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60L Shrimp Tank - "Hope"

Good Morning all,

Life has been a tad hectic to say the least thus a lack of posting for which I apologise.

Tank is going through a period of highs and lows.

I am currently away from home so can't provide any photos at the moment but should be able to do so closer to the weekend.

Here is the latest:

I have removed 4 dead shrimp (one of which was pregnant) which is a pity to say the least. There may have been more deaths its hard to tell with the jungle of plants. I have a look around it to see if I can spot shrimp (lots of places for the little critters to hide to say the least!)

The rest seem happy - I was excited to see the berried shrimp then about 1 week later she was dead so that was a sad moment.

The plants are doing well - Java fern is making 3 new shouts. Moss is growing slowly but starting to dense up nicely.

Tap water is still around 37 - I add Salty Shrimp GH+ & KH+ to get it up to around 250 (same as the tank water) - Tetra Aqua safe used to dechlorinate the water. Still top us the Mosura BT-9 stuff every week.

Steveo - The tank was set up for around 1 month before I added the shrimp. As you can see its heavily planted just not heavily populated :D

The Mosura stuff has a good reputation - If you have the money I would say go for it. If like me your Scottish I doubt I would buy any more of it. Certainly not for RCS - For CRS then I would opt for buying it again.

Speaking of which I personally am under the impression that red cherry shrimp are bomb proof (How I can't get mine to survive is beyond me!) I have been doing this since January and am yet to see a single baby shrimp.

To be perfectly honest if I knew it was this much hassle and expenditure (Just shy of £1,000 over the 10 months all in) I would simply have never bothered. I like having a tank in my room its a shame everything dies and I have to resort to wearing ear plugs in order to sleep well!

Just have to keep at it - No point giving up :)

Perhaps if it doesn't work out with Red Cherry Shrimp I will just give up on shrimp altogether - Seem to have followed every direction but alas no dice.

Hope you all have better success than I do :)

Best wishes,

Murray
 
Hey Murray
That is a bit sad to hear.
Have you any indication if the water quality is ok, i.e. nitrate, nitrites spikes etc which I am no expert on, nor do I get the impression the test kits should be trusted. But wondered if this was an issue.

How long after adding the shrimp were the 4 dead?

How long did you drip acclimatise them before adding them to the tank?

Have you got some leaf litter in there? Maybe some Frogbit?

Are the others all ok?

I too read that RCS are bullet proof. In fact in my fish tank I had 4 added and never saw them again. Probably as there were lots of fish and it freaked them out. However occasionally, just occasionally I see 1. And I change the water each week 50%, with Tetra Aquasafe, and wipe the plants syphon the substrate etc. However in the shrimp tank I have, it is RO. I or push the trolley with the gerry can sitting in it to the car and then back home. It then stays in a cupboard for 2-3 weeks as I use it slowly on the tank. I feel much better in the knowledge that the water quality, hardness etc is all controlled by me and the amount of Salty Shrimp I add.

Not much I can do about the pump noise. That is a bit annoying.

Hopefully one of the more expert forum members might be able to chime in and help. Dont give up!
R
 
Hi, what is the ph of your tank? Cherries don't like it too low or so I've been told. I had Sakuras in with my crs and they slowly died off and I think it was due to ph of 6. Have you got alot of decaying plant matter ie leaves that are dying? Do you have activated carbon in your filter? The algae you mention is indicative of too much light. If this is the case the plants will be distressed and distressed plants make for poor water.
 
Also you could try adding a bacterial suppliment such as Genchem biozyme. Your tank is still really 'new' in terms of set up time and there might not be enough bacteria or biofilm. Just going through anything I can think of. I had a lot of trouble when I started with shrimp.
 
Sorry, didn't see he was adding bt-9 The Genchem is a fine powder which gets everywhere in the tank. It is much easier than the beemax to get in your water and can be a source of food for baby shrimp too.
 
What about the black gravel? Some black gravels have been dyed to achieve the colour and the dye contains copper. Basil, our resident shrimp expert lost some very valuable shrimp that way. You would expect that all of the shrimp would be dying though? Have you tried calibrating your tds meter? Mine was a bit 'out' and that caused me to have a tds that was too low.
I have similar water to you so I thought would be perfect for crs. It says the shrimp need a tds of 80-180 but if i kept my tank at 80 the shrimp would be dead. Kept at the higher end of 160 they are fine. Maybe you need to raise your tds more? If everything else is perfect then thats probably what I would look at doing. The only thing I have noticed with our water tho is raiseing the tds to the desired level also raises the gh. I'm not sure how high a gh the cherries want but too high and it gives problems moulting. I keep mine at 5 so have to add mosura tds UP. to get tds where i want it.
 
Lindy - Different websites say different tolerances on the conductivity which does not help matters. Freshwater shrimp say a TDS of 100-500, other website state differently but still a high tollerance. But as Clive has said it the past, we tend to get hung up on TDS without knowing what is driving up the TDS values.
R
 
Thats what I mean, I think you have to try different tds levels to find the sweet spot. Even at 120 my shrimp were still dying but raised it to 150 and 'bobs your uncle'. I just use the meter to make sure the water going in is the same as the tank water. Maybe Murray should increase his tds but I also think gh might be worth looking at too as increasing the tds will be driving this up too. I'm just suggesting these things as my water has a tds of 45 out of the tap and I had lots of problems.
 
my tds is the same at the end of the week as it is at the start of the week.
 
Hello Murray,

I'm sorry to read about your recent deaths, and the problems you are having

I'm sure you'll will turn it around, with the great advise people on this forum offer you'll get there.

Perseverance will win the day...
 
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