My CRS are dying :(

[degrassi]

I bought 17 CRS shrimp about a month ago. For the past week or so I've lost 6 of them. I don't know what is causing them to die. Here is a bit of info about my tank.

-10g with a Aquaclear mini filter(sponge on the intake)
-Bare bottom but has lots of Java moss and star grass
-Temp 74*
-Ammonia- 0
-Nitrite- 0
-Nitrate- <10
-Ph- 7.6- 7.8
-Kh- 110-120ppm
-Gh- 200ppm
- Feeding them New life spectrum pellets and zuchini(which I dont' really see them eat)

I know the water is pretty hard for CRS but I had asked on here before I bought them and you guys said they should be fine as long as I acclimated them slowly.They were also doing fine for the first 2 weeks and then one started dying every few days. If it was the water ph and hardness wouldn't they have started dying right away?

My old post can be found here http://www.shrimpnow.com/forums/showthread.php?t=3350

Anyone have any ideas or suggestions? I dont' want to loose them all :(

[TitoC]

Hi Degrassi,

Most likely, the problem is caused by lack of biological filtration combined with overfeeding. Both the small filter and the lack of gravel will only allow for a limited amount of bacteria in the system. If you then supply too much food (esp. the zucchini which is apprantly not eaten), ammonia will be out of control.

Personally, I have bad experience with bare tanks for crystal shrimp. The shrimp do much better when they can forage on the natural production of detritus between the gravel.

My advice to you, is to install an external canister filter and to put some gravel. If you seed the filter with some material from a running filter, it should help quite fast. Additional benefit is more circulation/aeration of the water which is also good for crs I have found.

Hope this will help out.

Mat

[degrassi]

I think the AC mini(now called the AC 20) pumps 100gph and its creating quite a lot of current in the tank. So I dont' think its too small for a 10g. The sponge I've used is also a used sponge from another tank. So it has bio bacteria already in it.

I dont' think its an over feeding problem. I'd only leave the zuchini in there for a day and then remove it. I'm also only feeding a few pellets of NLS at a time. If there are any that aren't being eaten, I'd suck them out at night. I've also been measuring NH3 and NO2 every day. They are always 0.

I'll try adding some gravel. I just thought it would be easier to keep the tank clean with a bare bottom. Its always worked well for my Cherry shrimp and green shrimp. They are both breeding like rabbits.

[prawny]

adding soil will help reduce the PH provided the correct soil has been added... the more popular few are magic soil, master soil and GEX soil.... people do use ADA amazonia soil as well... but you have to let it cycle for much longer for ADA i've heard it takes approximately a month...
I've seen many people using sponges and the filter and the shrimps are fine... but personally i prefer to put in ceramic rings to cultivate bacteria... or you could try biohome plus since the shrimp are already in your tank and time is of the essence.... hope i'm not repeating stuff you already know.... just a few of my humble suggestions....

[fishgeek]

do you know what type of water they came from?

stress can often lead to slow drawn out deaths in my experience
and the first 2 months is the times i find i loose shrimp if i am oing to , generally after this those left seem to settle down and appear happy

andrew

[degrassi]

Well all the shrimp have now died :(

The water they came from was ph 7.2, Kh around 4-5. My water is Ph 7.6-7.8. I aclimated them over 12 hours using the drip method. They did fine for the first 2 weeks.

It must have been the ph and hardness change that did it. All the other water tests(ammonia, nitrite, nitrate, temp) were all perfect.

Its too bad as I really wanted these guys to work out. I'll probably try again but I'll try to find some that have been bred in our local water.

Thanks for all the tips and help.

Atleast the Green shrimp which were bought at the same time and which were also aclimated from ph 7.2 are doing great! So the whole shipment wasn't a loss.

[JohnPaul]

Though it may certainly be possible, I've never found reports of any significant success breeding CRS in pH above 7. People I know who have tap water similar to yours have success with CRS when they mix tap water 50:50 with RO water and put that over either an inert substrate, or else an acidic substrate like Amazonia. I honestly don't think you're ever going to have much success with CRS or any of the soft/acidic water shrimp with the tap water parameters you've provided. Having a good acidic substrate is a help, but not when your tap is 7.8 with the kind of KH you are saying you have.

My advice is either to do what I said above (50:50 tap/RO mix), or else focus on obtaining shrimp that will naturally thrive in the water you have. Any of the Neocaridina would just love your water parameters (that list includes RCS, Yellow, Showball, Blue Pearl and wild-type Neo's). There are some Caridina species that prefer harder, alkaline water as well...Dark Green (Caridina sp.) come to mind (note: these are different than "Green" or "Neon Green" shrimps, both of which also are Caridina sp.), Malaya shrimp would do great, the relatively new Malawa shrimp would too I think. I am sure there are some others I'm forgetting, but those are the ones that immediately come to mind.

[degrassi]

Yes, I'm going to stick with the shrimps that like harder water.

So far I've had great success with Cherry shrimp and the green shrimp are doing well so far(actually have babies already).

But I do know someone locally that has bred her Crystal black and crystal red shrimp is our local tap water. So maybe i'll wait and see if I can get some off her and try again down the road. Atleast that way they will already be used to the high ph and kh.

[panda]

Though it may certainly be possible, I've never found reports of any significant success breeding CRS in pH above 7. People I know who have tap water similar to yours have success with CRS when they mix tap water 50:50 with RO water and put that over either an inert substrate, or else an acidic substrate like Amazonia. I honestly don't think you're ever going to have much success with CRS or any of the soft/acidic water shrimp with the tap water parameters you've provided. Having a good acidic substrate is a help, but not when your tap is 7.8 with the kind of KH you are saying you have.

My advice is either to do what I said above (50:50 tap/RO mix), or else focus on obtaining shrimp that will naturally thrive in the water you have. Any of the Neocaridina would just love your water parameters (that list includes RCS, Yellow, Showball, Blue Pearl and wild-type Neo's). There are some Caridina species that prefer harder, alkaline water as well...Dark Green (Caridina sp.) come to mind (note: these are different than "Green" or "Neon Green" shrimps, both of which also are Caridina sp.), Malaya shrimp would do great, the relatively new Malawa shrimp would too I think. I am sure there are some others I'm forgetting, but those are the ones that immediately come to mind.



I'm taking this advice !! My CRS ,except 2 died in a matter of days. There's another old tank here and I changed the water to a mix of rain,RO and tap water and they are doing fine--so far---:undecided
Is this possible? ( to use rain water instead of RO and tap ?) here rains a lot and the readings for rain water/RO/tap mix are:
pH 6.6
kH 3
GH 3-5

thanks for any help

[panda]

Anyone using rain water or that knows if it will be good for CRS??