# Giving Up on Shrimp (or maybe not?)



## John S (19 Sep 2013)

A while ago I set up a 35L tank that housed about 50 cherry shrimp. It had used florabase as a substrate, some manzi, stems and moss. Its Co2 injected with lean EI ferts.

At first there was always berried shrimp although few babies survived. The other tank inhabitants were 6 Ottos. Over the last 3 months the numbers really tailed off and I now only have a handful.

I recently got a TDS meter. My TDS from the tap is 350 but by water change time the tank is at 795! Is the die off due to the high TDS? I'm in Hertfordshire with concrete water.

Any ideas or suggestions as I'm about to give this up as a bad job.


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## squid102 (19 Sep 2013)

That doesn't sound good. Something must be pushing the TDS up. We're going to need a bit more info to get to the bottom of it though.

How often are your water changes?
How much water do you change?
When you say lean EI, how much exactly are you dosing?
What filter are you using?
How often do you clean your filter?
Have you checked your filter for any blockages lately?


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## John S (19 Sep 2013)

Thanks for the reply.

I change water weekly.
I change about 30% by preparing 10L the night before the change.
I dose 5ml of macro twice per week (no micro)
I'm using and Eheim 2213 with sponge and ceramic noodles as media
The filter is cleaned (rinsed in tank water) about once a month
All filter pipes were cleaned out last week and the impellor housing cleaned


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## Nat N (19 Sep 2013)

Hi John,
Firstly, your high TDS is probably due to a very high bioload in the tank - I think 50  Cherries for a 35 litle is quite a lot - and the Ottos bring it even higher.... One other thing - please be easy on me with this one as it is not 100% confirnmed - CO2 injection is thought to hinder the production of offspring by dwarf shrimps (I am guessing that Cherries are included). Depending on what kind of stems you have and lighting, you may be able to ditch the CO2 (decreasing the lighting) and rehome the ottos.
Then I would go with gradual change of the TDS by doing small water changes often and little volumes. I would also reconsider the EI dosing (maybe making it all even leaner? - all depends on what stems you have).
As far as I know, Cherries are O.K. with TDS as high as yours but do not withstand anything higher than 500... Your TDS is clearly from an organic matter so reducing the bioload is the way to go, I think...
As you probably know without me telling you - the moss is fine in low light and low fert/no CO2 tanks...
There might be a bacterial infection in your shrimps but to determine that, the other "bad" factors should be eliminated...


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## Nat N (19 Sep 2013)

Hi again John,
Whils I was typing, some more posts came through - you say you "prepare 10 L the night before" the water change... What do you mean? Just standing the water is not good enough! You NEED to use a dechlorinator (and specifically the ones which neutrolize heavy metals) - if you just "stand" water in a bucket, you are killing your shrimps by all those chemicals in the tap water...


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## GHNelson (19 Sep 2013)

Hi John
How much Macro/Trace are you dosing?
I would stop dosing ferts as a test....try just water changes,small ones over the next month or two.
Try and get TDS down to tap water TDS
What colour is the Co2 drop checker?
What stems do you have?
Do you have a heater?
hoggie


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## John S (19 Sep 2013)

Hi Nat,
I can rehome the Ottos and move the stems out into another tank. Yes, I must admit I was wary about CO2 injection with shrimps but there seemed plenty of evidence to say that it should be OK. I will take your suggestions and knock off the Co2, perform little and frequent water changes and monitor the TDS.


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## John S (19 Sep 2013)

hogan53 said:


> Hi John
> How much Macro/Trace are you dosing?
> I would stop dosing ferts as a test....try just water changes,small ones over the next month or two.
> Try and get TDS down to tap water TDS
> ...


 
Hi Hoggie,
I was dosing 10ml macro per week with no micro.
DC is green, not lime green.
Tank has a heater and runs at about 21 degrees


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## John S (19 Sep 2013)

Nat N said:


> Hi again John,
> Whils I was typing, some more posts came through - you say you "prepare 10 L the night before" the water change... What do you mean? Just standing the water is not good enough! You NEED to use a dechlorinator (and specifically the ones which neutrolize heavy metals) - if you just "stand" water in a bucket, you are killing your shrimps by all those chemicals in the tap water...


 
The water is dechlorinated with Seachem Prime and left in the same room as the tank.


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## GHNelson (19 Sep 2013)

Hi John
I think the TDS could be the problem.
Leave off the fert dosing as i mentioned....3 to 4 small water changes a week would be a start.
You could use RO water to reduce the tank TDS if available.
hoggie


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## Nat N (19 Sep 2013)

John S said:


> The water is dechlorinated with Seachem Prime and left in the same room as the tank.


Oh, that's good - it is just sooo many people still think that "standing the water overnight" is going to make it suitable for a water change...
I do not really know IF the injection of CO2 affects dwarf shrimps breeding but my shrimps tanks are kept either without the CO2 or with a very-very-very lean dose... That worked for me... Also, thinking about Macros - with your tap water TDS I am sure there are enough Macros (and Micros!) in there to maintain the moss (and some left!) and depending on the type of your stems, the water content may be more than enough for them as well... So, I am joining the opinion of stopping the Macros altogether for the time being to see what results this will bring...


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## GHNelson (19 Sep 2013)

Seachem Prime...Im not that keen on this product....because of the smell.
Just wondering could there be a related issue with this product?
hoggie


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## sciencefiction (19 Sep 2013)

> I recently got a TDS meter. My TDS from the tap is 350 but by water change time the tank is at 795! Is the die off due to the high TDS? I'm in Hertfordshire with concrete water.


 
My cherry shrimp wouldn't breed in such a high TDS, so the high TDS maybe a concern but the problem is what causes it because the contstant fluctuation from 350 to 795 and back during a water change can't be good either on shrimp or fish.
There are some good points made about the high bioload. 6 ottos in a 35L tank and so many shrimp just can't be good long term. The tank is too small for ottos. Have you seen the shape of these fish. They are like an aeroplane  and will feel way better in bigger tanks, more chance of getting enough food too.
 On another note, I have personally kept 100-ish srhimp and 9 grown up corys in a 54L tank without any deaths/problems for months(my fault but now fixed the situation), without a rising TDS so there's a chance you've got another reason for such TDS fluctuation. What's the type of substrate? Or do you have stones of some kind that maybe releasing calcium/magnesium or other minerals?
As some people already mentioned, if someone keeps shrimp for the first time, I'd recommend a fully low tech tank. Once you keep them for a few months, if they are ok, they'll breed like snails. Once you are sure how to keep them, then start experimenting with dosing, CO2 and TDS. Shrimp are more sensitive to such conditions for some reason.



> Seachem Prime...Im not that keen on this product....because of the smell.
> Just wondering could there be a related issue with this product?
> hoggie


 
I wouldn't think Prime would be the cause of the problem. I use it in all my tanks, including the ones with shrimp.


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## squid102 (19 Sep 2013)

An Eheim 2213 for a 35l tank is more than enough filtration. Cherry shrimps have a very small bio load so I doubt that is contributing to the really high TDS. 

I switched to using Seachem Prime after reading about when I wanted to start keeping cherry shrimps. It appears to be used successfully by quite a few shrimp keepers out there. Although I do agree that the smell is off-putting.

It could be that your EI hasn't been lean enough and the levels in the tank have been creeping up over time. My cherry shrimps have no problem with 50% water changes, provided I match the temperature. But then there is not so much difference between my tank and tap water TDS. I also stand my water for 24 hours and find that the TDS of the tap water drops during that time. 

You could get the TDS down with lots of small water changes as above. I just had another thought though. What if you took all the fish and shrimps out, emptied and refilled the tank and then re-introduced the fish and shrimps as if you were moving them to a new tank? Obviously you would need to drip-acclimatise the shrimps and it would take a while catching them all in the first place! Then continue with your EI dosing but do 50% weekly water changes. That way you could be sure that the nutrient levels would be reset each week and not climb. Otherwise it could take days if not weeks to get your TDS down that much. I don't know what anyone else's thoughts are on doing it this way?

Another thing: Do you have a shrimp guard on the filter intake? Have you checked in there for baby shrimps? My filter is full of baby shrimps!


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## John S (20 Sep 2013)

Thanks to everyone for their responses:



sciencefiction said:


> There are some good points made about the high bioload. 6 ottos in a 35L tank and so many shrimp just can't be good long term. The tank is too small for ottos. Have you seen the shape of these fish. They are like an aeroplane and will feel way better in bigger tanks, more chance of getting enough food too.


 
Oddly enough these have done far better in this tank than in my bigger tank and feed regularly with the shrimp. Point taken though and they will be on the move this weekend.




sciencefiction said:


> What's the type of substrate? Or do you have stones of some kind that maybe releasing calcium/magnesium or other minerals?


 
Substrate is a pre used florabase. There are some small red lava rocks in the tank which I read would have no impact on TDS. I did notice last night a broken piece of manzi wood. This had gone quite soft, so maybe the decomposition of the wood is a problem?




squid102 said:


> What if you took all the fish and shrimps out, emptied and refilled the tank and then re-introduced the fish and shrimps as if you were moving them to a new tank? Obviously you would need to drip-acclimatise the shrimps and it would take a while catching them all in the first place! Then continue with your EI dosing but do 50% weekly water changes. That way you could be sure that the nutrient levels would be reset each week and not climb. Otherwise it could take days if not weeks to get your TDS down that much. I don't know what anyone else's thoughts are on doing it this way?


 
This did cross my mind last night. As much as I'd like to take the scientific step by step approach to find the cause, I don't want these fellas to suffer any more.


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## dw1305 (20 Sep 2013)

Hi all, 





squid102 said:


> It could be that your EI hasn't been lean enough and the levels in the tank have been creeping up over time.


 That is my suspicion. I'd just stop the fertilizer addition and turn the CO2 off. If your stem plants melt, just take out the melted sections. 





Nat N said:


> Your TDS is clearly from an organic matter so reducing the bioload is the way to go, I think...


 I think the bioload may be too high, but I don't think it is a TDS problem as such. Our tap water is about 600 microS (nearly all CaCO3) and Cherries do better in that than they do in the rain-water tanks (about 100 microS).  The TDS reading isn't mainly from the organic matter, it would be higher if TDS was actually measured, but TDS is estimated from conductivity, and the non-ionic components of TDS aren't counted. The high conductivity is almost certainly from the fertiliser addition, added to the calcium carbonate content of the tap water. 





Nat N said:


> You NEED to use a dechlorinator (and specifically the ones which neutrolize heavy metals) - if you just "stand" water in a bucket, you are killing your shrimps by all those chemicals in the tap water...


 Prime isn't going to do any harm, and I don't use tap water myself, but I'm dubious about this one, the EU laws are really tight on heavy metals and the limits are now in the low ppb (10-9) region. Also the water is hard, and the chances of there being any HM ions present is realistically nil. You might get chloramine used as a disinfectant and PO4--- added, but in heavily planted tanks this isn't really a problem. 

cheers  Darrel


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## Ady34 (20 Sep 2013)

Hi John,
795 TDS is quite high, especially given that your tap water is only 350. Im guessing that your tank tds after a water change is still quite high as 30% water change with 350 tds wont drop the tank tds a huge amount, maybe around 100tds maximum? I dont think there is anything in the tank that could be effecting TDS to that degree so my guess would be a gradual build up over time, with the 30% weekly water changes not being enough to dilute it.
Personally id be aiming to keep the tds sub 450, so to implement the change i would increase your water changes to at least 2x per week, or more smaller ones as suggested above until the level is reached.....your tap water is fine so id maybe try to get the tds lower than 450, say 350-400 and then weekly 30% water changes should keep it stable without too much change over the course of a week. If you see it rising, perform extra water changes to keep it stable and look at reducing fert dosing (you may also need to lower lighting intensity).
C02 addition makes the tank high tech, so with that and fert dosing extra organic waste is produced by the plants which needs to be cleaned. Your filter removes some, but water changes the most part. Regular filter cleaning is important to prevent build up and breakdown of detrius which can add to the organic load and increase bod.
I dont know what/how often you are feeding the livestock, but im guessing to feed the ottos its a daily routine. When you start adding food daily and shrimp are feeding daily its surprising how much waste the tank produces. This combined with the by products of a high tech tank Id begin also cleaning your filter sponge as part of a weekly maintenance routine, and rinse the noodles monthly.
Keeping the tank clean is key, i have probably 200+ CRS in my 55l nano tank, fed daily (due to the numbers) and manage to keep tds stable at sub 180. I use liquid carbon and tropica fertiliser daily. I perform weekly 30% water changes and clean the filter floss and sponge at every water change....they are filthy every time! I know from my experiences with this tank that keeping the tank clean is the key to success. Drop filter maintenance or water changes and the shrimp stop breeding 
Stick with it mate, its just a case of a couple of alterations and youll have them breeding again in no time.
Cheerio,
Ady.


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## Piece-of-fish (20 Sep 2013)

Might be just coincidence and you will succeed in different tank. 
I dont think your tds is a problem
I dont think your water changes is a problem.
Someone mentioned a bioload of shrimp which you can ignore.
CO2 is not a problem.
The best success with cherries I had was always in High tech tanks, no matter how bad I abuse the parameters.


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## Piece-of-fish (20 Sep 2013)

And I never ever used dechlorinator in any shrimp tanks including high grade species. Do not take that as an advice though


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## foxfish (20 Sep 2013)

I am the same... don't use de chlorinator, do use C02 & never had problems with breeding cherry's but I have had problems keeping CRS though!
As with Piece of fish, this is probably not good advice but it is a fact.


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## Nat N (20 Sep 2013)

Hi guys,
Piece-of-fish and Foxfish,
Now you made me confused! (I dare to say that John S may be confused, too).
1.	 1.   Bioload – I totally agree that the bioload of Cherries is negligible but there are 6 Ottos in a 35 litre tank as well... and plants... One of the fundamental principles of dosing EI (as I read them) is a large (50%) water change every week to remove accumulated organics produced from plants and livestock. 30% water changes over time allowed these organics to accumulate (I think).
2.	2.	Not using dechlorinator? Fine, Chlorine and Metals can be ignored (still thinking that some metals will leach into the water from the pipes, but ignoring that...) But what about Chloramine? It is used more and more often in the UK and I KNOW (I asked our water supplier) that Chlorimine is used here... I know Chlorimine should not be a problem in a heavily planted tank (as Darrel said) but how heavily planted is John’s Tank? Some stems and mosses – does not seem to be enough to absorb everything... or is it just me...
Darrel and Ady,
I agree with both of you (well, apart from the above – using dechlorinator that is where I am now confused...).
Darrel,
Yes, this is what I thought as well about the CO2 and the ferts – for that PARTICULAR tank. And thanks for the brief course on TDS!


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## John S (20 Sep 2013)

Thanks again everyone. I'm not confused Nat . As I said, I did do some research into my set up before going with it and did see that people ran similar set ups with success. But like lots of things in this game what works for some doesn't for others. I feel less of a masochist knowing that people have succeeded with what I tried to do.

Incidentally the plants in this tank are Heteranthera Zosterifolia, Alternanthera Rosaefolia Mini, Round Pellia, Willow Moss and riccia.

Anyway, I think I'm going to restart. The CO2 is off and the light reduced. Tomorrow I will remove all the plants and wood and move the Ottos. I will give the substrate a good vacuum and the filter a clean. I will stop the ferts and then measure TDS daily once I'm back up and see if it can be stabilised a bit better. I will also only have lava rock in the tank.

So back to basics and step by step.


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## basil (20 Sep 2013)

Good to hear that! Keep at em


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## John S (22 Sep 2013)

So I drained the tank yesterday and cleaned. Some of the manzi had gone very soft and was splitting so I've thrown it out. Remaining shrimp were acclimatised and put back in.
TDS readings as follows:

Tap water 350
After filling tank and dechlorinating it was 385
This morning it is 392

Would these increases be expected?

Will continue to monitor and do small water changes.


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## John S (25 Sep 2013)

Well the TDS values are much more stable now. It's been at 375 for three days now. Changed 3 litres of water tonight. The remaining shrimp look far livelier than they have been.

Will keep the TDS stable and see if the population increases.


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## LancsRick (1 Oct 2013)

I'll buck the trend here and say I would have thought your general tank clearout is more likely to have solved things from a general health point of view. Cherries are incredibly hardy, and I've got them in tanks with TDS of 550, another small tank at 350, and they're happy as anything, and breeding. My gh and kh are extremely low, and I'm running purigen to keep the organics down.

Whatever the root cause, glad things are looking up for you .


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## John S (4 Oct 2013)

LancsRick said:


> I'll buck the trend here and say I would have thought your general tank clearout is more likely to have solved things from a general health point of view. Cherries are incredibly hardy, and I've got them in tanks with TDS of 550, another small tank at 350, and they're happy as anything, and breeding. My gh and kh are extremely low, and I'm running purigen to keep the organics down.
> 
> Whatever the root cause, glad things are looking up for you .


 
Thanks Rick. You may be right, but I think this was possibly a combination of things. I'd still like to get this tank running hitech at some stage, but for now things are going well after the clean up and smaller more regular water changes. TDS is now never above 385 so that is one thing that is being controlled whether it was a contributor or not to the original problem.


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## John S (18 Nov 2013)

Quick update. The five shrimp that survived this were all female. Having had no further loses I added 10 more about a month ago from an ebay seller who lives near me. On going to do a water change tonight I've noticed some baby shrimp. Quite a few females are berried, so not a great surprise but beforehand I was seeing berried females but never any babies - so all looking good!


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