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Sorry to hear the news. Take the time now to let the tank mature and ammonia to be cycled into the less harmful Nitrates before adding new shrimp.

Hey sambam, good to hear more people getting into crabs! I’m not sure if Linden has been particularly active lately, sent him a pm a while back with no response yet. Worth a go though. I think I may have been looking at the exact same crabs on gumtree, funnily enough. Interested to hear how you go.

Thanks for the reply. When I mentioned 20 shrimp, that was actual babies seen out of two batches, so there were probably 40 eggs initially. But anyway these last few days the number of babies has been decreasing about 1 per day, and maybe I know why. I saw a baby shrimp laying on its side struggling and half dead. It seems that it got at least its front shell off, but most of it was still stuck to its legs. I carefully took it out and used very thin fishing line (as soft sticks) to pry it off. Don't know if any appendages were lost in this process, so maybe I should have left it alone. Anyway, I put it into a mini quarantine tank, so fingers crossed if it will survive until tomorrow. This guy was probably 3 weeks old, and probably had already molted twice or so. There was another one like this a few days ago, and it got over-run by rhabdocoela, so it was a goner by then. So anyway I assume there is a problem with molting (babies only, as the adults seem to handle it ok). The GH value is 5, which should be about right. The baby shrimp only get to eat biofilm and Bacter AE, so maybe they aren't getting enough calcium? Yesterday I discovered that even the baby shrimp like boiled spinach leaves (should have calcium), so today I chopped one up into little pieces and spread it all over the tank. (I am not worried about water pollution with leaves). Maybe I can also take the Shrimp King Mineral pellet and crush it up into a powder and spread it all over the tank? (The ingredients list, except for "insect proteins", looks like plants and minerals, so probably shouldn't cause water pollution either)

Thanks for the tips. Im going to follow your recommendations and treat the tank for parasites while there aren't any invertebrates and let the ammonia get cycled out before I add any shrimp. Simon, Thanks for all your replies. I was thinking the same thing, but I've been diligent with taking out dead adults. I think what caused it initially and lead to deaths was that the plant had many yellow and decaying leaves. I was previously ignorant of the fact that decaying plants release these toxins. I have a water lily in there too that produces many leaves that often disconnect and float around. Im going to start cleaning these dead and dying plant parts better. Cheers!

The water parameters for Sulawesi shrimps is a lot easier to match compared to bee shrimp. They like high pH 8.0+, so just add lots or rocks and use dechlorinated tap water. They also like the temps hot 28deg C. That's why you can't mix Sulawesi shrimps with other shrimps. The temps alone will kill other species.

I wouldn't stress too much about it. Even given ideal, spot-on conditions, no species (other than humans) is built to have even close to 100% survivability. Let's say for the sake of argument that your shrimp had 20 babies, and now you're down to 14 (unlikely because it's near impossible to count them all). That's still a 70% survival rate which is about 60% higher than in the wild! Speaking from experience, sometimes it is our natural instinct to want to control every variable of shrimp-keeping. But the ironic thing is that what keeps us coming back is the unpredictability of what we're going to get, and how it's going to go. It sounds like you're doing everything right that you can. The best piece of advice I got in regards to changing things in a tank is that as much as you want to change multiple variables at once, change one and give it time for the affects to ripple through the system before changing anything else. Easier said than done, I know ? And yes, let's see pictures!

Hi all! Newbie here. I hope I haven't revived a dead thread or any thing annoying. Linden this is aimed at you I guess because of your expertise. I recently bought 13 crabs off Gumtree (could be all bs). Claimed to be 3 males, 10 females. Haven't received them yet but I am expecting them in the next few days. I will be housing them in a 3 foot tank, has great big rocks and plants. Half sand, half small 5-10mm river rock. Canister filter with a stocking cover and a big air pump. They will be on their own. For the moment. I will be adding other peaceful inhabitants. Nothing predatory or aggressive. No exceptions. I have the food stuffs you've suggested. Is there anything else that you might suggest. Anything at all I may regret for not including or feeding them? Any help greatly appreciated ??? Bam Bam

yeah, that'll do it

Sorry to hear you have lost all the shrimps. If there were any dead ones still in the tank that may have caused the ammonia reading? It would be worth trying the seachem paraguard if you can get some, while there aren't any shrimp! Then leave it a while before restocking to settle down, grow some biofilm etc! Most treatments need your filter media/carbon removed whilst using the treatment! Simon