u/martinez2828

Hey everyone,

I’ve had my first ever shrimp colony up and running for almost 4 weeks now (After 4 months of cycling and maturing). Started off with 28 Orange Neocardina shrimp plus there is a nerite snail in with them.

I thought things were going well considering I’ve seen a few successful molts and as of today I have 2 berried females in the tank.

But last week I found my first dead shrimp, I removed him and now today about 6 days later, I found a 2nd dead shrimp. What could be going wrong?

I believe my setup and parameters are fine but here they are…

Tank: 6 gallon rimless cube
Filter: Aquaclear ac20
Substrate: Seachem Flourite black
Decor: drift wood and river stones
Plants: Variety of crypts, Java fern/moss, water wisteria, buce, and red root floaters.
Fertilizer: Nilocg thrive S shrimp specific fert
Food: Variety of shrimp envy foods, Daku aquatics foods, and frozen blood worms.

Parameters:
Ammonia: 0
Nitrite: 0
Nitrate about 10 ppm
Ph: 7.2-7.5
Temp: 23.5 degrees Celsius
Gh: 8
Kh: 4
TDS: 200

I only use RO water that I remineralize using Salty Shrimp. Then I use plain distilled water for any evaporation top offs.

I’ve been monitoring parameters since I added the shrimp and everything has stayed stable. No big fluctuations. I also make sure I wash my hands throughly before doing anything in the tank and don’t spray any chemicals in the tanks vicinity.

I’m feeling very down and discouraged about the tank to be honest. I spent months researching and making sure everything was perfect just for my shrimp to die anyways :/

Could it be an oxygen issue? I haven’t noticed any shrimp hanging out at the waters edge or anything like that. They’re usually just grazing like they should be.

Any advice would be highly appreciated.

Thank you.

Hello!

I’ve been working on my shrimp tank now for about 4 months now and I’m still not feeling ready to add shrimp since I can’t solve this instability problem.

I use RO water which I remineralize to 8GH AND 4KH every time using Salty shrimp gh/kh +. I do top offs with distilled water only. However, I’ve noticed that the GH and KH seem to be rising.

For example, I did water 1 gallon water change 2 days ago and tested my water and it was 8 and 4 as it should be. Now, two days later I retested and it is 9GH and 5KH. Why is it rising? I understand that those numbers are still fine but I’m scared that it’s going to continuously rise and cause health issues with my shrimp.

I can’t think of anything in the tank that would be causing that increase.
Tank: 6 gallon cube
Substrate: Seachem Flourite black
Rocks: Polished river rock and 1 lava stone
Plants: Anubias, Java fern, Christmas moss, Buce, Crypts
Decor: Drift wood
Life: 3 nerite snails
Fertilizer: Nilocg thrive s (1 pump a week)
Nilocg thrive caps (replenished every 3 months)

Any advice on what to do about this would be greatly appreciated. I’ve been waiting so long for shrimp, I just wanna be ready.

Thank you for reading