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It is exciting buying new stock and I am happy to hear it is going so well. If all is well in the tank the numbers will increase with time! I sent someone out earlier to try and find my shrimps, they were delivered yesterday??? They found the parcel (behind a door to the garden?????????) and when I opened it all the shrimps were motionless and on their side, d'oh! I set the dripper up anyway and put them in and now all bar 1 are upright and alive so pleased about that? Very lucky as it was a cold night here. Definitely no more shrimp orders until back to normal? I hope your new shrimps are still doing well today! Simon

The salty shrimp or many other products have everything you need for the shrimp in perfect balance and usually you can just use a TDS meter to mix it to the right parameters so you don't need to check GH, KH, PH, every time, just do those occasionally for peace of mind! It really is a lot easier to just do it the right/proven way. Otherwise the only other thing is food but that is a different subject not really related here! With RO water you shouldn't need to dechlorinate, but as you say, you don't have that anyway! Simon

OK. Is there anything else I'll need to add to the RO?

I think it may be a bit unlikely to work to use tap water, even partial, with such a high rate of copper. My cherries are in all tap water and do fine and breed etc but I don't have any copper in our water! Even using 3:1 RO water would be nearly 2mg/l copper and have very little other stuff in the water that the shrimp need? You can keep trying different 'short cuts' but it is likely to cost you a lot of money and disappointment, better to just do it the right and proven way from the start. It will be much cheaper as well to just buy the right GH+ or GH/KH+ rather than wasting that on shrimps that die soon after you get them and then trying something else? If you have the RO water unit already you are off to a good start. You will probably want a TDS pen as well! The specialist mineral products will have the right balance of everything the shrimp need! Simon

Yeah, you're probably right that it was too late to save them. The sudden water change probably didn't help. Instead of adding minerals to RO, do you think a 2:1 or 3:1 RO to tap water ratio would work?

The water change may just have been too late for the remaining shrimp as they may have already been weakened/sick and would probably have died whatever you did at that point - they are very fragile creatures! You will need to add minerals to RO water as everything has been stripped out in that process! I would empty a 2 gallon tank of all the water, then fill with RO water and mix in minerals to requirements, so you are starting with a clean slate and you shouldn't then have a problem? If that works out well then you can do any other tanks that need it with some confidence you are on the right route! Simon

Thanks, I read the article. The symptoms it listed didn't really match what was happening with my ghost shrimp, but I don't know what could be happening other than copper poisoning. I do have an RO filter, and I did a huge water change with RO water as soon as the shrimp started dying. I didn't add minerals, but I doubt that's the reason.

That sounds like a lot of copper to me but I have no experience with copper. The behaviour though sounds like toxic shock from something? I have read this in the past and found it interesting, though it will probably mean more to you as some of it sounds similar to what you are experiencing, including inhibiting breeding in cherry shrimp :, https://aquariumbreeder.com/how-copper-affects-dwarf-shrimp/ Probably your best bet would be to get an RO filter, or I use a www.zerowater.com which is american and pretty much available anywhere (walmart etc), and it produces RO equivalent water from tap water? You will then need to add the appropriate minerals to the water for the shrimp to flourish, cherry shrimp will be GH/KH+! Simon

Very good video, lovely and clear. This isn't an area I am experienced with, but the colour of the fluff may be related to the colour of the eggs ? Simon

Hello. I'm an experienced aquarist, but fairly new to shrimp keeping. I bought 20 healthy ghost shrimp from Petsmart and put them in a 2 gallon tank (temporary, as I wanted to feed them to my seahorses). I used tap water, which comes from a well and doesn't have chlorine. Tap water has worked before with my 3 other freshwater tanks, 2 of which contain cherry shrimp and amano shrimp. However, my cherry shrimp haven't bred at all since I added them about a year ago, and I think there's only 3 or so left of the original 10 (tank is heavily planted, so I'm not certain). I noticed that the ghost shrimp were jumping and jerking around frantically, even jumping out of the water. I didn't think much of it, I just assumed they were scared. I came back later to find 2 of them dead. That's when I realized there was something in the water. Since the water from my other freshwater tanks kept shrimp alive, I immediately replaced the water in the 2 gallon with water from my other tanks. The next morning, maybe half of the shrimp were dead, the other half sick and dying. I even found some dead shrimp babies (not sure if they were born dead or if the water killed them). Soon all of them were dead. I got 20 more from Petsmart. Again, they were healthy. This time, I put them in a different 2 gallon tank with water from the bag and water from my other tanks. 2 hours later, a few were dead and a few were dying. I realized that the water from my other tanks must have contained copper (although I don't understand why the shrimp from those tanks were alive- maybe ghost shrimp are more sensitive to copper than cherry shrimp?) and did a 75% water change with RO (reverse osmosis) water. The next day, most of the shrimp were dead or dying. Is it copper in the water that's killing these shrimp? Our tap water has 7 parts per billion copper (at least, it did in 2016). I will say that I was being stupid and forgot to acclimate them, but I highly doubt that could have killed all my shrimp. If it is copper, is there any way to treat sick shrimp?