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Cherry shrimp dying off gradually

Im sure others will say the same that light feeding is always better than having excess food in the water column. However with 30 shrimp yes feeding would help.

I feed very lightly for my tanks. literally a pinch enough for the fish to eat and the flow will blow rest of the flakes around the tank, the shrimp will take care of any additional food caught in the substrate but the fish themselves will pick at the gravel for leftovers. Also if you are ferting the tank. dose a little less too and see the results. I guess ideally you need to stop things one by one or reduce to see how that affects the tank over the week etc.
 
mlgt said:
Im sure others will say the same that light feeding is always better than having excess food in the water column. However with 30 shrimp yes feeding would help.

I feed very lightly for my tanks. literally a pinch enough for the fish to eat and the flow will blow rest of the flakes around the tank, the shrimp will take care of any additional food caught in the substrate but the fish themselves will pick at the gravel for leftovers. Also if you are ferting the tank. dose a little less too and see the results. I guess ideally you need to stop things one by one or reduce to see how that affects the tank over the week etc.
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Process of elimination- got it!
 
Reduce feeding, reduce ferts, increase flow, check PH/TDS, carry on keeping the substrate clean, smaller water changes with perhaps overnight water left in bucket and add heater into bucket to bring temp up if cold(it is winter atm), monitor behaviour of shrimps. Remove handful of the floating plants to allow more biofilm growth below?
 
Anomander said:
Would it be worth getting a TDS meter? And if so, what kind of reading am I looking for?
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A +1 to the TDS meter. In my opinion, others may disagree, I think they can be very useful tools to understand how the quantity of 'stuff' is building up in your water.

For example, I have water from my tap with a TDS of 200 to 280. Can be higher with ferts and de-chlorinator in too. If I change water using tap water I know that it will always be that range or higher. If I take a reading and its double, then I know that a water change would be useful. I have a few smaller (30l and less) tanks going with shrimp and this method is useful as they seem to tend to build contaminants quickly. Very similar to @Maf 2500 suggested.

Just get a cheap one from Amazon or similar, sub £10.

Anomander said:
Today I've put 60g of filter carbon in a mesh bag and hung it in the area of the tank with the most flow (I can't put it on a filter). I haven't had a chance this week to do more than my one weekly water change, but I will do that this weekend and increase the amount changed from 10% to 25-30%.
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Get some water changed :thumbup:
 
Miniandy said:
+1 to the TDS meter. In my opinion, others may disagree, I think they can be very useful tools to understand how the quantity of 'stuff' is building up in your water.

For example, I have water from my tap with a TDS of 200 to 280. Can be higher with ferts and de-chlorinator in too. If I change water using tap water I know that it will always be that range or higher. If I take a reading and its double, then I know that a water change would be useful. I have a few smaller (30l and less) tanks going with shrimp and this method is useful as they seem to tend to build contaminants quickly. Very similar to @Maf 2500 suggested.
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Thanks for the info; I plan to get a reading and water change done this weekend
 
OK another update as I've done a TDS reading.

TDS of tank is 429. This seems high to me.

TDS of tap water with proportionate amount of weekly ferts/dechlorinator added is 303.

Is a large water change in order?

E2A: Could high TDS be due to the recent changes I've made after the shrimp started dying, such as increased feeding, added filter carbon, and the almond leaf?
 
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I might have missed it, but given you are using London Tap are you adding the 1.6g Epsom salt to achieve a particular ppm? If so, are you adding it o ly for your 10% water change water or for the whole tank? If for the whole tank, your TDS will slowly creep up.
 
Hi there, I've been aiming for a 3.5ppm but I'm calculating the dosage based on the volume of the entire tank. It was based on this discussion but I'll be honest I wouldn't be surprised if I've misunderstood things.
 
hypnogogia said:
I’d try dosing for the volume of water change water only.
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Ok, thanks for the advice. Would I need to do the same with the TNC Iron and the TNC Complete as well?
hypnogogia said:
What’s puzzling me is the big increase from your tap to what’s in your tank. What hardscape and substrate do you have?
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Substrate is Unipac fine silver sand. Hardscape is driftwood and what I believe are river stones? I bought them from the lfs and I explicitly asked for stones that would not alter the water chemistry in any case. One thing that might be relevant is that my Salvinia is growing at such a rate that a lot of it gets pushed under the water by new growth, so that there are bunches of it submerged. I've left it because there are so many baby shrimp hiding in these bunches but perhaps this decaying plant matter is causing a high TDS? Another possibility is that once I added the proportioned ferts etc to the tap water I only waited about 5 mins before testing the TDS.
 
+1 to only dosing the Epsom salts to the water change water. At least for a while.

It is likely to be buildup of minerals from the Epsom salt and the ferts. If you are dosing ferts regularly once per week, but only changing 10% water per week, any ferts or minerals not used up by the plants will accumulate and stabilise at 10x their initial concentration. Eg, if you are adding 3.5 ppm mg per week, but none of it gets used up by the plants it will eventually get to 35ppm. Same for nitrates or any other elements in the ferts. The solution is simple, either more water changes or adding less ferts. The shrimp guys who do not change very much water are likely not adding anywhere near as much ferts as the plant guys.
 
Maf 2500 said:
The solution is simple, either more water changes or adding less ferts. The shrimp guys who do not change very much water are likely not adding anywhere near as much ferts as the plant guys.
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This is helpful and makes sense, thank you. I would be inclined to do more water changes, as I like healthy plant growth and at some point I wish to introduce a school of nano fish, so I'm guessing that such an addition would require larger water changes than the weekly 10% I'm doing at present. I'm not seeking to breed lots and lots of shrimp, I just want enough for a self-sustaining population that can help keep the tank tidy.
 
hypnogogia said:
It’s worth a try. Certainly those that front load all their ferts tend to only dose for the water change.
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Ok, so if I try 25% WC per week, I should add a quarter of what I'm currently adding (Epsom, TNC Complete, TNC Iron)
 
Anomander said:
Ok, so if I try 25% WC per week
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A brief summary:
Due to the excessive addition of Mg, the Ca : Mg ratio has shifted in favour of Mg.
A favourable Ca : Mg ratio is 4:1 to 2:1.
Now I would first do a 25% water change without Mg. Then measure the TDS.
One day later, do another 25% water change without Mg and measure the TDS again.
You can also do a 50% water change without Mg and then measure the TDS.
In all cases, the TDS must be lower than it is now.
If you did serveral WC without Mg your TDS should be near your tap water and you can calculate the amount needed for the whole tank.

And in future always add Mg to the water change quantity when changing the water so you get a ration of about Ca:Mg of 4:1.

I suspect that your shrimps have moulting problems. That would explain why shrimps keep dying every few days.
 
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Anomander said:
Ok, so if I try 25% WC per week, I should add a quarter of what I'm currently adding (Epsom, TNC Complete, TNC Iron)
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25% water change per week sounds good. The quarter dose of ferts is a good idea too, but after a few weeks when the TDS of the tank has lowered you may have to up this a bit, depending on how the plants react, if there are any deficiencies etc.

For example the iron tends to precipitate out of the water so is less likely to build up than most of the other elements. You might not need to lower your iron dose.

The problem with the TDS buildup is you don't know which of the elements/compounds/minerals are building up. The plants might be using most of the nitrates but hardly any of the phosphates or vice versa. Also if it is an open top tank any water lost to evaporation leaves minerals behind further pushing up the TDS.
Anomander said:
TDS of tank is 429. This seems high to me.

TDS of tap water with proportionate amount of weekly ferts/dechlorinator added is 303.
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Out of interest what TDS value do you measure in your tap water before adding ferts etc?
 
Teleos said:
brief summary:
Due to the excessive addition of Mg, the Ca : Mg ratio has shifted in favour of Mg.
A favourable Ca : Mg ratio is 4:1 to 2:1.
Now I would first do a 25% water change without Mg. Then measure the TDS.
One day later, do another 25% water change without Mg and measure the TDS again.
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Thank you very much, I will do this
Teleos said:
And in future always add Mg to the water change quantity when changing the water so you get a ration of about Ca:Mg of 4:1.
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So just to clarify, are you advising that instead of adding 1.6g of MgSO4 per week, I should add 0.4g (based on a new routine of 25% water change per week)? Thanks
 
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