# Odd behavior for red cherry shrimp?



## AxolotlFarmer (Nov 29, 2006)

at times they may swarm to food. Only thing i can think of as of now.


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## hb3133 (Jun 26, 2006)

Bad news! There is something terribly wrong. I have notice a few shrimp in distress. I have plucked a few of them that are dying. None are dead yet. I just did a 40% water change. Here is my tank stats:

Setup: 10 gallon FW shrimp tank ( red cherries and green shrimp + 1 oto and a fair amount of pond snails) which has been up and running for 10 months. No algae problems and excellent water parameters. 

Filtration: HOB Aquaclear with sponge filter over intake.

Substrate: Eco complete with small amount of gravel on top.

Lights: 2x15 watt compact fluourescent lights x 9 hours per day

temp: 76 degrees

Ferts: all Seachem Flourish products; excel, flourish, potassium, nirtogen, iron x 3 days per week and every water change (10 days or so).

Plants: Java moss, X-mas moss, Peacock moss, Java fern, Anubias (Nana and Coffeefolia), red and green Wendtii, dward sags, and moss balls, Windelov fern and anacharis

I did dose my ferts today but I always, always dose the same amounts and on the same days. Maybe the ferst are finally affected them. Damn. Live and learn, I guess.


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## epicfish (Sep 11, 2006)

WC, use Prime as your de-chlorinator.


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## hb3133 (Jun 26, 2006)

Yes, I do use Prime. In the past, I used Marineland products but the smell always made my wife sick. I have been happy with Prime. I hope these little guys make it through the night. I am glad I checked the tank tonight.


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## epicfish (Sep 11, 2006)

Whatever is making them sick is in the tank, so try a WC and see how they respond. Other than that, if you don't see hydra, parasites, worms, etc... in the tank, there's no way to tell what else is wrong.

What are your water parameters right now?


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## hb3133 (Jun 26, 2006)

Ammonia and Nitrite= 0ppm
Nitrate= 30 ppm
Ph= 7.4

Those ae the only test kits I have and I have a feeling it was the ferts. I came home from lunch and everything was fine. I dosed before going back to work and now some of the shrimp are dying. Its kinda strange because other shrimp are still grazing like normal.


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## epicfish (Sep 11, 2006)

Yea, I have some shrimp that act weird sometimes too. I don't dose.

Sometimes I come back to one or two dead shrimp (maybe once a month?) and sometimes the shrimp are on their sides and can't get back up...it's really weird.

Stop dosing for a few days and see what's up. It's weird though, since you've been dosing for a while and they've been fine so far...


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## hb3133 (Jun 26, 2006)

Hey, thanks for the help. What type of tank setups do you have for yur shrimp tanks? I'll give yo a update tomorrow morning!


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## epicfish (Sep 11, 2006)

I have a 5.5 gallon w/ sponge filter.

I've had mishaps with shrimp before, so I feel your worry when something happens. I had the pre-filter sponge fall off an internal powerhead once. I came back to 15 minced RCS.  Sad day.

And then one time, about half a dozen died. Two each day for three days. Then it stopped. So weird!


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## epicfish (Sep 11, 2006)

Hope all goes well, and I'll be looking forward to your update!


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## hb3133 (Jun 26, 2006)

Well, there was small amountof die-off this morning. My 10 gallon has about 80+ shrimp and I found half dozen dead. I did another water change, about 30% and picked out the dead ones. The majority of deaths have been either small juveniles or infants. Fingers crossed!


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## wood (Nov 15, 2006)

hb3133 said:


> Ammonia and Nitrite= 0ppm
> Nitrate= 30 ppm
> Ph= 7.4
> 
> Those ae the only test kits I have and I have a feeling it was the ferts. I came home from lunch and everything was fine. I dosed before going back to work and now some of the shrimp are dying. Its kinda strange because other shrimp are still grazing like normal.


I would recommend bringing the nitrate down to 0. 

Also, you are dosing a ton of ferts for a 10 gallon. Flourish has copper in it. How much of each fert are you dosing, and how often?

To me it sounds like that water is toxic.

-Ryan


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## hb3133 (Jun 26, 2006)

I think I'll cut back on the ferts and probably eliminate the Seachem Nitrogen. I was dosing with the nitrogen because the plants were having problems in the begining. I am doing the recommend dosage listed on each bottle of Seachem product x 3 days per week. I guess its time to do a major cutback on ferts. I agree that the water is toxic and I will surely will change my thinking.


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## hb3133 (Jun 26, 2006)

Is there a way to balance a beautiful planted tank and shrimp? Or do you have to choose one or the other?


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## RESGuy (Jan 15, 2007)

hb3133 said:


> Is there a way to balance a beautiful planted tank and shrimp? Or do you have to choose one or the other?


Take a look at Wood's RCS 10 gallon tank and you will see you don't have to chose between them


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## epicfish (Sep 11, 2006)

I woke up to two dead shrimp. They got really crazy yesterday, swimming everywhere. See? Weird. I did a 30% WC this morning and they seem OK now.

There is a way to get a nice planted tank and a shrimp tank. What I've found out was that shrimp breed much more quickly when there aren't a lot of other plants growing in the tank. I might be biased or whatever, but I got my shrimp in October 2006. I had about 35 of them. From October 2006 to January 2007, the population went to 70. Then I moved tanks from a planted tank to a low-light/low-tech tank w/ just java moss and najas grass. Now, I have 200+ shrimp including tiny babies...but that's a huge increase in just two or three months as opposed to before.


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## mistergreen (Dec 9, 2006)

Maybe there's a weird genetic population crash that happens when there are too many shrimps in one tank. You see it a lot in wild animal population... Or even will live cultures like white worms or microworms.


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## hb3133 (Jun 26, 2006)

Fortunately breeding has never been a problem. I bought 1 dozen shrimp back in July 2006 and have breed at least 300+ shrimp. I had to start selling in order to keep the tank population in check. I always have at least 6 pregnant females in the tank so I hope I have survivors when I get home.


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## hb3133 (Jun 26, 2006)

Sunday update: Some red cherries are still dying but the rate has slowed. I continue to do daily water changes and I haven't added any ferts. I really don't know what else to do beside the water changes. I have notice one thing that I found extremely odd. The 10 green shirmps tht I had in the tank seemed to suffer no ill effect. I did remove them but they were so hard to catch. Unlike the red cherries, who are so lethargic, the green shrimp were zipping around the tank. I moved them to a 2 gallon that I had already set up for them and some blue shrimp( on order). I also moved some adult red cherries to another tank(non-planted), hoping to save some of them. Well, I have done my best and hope for positive outcome. If things go south quick, I might go back to my original plan, freshwater dwarf puffers.


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