# Cherry shrimp dying? please help.



## honda237 (Aug 11, 2010)

Lately I started having a problem with my cherry shrimp dying (after i posted my CRS thread:angryfire), i lost 1 yesterday and 2 today, and they are pretty much adults. 

My parameters are in check
20g long
Mr. aqua substrate
ph 6.8 before co2
TDS 205
GH 6 as of tuesday
KH 2 as of tuesday
ammonia - 0
nitrites- 0
nitrates- undetectable
Temp 77F

CPDs and neons leave the shrimp alone, i've watched them for a while.
They are fed max growth, max breed, rootmedic shrimp food.

Nothing new has been added to my tank, the tank has been set up for over a month with a eheim 2215 that has been cycling for 2 months.

They seem active and i have a few berried females.

Could this be a molting problem? i see a lot of their old moltings in my tank.
Here is a picture of one that died today. They seem kinda white, i can get another picture if you would like.


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## honda237 (Aug 11, 2010)

Bump


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## endoflove (Jan 8, 2011)

i got the same thing here its quite sad lost 5 good adults in the last 3 days i noticed some of my plants melting so i am gonna re do the plants


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## honda237 (Aug 11, 2010)

lost another one last night. Tail was some what curled up, and it was whiter looking. It was an adult.


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## sewingalot (Oct 12, 2008)

That is very interesting. I am hoping someone answers this for you. I had the same thing happening to me. How often are you changing the water on this tank and how much?


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## honda237 (Aug 11, 2010)

I was doing about 20% water changes, 2-3 times a week, and I would try my best to match temp and add it slow, but when I started having problems, I dropped down to 1 a week water changes of about 20% to see if that helped for the last week, and I still lost shrimp.


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## honda237 (Aug 11, 2010)

Interesting find, my ph today before co2 was 7.8, so I would suspect the ph change could be killing them? I don't know what's raising my ph. My substrate is suppose to buffer it down to 6-6.5.


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## sampster5000 (Oct 30, 2010)

I have been having a similar problem but did not want to post about it. My adult cherry shrimp are not living. They will grow to adults, have babies, then die. I have a million shrimp but only a few adults. The only similarity to our tanks is probably the lower pH. My pH is 6.4. One difference I have is that my shrimp will completely disappear (not in the filter).

I am thinking like honda237. Maybe it is the pH change?


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## honda237 (Aug 11, 2010)

sampster5000 said:


> I have been having a similar problem but did not want to post about it. My adult cherry shrimp are not living. They will grow to adults, have babies, then die. I have a million shrimp but only a few adults. The only similarity to our tanks is probably the lower pH. My pH is 6.4. One difference I have is that my shrimp will completely disappear (not in the filter).
> 
> I am thinking like honda237. Maybe it is the pH change?


i tested my RO water, and the PH is at 6.8, so i'm going to do straight RO water changes from now on and just add ferts for the plants. Hopefully that will help.


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## sampster5000 (Oct 30, 2010)

Some people say that changing too much water at one time can be a problem for shrimp. They let their water age before they put it in. I just try and make sure the temperature is similar.


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## sewingalot (Oct 12, 2008)

Changing the water too often for me was really hurting my cherry shrimp. I think it was making them want to molt more often. But of course, I'm new to shrimp so I don't have much to offer.


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## justin182 (Aug 19, 2009)

Too much CO2 and not enough O2, maybe?
You have any spare air pump around? Maybe you could try that.


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## honda237 (Aug 11, 2010)

sewingalot said:


> Changing the water too often for me was really hurting my cherry shrimp. I think it was making them want to molt more often. But of course, I'm new to shrimp so I don't have much to offer.


If that was the case, I wouldn't have lost 2 when I lowered my amout of water changes, would i? 



justin182 said:


> Too much CO2 and not enough O2, maybe?
> You have any spare air pump around? Maybe you could try that.


Nope, drop checker never goes yellow, and air pump at night.


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## sewingalot (Oct 12, 2008)

Not necessarily. Sometimes it takes more than a week for things to improve. Let me see if I can find some people to help you out.


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## mordalphus (Jun 23, 2010)

Boy I dunno, a lot of things can kill shrimp, but most of them don't kill CHERRY shrimp...

There's no sign of bacterial infection in that picture, as well as no sign of molting problems. It is very possible that rapid parameter changes could do that, but it would have to be drastic...

As far as your substrate buffering your pH down, it is not instant, and if you're doing 20% wc's 2-3 times per week, that will not only wear out the buffering capabilities of your substrate very quickly, it'll also not give your substrate a chance to soften and acidify your tap water.

As far as your pH being in the high 7's before your co2 comes on, that could be caused by the excess oxygen in your water from the air stones running at night.

Do you have any low tech tanks you could put the cherries into while you sort out the problem? 

I know that if your cherries are not used to breathing co2-laden water, it will slowly kill them off. I usually have to turn my co2 off, and increase it very slowly every week until they're used to it.


Also, just from seeing that picture of the dead shrimp, some things catch my eyes... First off, it's not pink, so either it has been dead for less than about an hour, or the co2 at the bottom of the tank is preserving the body. How is the flow down at the substrate level? co2 is heavy and will settle on the lower half of the tank, possibly strangling shrimp while leaving your drop checker green.


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## msnikkistar (Mar 23, 2010)

I'm with Liam on this one. 

For me, I honestly think 2-3 wc a week is overkill and could be the reason why they are dying. The constant fluctuation in the parameters over a short period of time could stress them. The wc could be too soon after a molt, causing them to try and molt again, which kills them. I've had it happen with a yellow I didnt take out of a compartment and didnt noticed until I saw it dead after the 3rd wc.


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## sampster5000 (Oct 30, 2010)

Definitely too many WC's if you are doing 2-3 a week. You want the water to be stable.


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## honda237 (Aug 11, 2010)

mordalphus said:


> Boy I dunno, a lot of things can kill shrimp, but most of them don't kill CHERRY shrimp...
> 
> There's no sign of bacterial infection in that picture, as well as no sign of molting problems. It is very possible that rapid parameter changes could do that, but it would have to be drastic...
> 
> As far as your substrate buffering your pH down, it is not instant, and if you're doing 20% wc's 2-3 times per week, that will not only wear out the buffering capabilities of your substrate very quickly, it'll also not give your substrate a chance to soften and acidify your tap water.


I use RO, so wouldn't that make it a little easier for it to buffer?



> As far as your pH being in the high 7's before your co2 comes on, that could be caused by the excess oxygen in your water from the air stones running at night.
> 
> Do you have any low tech tanks you could put the cherries into while you sort out the problem?


No, not really. All i have is large central american tanks, and my 10g medium tech (co2)



> I know that if your cherries are not used to breathing co2-laden water, it will slowly kill them off. I usually have to turn my co2 off, and increase it very slowly every week until they're used to it.


Nope, they came from a the medium tech 10g which had co2. They slowly were introduced to co2 in this 20g because i was messing with my new needle valve and co2 diffuser



> Also, just from seeing that picture of the dead shrimp, some things catch my eyes... First off, it's not pink, so either it has been dead for less than about an hour, or the co2 at the bottom of the tank is preserving the body. How is the flow down at the substrate level? co2 is heavy and will settle on the lower half of the tank, possibly strangling shrimp while leaving your drop checker green.


 I took that picture with in an hour after he died. All my other dead shrimp were pink. The flow is pretty good, its an eheim 2215 with a short spray bar and a bunch of big holes drilled in it so it does uproot my plants. I don't see any co2 settling, I have one those atomizer co2 diffusers and i see the mist go all over the tank.
Thanks, thats a lot of good.


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## honda237 (Aug 11, 2010)

msnikkistar said:


> I'm with Liam on this one.
> 
> For me, I honestly think 2-3 wc a week is overkill and could be the reason why they are dying. The constant fluctuation in the parameters over a short period of time could stress them. The wc could be too soon after a molt, causing them to try and molt again, which kills them. I've had it happen with a yellow I didnt take out of a compartment and didnt noticed until I saw it dead after the 3rd wc.





sampster5000 said:


> Definitely too many WC's if you are doing 2-3 a week. You want the water to be stable.


Thanks guys and girls, I will keep water changes down to once a week of straight RO. Hopefully this fixes it, because i want some CBS/CRS.
Ow and the CPDs will be gone monday.


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## honda237 (Aug 11, 2010)

well to give an update, before i shipped the cpds i noticed my shrimp were hiding more, but yesterday afternoon(a day after i shipped the cpds) all my shrimp were out and about. So even though i watched my cpds for a while, they must have started to pick.


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## mordalphus (Jun 23, 2010)

honda237 said:


> well to give an update, before i shipped the cpds i noticed my shrimp were hiding more, but yesterday afternoon(a day after i shipped the cpds) all my shrimp were out and about. So even though i watched my cpds for a while, they must have started to pick.



Yes, they'll try to bite shrimp, even though they may not kill them. I have mine in a show tank with CRS, but they CRS have a very nice stump they occupy, and the CPDs can't get to them very easily.


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## [email protected] (Mar 4, 2012)

I'm having a cherry shrimp issue also. I have a 75 gal. with lots of small fish in it and also red cherry and amano shrimp. It would be nothing to see 12 to 15 cherrys and 5 or 6 amanos at one time. Yea, I know the fish had to be eating some of the young but my tank is so heavily planted that I would still rescue between 30 and 40 each week from my filter. But since I added co2 and ferts I see less and less of them, find a dead one now and then and this week I only found 3 in the filter. I thought that you could hardly kill those two species. I don't think my co2 is too high,the drop checker stays pretty much green. Help,Jimbo.


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## jrman83 (Nov 22, 2010)

I have yellows, 500+ of them in a 20g, and I will sometimes have 1 or 2 die usually close to the water change. Just depends on how crazy I get with what I do.

Personally, I think you are doing way too many things that are affecting ph but that is just a guess. You use RO water, have a specialty substrate, and add CO2. I use RODI water in my tank with an 80/20 mixture with my tap. Gives me a solid ph of 7.5 that never budges with a kh of 3. RCS can handle a lot. Maybe try killing your CO2 for a few weeks and see if it helps.


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## acitydweller (Dec 28, 2011)

Anyone test tds? Kh or gh? What is the tank temp?

How is your new water treated? What ferts are you dosing?

Maybe it's time to simplify your tank regiment until things get under control?


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