Freshwater Shrimp Dying

So for the past few weeks I've had my precious freshwater dwarf shrimp die off, one by one. Only one death a day every other day, but still, it's disheartening. The other shrimp are not active, not eating...It's been heartbreaking.

Not only has this been an extremely expensive loss (they're $5/ea!), but also a puzzling one too. I have no clue why they are dying! My best guess so far is: a bacterial disease.

It's not my water quality- which is pretty much perfect.

6 gallon cube aquarium
73-74F
0 ammonia 0 nitrite <5 nitrates
KH (Carbonate hardness) 2
GH (General hardness) 8
Total Dissolved Solids (TDS) ~180ppm
15-20% water changes 2x a week
Densely planted like a jungle and plants are thriving

Most of the shrimp that have died already were actually my red cherries and painted fire red shrimp. I must've lost all my crystal black shrimp too along the way because last week I checked everywhere and couldn't find a single one left (I had 10 a couple months ago). So on top of the lifeless carcasses I've been scooping out with semi regularity there have been several other deaths wherein the bodies were cannibalized in the middle of the night. :'(

I've since added Seachem Prime to the water (in case it's a problem to do with ammonia/nitrite/nitrates, which I doubt) and a big catappa almond leaf (supposed to help naturally treat bacterial disease). A week of doing this and I still lost 1 shrimp that I know of. Some days the remaining survivors are active and eating, but most days they are still listless.

My other small 4 gallon tank (where I relocated some shrimps, hoping they would heal in a different tank) isn't doing so well either. I lost 1 shrimp in that tank last week. Current survivors are not looking good. Pale colors and barely moving let alone eating. My dwarf orange crayfish in that tank also mysteriously lost a main claw so now she's hobbling along with only one pincer. Breaking my heart...but I read that they can regrow limbs with time. (Please be true!)

Meanwhile in my 36 gallon, green spot algae is running rampant and I lost 3 fish this week - my longtime starving killifish, a red calico platy that started getting sick out of nowhere, and I lost 1 dwarf rainbowfish 2 days after adding the school of 4. I must've treated this tank 4 times already and fish are still dying from what I suspect is bacterial disease or maybe even parasites?

I hate how it's almost impossible to diagnose the true cause of a fish's disease. It's frustrating and extremely annoying. I'm praying that more frequent water changes will make the remaining fish healthier.

So it's just been one piece of bad news after another I'm afraid. I'm starting to lose confidence in my fish care abilities. I know, I know, having deaths is an inevitable part of the hobby but I feel like I've been on a death streak with no end in sight.

To further exacerbate matters, I am going on vacation soon and the only person I can rely on to take care of my fish and plants is my teenage brother who knows nothing about these things. I am terrified he will end up overfeeding my fish or polluting the water somehow and I'll come back with tanks full of dead fish and rotting plants. (*freaking out*)

Well, hopefully I'll have better news next time.

Crystal Red Shrimp Awesomeness

As you may have gathered from my previous post, I've become enamoured with dwarf freshwater shrimp lately. Now, apparently some people think shrimp are ugly, gross or strange to keep as pets, but I find their behaviours and appearances absolutely fascinating. So to all you shrimp haters out there...suck it.

I had wanted to keep the (in)famous crystal red shrimp for almost 7 months but every time I reached the tipping point in favour of their purchase, I would shirk away because of their exorbitant (borderline ludicrous) price tags. At my favourite local fish store, SS grade Crystal Red Shrimp are selling at *gasp* $30/each *gasp*. And you can't exactly keep these babies alone. Not only would you probably never really see it do much, but the poor thing might even die from loneliness. It's recommended you keep them in small-large colonies. So it's almost essential you buy at least 6-10 of them to start off. Especially if you want to try and breed them (and sell their babies back to fish stores, or to fellow hobbyists, at cheaper, but still pretty ludicrous prices).

Crystal Red Shrimp crowding around some food. How can anyone not instantly fall in love? (Not my pics)

Enough jib jab. So needless to say, I was hesitant to buy from my local fish store (LFS). But then one day, whilst browsing Craigslist, I stumbled upon a shrimp breeder selling these babies at $5 a pop. Now, if I'd told you right off the bat that I'd bought 20 shrimp at $5 each, you would've called me stark raving mad. However, since I prefaced this announcement by giving you some context (they're normally $30ea), you should now be thinking, "damn, Chesmok, you got an unbeatable deal!".

Yes reader, it was a steal. Yes reader, I paid $100 for 20 little shrimp that measured about 0.5 inches each. If you're not in the know about freshwater shrimp, you'd think I'm a lunatic. But if you happen to know a thing or two about crystals, you'd know that I was one lucky duck.

Most beginners to the shrimpkeeping hobby often start with the easy (and cheap) favorites: red cherry shrimp, ghost shrimp and amano shrimp. I have cherries and amanos. I started with these species because they make an unbeatable and hardy algae/leftovers cleanup crew.

Typical red cherry shrimp grazing on some moss.

Amano shrimp (amazing algae eaters)

Many people keep red cherry shrimp and have great success with them. I will of course, in the near future, be writing more detailed posts about each type of shrimp. For now, this will just be my mad ramblings about my little shrimp friends.

After I placed my order of 10 crystal red shrimp, 10 crystal black shrimp, 5 painted fire red shrimp from the breeder, I had to patiently wait 3 weeks until she restocked. During this time, I did A LOT of reading online about keeping CRS: water parameters, tank size etc. I also meticulously preened and coddled their soon to be home: my 6.5 gallon planted cube. I'd had a history of trouble with the tank and I was really worried a bad pH fluctuation or ammonia spike would wipe out my whole colony. 

Luckily, everything's been going right dandy so far (knock on wood). When my shrimp arrived, I floated the bag in my tank and slowly dripped (drop by drop) tank water into the bag for 2 FREAKING HOURS and then finally set them free. They seemingly panicked the first day- mad dashes at the top of the tank, as if they were trying to escape from prison...But then near the end of the day things settled down and they started acting normally again. Of course I didn't put all 20 shrimp into one tank at once. That would be suicide. Too risky given the small tank size. I separated the 20 and put 8 in one tank and 12 in the other. All shrimp are thriving and molting properly.

I ordered these tourmaline balls off ebay and threw one in each tank. They're supposed to slowly supplement the water with essential minerals the shrimp need and maintain the proper gH so they can molt and grow properly. We'll see how well that works.

Anyways, that's enough chitchat for now.

Chesmok.

[If you're out there, let your voice be known!]

My freshwater aquarium photos (January 2015)

Happy new year everyone! (If I even have any regular readers left....:P)

Here are some photo updates of my beloved aquariums. As you can probably tell I'm a bit obsessed. If you've been following me since the beginning, or if you've see photos of my tanks from 2011, you would know that I've come really far. Really, really far.

1. AQUEON Bowfront Tank

36 gallon Aqueon Bowfront Tank

Inhabitants: 3 pineapple swordtails, 1 hillstream loach, 4 skunk corydoras catfish, 7 longfin leopard danios, 2 balloon German Blue Rams, Pair of Lagos Red Killifish, 2 Amano shrimp

4 gallon shrimp tank (glossostigma carpet)

4 gallon shrimp tank (side view)

Shrimp Tank inhabitants: Painted Fire Red Shrimp, Regular Cherry Shrimp, Crystal Red and Crystal Black shrimp, 1 lone pygmy cory (survivor of disease)

50 gallon prize tank left side (tetra swarm!)

50 gallon prize tank right side (hygrophila forest)

50 gallon prize tank center view (ying yang driftwood centerpiece)

50 gallon full tank shot

Inhabitants: Lost count of the exact numbers (haha). Red phantom tetras, rummynose tetras, cardinal tetras, neon tetras, bamboo fan shrimp, lots of amano shrimp, ember tetras, kuhli loaches, one female betta, one old siamese algae eater, 2 otocinclus catfish (survivors; I added 5)

6 gallon Atman cube shrimp oasis

Crystal Red Shrimp

Crystal Black Shrimp beside a tourmaline mineral ball

So here's my January photo update! I will try my very best to update more frequently. Also, I updated the layout and look of the blog. Yay! Hope you enjoyed~

Cheers,

Chesmok

P.S. I like comments :)