Help with dying shrimp

[supermansteve32]

Hello again, 

I'm keeping crystal red shrimp in a 60 gallon.

I've had this tank since November and it's been going good and the shrimp are multiplying but recently I had to redo my floors so I had to take out most of the water and refill it, I did this twice because I wanted it back where it was.  Since I moved it back I've had 3 adolescents die (one each week). 

I checked my water parameters.  TDS is 214, ph is either 6.0 or 6.4 (hard to tell), ammonia is 0, gh 50-100, kg 3-6. On these I'm using the API test kits.

After the first one I thought maybe it wad they died during molt but 3?

Any suggestions would help thanks

[jayc]

1 hour ago, supermansteve32 said:

gh 50-100

GH 50-100ppm is 3 - 6dGH. 

That's a wide range. Can you narrow it down? Does it take 3 drops, 4 drops, 5 drops or 6 drops to start changing the solution's colour?

 

Your parameters look alright now irrespective of the GH reading. Do you know what your readings were before moving the shrimp? You missed listing temperature.

It's important to match their existing water parameters. So when moving shrimps you need to keep them in their existing water and drip acclimate them to their new tank to reduce shock. Moving them twice might into differing water parameters might just have been too much for some shrimp. 

Nothing much you can do know except leave them to adjust to the new water parameters. Just keep an eye on them for the next few days. Don't change water for a week.

[supermansteve32]

Water temp is 73 degrees. I put the removed water back into the tank after I moved it, both times. And i didn't do a water change(10%) for 2 weeks.  I had 2 die before the water change and one after. 

On the gh drips I think it took 2 drops. I'll have to recheck tomorrow to be sure

[supermansteve32]

I redid the gh test.  It took 6 drops to turn green. Chart reads that's 50-100.

[jayc]

6 hours ago, supermansteve32 said:

took 6 drops to turn green. Chart reads that's 50-100.

6 drops means GH is 6 dGH. Or if you want to express it in ppm, multiply 6 by 17.848 = 107ppm.

The water parameters look fine.

 

Have any more shrimps look like dying?

[supermansteve32]

Not since yesterday. That's when the 3rd one died. I usually do 10% water change on Wednesday, should I do it or hold off? 

[jayc]

4 hours ago, supermansteve32 said:

should I do it or hold off? 

Yes, hold off until TDS gets close to 300. Let's give the shrimp some time to settle to these new water parameters before going back to weekly water changes.

[sdlTBfanUK]

3 hours ago, jayc said:

Yes, hold off until TDS gets close to 300. Let's give the shrimp some time to settle to these new water parameters before going back to weekly water changes.

JayC, did you mean TDS 300, these are crystals or have I not followed correctly? The TDS of 214 it as at the start is a bit high but not that far above usual range?

Simon

edit - were you thinking of CurleyJones thread, or typo meant 200

 

Edited May 2, 2019 by sdlTBfanUK

[jayc]

214TDS is not ideal. The intention here is to let the shrimp settle into the new tank parameters without a water change for a while.

As long as the TDS does not exceed 300, it should be okay for a week or two. After that time, start water changes to bring TDS back to ideal Crystal parameters. The short time frame where TDS is between 200- 300 won't harm the shrimp (since they are already in water that is in this range). But the stability in parameters during this timeframe will do them good.

Hope that makes sense.

Edited May 3, 2019 by jayc

[supermansteve32]

Thought I'd update you guys. 

Since I posted last I didn't do a water change for a few weeks. Haven't had any other dying shrimp. 

On 5/3/2019 at 2:13 AM, jayc said:

214TDS is not ideal. The intention here is to let the shrimp settle into the new tank parameters without a water change for a while.

As long as the TDS does not exceed 300, it should be okay for a week or two. After that time, start water changes to bring TDS back to ideal Crystal parameters. The short time frame where TDS is between 200- 300 won't harm the shrimp (since they are already in water that is in this range). But the stability in parameters during this timeframe will do them good.

Hope that makes sense.

Just a question. When the TDS is too high do you still fi a water charge with normal RO water with the salty shrimp mix? Or do you do some of that with straight RO water to bring it down more? 

[jayc]

11 hours ago, supermansteve32 said:

When the TDS is too high

Change water with RO + Salty Shrimp mix where the change water's TDS is lower, eg if you are aiming for 200, adjust your change water to 200.

Only use pure RO water if you are topping up the tank due to water loss through evaporation.

What's your TDS now?

Edited May 14, 2019 by jayc

[sdlTBfanUK]

Glad to hear your tank has settled down now and no more deaths. I would personally have expected a few to die with all the moving the tank and refilling it etc.

Simon

[supermansteve32]

So I have a question. I just did a 10% water change and my TDS is 240. TDS of my salty shrimp RO water is 200. 

My question is if I'm aiming for less that 200 and I'm putting in 200 wouldn't I either need to change more water (which I can't do) or use less salty shrimp mix? 

Thanks

[sdlTBfanUK]

Just been going through similar with CurlyJones. You will get closer and closer to the 200 but it will be painfully slow. I would do as recommended to him that you make the new water around TDS 100 when you do a water change, so after the next that should reduce the TDS to about 225 afterwards. The important thing though is to add the new water gradually, I know a dripper isn't practical with your large tank so maybe add 1 gallon every hour or something (only necessary as you are changing the TDS by a noticeable amount). Keep water change water to the TDS 100 until you get to the figure you want to get too!

You should ALWAYS top up between water changes using pure RO water with no mineralisers!

You should be able to use the spreadsheet I attached to CurlyJones even though  it is in litres but it should still work the same as it is the proportion that is more important I think anyway. I attach a copy changed for 60 gallons and 10% water as it makes calculating the new water TDS requirement much easier?

TDS Calculator.xlsx

It won't be 100% though unless you know the correct figures to input, ie my 35L tank actually has 28L of water, the size of the tank would only be 35L if it were filled to the very top and had nothing else in it! Hope that makes sense?

Hope you haven't had any more shrimp deaths. 

Simon

Edited May 15, 2019 by sdlTBfanUK

[jayc]

Just use less Salty Shrimp mix, so that your change water TDS is below 200.

[supermansteve32]

Thanks guys. I'll do that starting next week. Thanks for the spreadsheet and the replies. I'll keep you all updated. 

[supermansteve32]

I was going to do a water change this week and I checked my TDS and it's 113. Not sure how that happened. Last week my TDS was 240 after water change and my salty shrimp RO mix was 200. Maybe everything settled down? I'm at a loss. Anyone have any answers? 

Thanks everyone

[jayc]

6 hours ago, supermansteve32 said:

Maybe everything settled down? I'm at a loss. Anyone have any answers? 

That's weird. TDS never goes down, it only ever goes up unless you did a water change with pure RO water, or perhaps a misreading from the TDS meter.

Try testing it again. 

Check your TDS pen against Pure RO water. It should read close to zero.

Check the TDS meter against tap water, or something you kinda know what the reading should be to make sure that the TDS meter is still working as expected. To loose calibration by 100+ is quite a lot. You can try brushing the TDS meter's probe with a soft brush under tap water to make sure there is nothing effecting the reading.

[sdlTBfanUK]

Are you sure the new reading is correct as that sounds unlikely, and I would have thought you would have had shrimps dying  with that sort of decrease. Do you have a second way of checking the TDS, or can you take a sample to a fish shop for them to test? I can't think of any reason that would happen or even heard of that before? Even if you had put pure RO water in last water change it wouldn't have dropped that far!

If it is currently the TDS113 it will make adjusting easy as you just mix the water to the desired end TDS figure (140ish) and it will slowly go up to that.

Simon

[beanbag]

If u have a GH test kit, then u can do a cross check, where each GH value in RO water made with SS equals about 20 ppm, e.g. GH 6 water will give you about 120 ppm.

[supermansteve32]

I'll check it when I get off work tonight. I'll check my reader against pure RO water & tap, and do a GH test. 

I'll also clean my TDS meter. 

Thanks for your help everyone. 

[supermansteve32]

I checked my TDS meter and it reads 3 on RO water and today my TDS in my tank is 133. I did a test with API and it took 6 drops so that's around 100 TDS. 

I had 2 adolescents die overnight. 

Should I only change water when it's over 200 TDS or should i continue with the 10% every week? 

Thanks

[jayc]

It sounds about right for GH6 (6 drops is roughly 120 TDS). Those GH test kits are not the most accurate. And RO water reading of 3 is not unreasonable.

I don't know why you would have been reading 240TDS last week and now it's a 100 points lower.

I would suggest, not changing water parameter with a water change for a week, then see where it is at. Change if it gets close to 200 (say around 180-190). Let's give the tank some stability by not changing anything for a while.

Edited May 22, 2019 by jayc

[supermansteve32]

Sounds good Jay. Thanks a lot

I appreciate all of you

[jayc]

5 hours ago, supermansteve32 said:

Thanks a lot

No problem. Love helping others if I can.

Report back in a week or so. You should test TDS every day around the same time, to keep a track of any changes.