# My All Red Cherry Shrimp Died



## milindsaraswala (Jun 9, 2008)

I have 7 gallon tank with white Italian sand, One drift wood, 1 heater Kept on 22 C and filter with air pump. 

I bring first 4 red cherry shrimp from them within a week 1 died than 1 more than I bring 2 more but one by one all died.

So I change my pet shop and I bought 6 Taiwan Red fire Shrimp they too all died. They are too costly. My tank is established from last 3 months.

In life cycle of all shrimp, I found that they never eat food I tried to add flak food, I tried to add food goes to the bottom of the tank. I was changing water every week 50%.

I most big thing I found very tiny transparent warms and also dot like insects in my tank on the corner and on the gravel.

Shrimps are too costly. So this time don't want to bring any shrimp before proper research and make my tank ready for shrimp.

So guys only who have proper experience and professional advice me. What Should I do before bringing new shrimp and how much time I should wait 

Hope I will get good advice


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## Zoidburg (Mar 8, 2016)

Find out what your water parameters are. Ammonia, Nitrites, Nitrates?

Get a GH and KH kit and TDS meter.


The biggest reason why shrimp die (IMO) is due to improper water parameters. They need water with enough minerals that they can absorb the minerals (aka calcium) for proper molts, but too much minerals can be bad, too.


Also, how did they look when they died? Was their shell split? Were they inactive prior to death? Were they swimming about madly? Did their bodies appear cloudy at all? (if you could see inside?) Or were they just dead?

Did you dose the tank with anything? Fertilizers? CO2? Excel?

Any other tank inhabitants?



The dot like insects are probably fine. The worms however, that depends on what they are. Can you describe them at all? Or share pictures?


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## Raith (Jun 27, 2014)

Has the tank been cycled?


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## LittlePinkDot (Oct 10, 2014)

I'm starting to have the same problem too. But the shell is split in the back. Problem with molting I assume. 4 gh, 0kh. I've had shrimp like this before and I've never had this problem before


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## Zoidburg (Mar 8, 2016)

LittlePinkDot said:


> I'm starting to have the same problem too. But the shell is split in the back. Problem with molting I assume. 4 gh, 0kh. I've had shrimp like this before and I've never had this problem before


The water is too soft. Shrimp may be fine for a while, but over time, with a lack of minerals, it eventually leads to death.

I would recommend bumping up your GH to 6. You may or may not need to mess with KH as well, but definitely increase the GH!


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## Yukiharu (May 3, 2014)

Definitely gonna need to know your water parameters and how you cycled the tank. This sounds like simple ammonia poisoning, and the additional food isn't helping. Substrate worms and copepods are a sign of overfeeding.


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## LittlePinkDot (Oct 10, 2014)

Zoidburg said:


> LittlePinkDot said:
> 
> 
> > I'm starting to have the same problem too. But the shell is split in the back. Problem with molting I assume. 4 gh, 0kh. I've had shrimp like this before and I've never had this problem before
> ...


My Amano shrimp don't have a problem though. It's just the new cherry shrimp. And I was told by the ADA distributor of Canada that was trained by Mr Amano himself that they keep their water at 4 gh/ 4kh and 6.4 ph


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## Yukiharu (May 3, 2014)

LittlePinkDot said:


> My Amano shrimp don't have a problem though. It's just the new cherry shrimp. And I was told by the ADA distributor of Canada that was trained by Mr Amano himself that they keep their water at 4 gh/ 4kh and 6.4 ph


Please make your own thread. I don't mean to be rude but it's unfair to the original poster and makes sorting through responses easier.


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## Zoidburg (Mar 8, 2016)

LittlePinkDot said:


> My Amano shrimp don't have a problem though. It's just the new cherry shrimp. And I was told by the ADA distributor of Canada that was trained by Mr Amano himself that they keep their water at 4 gh/ 4kh and 6.4 ph


Amanos can be more forgiving of water parameters than many other species. Ghost shrimp may be one of the few exceptions.


Unless you got shrimp from a breeder who keeps shrimp in the same parameters you have, it's harder to keep them in softer water. Diet can also play a roll.


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## LittlePinkDot (Oct 10, 2014)

Zoidburg said:


> LittlePinkDot said:
> 
> 
> > My Amano shrimp don't have a problem though. It's just the new cherry shrimp. And I was told by the ADA distributor of Canada that was trained by Mr Amano himself that they keep their water at 4 gh/ 4kh and 6.4 ph
> ...


 is there something I could feed them that would help?


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## natemcnutty (May 26, 2016)

LittlePinkDot said:


> is there something I could feed them that would help?


While calcium rich foods are definitely helpful, you also need to keep enough calcium (and other minerals) in the water column as they consume far more from that than they do food. 

I would just use a simple gh booster to bring it up a little bit


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## LittlePinkDot (Oct 10, 2014)

natemcnutty said:


> LittlePinkDot said:
> 
> 
> > is there something I could feed them that would help?
> ...


I was hoping 4 gh was enough. I have 2 tanks. The small 10 gallon is the one I wanted to breed cherry shrimp in. My purpose for wanting to breed them is so that when I have a lot in the 10 gallon I can add the excess to my 17.6 gallon tank which is a high light (c02 system in the mail!) Dwarf puffer tank. When I go on vacation I want to have lots of food sources for my puffers. Currently there are pond snails and MTS snails in the puffer tank. 2 of my dwarf puffers will eat frozen blood worms, 1 will not eat frozen foods at all but is constantly stalking the monte carlo carpet for pond snails. I don't know how successful they've been with the MTS yet since the puffers are still juveniles, but the puffers that eat the frozen blood worms probably haven't put much effort into learning how to suck out an MTS yet. So I think cherry shrimp would be easier for them. But I can't have the 2 tanks with radically different water parameters or I won't be able to dump cherry shrimp from 1 to the other. And plants grow better in soft acidic water because too much gh prevents enough c02 from diffusing into the water.


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## natemcnutty (May 26, 2016)

LittlePinkDot said:


> I was hoping 4 gh was enough. I have 2 tanks. The small 10 gallon is the one I wanted to breed cherry shrimp in. My purpose for wanting to breed them is so that when I have a lot in the 10 gallon I can add the excess to my 17.6 gallon tank which is a high light (c02 system in the mail!) Dwarf puffer tank. When I go on vacation I want to have lots of food sources for my puffers. Currently there are pond snails and MTS snails in the puffer tank. 2 of my dwarf puffers will eat frozen blood worms, 1 will not eat frozen foods at all but is constantly stalking the monte carlo carpet for pond snails. I don't know how successful they've been with the MTS yet since the puffers are still juveniles, but the puffers that eat the frozen blood worms probably haven't put much effort into learning how to suck out an MTS yet. So I think cherry shrimp would be easier for them. But I can't have the 2 tanks with radically different water parameters or I won't be able to dump cherry shrimp from 1 to the other. And plants grow better in soft acidic water because too much gh prevents enough c02 from diffusing into the water.


Ahh, I think you might be confusing GH and KH 

GH is general hardness, which for most GH boosters adds calcium and magnesium in a ratio of 4:1 or 3:1. General hardness is really about the minerals available in the water. KH is carbonate hardness, and this is what buffers the way acids affect pH. Too low of a KH can affect your cycle as well as causing pH to swing more easily.

A GH of 4 is the very bottom of what I've seen RCS as surviving, but really, like @Zoidburg said, I'd bump that up to somewhere around 6. My work tank (with my RCS) is usually between 6 and 7


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## YumiChi (Dec 19, 2016)

milindsaraswala said:


> In life cycle of all shrimp, I found that they never eat food I tried to add flak food, I tried to add food goes to the bottom of the tank. I was changing water every week 50%.


Stop your 50% water change. That's too much for shrimps, do like 10-20% most... shrimp hates large water changes... Shrimps tank only has a little bioload unlike fish...


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