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@fred-koi, great photos. But sorry to hear you have issues with your shrimp. What shrimp is this? It's showing signs of a bacterial infection. Are these brownish spots circled in red normally there? How long have you had these shrimp? Bought recently? What is your water parameters like? Temperature too, please. Bacteria do better in warmer water, so make sure your tank is cooled. Separate any shrimp that are showing signs like this shrimp - inflamed mandibles, and brown spots. If you are brave enough to want to further treat these shrimp, have a look at the treatments for "Rust Disease" in the Disease and Diagnosis thread. No guarantee we will save this shrimp, but you can give it a go.

Hello, I have been experiencing a mortality problem for several months. I realize that there is a problem on the mandibles the shrimp is weak eats little then the shrimp dies. Do you have an idea ? THANK YOU

Thank you both for your help, my newer tank that doesn’t have anything does have stratum and is heavily planted (some carpet plants like Monte Carlo, anubis, java ferns), parameters are good the only issue is the temp change. My other tank where they are housed currently has sand, river stone pebbles, and a bunch of assorted plants (java moss, cabomba, ludwigs etc) I haven’t thought of doing tiger shrimps but I may go into that route instead if this doesn’t work for crystals. Thank you guys again!

This is 'INSANE' and what happens when you get carried away in this hobby! PLEASE DO NOT TRY THIS AT HOME WITHOUT CONSULTING YOUR PSYCHIATRIST FIRST! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xKH1ABcN6-g I would not want his electricity or water bills, let alone all the cost of the equipment.

Putting the crystal shrimp in with neocaridina (cherr) means the setup will benefit one type more than the other and it looks like the tank is better suited to neocaridina. Neocaridina are more robust anyway, caridina are a lot more sensitive and therefore harder to keep. The parameters quoted are definitely off for caridina and better suited to the neocariidina! I'm sure that that is the reason for the deaths. You shouldn't need a heater if the house sits arount 74F (and it is unlikely to get so cold that it would kill your shrimp, especially with the other heat sources in the room) and the crystals would be ok at that sort of temperature, though the 80F is getting a bit warm for them, whereas neocaridina would be less affected by that higher temperature. Of course you also need to bear in mind how hot it will get during a really hot spell as even if they are doing well normally, if you even get a few days of over 80+ (in the aquarium though, not necessarily room temperature) that could wipe them out. You could try tiger shrimps as they are almost as tough and robust as cherry shrimps and require similar water parameters, and give a bit of variety? I'm not sure that I would try the caridina in your position due to the difficulty of keeping them and the extra costs involved, when it probably won't work?

What else is in your tank? If you don't have substrate, are you using something else? And are there rocks in there that would keep the TDS at 230? Is it a bare bottom tank? When was the last time you cleaned filter media? TDS is measuring dissolved solids. So something is dissolving into the water column. This can be rocks reacting to acidity in the water, or waste breaking down, decaying food, plants, or even fertilisers. Your GH at 8 is higher than I would keep Crystals in. I aim for at most 6 GH. Buffering substrate will help bring KH below 2. So that is something you might want to consider. Keeping a Crystal shrimp tank in a warm room probably doesn't help when you are trying to keep the water cool. Can you move the tank to another part of the house that is not so warm? Shrimps prefer colder water. So they can go without a heater unless the water drops below 16degC. All my Caridina shrimp are in tanks that don't go above 22degC or 72F.

Hello, I was really wanting to get into Crystal shrimps but I’ve been having constant issues and I’m unsure if I wanna do something else because I can’t get everything set up. for starters I live with my parents so they tend to do most of the temperature regulation and all that stuff we keep the house a steady 74 F the issue that my room gets pretty warm as I have a an enclosure for a ball python, saltwater tank and grow lights. I just currently checked my tanks were at a steady 80F, and sometimes dips around 76-80 (with no heater) when it wants to, I currently just moved the aquarium light higher up and see if that doesn’t anything, it’s on a glass top so I’m unsure if I should change it to no top. I’ve been housing some of my crystals in my other tank with cherries but they are slowly dying one by one and don’t behave much as a shrimp (not grazing and staying at one spot) I try to change 10% with RO water and Salty Shrimp remineralizer keeping it around 100tds but my tank sits at a steady 230tds, I did not add any fluval stratum or buffering substrate to this tank. My KH always sits at 2 drops while my GH is 8 drops, a little over the recommended but still can’t get it to 1 no matter how much I try. Temperature changes too much around the house if I don’t use a heater so I’m not sure if that’s the cause of the slow deaths, I tried using a heater but it constantly stays at 78.8F using the very lowest setting, I don’t wanna use more power such as an portable AC, if this doesn’t work on my new tank then I might just have to stick with neos, any tips would be helpful.

I would add that boiling discourages natural decomposition and would likely break down the antifungals present in the bark, letting the fungus actually grow.

I shall probably just call him bertie as I did the previous 2 I had.

What nice friends you have! Have you named the new betta yet?

I had friends round at the weekend, moving furniture around so now I can see the fish tanks from where I normally sit. The only tank that has been running since I moved has had bloody mary shrimps in it and they are fine. It was my betta tank before, and after moving my friends went out and got me a new betta;- As you can see he is ultra healthy looking (pic is of him in the fish store tank) and he has been very active from the moment he arrived and started a bubble nest within an hour of going into the tank. He is about half the size of a fully grown one! He is a bit bland to look at as just white but I went for him as the tank is quite (understatement) dark and so he is easily visible, even from a distance. Hopefully he won't devour the shrimps (the odd baby shrimp I don't mind) but I will have to see on that issue! All the water parameters seem fine aside frm KH which is 6 as this area has harder water than where I was before, but I will gradually get that down using the filtered water (RO) with GH+ shrimp remineraliser from this point, that has no KH and I will just do it gradually over a loooong period as neither he nor the shrimps seem unhappy as it currently is anyway! Apparently the store he came from also sell blue bolt (and some other taiwan bee type) shrimps etc so I will start thinking about setting that tank up (it is situ next to the betta tank) at some point in the near future, though that will be months away even when I do decide to start, as the substrate needs running-in, and the tank will need to cycle etc.

I see the 2 shrimplets, very exciting and the shrimp in the photo look very healthy! The KH is fine at 3 and slowly dropping because of the substrate, but still in the acceptable range. Not sure about your tank size, other than 'nano' but if you have fish in that same tank (I think I see one in the photo blrred and at the back) I would do 25% weekly water changes (mainly because of the fish) and that will help counter the substrate as well, until the substrate is 'exhausted' of its buffering ability. Use the same kh4 new water as currently and always add the new water slowly, a drip method is best. Obviously you will need to be extra careful when removing the old water that you don't remove any of the new shrimplets........ Try not to change too much though as you may do more harm than good and it looks like everything is actually already going well, visible mating behavour and shrimplets doing well. Hope you manage to get rid of the planaria and that usually involves sizeable water changes in the process so complete that first and from then do the 25% regular water change routine. As the population grows you will need to increase the amount of food but be cautious not to overfeed. The bacter AE should help with biofilm growth etc but it isn't actually a food for the shrimps, though you may see them eating some if it isn't dissolved fully. The scuds are harmless and I would (and did in the past) remove them manually when you see them.

I cannot see anything wrong with your shrimps. KH at 3 is fine for Neos. But why are you fighting the substrate by adding water with more KH? Fluval Bios stratum has a tendancy for slightly acidic water. Which means lower KH. I quote from Fluval website : "+ helps support a neutral to slightly acidic pH - ideal for live plants as well as tropical fish and shrimp commonly kept in planted aquariums + softens water naturally, reducing carbonate hardness" . If you want KH to stabilise at 3 or 4, some crushed coral is a good idea. I add some in my tanks in an old pantyhose, and bury it in the substrate so it cannot be seen.

Thanks for your feedback. I am coming back because I am uncertain on what I should do. There are some good and bad news. Bad news is that since last post, I think I lost one more shrimp. I see only 4 of them. Also I discovered some planarian. I just started the no planarian treatment yesterday. I have scuds too, I could get some but the remaining are now much more cautious and hide. Not sure what to do with it. The kh is very low, slightly under 3. I add water at 4kh but somehow it doesn’t evolve. I don’t want to introduce water too different since it s a nano and evthg can go so fast. I have the fluval bio stratum. I was thinking to add some crushed coral but I don’t have place in filter nor want to add it on the dark substract. On the positive side, the berried female is giving birth and I have seen at least 4 shrimplets. She still carries eggs. I put a picture of an adult and 2 shrimplets, can u see them? Finally this morning, I saw a male going crazy and actually mating the other female. Does it means that there are not so unhappy after all? Their behavior seem much more normal since last time. I barely feed them since they never eated my hikari shrimp cuisine but yesterday I did a test and they eated it. (Not the scuds) So I plan to feed them more regularly. I also bought bacter AE. Fishes go well

Thanks Jayc -)

Agreed with Simon. They are harmless.

Ok - thanks for that. I did some more research and found some useful info on this page https://aquariumbreeder.com/red-cherry-shrimp-grading-with-pictures/ I think i have some Rili's in there too lol. Now I know i need to keep up with the selection program! That is the first I have heard of Bloody Mary's, but just did some quick research from which I understand they have red pigmented flesh rather than shells. All the molts I see are definitely clear or white in colour - does that support the Bloody Mary theory? Or are CRS molts the same? Thanks for the input 😊

All shrimp molts are clear, sometimes called ghosts (I think that is a great description, not to be confused with ghost shrimp though) so you can't really tell by that (even caridina shrimp molts are clear as well) and very high quality Red cherry do look very similar to bloody mary shrimp. People thnk the last lot of shrimp I bought were bloody mary, but they were just very good grade red cherry (bloody mary were out of stock at the time).

That is the first I have heard of Bloody Mary's, but just did some quick research from which I understand they have red pigmented flesh rather than shells. All the molts I see are definitely clear or white in colour - does that support the Bloody Mary theory? Or are CRS molts the same? Thanks for the input 😊

Ok, great advice thankyou!

I would just carry on manually removing them as and when you see them. They will be harmless enough to the shrimp and, like snails, may even help with keeping the tank generally cleaner. Any treatments you could try would almost certainly affect the shrimps negatively anyway. As you indicate, they are interesting in their own way and add another dimension, but you need to just keep on top of them, before they do become a bigger issue though! Great photos.

The second photo looks like a bloody mary or a very high quality at least.

Hi and thanks for your response. One thing I thought to add afterwards is that she has the same patch both sides of her head - making it seem less "disease like" to me. I think her colour is just the photo at a bad angle perhaps. What do you think of the colour of the the girl in the other pics?

hi again - and on another topic! Limpets, or at least I fairly sure thats what I have. What info I can find says they are harmless, but could be a nuisance as they can get out of hand easily. I have started sliding them out of the glass whenever I see them I did put them under the microscope when I first found them and they were fascinating but not really great to look at! In reality they are just tiny white specks inside the glass - but could they be an issue? I have a pretty cool video of two of them almost sparring in a petrie dish lol - but not sure if I can/or how to go about uploading videos on here. But then you've probably seen it all before anyway. TIA

Personally I don't think there is a problem, the black is beneath the shell and in an area that is usually not visible where there are organs etc. This shrimp has very poor quality colouring unless maybe it was supposed to be a 'red rili', but is still interesting, and early berried (the eggs are still yellow, the yolks)!