Hybrid tank - shrimp stop moving and die

[daveron]

Hello,

It seems I have a serious issue with my hybrid tank and have no idea what can be the cause of it.

Basically, as the title says the shrimp stop moving and die. I can see no damage and no disease signs. A nearly dead shrimp is just able to move her legs or claws, but unable to swim or even keep herself in the upright position. Like either she is being slowly paralysed, or out of any vital energy left.

The other shrimp in the tank are active, and I have a few berried females, but the problem persists and I am loosing an adult every few days.

The parameters are as follows:

pH 6.5
GH 5
kh 0
NH3/NO2 0
NO3 ~2ppm
TDS 160ppm

Any ideas what the issue might be  ?

 

 

 

[Jarad]

What shrimp are you keeping specifically ? I.e Hybrids of what ?

[daveron]

These are taiwan bee hybrids

[Zoidburg]

It's possible that they have muscle necrosis or a bacterial infection. Maybe something else?

 

 

What is the temperature of the tank?

 

Any possibility of macro shots of the shrimp?

[daveron]

Thank for your response the temps in the tank are currently below 23'.

From checking out the thread you posted, it seems that a bacterial infection might be a suspect here, as the description fits closely to what I am experiencing. The shrimp seem, sluggish, dying as they stand. The head part becomes red/pink, but after some time has passed after death so not sure here - is it a sign of bacterial infection or just decay of internal organs. Their heads do not become pinkish before dying, and I believe the author suggested that in his case they did.  A CBS like shrimp, looks more like CRS after several hours being dead, meaning black stripes become red. Had one panda shrimp in the tank that died and it was also pinkish at the head, and at the feet/claws. Don't know how long it was dead.

As for macro shots - cannot give any right now, because the last death happened 2 days ago and I already flushed the shrimp. Will post once I find another dead one, that had not been consumed significantly.

I should be able to obtain Oxytetracycline easily, but don't want to rush as it can kill my tank's cycle it seems.

[daveron]

Here is a shot of one I just found, unfortunately seems dead a long time, plus it was in a hard to reach place so it took some additional beating before I got it out of the tank. All around pinkish, wish some intense red spots on the backside.

 

 

 

 

 

[jayc]

How old is the tank?

And tell us about how you treat the water at water changes. What do you add to the water. 

 

[daveron]

The tank is 3 years old. It's an inert substrate tank, I do around 15-20% changes weekly or every other week. RO water + Liquid GH+ + a tiny bit of Old Sea Mud and Rich Water. I use peat to keep the pH at the desired level.

[daveron]

Just a small update. I noticed a number of shrimp having noticeably eroded abdomen. Some shrimp that looked CRS, and White Bee alike have had an slightly orange/reddish tint on the abdomen. Additionally I noticed a King Kong in my Taiwan Bee tank to have some brownish stripes on the abdomen. I separated the shrimp that looked unhealthy(still in the same tank, just separated from others). I also moved the King Kong to this 'nursery'. For all tanks I am currently using natural stuff that is supposed to kill bacteria, in the hybrid tank I started dosing H2O2 at around 1ml/4L yesterday.

Edited April 2, 2017 by daveron

[jayc]

18 hours ago, daveron said:

I am currently using natural stuff

What is this natural stuff?

[daveron]

The natural stuff is alder cones and some oak leaves.

So as for now anything I have tried so far does not seem to have any effect, as shrimp are dying continuously. 

Here are a couple of pictures of a caridina that recently died (photo right after the shrimp died), and I believe an interesting case of a neo (the tank had 10 neo's which were culled from a different tank). In the morning I noticed the shrimp organs seemed kind of orange, so I moved her to a separate container. Right now I am back from work, and it was almost dead (in the morning it was still very active). What I noticed, and what seems to be also visible on the pictures is that the place where the saddle usually is has a green unhealthy colour.

I didn't get prescription for any antibiotics, so I guess that is one of the few things left to try. Other options I see is Sera Bactopur Direct (which was recommended by Sera for bacterial infections in shrimp), and perhaps a purchase of a UV light in an attempt to clean the water in other tanks.