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Unexplained Shrimp Deaths


Charis
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I have started having an increased number of shrimp deaths in my Orange Rili tank. These shrimp were purchased and imported at the start of December. The first death was the day before Christmas. It's possible two more died and were eaten while I was away of the holidays and since being back there was one death yesterday and another that is 95% dead right now.

There are no noticeable physically changes in the shrimp's appearance. They are still perfectly colored and no missing parts! They seem to get more lethargic, sitting in the open and then more clumsy, almost like they are dragging their front legs a bit. Slowly they die and end up on their backs and sides. It really worries me because 5 have died and one of the large females is now starting to look slow and clumsy. Ugh. Two batches of shrimplets hatched over the holiday and there are a ton of them in the tank. As far as I can tell, I don't see any dead shrimplets on the floor. I would have thought they would be the most susceptible to anything. I'm feeding NLS Grow. I have tried spinach leaves, algae tabs and a veggie food, but the shrimp only seem to actually want to eat the Grow. There isn't any copper in the ingredients, but maybe there is something else bad I should be looking for?

Water parameters are fine, I think. Ammonia 0, Nitrite 0, TDS 222, pH 7.9, KH 7, GH 9. I'm using a RO, tap water mix and the tap water is treated with Prime. My only unknown is Nitrate.... so that could be off. Temp is 74-75F. It's a planted tank with quite a few plants and lots of java moss. It's filtered by a sponge filter and I have been adding what has evaporated each week via drip method.

Any ideas what in the world is going on?! I'm very tempted to do a huge water change to get whatever it is out of the tank! But, I know shrimp don't really like water changes! Should I pull the shrimp and put them in a different tank?! Would that be helpful? It would be possible with the adult, but the shrimplets would have to be left.

Thus far my tanks of Blue Dreams and the few CRS that the seller included don't seem impacted. I feel like I may be seeing a behaviour change in the Blue Dreams, but I'm likely just panicking. I really want to figure out how to fix this before I lose the Rilis or accidentally spread it. :(

Edited by Charis
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I'd contact your supplier for support first. What parameters were they raised in? Prime is usually not the first choice for shrimpers, better to use 100% remineralized RO or RO/DI. Are you topping off with RO?

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I purchased from Aquabid, Soshrimp, who I understand also imports and resells. I'll send him an email and see if he has any advise. His parameters are

ph7.0-7.5

gh8-10
tds250-300
temp72-75

I'm topping off with the RO/Tap mix. It's weird that they handled the transition into the water fine and would just start dieing about three weeks later. Is that sometimes what happens?

Unfortunately, I now have a dead one in my Blue Dream tap with a few others looking lethargic. Can you think of an illness that may cause this? Do you think it is my water parameters? I have heard of many people keeping neos in pure tap waters, so I had thought that RO/tap would be a step up. I don't currently have the ability to remineralize pure RO to the perfect spot for Neos. I only bought Salty Shrimp for CRS.

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Test your nitrates; nitrate spikes are common around the one month mark with new shrimp tanks.

Also if you are just topping off and not doing water changes use just pure RO.

I also heard some horror stories with prime and shrimps so I don't use it myself for shrimps.

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Interesting about the Prime! I didn't know that! I've always thought it was a dream product! Ha! I guess it's not a dream product for all species.

I'm going to run out and get a nitrate test kit tomorrow. It was on my to-do list, but obviously I need it asap. In the mean time, I'm doing a 25% water change adding in the new water via drip over a long period of time. Hopefully it helps.

I did not know that I should be using pure RO! I thought that I was supposed to be making the water that I'm adding the same as what is already in the tank in terms of parameters. I guess this is not correct? How often do you do actual water changes?

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Top off water is for replacing evaporated water, all of your minerals are still in your tank. It's best to use RO/DI as you'll still be adding some TDS with RO water. Have you tested your TDS, GH and KH lately of were those your original parameters? You should have noticed all of them rising as you were topping off with your tap/RO mix.

You may want to consider using pure RO or RO/DI and a remineralizer in the future, SS GH/KH+ is very affordable especially if it can help you avoid this in the future.

I only do water changes when my TDS starts to get higher than I would like and when I do, it's only a 10 - 15% WC.

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  • 9 months later...

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