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hi guys and gals I was discussing my lack of sucess with rcs shrimp with my lfs guy, and he asked me to bring in a sample of my tank water. He tested it for copper. He said my tank water was high in copper. I do have copper pipes, and he believes that's the cause. I have a 72g med/high light planted tank with co2. My po4 is higher than I'd like(3.), and I kinda think that might be my cause, but I don't want to discount the copper thing either. So I'm wondering if the API test is the best 1 to get or is there a better version to get. I'm about to set up a shrimp only tank ( fluval flex9) and want them to live and breed happily. Gonna buy distilled water from the store until I can prove it's not my water. thanx richard

Yes, I'm starting a shrimp only tank. No co2, no ferts. I only want to have bloody mary shrimp in flex 9. thanx r

RIght now it's hard to tell. These last few months, the tank has also been experiencing streaks of "good days" where everybody is active, and "bad days" where things are just kind of quiet. One other shrimp, which otherwise seems to be doing well, has an antenna that is 3/4 body length, so shorter than usual, but maybe not short enough to cause alarm yet. I am keeping an eye out. The tank right now has 4 of my original shrimp (11 months old now) , about 10 from the first batch of babies (8 months old now) and only 1 baby from a batch 2 months ago. I think I got what I wanted and the shrimp don't seem to be breeding. The original batch of shrimp only had babies once and then decided that was enough. The second generation had young females that got berried, but ejected their eggs after a few days. Now that I think about it, this second generation seems to be growing much slower than the first. Hmmm... The only changes to this otherwise successful tank these last few months that I can think of is: warmer weather, so maybe new bacterial are falling in? I am surrounded by fires on three sides and the air quality hasn't been very good, but that's just this last month. The pH has been slowly creeping up - initially it was a little below 6 and now it is a little above. Maybe the substrate is running out. Time to add more alder cones? Or I could just literally add new substrate.

Hanna low range copper test kit colorimeter, measures in parts per billion. In the mean time, you can use Prime to help bind the copper, and there are also copper-absorbing chemicals.

Update / summary on this situation: Shrimp #1 gets broken antennae and becomes lethargic. Treat in quarantine tank with minocycline and it seems to recover for two weeks. Then gets slow again a few days before molting, then molts, still inactive 2 days later, goes into quarantine again but this time minocycline can't save it. Shrimp #2 seems to be going along the exact same path. It is now in quarantine again and being treated with a different antibiotic (kanamycin), but it doesn't seem to be working. In between, I added the Oxydator and an alder cone to the tank. I can't really tell if it is doing anything or not, but it did not prevent shrimp #2 from getting sick again. It seems like either the minocycline treatment needs to be longer than 5 days, or a different treatment is needed.