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Those reds have a lovely rich red colour, not as orangey red as the ones I have seen! Nice fancy tiger as well, be interesting to see what that produces with time and cross breeding? It is great that you are getting berried females and lots of babies so I doubt there can be much wrong? I would just carry on with the treatment as you are until the 'originals' have died off, you may then be able to stop treating altogether??? Keep up the good work and the extra work has to be worth it if the pictures are anything to go by........ Simon

Ok. I will re-calibrate my TDS pen when I get home, to see if I had a bunk reading. I’m having to recalibrate it regularly, it may be time for a new TDS pen. There are probably 10 older shrimp left. Several are still my most prolific breeders tho, carding eggs regularly. Hard for me to remove them. I have so many shrimp that are too young to breed, so I hate to stall the breeding. Saw two more berries females this AM, one was a smaller, younger one tho. Maybe a new generation is reaching breeding age? More shrimpy pics, because I can!

I would say, yes. However, the dilution would yield such a small percentage of oil into the water, I don’t know if you could feed enough food to dose the tank without nuking the tank with rotting food. I dose BacterAE in a test kit glass vial, with the oil water. I add the BacterAE and water into the vial, then shake violently, and allow to soak for 3-5 minutes. The shrimp seem to like BacterAE, so its a method I use. I also use pellets by dripping the oil water into them, allow them to absorb the water, then add to the food dish.

Just a thought! If you soak food in oregano oil but the shrimp don't eat it directly, won't that oil be grradualy released into the water still but much slower, so still doing something? Simon

Oh, I forgot to add, doing treatments in a separate tank is probably best. I can’t promise the bacteria ( or whatever causes this)won’t still exist in your main tank. However, you would be able to increase treatment in a hospital container without risking your main tank. IE, 3ml of h202 for short bursts of the 2ml isn’t effective. My newest tank was cycled with a very biodiverse mix from Mark at Marks Shrimp Tanks. I’m trying to keep good bacteria levels in propped proportion to possibly keep the bad bacteria I suspect causes this from being able to exist. Not sure it will work...

I cannot say with certainty that he wouldn’t be lethargic this early in. Each shrimp seems to handle it differently. A few stayed pink before they died. So, unless you’re aware of another disease which changes the white parts of CRS pink, I’d say we have the same issue. I maintenance dose H202, you can go up to 2ml per gallon. MAKE SURE YOU’VE ACCURATELY ESTIMATED YOUR ACTUAL WATER VOLUME. A 10 gallon doesn’t have 10 gallons of water in it after the substrate/rocks displace some of the water. For example, my Waterbox 10 gallon cube has exactly 8.4 gallons of water inside, so I could dose up to 16.8ml or H2O2. I recommend starting with 1ml per gallon. Make sure to shut down all your filters before adding, and leave them off for 1 hour. H202 can adversely effect your biological filter, but I’ve had zero issues as long as I leave my filters off for a minimum of 1 hour. I dose H202 2x a week @ 1ml per gallon. My shrimp Are also backside-holes, and dislike MOST prepared foods. If you add diluted oregano oil to food, they may not eat it. Try another type. I have 4 types of food they will eat, only 2 types get eaten when it has the oil added. I tried salt dips too, but I’m not sure how effective they were. Additionally, I removed several severely infected shrimp from the tank, and dropped diluted oregano oil onto their( avoiding the head/gill area)abdomens. This is extreme, but I had 100% survival and 4/5 were cured within 48 hours. This was extreme, and I can’t promise anything if you want to try it. The ONLY treatment I didn’t try was Antibiotics/ or Big L’s Dewormer. My disease is back after being eradicated for some time. I assume it survived in the water column? The babies born in the tank, and my Crystal Black Shrimp don’t seem to get the disease. If I can’t get this worked out, I may transfer the shrimp, remove my filters, and nuke the tank with antibiotics and deworming medicine. I’ll keep my filters running on/in another tank and add them back to recycle before reading shrimp. I’ll treat the shrimp in an empty, bare bottom hospital tank with H202 and oregano oil foods while I wait for the recycle of the main tank. Simon suggested a bare bottom as the food/grazing options will be diminished, so they may ingest the treated food more readily.

Might still be worth trying steensj2004 food soaked in oregano oil and/or H2O2 as that may work? I would treat it as you planned in a seperate container so little risk to the rest if something goes wrong. Simon

That doesn't sound like my case. That one guy is already lethargic while being a little pink

The primary symptom was a slow color change in the white areas of the shell. At first it looked like a light pink dusting. Over time, it slowly darkened to darker pink, then to a brown, and eventually you’d find a dead one with black spots in those brown areas. The shells also slowly lost their shine. The shrimp act seemingly normal, and you don’t see them become lethargic until the late stages of deterioration.

What were the symptoms of your shrimp, in terms of appearance and behavior? (Not just that they died)

140-150 TDS? You guys had me bring it down to about 120 as it’s 1-GH per every 20-ish TDS? I was up to around 170 previously and we thought that it needed to come down. The algae was eradicated, but I see a few new tuffs of It l(2-3). They are tiny, however, so I’m working to keep them from growing. As for whatever disease this is? It seems to affect only the CRS, which is odd. Even more odd. It seems to only affect the older shrimp? Young CRS and ALL BCS seem unaffected.... weird. I absolutely hate to cull any shrimp that shows signs of the disease, but I may have to start doing that regularly. I don’t know.....

Here is a picture of the shrimp. Due to whatever camera settings and lighting, it could be difficult to tell from the picture, but I can say that the white band around the eyes and the middle white section are "a bit pink" whereas the tail and last white segment is mostly white, but not gleaming white. It's antennae and appendages still seem intact (I read that problems with these are an early sign of bacterial infection). What happened yesterday is that I set up a mini-quarantine tank inside my main tank (so it can share temperature control and lighting). When I put the shrimp in, it swam around in a panicked state and eventually climbed over the edge back into the main tank. Then it started grazing like a normal shrimp. At this point, I fed it some barley and a piece of oat and it chowed down on them for several minutes. Then resumed grazing for several hours until I went to sleep. Today it seems to be very quiet, though. If it put it into quarantine again (this time in a better setup where it won't escape) what should I do with it? I imagine first I would try the oregano oil-soaked food, and if it doesn't eat, I will have to resort to dosing the water? In possibly related news, I think there is something slightly off in my tank again. Even though the babies and blue bolts are doing fine, the other red wine panda shrimp tend to be quiet during the day and gather in one area but become active at night. Looking thru my shrimp notebook, I have had this happen before, and usually it is because I have fed several days in a row beforehand. So maybe the water is getting a little polluted, even though I use a feeding dish, or feed leaf foods.

Some pics

I suppose I should update. Things have been going well. Or so I thought. Population growing, lots of babies, but two shrimp were showing signs of the disease again. Turning pink on the white areas. Same shrimp seem to be getting it. Two are so bad I euthanized them..... they were clearly dying. I’m so frustrated with this tank I don’t know what to do. My parameters are great, or at least I think: PH:6.4 GH: 6 KH:0-1 TDS: 116 Temp: 68 I’m also back to fighting black beard after eradicating it, or so I thought. I mean, can I catch a friggin break?! I feed so carefully, I have no idea why I’d have algae.... I think it goes without saying I’m frustrated. One female just dropped babies a week ago and is already berries again. The black crystals don’t seem to get whatever this is.