# What has been you biggest mistake keeping shrimp?



## Tyveck (Jul 6, 2014)

I decided to start this little thread for people to share any dumb thing (or problem) they have run into when keeping shrimp! Here is my story:

I set up a new shrimp tank about 3 months ago. I let the tank cycle for two months and even added a couple mystery snails to help out. I planted some duck weed as well as several blyxa stems for ground cover. I have several large clumps of java moss for the shrimplets to hide in and 3 large marimo moss balls for them to gather food from. Everything was perfect! The pH stabilized to around 6.4-6.6 (Rather low for not having active substrate). I have dual bio-filter sponge as well as a netted off HOB filter so my water is crystal clear. When I say that everything was perfect, I mean PERFECT! Before I ordered my CRS shrimp I bought 3 RCS just to see how they did before I added over $100 worth of CRS. 

Three days in and I could only find two of my shrimp! I looked everywhere in the tank until I found it in one of the small rock caves I had built. He didn't move even when I put him in a net. I watched him for about 30 minutes inside of this net submerged in the water and he just didn't move at all. I was going to feed him to my fish so he didn't go to waste. I was kind of sad but I knew that one of my fish would get a lucky snack! I took him out of the net and placed him in my other fish tank. As soon as he hit the water a fish came and tried to take a bite out of him. He came back to life and started to try to get away! It was a miracle! He was trying his best to get away but he couldn't move his feet! (I will get to that in a second.) I acted fast and scooped him back up into the net before he was devoured by my hungry fish. I placed him back in my shrimp tank thinking he would die soon. He just kind of floated to the bottom, not moving. 

After about 30 minutes of watching him he began to twitch his gills. It made me really happy but I knew he would probably die soon. He was moved from 71' water to 85' and then back again, as well as being nibbled on by a fish! I had some hope that he would live. For 3 days he laid upside down twitching every now and again. I thought I was going to lose one of my 3 little shrimp. On the 4th day of him laying in my tank, I picked him up and put him in some of the java moss. He clung on to it the next day and 2 days after that he was eating stuff off the bottom of the tank and just doing what shrimp do. I was so happy! The poor shrimp lived and is doing fine in my tank now:> 
After doing some major thinking, this is what I came up with. The shrimp was still growing. The stress of being moved into a new tank when I got him caused him to molt. He was having a hard time molting his feet. I think some snail slime got caught on his feet.... He looked like he was dead but he wasn't! I felt so bad almost killing this poor little guy but in the end he turned out to be just fine. I felt stupid for the fact that I didn't think about him even molting! That is my stupid shrimp mistake. So please feel free to share your stories too! I would love to hear them and who knows! It may keep somebody from making the same mistake you did!

:iamwithst:iamwithst:iamwithst:iamwithst:iamwithst:iamwithst:iamwithst:iamwithst:iamwithst:iamwithst:iamwithst


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## RyGonX (Jul 20, 2014)

I made a very similar mistake regarding molting,

I first got 12 cherry shrimps for 20 dollars online and they grew fine. However, I wanted something more exotic

I saved up 55$ and got 10 SS grade CRS and put them in my one gallon tank they were.4 inches when I got them, so quite young. 

I over estimated their hardiness by changing their water every week and five of them died. 

I panicked and thought it was the water hardness (my tap water is quite hard). So I used my Brita filter water.

At the first water from the Brita yielded very promising results 6.5 pH, almost no hardness, low kH, no chlorine. So i thought i hit a jackpot and began using that water.

Two days later i noticed one of my shrimps failed a molt and died, more followed the day after. 

When I had only two shrimps remaining, I got very lucky and got the correct combination

Now i changed 40% of the water every three days and only use my tap water. My two shrimps are now doing very well

However i fear that I may have got two shrimps of the same gender and want reproduce anymore


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## lamiskool (Jul 1, 2011)

meh worst mistake was a co2 accident where I almost gassed and killed my 200+ colony of cherry shrimp


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## CoffeeLove (Oct 31, 2012)

Putting them in a dirted tank. They never seemed too happy. I removed the dirt and what a difference it made. 

Sent from my SPH-L710 using Tapatalk


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## Tyveck (Jul 6, 2014)

RyGonX said:


> I made a very similar mistake regarding molting,
> 
> I first got 12 cherry shrimps for 20 dollars online and they grew fine. However, I wanted something more exotic
> 
> ...


Awesome story! Did you ever figure out why the filtered water was killing them?


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## Whiskey (Feb 15, 2005)

My biggest mistake was using tap water, that held back my progress in this hobby for about a year. Even Cherry shrimp couldn't live in my 800 TDS water.

Once I got a TDS meter, GH test kit, and RO filter things went much better.

Whiskey


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## AGUILAR3 (Jun 22, 2013)

CoffeeLove said:


> Putting them in a dirted tank. They never seemed too happy. I removed the dirt and what a difference it made.
> 
> Sent from my SPH-L710 using Tapatalk


First time hearing this. There are a ton of Shrimp with dirt tank journals here on TPT and on Youtube and they are all thriving. They are mostly RCS though. What shrimp do you have?


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## Tyveck (Jul 6, 2014)

AGUILAR3 said:


> First time hearing this. There are a ton of Shrimp with dirt tank journals here on TPT and on Youtube and they are all thriving. They are mostly RCS though. What shrimp do you have?


Same! The pH with a dirted tank would be near perfect. Thats very odd..


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## RyGonX (Jul 20, 2014)

Tyveck said:


> Awesome story! Did you ever figure out why the filtered water was killing them?


After researching and testing the Brita Filter appears to filter out calcium and other minerals (most of it). Without these minerals Shrimp will fail the molting process


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## Tyveck (Jul 6, 2014)

That's a really good filter then! You may want to use that water but add in extra calcium and other minerals like shrimp+


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## garfieldnfish (Sep 25, 2010)

Overfeeding in one tank. Overselling in another, taking the colony down too much and they had a hard time recuperating from it.
Water changes more than once a week. My tanks are heavily planted and whenever I do a water change it seems to disrupt the community. Also large water changes I found to be bad for the shrimp. Smaller, more frequent ones are better tolerated. I now only change out 10% every other week and the shrimp do better.


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## Tyveck (Jul 6, 2014)

I have found that small water changes work the best too! :>



garfieldnfish said:


> Overfeeding in one tank. Overselling in another, taking the colony down too much and they had a hard time recuperating from it.
> Water changes more than once a week. My tanks are heavily planted and whenever I do a water change it seems to disrupt the community. Also large water changes I found to be bad for the shrimp. Smaller, more frequent ones are better tolerated. I now only change out 10% every other week and the shrimp do better.


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## jimmytruong87 (Oct 16, 2012)

My stupid mistake was I do not have a chiller and CRS is very sensitive with hot temp. Even though I have right parameter of the water, but my CRS started to die off one by one


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## Dtran5 (Mar 29, 2014)

My mistake was using Floramax as the substrate for my tank. It was my first planted tank. When I set it up, I knew nothing about shrimps or that I was going to keep shrimps in it. It was pretty moderately planted and looked pretty good overall for a first tank. I purchased 10 mid-grade CRS and, stupidly, only tested the gH and kH afterward. My gH was 8-9 and kH was 6-7. Tested the water out of the tap and both gH and kH were right in the range for CRS. I had no idea why the water sky-rockted once it was in my tank. After some research, I read from a few posts on here that apparently some batches of Floramax were contaminated with something calcium-based and it would leach into the water. Once I changed out the substrate with FSS, everything was fine, and the shrimps seem to be doing much better now. More shrimplets and more pregnant shrimps.


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## Tyveck (Jul 6, 2014)

Dtran5 said:


> My mistake was using Floramax as the substrate for my tank. It was my first planted tank. When I set it up, I knew nothing about shrimps or that I was going to keep shrimps in it. It was pretty moderately planted and looked pretty good overall for a first tank. I purchased 10 mid-grade CRS and, stupidly, only tested the gH and kH afterward. My gH was 8-9 and kH was 6-7. Tested the water out of the tap and both gH and kH were right in the range for CRS. I had no idea why the water sky-rockted once it was in my tank. After some research, I read from a few posts on here that apparently some batches of Floramax were contaminated with something calcium-based and it would leach into the water. Once I changed out the substrate with FSS, everything was fine, and the shrimps seem to be doing much better now. More shrimplets and more pregnant shrimps.


Substrate is very important! It weird how things like that can happen though!


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## Charlieeex3 (Aug 18, 2013)

jimmytruong87 said:


> My stupid mistake was I do not have a chiller and CRS is very sensitive with hot temp. Even though I have right parameter of the water, but my CRS started to die off one by one


Mine did too last week! But I purchased a fan and now zero deaths so far


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## Polarize (Jul 17, 2011)

Not caring about GH. In my experience, GH is more important than PH. Also, another mistake was trying to do too much, causing too many sudden changes and consequently stressing out the shrimps.


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## greenteam (Feb 8, 2012)

I purchased 5 Cherry shrimp from LFS at $4 a pop. Tossed into my community tank and they fish made a meal of them before the shrimp could even figure out what was going on.


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## Subtletanks91 (May 29, 2013)

Not cycling the tank getting to excited and throwing 50 rcs in there. Tap water. And not understanding it fully before diving into it.


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## sewoeno (Apr 12, 2014)

Dtran5 said:


> My mistake was using Floramax as the substrate for my tank. It was my first planted tank. When I set it up, I knew nothing about shrimps or that I was going to keep shrimps in it. It was pretty moderately planted and looked pretty good overall for a first tank. I purchased 10 mid-grade CRS and, stupidly, only tested the gH and kH afterward. My gH was 8-9 and kH was 6-7. Tested the water out of the tap and both gH and kH were right in the range for CRS. I had no idea why the water sky-rockted once it was in my tank. After some research, I read from a few posts on here that apparently some batches of Floramax were contaminated with something calcium-based and it would leach into the water. Once I changed out the substrate with FSS, everything was fine, and the shrimps seem to be doing much better now. More shrimplets and more pregnant shrimps.


holy crap! i used floramax also and i swear it killed everything i put in the tank! i switched it to my community fish tank and they aren't very happy after months and twice a week water changes. its insane. 

my mistake was like everyone basically. used tap with extreme tds, took a couple months to figure that one out.


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## Subtletanks91 (May 29, 2013)

That's odd. Floramax is completely inert, it acts like a sponge if you dose ferts for a month, it will absorb them and then when there's no ferts in the water column it releases them.


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## CheyLillymama22 (Jun 9, 2013)

I didn't take the advice of many more experienced shrimpers before me.
I ordered tiger shrimp, had a gorgeous tank set up for them that cycled for 9 weeks, perfect params, tons of moss and floaters.
BUT, I didn't listen to all the advice on low temps being crucial for tigers. 
Lost them all one by one to the too high temps.
Now I know better. I have PC fans and my temps stay at a cool 70f. Now I have super happy shrimp, and have just ordered my bag of amazonia. I'll be making the jump to CRS and tibees in the fall.


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## Dtran5 (Mar 29, 2014)

Subtletanks91 said:


> That's odd. Floramax is completely inert, it acts like a sponge if you dose ferts for a month, it will absorb them and then when there's no ferts in the water column it releases them.


That's the idea, but like I said, for myself a few other people from older posts I found on here, it raised their pH, gH, and kH significantly. There was a point where I used only RO water that's was not remineralized for WC and top off's. After a day though, the parameters would climb right back to what it was before. I only had driftwood in the tank and no rocks, tested the water out of the tap, after 2 days, and everything was fine until the water entered the tank. 

Below are two of many threads you'll find about this problem. 

http://www.plantedtank.net/forums/showthread.php?t=209418
http://www.plantedtank.net/forums/showthread.php?t=147122


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## drip loop (Apr 12, 2014)

Not keeping in mind that evaporated water must be replaced with distilled water. Lost far too many shrimp to an increase in TDS from pure stupidity. Dont be like I was and refill with water like your doing a regular water change. disolved solids clearly do not evaporate!


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## Tyveck (Jul 6, 2014)

sewoeno said:


> holy crap! i used floramax also and i swear it killed everything i put in the tank! i switched it to my community fish tank and they aren't very happy after months and twice a week water changes. its insane.
> 
> my mistake was like everyone basically. used tap with extreme tds, took a couple months to figure that one out.


Im glad to hear all this about floramax. I was going to use this in my new shrimptank! Im just going to skip the headache hahah thats for the story!


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## HUNTER (Sep 4, 2012)

My mistake is the driftwood extending out of the tank and finding at least 5 dead on the carpet everyday, good thing they breed fast.


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## Tyveck (Jul 6, 2014)

HUNTER said:


> My mistake is the driftwood extending out of the tank and finding at least 5 dead on the carpet everyday, good thing they breed fast.


good to know Im not the only one! I lost 1 out of my 3 RCS this way.. He just vanished!


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## Down_Shift (Sep 20, 2008)

I need to get a chiller. Everything is dialed in minus temps during the summer


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## Tyveck (Jul 6, 2014)

Im thinking about buying a chiller for my tanks! My temp goes up about 5-6 in the day and cools off during the night back down to around 69-70


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## mayanjungledog (Mar 26, 2009)

I applied topical monthly flea preventive on my cat, who then proceeded to dip his paw in an open top shrimp tank. Killed about $600 worth of shrimp. I tore down the tank and started all over again.


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## Tyveck (Jul 6, 2014)

mayanjungledog said:


> I applied topical monthly flea preventive on my cat, who then proceeded to dip his paw in an open top shrimp tank. Killed about $600 worth of shrimp. I tore down the tank and started all over again.



Dang! That's rough! I have heard of some other stories similar to that


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## MsNemoShrimp (Apr 25, 2011)

Feeding too much, planaria broke out and literally took over the tank, eating everything and anything in it's way. Had to bleach and took down an entire tank. Lame :/


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## popytoys (Dec 16, 2013)

The biggest mistake I have ever done was to spread some "insert killer' above my tank without cover my tank up. It turned out I killed over 30 Golden shrimps and couple of panda...


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## AquaAurora (Jul 10, 2013)

Accidentally killed a wild type neo with my water change last week. Didn't notice 'em get sucked up the siphon and into the bucket. Poor thing died in the sink after dumping the bucket out. I was so sad when I found it. Poor thing probably died from chlorine tap water before it dried out.
When I first got my shrimp I did a huge water change their first week in the 10g holding tank, got the "twitchers" jerked swimming backwards from the drastic change in water params from such a large water change. Not sure how many I killed with that big opps..


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## Tyveck (Jul 6, 2014)

I'm glad I'm not the only one who makes mistakes! That cl is a killer!


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## Tyveck (Jul 6, 2014)

Any more stories guys??


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## Salvanost (Mar 30, 2014)

1. top up non RO water without checking water parameter
2. use "safe shrimp" fertilizer without realizing it raise gh and tds
3. use worm medicine without proper wc
4. reset so much tank just because they got planaria or copepods :v
5. using plant products for shrimp tank, including co2 booster
6. surprise a shrimp while molting
7. take out moss plant without realizing there 15-25 shimplets in there


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## PlantedTankLover (Aug 28, 2010)

My mistakes has always been trying to hard to make everything "perfect" Learned this after being gone for 2 months and left the feeding to a friend. No water changes and he overfed led to lots of hair algae. I took care of that asap, but since then my RCA's are reproducing like crazy!
BTW, do I need to add new stock every now in then to prevent too much inbreeding?


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## Knotyoureality (Aug 3, 2012)

Bit of a different direction in answering but.. worst mistake in keeping shrimp? 

Deluding myself into thinking "just one more tank" to work at selectively breeding all the interesting variations my cherries were throwing would be no big deal. Except it's not just one tank--it's one for the parent line, one for the off spring, one to cross these two, better put a back up group there... Sixteen shrimp habitats later I was spending 3 hours a day on the damn things. Sure, I had a couple really interesting lines going--but I was spending so much time on the work of it that I didn't have time to actually enjoy them anymore. 

Finally broke out my best reds to one tank, dumped the best of the interesting variants into my junk tank to take their chances--and bagged out the remaining several hundred shrimp to trade as feeders for some very nice plants. I still get some pretty wild shrimp turning up in my junk tank--right now that includes a beautiful translucent full body green, a bright blue with a tan back stripe and a couple near blacks--but these days I just shake it off and get on with enjoying my tanks as they are when the itch to set up another shrimp tank creeps up on me.


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