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It might not be anything you have done. The shrimp could have been carriers of the bacteria from the place you bought them from.

I gotcha. But I’m trying to figures what caused this disease. “Bad water parameters “ is one cause listed under chitinolytic disease in the disease thread. I’m wondering if it had something to do with my parameters, or, if it was something else.

Beautiful endlers, thanks for the pictures! I don't have much luck with endlers, they are/were one of my favourites. Simon

Fabulous to hear that you have seen some of the babies, lets hope they do well and boost your stock - maybe you won't need to then restock the crystals and can just get the tigers! I would aim for mid TDS 140-150 so that gives you more room for adjustment and it gives a more precise figure to work with than the other tests and is the easiest/quickest to do. Do the other tests occasionally to make sure they are all ok and 'IN THE ACCEPTABLE RANGE' but chasing perfection in every parameter will probably not work so as long as they are in the accepted range, and don't change when you do test them so that it is stable would be my recommendation! If you are using remineraliser then that will be the right balance anyway? Simon

Very generous.

Sounds like solid advice. well, the ones showing signs got a salt dip today. Everyone is active and happy, although they weren’t a fan of the salt dip. Any and all that showed the bad coloration got it. Lots of new babies scurrying around, so apparently the new baby drops did OK. What would everyone consider perfect water parameters for these guys? I’ve heard a lot of variation in opinion, but I trust people here more than elsewhere.

Thought I’d share some good news with everybody today. Firstly the longfin has healed up 100%, so I think it must have just been a scrape or burn. And secondly, while I was away for the weekend my ‘fish-sitter’ informed me that one of my endler females has dropped! It’s my first group of babies ever, and they’re doing fantastic! I have them in a breeder box alone (removed mum, she’s back to getting harassed by the guys), and my other pregnant female is gonna drop any day now. She’s also in her own mesh box. I got around 40 or so fry from the first mum, and I reckon I’ll get 40-50 from the other, so gonna be raising close to 90 fish in my little 5 gal ?. Hope I can get the worse ones off my hands soonish, I’ll be keeping maybe my favourite 5 or so. If anyone is interested I will post a pic of the mother and possible fathers below (orange one is least likely), and you can pick up in Melbourne for free, up to 20 fish.

I would personally wait at least a month, just for safety. The disease should either be getting worse or better by then. You noticed it was there by the colour on their shells, use that to see when it’s gone. And then wait at least a week after that for safety. Also fancy tigers are really cool, I’ll be doing that soon as well.

I dropped the GH by 1( 7 to 6) over the course of about 3 days. I thought hag was slow enough, maybe not. Either way, hoping to see some improvement after the salt dip! As thing stand now, I found the water thread, and my levels are right in range. Shouldn’t have to change anything at this point. I did start remineralizing to what you recommended previously, so that should keep a stead GH/TDS in optimal range.

It did occur to me that you dropped the GH by about 2 in just over a week (if I remember correctly) so that may have stressed the shrimps as they were just getting used to the other parameters, and as previous you are best keeping things steady rather than fixating on all/everything perfect and any changes VERY VERY slow. But as JayC says, you hadn't got the shrimps that long ago so they may have come with the problem/bacteria infection. Of course it could be a bit of both? Simon

Nah mate I just need to get them off my hands!

Water parameters for caridina?

Oh, I don’t mean right this second. I’m really asking at what point will I know if the stock is stable from this mishap/disease before I add more. Not sure how to identify when the disease is gone completely. I’ve planned on introducing some tiger shrimp to possibly get some fancy tigers, but I would wait a month or more probably after this.