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It certainly has a weird colouration. At the moment, all I can suggest is removing the cholla wood and alder cones. Just as a precaution. I would also do a large water change, just in case there are any toxins that can be removed. 80 - 90% water change if you can manage it.

Looking at your great set up and from what we hear so far it is almost certainly something specific to this tank so removing anything that is different from the others is a good way to start. If it were that something was poisoning the shrimps by releasing something (pesticide etc) into the water you would expect that to gradually get worse as the poison level gets higher over time, and that sounds that that is what has happened! By removing the source (though we don't know what that is at the moment) there may still be some that the substrate has absorbed of course? Were the shrimp deaths all in one area of the tank (clutching at straws) and was that near the bamboo? I would remove anything that is different from the other tanks as a tester. Did you see a cycle on the tanks, I have never seen one on my tanks with a PH as low as yours/mine (PH 5 - 5.5)? I'm just interested as with a low PH (below 6) ammonia is the less toxic ammonium from my research. I doubt this is relevant to your problem though! Simon ps. As I say I had the same problem and was down to 1 red bolt (I think that died in our heatwave in the past week) just before lockdown but I have put fish in that tank for now, 10 chilli rasbora, 1 killi. I will try shrimp again when (IF) the post gets back to normal. I never did get to the bottom of what the problem was in my tank though in all honesty! Your tank looks same as mine, as does the light.

I would mix the new RO water to TDS 160 (you don't need to do the GH test everytime as the product you are using will mean that the GH is fine)! The KH alixir I use does add someTDS but as I would be aiming for tank TDS of 180 (roughly, it doesn't need to be spot on, 10 either way is fine) ultimately then the extra TDS that the KH adds should be covered! From your figures above you can see that the GH+ at the level you used creates 1 GH at TDS of 20, thats usual! Simon

Ok thanks. Sorry yeah the TDS is 129. What TDS should I be aiming for? From what I understand when i remineralise my ro water, I should aim for a particular GH then test for the TDS that correlates to, which is then the TDS i should aim for in the future. In my case, following the dosage for my Bee Shrimp GH+, my RO water ended up with a GH of 7 and TDS of 140. So should I aim for 140? A TDS of 140 is still a bit on the low side I think but if were to aim for lets say 170, would that mean GH would also have to go even higher? or will the addition of KH make up for that extra TDS? I hope that makes sense haha just trying to get my head around it!

Top up should always be pure RO water omly for the reason you mentioned. Can you retest TDS? It is probably still too low but hopefully going in the right direction? If the shrimp are having moulting issues then it may have damaged one of the eyes, I've not heard of one losing an eye though? Simon

Thank you both, I do have some bi-carb soda lying around so I'm sorted on that front. On another note, my tank loses water to evaporation whereby I usually do 2-3 topups in a week. Now how does this work in relation to using ro water? I've read that as the water evaporates the tds remains and so you should just do the topups with just pure ro/di water, is this correct? Also a quick update on the tank: Ph - down to 7.6 Gh - 5/6 Kh - 3 TDS - 129 I think all of my adult cherry shrimp have died, the last one alive was the female cherry that escaped the box. She seemed to be going all good in the tank but I haven't seen her at all in the last few days, I'm hoping that she's just hiding away. The sole shrimplet in the breeder box is still alive and molting well which is surprising but I noticed something odd. sometime last week I noticed one of its eyes were bigger than the other (or perhaps one was unusally smaller?) then a couple days ago I noticed it had lost an eye completely ?

Hi Jayc, I use Sera liquid test kits for most parameters except ammonia. For ammonia I use the traditional API liquid kit just because I haven't bought a Sera one yet. Yes, I think so. That one was a wine red so it was quite dark. The photo was taken about 30 mins after it died and I know it seems blotchy but I think that might be the flash on the camera as to the naked eye the colour seemed solid. All the tanks were set up around the same time. The tang tank is now about 15 months old, the CRS about 13 months and the blue bolt etc about 11 months old. The substrate is all out of the same bag. They were all started with SeaChem Stability, then cycled for a couple of weeks until water tests revealed that they were cycled and ready to go.

Hi Simon, Thanks for your reply. I really hope you guys can help me, and more importantly, my shrimpies. Yes, they are in the same room right next to each other. It's my shrimp room - neos on one side, caridinas on the other. I live in a really hot place so run a/c most of the year. Here's a picture of my 3 caridina tanks having a water change. The CRS tank is closest to the camera. Yes, in the 'problem' tank there were, until last Tuesday, 2 pieces of charcoal bamboo. I wondered if they might have been causing the problem so I've taken them out now. The only other difference is that that tank has a sponge filter and a pat mini as I didn't think there was enough circulation and that may have been causing the problems. It's been running for about 6 weeks and was new when it went in. I've got it on a very low setting though as they can be a bit rough especially on shrimplets. The vegetables are always certified organic and I grow my own IAL (I live in the tropics) and mulberry. Cholla and alder cones are purchased but they go into all the tanks (including my neos which are breeding like mad). Do you think it might have been the charcoal bamboo? Cheers

How are you measuring pH that low? PH meter or liquid test kit? And is that colour normal on the shrimp pictured above? You said, this problem tank is about a year old. How old are your other tanks?

Any clear container or an old jam jar would do. It is very difficult to see anything when they are out of the tank as all the legs etc will be clamped to the body, and as crabby states they will be extra stressed! Simon