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With the wealth of knowledge from experienced keepers here in SKF, we should have a repository of Shrimp Diseases where people can come to diagnose and hopefully find a cure to their shrimp's ailment. Just like in the world of aquatic fish keeping where identification and diagnosis of diseases in fish and known cures are part and parcel of every aquatic forum, so should we have one for shrimp. Vorticella I'd like to start this database off with the not so uncommon Vorticella parasite which looks like White fungus or mould growth on the shell of the shrimp. Vorticella is actually a protozoa of 16 known species, not a fungus at all. Vorticella are aquatic organisms, most commonly found in freshwater habitats. They attach themselves to plant detritus, rocks, algae, or animals (particularly crustaceans). Vorticella are heterotrophic organsims. They prey on bacteria. Vorticella use their cilia to create a current of water (vortex) to direct food towards its mouth. Typically, Vorticella reproduce via binary fission. The new organism splits from the parent and swims until it can find something on which to anchor itself. If left untreated, vorticella have been known to cause the death of the shrimp it was attached to. Here are examples of what it looks like. Known cures: Salt bath with aquarium salts. Be careful not to use table salt with Iodine. Dosage: 1 teaspoon to 1 cup of clean tank water (not tap water). Duration: 30sec to 1 minute. You might need to repeat this a couple of times until the vorticella disappears, so keep the infected shrimp in a breeder or hospital tank (could be another cup of tank water). Possible causes: Poor water conditions. Increase water change frequency. Low doses of the salt bath have been know to be ineffective. Ick and fungus cure meds don't work on Vorticella. Seachem Paraguard could work as well at the full recommended dosage, since this is a parasitic med. But Seachem have admitted Paraguard isn't invertebrate safe. So only try paraguard as a last resort and drip it into the tank premixed from a bucket of tank water slowly . This treatment is in no way a replacement for good tank husbandry. So keep up with your water change routines, and removal debris and uneaten food. Please add if you know of more diseases, how you cured it, what you tried that worked and what didn't work. Cheers.

My gosh, Simon your shrimp look amazing. In the beginning I also used the Zerowater product. Mostly to get the TDS meter that comes with. I've been using that same meter for 3 yrs. Sadly, my tanks are too big to keep using it for water changes and stuff. I use distilled drinking water now and it's working just fine. What substrate are you using? I used Tropica in one tank and Bright Well in the other. I had close to zero baby survival rate in the Tropica tank. The Bright Well tank was much better with the shrimp. Gonna try SL AQUA next.

Welcome to SKFA Rita. Do read this thread

This is brilliant Hervey, so much fantastic information here. Thank you for sharing with us!

So I did some more research on copepods, and there are care guides for shrimp which claim water quality/breeding/egg hatching are all diminished with too many in one tank. So I've resolved to feed hopefully most of them to a nano fish. I bought a micro sponge filter, oxydator, and dwarf hairgrass for ground cover. Plenty of hiding spaces under the moss, driftwood & stones. Anyone with rasboras able to confirm whether or not they eat copepods? I saw posts on this forum about hatchetfish and killifish specifically eating them, but I can't find the same for the rasboras. They are what I was planning to go with; 3 in my 2.5 gallon nanotank.

Anyone with very large, or many tanks will probably not be interested in this, aside from curiosity maybe, as I doubt this is cheaper than buying RO water. I am writing this purely in case it may help someone else who wants an easy alternative to RO water. I am housebound (have MS) and as such needed to find an easy alternative to RO water if I were to keep Taiwan bee shrimp successfully. I have red cherry shrimp in my 30L FISH tank (neon tetras, ember tetras, endler guppies) and they do well with virtually nil care (or attention since I mastered the TBs) other than dechlorinated tap water (which is needed for the fish anyway) so I won't go any further on that subject. About 3-4 years ago I set up a 15L shrimp tank and tried BRITA filtered tap water, but had no real success with that and so 2 years ago closed the tank down and stored it away assuming then that that would be it, no Taiwan Bee shrimp ever....... but after 2 years of no success, at that point it was a bit of a relief anyway to just be done and out of the way. You will see from the Tap water readings below that in theory the Parameters were pretty good but from my experiences I think you need to go back to NIL (so either RO or the zerowater) and remineralise as I guess that way you know what the tests are picking up is only what the shrimp need - this is only my belief I don't really know, but ie the tap water TDS (Ph, Gh, Kh etc) was ok but what was in the Tap water to make the TDS reading what it was, if that makes sense? I have read on many sites of people trying tap water , as I did, with good parameters but it not working so that is my theory anyway! And of course domestic water supply parameters can change and if there has been any repairs in the system that will change it etc so from my experience only way to go is take it back to NIL and remineralise....... A year ago (about a year after closing down the old shrimp tank) I came across a water filter jug from zerowater (www.zerowater.co.uk), an american product which I believe is available in Australia on Amazon, but may also be in shops out there for all I know). I thought, why not give that ago.... so I set up the old tank Oct 2017 (15L with the back part partitioned of for filter etc so probably 12L of useable aquarium) put some soil in and a few bits of Java fern and moss from the fish tank and ran it with the zerowater for a couple of months. I didn't ever get any Ammonia, Nitrite, or Nitrate reading but did see a bacteria bloom for a few days. I treated the zerowater as you would RO water, so added shrimp king mineral fluid gh+. There is a lot of info on the website about what it removes etc. Tap water PH7, Gh 5-6, Kh 3-4, TDS 174 Zerowater Ph6, Gh 0-1, kh 0-1, TDS 000 I added 6 blue bolts about 6-8 weeks later, then some red ruby and red wine a few weeks later and 3 blue steel in March 2018. All went quite well, though there were a few deaths but that may have been me as I am NO expert, I do drip acclimatise though. April 2018 Eggs started appearing (difficult to see on TB) and by the end of that month shrimplets, woohoo! Time for the new tank, dennerle 35L scapers which I got in May 2018 which I ran for a month with the zerowater, 2 cheap sponge only filters, heater, light, rock, wood, java fern, soil etc, and one sacrificial fish (don't worry he went in the fish tank afterwards as he survived). Then I transferred shrimps a dozen every other day(ish) etc. At this point I was obviously shutting down the small tank and although I had only bought a dozen shrimps originally, when I started removing stuff it turned out I had about 90 baby/juvenile shrimp in the tank, most were probably only days old (probably wasn't wise to transfer them at that stage really but I had too many anyway and wanted to get the old tank out of the way, as it was on the dining table). I THINK WE CAN SAFELY SAY THAT I HAVE CRACKED IT NOW, WITH THE HELP OF THE ZEROWATER FILTER JUG. So closed down the 15L end of June 2018. Daily now I see about 50 shrimps of half to full size in the new setup but haven't yet had any success with babies (though most of the shrimps may not yet be mature enough as I believe they need to be 6 months+), and with the hot spell (unusual for here when tank got to 30 degrees) and with me fine tuning the parameters, done now thankfully PH5.5-6, Gh 4.5, Kh 0-1, TDS 160 (something incidently I probably wouldn't have had to do if I had added the Gh+ from day 1 with the new tank). I will say that I NEVER had any Ammonia, Nitrate or Nitrite readings in the new tank either, but as with the small starter tank there were a couple of days of bacteria bloom. I expect babies will happen now I have stopped messing with the parameters, but there is always option B, set up the old small tank and use as a breeding tank, or C, buy more shrimps???? With the shock of how many babies there were hiding in the small tank, there could well be loads of babies in the new tank that are hiding anyway. I will give that a rethink if there haven't been any babies by xmas, though I have enough anyway at present. The only other things that may now affect babies (ie different than the smaller tank) is, the jets from the filters are a bit strong and circulate the water in the tank more, and I have rock (actually Geodes) in the tank??? I change 2L of water each week, mainly so I can squeeze the 2 sponges from the 2 filters and just clean the glass etc. I also use Fulvic acid, beta glucan and am just starting on bacter ae (hoping that may help babies). As with RO water, top up is pure zerowater and water change is zerowater with GH+ added. Each zerowater filter does about 100L of my water (about 6-8 months worth) but there is info on the website above that shows how many it will do on different TDS basic water etc. The filters aren't cheap at £20 each (I have bought 4 for £50 so much more reasonable, and they don't have a shelf life anyway. They are of course available readily in USA in places like Walmart as it is an American product. If anyone knows where you can get them in other countries it may be a good idea to add it to this string/topic etc to help others, as mentioned before I THINK you can get them on amazon.com.au for Australia. If anyone wants to ask any questions I will do my best to answer, but I am NO EXPERT by any measure. . Update 27 Sep 2018 I am daily seeing babies, in small numbers (all colour varieties), but from the top picture you can see there are a vast number of hiding places anyway, so there must be others. I have also seen a couple of shrimps heavy with eggs, grey, so they must be near birth............... I will keep this updated if there is anything worth reporting, or there seems to be any problems with using the zerowater filter jug as a substitute for RO water but so far (1 year now) all has been very successful. Update 7 Oct 2018 Probably be the last update - unless all goes wrong etc I am seeing lots of babies of varying sizes and patterns now (20 today), so much so that I am going to have to start culling to make room for just the ones I really want to keep, and enough room/food etc for babies! I will try taking one big one out each week when I do maintenance and see how that goes! Any questions just ask! BIG UPDATE 24 MARCH 2020 MORRISONS SUPERMARKETS HAVE STARTED SELLING ZEROWATER HERE IN THE UK! ALSO OCADO SELL ZEROWATER IN THE UK!