 75% water change and then cutting the liquid carbon to strictly no more than the 1ml per 50litres. Previously I had been double dosing with no ill effect to my betta,the only fish in my aquaroum currently.
Today I arrived home and realised I had 1 survivor,which I was pleased about. It seemed active and walking round fine working at the Algae etc. I added my usual micro fert dose and within 30 mins,my surviving shrimp appeared to also have gone from healthy to dying,which made me reconsider my original diagnosis of the carbon overdose,in light of the fact that to my joy,I had one seemingly healthy survivor,which basically withered and died within the 30 minutes after I had discovered it,and had been watching it. The only thing I changed since discovery was that I added my micro trace mix,which is made from the apf ei starter kit, although it is 1.5 more concentrated than the recommendations.
Could my micro trace mix be poisoning the shrimp? I have read that the level of copper in ei micro mixes, is less than 10 % the potency approx,than that which would cause problems with shrimp.
Please help. I need to add my clean up crew to get the tank in order but I really don't want to kill anymore of the staff!!
Richard
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