Hi team,

Just noticed one of my larger blue shrimp dead in the tank and it has large red marks on it (definitely all blue last time I saw it)

Any ideas what this might be? Thanks for your help 

Well... umm... I had the exact same thing happen with a blue dream shrimp that died with moulting issues just 3 days ago, except mine was pink. I assume it's just the colour the shrimp turns if it dies and stays in the water for some amount of time? 

As crabby states, dead shrimp usually go pink in the flesh (as when cooked) but the colour may be distorted by the colour of the shrimp in this case as it is a very dark colour. When I had my overheat problem some of mine looked like the above picture! Just keep a close watch on the others and see if any have any symptoms for now, oh, and check the tank isn't getting too hot................

Simon

Thanks guys, all of the other shrimp I can see are looking fine - they are so dark blue some of them are nearly black!  Tank doesnt seem to be getting too hot.. I guess I will just have to wait and see ?

Sadly I have found another shrimp dead this morning.  There are still live ones cruising around so it isn't all of them - seems like the two largest shrimp have died.

Water parameters this morning are

Nitrates 10 (bit sus on this as I think my test strips are already showing this slight pink before I wet them)

Nitrites 0

Hardness 75 GH ppm

Alkalinity 0  KH ppm

PH 6.2

The fire reds we have in the other tank are using exactly the same water and there has been no troubles.

In my tank I notice some moults yesterday so is it a problem with moulting you think?  Thanks so much for any help - I have done some research on the correct parameters but not really sure that I understand the GH and KH numbers compared with what my test kit is telling me.

Thanks all and have a great day

sub

Edited October 17, 20205 yr by Subtlefly

A lot of shrimp deaths are down to moulting problems!

Your test results you divide by 18 (17.9 to be exact) to get the more widely used figures, so your Gh is 4. The parameters you have are better suited to Caridina, but probably at this point I would just carry on as you are for now as the larger/older shrimps would have not adapted too well to new/different water and (like all creatures) the smaller/younger ones should adapt better, and as that was the last large one it may resolve itself from here on! The water parameters are off as I say but I wouldn't start mucking about with that yet, wait and see if you lose another younger first, if they are moulting fine and the other tank has those same parameters I would give it a bit longer, messing with the parameters anyway may even cause more deaths!

Do you know what te TDS figure is? Assuming this figure is too low as well (likely) you should be able to just add some of the usual shrimp GH/KH+ to get those better for Neocaridina shrimp but I would hold off that for the moment, see if the remainig shrimp adapt better? As this low tank is uncovered with a large surface area the parameters will creep up in time naturally due to evaporation anyway!

What water are you using?

Simon

Thanks Simon, we are using tank water  (rainwater) and changing around 30% a week.  That is very interesting that you say the parameters are more suited to cardinal, I thought they were more difficult to keep.  I bought all juveniles but some seemed to have grown a lot larger.  I hope this is not two females that have died!  I can still see healthy looking shrimp (I guess I have 5 remaining) so I will hang in there fingers crossed.

Thanks 

Sub

Edited October 18, 20205 yr by Subtlefly