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Thanks for the reply and the summary of what you tried. A few points: I think the pinkness is not specifically the skin disease, it could just be a symptom of more general bacterial malaise. So far, I gave the shrimp oregano-soaked mulberry pellet and Shrimp King mineral which it normally likes but won't eat now. I also tried an un-soaked oat, which it used to like, and it's not eating it either. So either I was too late to put it in quarantine, or maybe it really hates the oregano. I tried very carefully to dose it to the levels recommended in that research paper of 2.5 ul / g, but the oil tends to float on top of the water, so it was kind of hard to control the dosage. Maybe I will have to dose the water column after all. I also have API Doxycycline, BTW. Salt dip - I think those are designed for external parasites I have also noticed that red /white shrimp seem more susceptible to these kinds of problems. Maybe it is due to too selective breeding to get high grades. My low-grade blue bolts seem more durable. As for the situation regarding your recurring problem, my current theory is that bacteria are always around at some low level, but if something is off, the shrimp's immunity goes down and it is more likely to catch it. This is my theory, but some of the things we can do are: Make sure the water is clean, so enough water change, maybe occasional H2O2, and don't pollute the water from over-feeding or left over food Improve shrimp's immunity with Beta Glucans and citric acid (this was one of the things recommended by Mark's Shrimp Tanks, although that info is 2 years old by now and I don't know if he still stands by it) I was also considering dosing Dr Tim's Eco Balance, because maybe that can displace the bad bacteria, but I don't know if that counts as one of those "You don't need it - you're doing too much" kind of things. For people like us, those things are hard to balance because on one hand you want to "do stuff" for the shrimp to have them eat well, but then you have to "do less" to avoid water pollution. Just as a minor aside rant, I get kind of pissed off when I ask shrimp experts about these kinds of problems, and they just give dismissive advice about "you're trying to do too much". This forum is good in the sense that the people here aren't like that.

Lid made! Everything is done, now we wait for shrimp!

I think the standard recommendation is GH 5-6 for these kind of shrimp, so mix your input water to that level and the TDS should be 20x that if you use Salty Shrimp. That is a rough way to calibrate the TDS pen also. Your tank water should naturally be a few TDS point higher than your input water. I think the thing to aim for is GH, not TDS.

Why not try just putting some active substrate into A small Tupperware container, and then putting water into the container before actually putting it into the already established tank? Or Use A waterfall style filter, and add active substrate behind the filter of just putting the new active substrate in the filters place entirely? That way you wouldn’t need to worry about it destroying anything or even messing up the tank throwing substrate everywhere?

I refuse to dose my tank directly after what happened. Oregano oil is pretty soluble in water, if you shake it with water first. The oil burned plants where it touched, creating holes in my plants. If I were to treat with oil again, it would be in a hospital tank. I don’t see as how you can dose in a high enough levels to help the shrimp without having negative results. when treating directly, I forget. I believe it was something like 1 drop of oil per 40 drops of water..... Ooooooo, yeah, I wouldn’t use that. Edit: one drop of oregano oil per 90 drops of RO water.

dang it, just realized that my H2O2 has stabilizers in it. Wasn't listed as an ingredient, but called itself "Hydrogen peroxide (stabilized)"

I recall that you did something like 2 ml oil to 17 gal water, which is about 20x the dose if the oil were from API Melafix instead. So I would be trying a much lower dose than you did, and maybe increase it gradually. Did you ever go back and try a lower dose? As for applying the oil individually, how much did you dilute it?

My experience with dosing Oil into the water was bad. Up to you. I would suggest: -Salt water dip for 45 seconds. -H202 Dose or Dip -Removing the shrimp and dripping diluted oil water into the abdomen , being careful not to hit the gill area. I had 5/5 survive this, and 4/5 completely beat the disease. It’s risky, though. -Antibiotic treatment. I haven’t tried this yet.

Just an update to say that the shrimp in isolation hasn't eaten anything, whether oregano-soaked or not, and mostly just stands around. It started off with water from the main tank. How do I treat this shrimp differently than usual? More water change? Add IAL to drop the pH some more? Start dosing the water with something, like oregano oil or antibiotic? (I haven't fed any of the powdered foods like Bacter AE or Shrimp Fit so as not to pollute the water if the shrimp isn't going to eat it anyway)

They say that because they don't have a clue. So dismissing it is the easiest answer.

Your TDS value of 116 for a GH of 5-6 is about right

I’m currently at 5-6 now. I dunno why TDS is so low. i also use calibration fluid for my TDS pen. Calibration done earlier shows a higher TDS at 124. Guess this pen isn’t holding cal well.

My supplier of choice doesn’t have any orange tigers, but they did have the orange rili shrimp I wanted. Two other buddy’s were online to order some shrimp too, so we placed an order last night to share shipping costs. There is a delay in shipping from that supplier, so I won’t have them for another week, at least. During this time I can continue to feed the biofilter in the tank as well as build biofilm. The cholla wood is quickly growing the white film!

I’m hoping to get a strain of fancy black or red fancy tigers. I have a tank running, ready to go for those alone if and when I get some! It’s been up since before this tank( the fluval edge)!

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!