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@Macronano, test your tap water. Melbourne's tap water is usually very good for keeping shrimps. If your tapwater is lower in pH and KH, then something else is causing it to rise in your tank. Usually rocks.

I think it was the substate which was shrimp sand. I’m going to use river sand next time. And use less rocks.

That translates to GH = 3 and KH = 2 from your tap water. Melbourne's tap water is okay for shrimps and softwater fish in general. So something else in the tank is causing it to increase to GH/KH 6 and pH 8.2.

Thanks Simon and Jayc, I just checked my tap water: pH 6.8; GH 53.7 ppm; KH 35.8 ppm - using API test kits. For my next set up I will use river sand with a HOB filter, java moss and purple lava rocks and see how it goes. I'm also going to monitor the water for that chemical smell, and keep an eye on the GH/KH. I was thinking it was ok because the ammonia, nitrite, nitrate levels were good, but clearly there's more to it than that!

Shrimps don't need much maintenance and 10% water change a week would be normally sufficient, though if the water was poluted (dead snail/shrimp) a bigger water change may be needed! Add the new water slowly. CRS shrimp KH 0-2, GH 4-6 and PH below 7. I would drop the temperature also to 23. As your PH is high I am assuming you may be using tap water and caridina shrimp rarely survive in that, you are best with RO water and shrimp remineraliser. You may be able to use a Zerowater filter jug to get RO water if the tank is small? Over feeding is also a very common problem in the hobby? Simon

Hello all its been a while! In the roughly 2 months since I last posted, I don't think things have improved that much. Out of the 12 cherries and 2 australian amanos I added as my 2nd batch almost 3 and 1/2 months ago, I think I only have 4 cherries and 1 australian amano left. Since I last posted the tank has gone a through a few experiences during this period and ill try to talk through em, in case its related to the missing/dead shrimp. Like my first batch of shrimp, everything thing seemed fine for the 1st month or 2 (apart from the 2 cherries dying at 3 weeks in, which I attributed to acclimating issues) but then very slowly I'd fine a dead shrimp over time, weeks apart. Unlike like my first batch earlier in this thread where deaths started out gradually until i started seeing shrimp die every couple of days (or perhaps it hasn't reach this latter stage yet). Anyways, I've found 3 dead shrimp (apart from the first 2) weeks apart, another 1 I found outside the tank on the floor and more recently, a few days ago one of my australian amanos went for walk, out of the tank, all the way to my sisters room and got cooked by the window in the hot sun (a distance of more than 12 metres!). I've heard that those amanos are known to crawl out of the tank although I've read this was usually during the first 72 hours of introducing them. Regardless, I know I've lost at least 6 cherries which should leave with 6 in the tank, however I've only seen and counted the same 4 shrimp with the other 2 possible dead as since I removed the seiryu stones, I can see most of the tank quite well but who knows they could be hiding very well. Now during all this I've started having issues with algae in the tank. This started ever since I removed the seiryu stones, after which I noticed the tank glass would get a build up of green algae quite quickly after I did a clean (like 2-3 days). So in an effort to combat this, I reduced the lighting hours from 9 hours down to 6. This to my surprised has seemed to make it worse, like alot worse. The algae was still appearing on the glass quite quickly but now even thicker. It looked like a wall of green hair algae growing on all 4 sides of the aquarium, at this point it didn't seem like it was growing on the plants in the tank. I decided to reduce my feedings of the CPDs and shrimp from once a day to once every 3-4 days but again it didnt seem to make a difference. Last week during the clean I decided to leave the back wall covered with the algae as I thought it looked cool and gave the shrimp a big grazing area and I don't know if what happened next was because of this decision or if it was going to happen regardless, in the last few days all the plants are now covered in the algae! At the same time, in the last few days I've lost 1 cpd and I've found one today that looks like its struggling to swim (constantly swimming upwards but sinking). The first one I found motionless at the bottom of the tank but when I scooped it up it was still alive, kept it in a small cup floating in the breeder tank but it eventually died. I noticed that when it did, a white growth seemed to have kind of burst out from inside its head and mouth area... As for the one thats struggling today, all I can see odd is that its abdomen area seems kind of see through in the light and a little caved in but im not sure... My initial thoughts are perhaps that it is starving and that Im not feeding them enough since I reduced my feeding frequency? Maybe this is the issue with the shrimp too? but if so I would've expected the CPD fry that are also in the tank to have been affected first but they all seem fine. Water parameters seem fine although I expected a spike in nitrates due to the algae bloom but no, No3 is around 10ppm or lower (looks like <5 looking at the tube head on but much darker and closer to 10 when looking bottom up through the tube). Also with regards to my struggle to reduce the ph of the tank, during this whole period I've been using RO water with Salty Shrimp GH+ and the ph has never dropped. Its still around 8.2/8.4. Interestingly, my other 15 gallon tank for which I use the same RO water and same GH+ the ph is around 7.4/7.6 ? I'm not sure if I should have started a new thread since this has now expanded to include a whole range of issues or what not. Here is the water parameters as of today: Am - 0 NO2 - 0 N03 - ~10 (maybe <5) Ph - 8.2/8.4 Gh - 7 Kh - 2/3 TDS - 147 Temp - 24C (With spring and summer the temp has been increasing from 23 to 25 during the day, I dont have the heater running anymore) I am thinking of rescaping the tank but before that maybe someone might be able to point out something I'm missing or doing wrong ? Cheers, Waldo