My Poor Shrimp

[docque]

I have been trying to raise neocaridina. I got some nice looking blues from a local guy. I lost maybe one or two but they are in there... somewhere. I made sure they had plenty of places to hide and hide they do. I don't know how many I have because it is rare to see one out and about. The reason I know they are there is that I see shrimp poop everywhere. It is a 45 with about a dozen in there.

Now on to the issue. I have a 29 set up. All the parameters are the same as the 45. I decided to get some yellow ones for it. So I bought 10 online from a highly rated place. They all arrived alive and the colors were amazing. In the first 24 hrs I lost two. Figured it was a stress issue. They started dying off on a daily basis. I now have two left and I am going to assume they are not long for the World.

So, The problem I have is the parameters are the same as my 45. In matter of fact, the 29 has tons of algae that they are always eating. 

Any ideas?

[sdlTBfanUK]

Starting from the beginning, did you slowly (drip) acclimate the shrimps to the tank water, this is a rookie mistake we all make when starting with shrimp, they are very fragile? What you are describing sounds like you didn't acclimate properly so I won't go any further at this point until we know that?

What are the water parameters in the tank? Is it just the shrimps in the tank as fish can stress them to death?

Simon

[docque]

Well, where I got them they said to acclimated them for about 45 minutes. I disagreed with that and it took me about 8 hours to acclimate them. PH is around 7.2, temp 74 degrees. No ammonia, nitrites, nitrates. GH and KH were tested locally and they are within range. 

There was no way I was going to spend the money I did if my parameters were off at all. I even went big in the tank so fluctuations were smaller.

The tank is fully cycled and the rabbit snails in there are breeding. No fish, just snails and shrimp.

[sdlTBfanUK]

OK, so acclimating should have been fine if it was that long, though what did that involve?

They were yellow cherry were they and not yellow king kong as they are a different type?

What is the TDS, GH and KH of the tank?

What source water are you using?

Is there something about the dead shrimp that looks odd?

We will do our best to crack this but we may need to ask lots of questions, but best to go through it step by step!

Simon

[docque]

Just now, sdlTBfanUK said:

OK, so acclimating should have been fine if it was that long, though what did that involve?

They were yellow cherry were they and not yellow king kong as they are a different type?

What is the TDS, GH and KH of the tank?

What source water are you using?

Is there something about the dead shrimp that looks odd?

We will do our best to crack this but we may need to ask lots of questions, but best to go through it step by step!

Simon

To be honest I think I had a bad batch. Son said GH: 8 KH: 6 TDS around 200.

I did drip acclimation. I have a special two gallon tank that I use. I ran airline from the tank to the two gallon and was at about one drop every two seconds. When it came time to add them to the tank I dipped the net in the two gallon, allowed them to walk into it and added them to the tank. Oh, temp wasn't off either.

Again, I spent about a month researching this to make sure that I wasn't throwing money into a hole. My blues have no issues so far and I have a few berried females and I treated them no different.

Even getting these shrimp delivered was a production. I called my local PO person and she called me as soon as they came in so I could go pick them up. I took the water to two different local mom and pop stores to have the water tested. I spent all those hours watching them to make sure they were acclimating properly.

Oh and the dead shrimp are just curled up and dead. Not eaten, just dead.

[sdlTBfanUK]

The only parameter that is a bit too high is KH as 4 is usually the upper limit, though whether that would be enough to kill them off so quickly???

The acclimating sounds perfectly done so you obviously did your research properly!

It is one of those hobbies that even with a lot of prep things still go wrong, and believe me I appreciate that and am in that position now myself? I would be too embarrassed to tell how much money I have thrown away with this.......................... hundreds (if not more)................

It may have been a bad batch or something involved in delivery as you say. I don't know what is involved with delivery in USA but I know it can be slow (due I assume to the size of USA), whereas we can get it next day as we are a much smaller country?

Simon

[docque]

3 minutes ago, sdlTBfanUK said:

The only parameter that is a bit too high is KH as 4 is usually the upper limit, though whether that would be enough to kill them off so quickly???

The acclimating sounds perfectly done so you obviously did your research properly!

It is one of those hobbies that even with a lot of prep things still go wrong, and believe me I appreciate that and am in that position now myself? I would be too embarrassed to tell how much money I have thrown away with this.......................... hundreds (if not more)................

It may have been a bad batch or something involved in delivery as you say. I don't know what is involved with delivery in USA but I know it can be slow (due I assume to the size of USA), whereas we can get it next day as we are a much smaller country?

Simon

It is funny because my Son and I are scratching our heads. I went with a perfect tank. Neos tend to be a bit more forgiving vs other shrimp. He has a tank that is set up with no heat, poor filtering and he threw in a handful of shrimp that he took all of five minutes to acclimate. They are thriving in that setup.

It appears the harder I try, the harder I fail. I have rabbit snails that also require specific parameters and they are breeding like crazy. I got babies all over.

I will wait a little bit and try one more time. It is not that I can't afford it, it's just that buying things just to see them die is stupid.

[sdlTBfanUK]

I fished out some of the old red cherry shrimps from their tank and dumped them into my betta tank whose parameters and temperature are sooo different I didn't expect them to survive even minutes, and anyway they were food for the fish but they have flourished??????

I am battling with my Bee shrimp tank and despite perfect parameters have lost 3 loads so far, if I weren't on here I would have given up by now with it all, but am expecting to give one last batch a go maybe next week (emailing about that today), if they don't work I will get fish instead? Like you are proposing, I have just let the tank run now for a month or two with just the few survivors. If the tank isn't ready by now it never will be................

I understand your frustration when they die and everything looks perfect and you have put so much effort into it.

Simon

[docque]

I have decided that I will be done with Shrimp. Not many places carry them in our area and mail order for everything aquatic has had horrible results. I had a company send me two orders of plants because the first they sent died, not melted, died. The second batch was the same. I won't be doing mail order any more because I know it isn't me when I have the same plants in the same tank that are thriving.

[sdlTBfanUK]

When your sons blue start breeding you may think again and take some of his and maybe the last 2 yellows you have will survive, so don't give up entirely at this point, just take a break for now! There are a few shrimp specialists in USA who do delivery so they should be safe, flip aquatics, the shrimp farm etc, so mull that over for a few weeks???

I have just spent £150 on shrimps today for my LAST try next week! I must be insane but at least I KNOW if it doesn't work this time then its fish instead?

Simon

 

[docque]

Well, here is the update on this. The last two shrimp died. I think I am done buying from that dealer. Even though they say they have a high survival rate. My tank with the blues is doing great. It is now an active colony.

Edited March 7, 2020 by docque

[sdlTBfanUK]

Thanks for the update!

I am pleased your sons blues are doing well! You could take any culls from your son and use those to TEST the tank, that way you aren't wasting a lot of time/money?

It will probably be better if you try again in a while and just let the tank 'do its thing' whilst you take a break?

Simon