# What Am I Doing Wrong??



## jimmy james (11 Oct 2011)

I added 10 grade s CRS 20 days ago and now there are only 2 left.
I have a 20litre tank with external filter 300 lph out put via spray bar. Tank has been setup for 2 years, substrate is tropica plant substrate capped with 1.5" of fine coarse gravel. It's heavily planted with fissidens fontanus, microsorum pteropus both growing on mopani wood, blyxa japonica and hydrocotyle sp.japan. The 5 cherries have bred regulary for the last year, there are 3 amanos 1 of which is berried, 1 galxy rasbora and 3 micro rasboras. Water parameters are temp 23/24°c, Ph 7, Kh 5 and Gh 5, amonia, nitrite and nitrate 0.
I feed them Shirakura Ebi Dama once a day and remove uneaten food after 2/3 hours.
I do 50% water change every week with remineralised RO water and 1.5ml tropica nutrition plus. I top up about 500ml of plain RO weekly.
I'm so frustrated, I can't think what has caused them to die. I have even bought a TDS pen and the reading is 182ppm. Is this the cause? :? 
Any help greatly appreciated.


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## GillesF (11 Oct 2011)

Maybe stress during transport/introduction?


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## jimmy james (11 Oct 2011)

Could have been. They came from beeshrimp.co.uk in Northern Ireland, I did then drip acclimate them over 2 hours.


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## Dincho (11 Oct 2011)

It sounds like a bacterial infection, very common when mixing 2 different groups of shrimp. You need some Benibachi active water or Mosura BT-9. If you can get it then a bit of pussy willow bark in the tank for a couple days will also help.

Its not the cause of your issue but if you can lower the ph and kh it can't do no harm. Slightly acidic water will stop certain bacteria thriving.


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## dw1305 (11 Oct 2011)

Hi all,
Difficult to say what caused them to die, it may well have been an infection, but it could been a water quality issue. 





> I have a 20litre tank


 A thought occurs that it may be a tank size issue, this is just that small tanks are much more difficult to manage than larger volumes of water, they are much less stable, purely because of the small water volume. I tend to keep sensitive fish (I've never had any sensitive invertebrates) in larger volume tanks (not smaller than 2'), even if they are small fish (I used to have Rocket Killis (_Pseudepiplatys annulatus_) in a 4' tank).

cheers Darrel


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## chrisjj (11 Oct 2011)

The size of the tank could also be an issue.

I struggled for months with high grade crs in a 28ltr tank.  They had babies, but the little ones only lasted a few weeks.  The adults slowly started dying off.  I spent a lot of time ensuring constant, stable conditions.  I did add small amounts of ferts & liquid CO2 daily.

I then transfered them to a 72ltr tank.  I do very little in terms of maintenance other than small water changes & they are breeding successfully   .  No ferts or CO2 is added.

I put sakuras in the 28ltr, which are doing well.

On a seperate note, there are differing views on water changes for CRS.  One view is that they are very sensitive to large water changes, which may be an issue with yours.  I change 5-10% a week.  Some just do a weekly top up, & never acctually water change.


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## jimmy james (11 Oct 2011)

Thanks for your input. Do you think blue tigers might be better?
I do have a 35 litre tank with just some rocks, java moss and ada amazonia soil which I have rescaped and cycling so I might have one last go. I'll use plain RO and a GH booster.


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## Dincho (11 Oct 2011)

Tank size is only an issue if parameters are not stable. I have 8 25l tanks that are used for selective breeding, these tanks have anything from 30 - 50 shrimp at a time.

The reason i am so convinced is it bacterial is the fact its the new shrimp that have died, none of the existing stock. This is a problem i struggled with a lot in the beginning. The only way around it is to either add new stock during winter months, get your ph down to 5.5, add pussy willow bark or any of the products i mentioned.

If i'm wrong i'll eat my hat


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## si-man (11 Oct 2011)

Had one of mine die after doing an 8l waterchange on a 27l tank.


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## Kazuya (8 Nov 2011)

Size of the tank is definitely an issue.
You will not have stable water parameters with such a small tank.
Recommended (from what I hear) is a 60L.

Your KH is pretty high for Crystals. Ph should be around 6.4-6.6.

I've had Cherries with CRS the only problem you will have is that they will compete for food.


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## jimmy james (8 Nov 2011)

Good news. I have lowered the TDS to 165 over the last 6 weeks and found I have 3 shrimp not 2, they have been moulting and growing well and one of them is berried!


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