10 Gallon Rcs Shrimp Tank Crashing?

Long post, but necessary to explain in full detail what happened.

So, about two months ago my ghost shrimp that I had for about 6 months passed away. It was in a 10 gallon tank that was bare bottom with a large piece of driftwood with java ferns attached and I had aqua clear 30 running at the time.

My brother introduced me to RCS and he gave me like 30-40 to start with, but before I got them I got the new light, added black gravel, and replaced the huge driftwood with a smaller piece that was boiled.

The shrimps were doing fine, but I had yet to see any babies. Several shrimps had eggs (yellow) and I made sure to add sponge over the filter intake. Then I decided to change to the black sand substrate. Prior to the change the nitrates were somewhere between 10-20ppm. The change was two weeks ago.

The water I use here is very hard, and I mean hard. The pH usually is around 8-8.4, and It is well water that isn’t really drinkable (tastes coppery), so my dad convinced me to start using RO water from the grocery store.

The RO water pH is about 7.4 if I read correctly. So I got about 13 gallons and drained out the 10 gal after I caught all the shrimps and removed the plants and driftwood. The shrimps were in a bucket with old water when I added the black sand and the RO water. Black sand was already washed outside several times. During this time I added a cup of RO water to the bucket every 10 minutes for an hour and a half.

Here’s where the mistakes comes, I tested the pH of the tank after I was done and it wasn’t 7.4 like I wanted so I added like a tablespoon of seachem neutral regulator before I added the shrimps. Few days go by and the tank is still completely covered with white powder, and it killed some of the floating plants I had. The filter was plugged up by the white powder so I was forced to disconnect it and use a new filter, still in use today.

I did a water change and removed the dying plants, and that’s when the mass die-off started. 3-5 shrimps would be dead on the bottom every morning for like a week. Now, only 3 or 4 RCS are alive. I also have mystery snails that are blue, the biggest one is barely a 1/4 inch. Those have been unaffected, they hitched a ride into my tank when I got some java ferns from my brother.

Since then I decided not to use the seachem neutral regulator powder anymore. I also bought a 2.5 gallon tank in case I ever need to use another tank for a situation like this. I am planning on buying 3 AquaTop CAF Sponge Filter online from petsmart. Both tanks are currently at 0 nitrates with the 10 gal being 8.2 pH and 2.5 gal being 7.4 pH.
The 2.5 gal has the aqua clear 30, which since then has been cleaned throughly and the tank has an inch of black sand.

My question is what did I do wrong?

Was it adding too much of the seachem neutral regulator powder?

Changing the water in the tank and thus the pH?

Or something else all together?

Thoughts on the high pH for shrimps?

Which water should I use? I prefer to keep using the well water but I can add some RO water if I need to.

I’m not gonna try raising RCS anymore, I may switch to ghost shrimps again or even amano shrimps if I can find some. But that won’t be for awhile anyways

Sorry for being inactive for months, I’ve been busy with work and college

 

Your well water was and is fantastic for inverts. Changing it caused the die off. Go back to the well water and don't mess with what works.

 

Yup don't fix what's not broken. I keep my RCS in very hard water pH 8.2, kH 10, gH 15. They breed like crazy. If you are wondering about contents of the well water you can get it tested, but it sounds like it worked great and the changing the water is what got the shrimp. RO water has basically no mineral content and RCS need that in the water to stay healthy.... Crystal shrimp on the other hand probably would not do well in your water and the RO would be necessary.

 

Ok I was told that the higher pH is preventing them from breeding, so that’s why I tried bringing it down. Guess I won’t do that if I don’t need to. Anybody use sponge filters before? I never used one before

 

I use sponge filters regularly and in solely sponges in my shrimp only tanks.

I take that back my display tank doesn't have a sponge filter quite exactly lol. Different set of but still only a sponge with a power head if you get down to the nitty gritty.

 

So I went to my LFS today to see if they had any sponge filter, I got two different ones. Then I wanted to see if they had ghost shrimps, they didn’t but they had amano, RCS, and another tank had like different colors of shrimp. Two of them were yellow, so that sparked my interest, they were the size of RCS. Are they more hardy than regular RCS?

 

Red RCS are generally speaking the hardiest as they are more established and haven't been line bred out so far.


This is a really great "family tree" or sorts. If you follow the lines the further down the line you get the more sensitive the shrimp will be.

 

Awesome chart! I didn’t think there were so many colors that can be produced. Right now, I’m concerned about the sponge filters. Both are elite sponge filters made by Hagen. Smaller one is A-869 and the larger one is A-900. Both make a ton of noise, and I don’t see a way to add an air stone into either one of them. Any suggestion?

By the way, 2 rcs left. I did an 25% water change with the well water

 

Here's my current sponge set ups. I don't mind a water fall sound but big bubble sounds drive me crazy. Bubbler bubbles don't bother me much.

Horrible photo I'm sorry but I'll explain. This is a sponge filter with the elbow removed and the air line ran straight down the main tube with a bubble stone on the end. I plugged the hose connector hole with a dalop of silicone so it still pulls water through the sponge and not through the connector area.




Alright so the first photo here is with the elbow and I have it above the water line because loud bubbles irritate me. The second photo is the same tank and shows the filter that pushes above the water line as well as a second small sponge filter with a shorter tube that connects the air hose in the center of the sponge and due to the shorter length the bubbles tend to stay smaller and not make so much noise.




Apologies, tomorrow is tank maintenance day and I took quick photos as I had already put everyone to bed with lights out. There's lots of different filters and lots of different ways to set them up and even more ways to seed them with old media to hasten your cycle. I'm happy to answer the best I can, and just to note I run several tanks off a very large airpump so I don't struggle too filter above the water line, a small air pump may not do that for you.

 

So the first picture is of the 10 gal, driftwood is attached to a piece of slate (or whatever it is), the filter is right behind it with the blue sponge over the intake. The heater is next to it but not currently plugged in. Then to the right side is the amazon sword, I just added a flourish root tab buried directly underneath the roots last night. Then the sponge filter is sorta in the middle, I have an air stone going that breaks the surface so the bubbles are less noisy. That sponge filter is the bigger of the two, and the elbow joint is actually above the water level.




The second picture is the 2.5 gallon tank with just the sand and the smaller sponge filter, right now it’s not running because this filter is actually louder than the other one




The two shrimps have survived, one is definitely a female but I can’t see if she’s carrying eggs or not. The other one is smaller and is even harder to tell

Edit: make that three. The third one is definitely a male

 

Both actually look like pretty decent setups for the shrimp.

 

I just had an idea, so the elbow joint is actually another tube that slides up and down off the tube that connects the filter, when I get home I’m gonna pull that tube off and feed the tube through the elbow and then add the air stone onto the tube and then put that tube back on. I will post the result when I test this

I don’t have any ideas about the smaller one, I might just disassemble that one and see what it looks like inside

Nope that don’t work because elbow joint has a hole that’s too small for an air tube to go through and it’s too tight of a turn.

Guess I will replace the smaller one with a AquaTop CAF Sponge Filter that I could order from petsmart

Now when I looked at the driftwood I could see these tiny white things that looks like they have a tail. Are these baby shrimps?

 

Now when I looked at the driftwood I could see these tiny white things that looks like they have a tail. Are these baby shrimps?

My shrimplets are generally a yellowish or orangish transparent at first but that's not saying much they are tiny and may well look that color to me because I keep the back and sides of my shrimp tanks "wild" (aka I don't clean the algae) and they are generally there or on my driftwood or in the mosses lol. But basically if it's an oblong swimming thing smaller than a grain of rice it's probably a shrimplet lol. They don't move a lot that first few days they find a safe place to hide out I estimate for about a week before I ever really get my first glimpse of them.

 

Okay mine must be more than a week old now, because they are moving around actively and even "launch" right off the driftwood, sand, or wherever they are

 

Two of the three shrimps died, the big female is all that’s left. She is indeed carrying eggs, so I added two tiny scoops of seachem equilibrium because I think it may be a calcium deficiency that killed all the other ones. I haven’t seen a shed exoskeleton since a week ago when the tank started crashing

pH is 8.3
Ammonia is somewhere between 0 and .25ppm
Nitrite and nitrate remains zero.

I also have been adding API quick start, and stress coat along with seachem stability and the plants regular co2 dose




This is her, she has about 4-5 eggs and she never comes out until the light is out

 

GH and stability seem to be the most important parameters for RCS. If GH is lower than about 5 than the shrimp can't molt (shed skin), then they will struggle and can't breed. Many shrimp enthusiasts use R/O water, then add a reminilizer. The well water could be too hard for ideal shrimp conditions, but RCS are hardy. A TDS meter is fairly cheap and will tell you Total Disolved Solids. From what ive read it should read 150 - 250/300.

I'm new to the hobby but read A lot about cherry shrimp and only had one dieoff since starting the tank.

 

If you like shrimps and you are the United States, make sure to check out FlipAquatics on YouTube and his website, also he sells a special type of Sponge filter called Matten Filter, and lots of shrimp food.

 

Hmm... I think you guys are onto something I haven’t thought about before. The previous inhabitants also died for mysterious reasons, you guys think that the GH level is the primary reason? Does LFS sell these tds meter? Or do I have to order one? I don’t think petsmart or petco sells them

Edit: nevermind they do, in a way. I bought the API 5 in 1 test even though I heard they are not accurate. I got somewhere between 60 mg/L and 120mg/L for GH and close to 180mg/L for KH. pH was pretty close, I tested for 8.3 recently and the strip test says 8.0, once again nitrate and nitrite are 0

 

If your GH is closer to 60 its too low.
If it's 90 to 120 that's better.

 

How long between you getting the shrimp and doing changes because you didnt see babies was it? Also how big were they? Shrimp don't reproduce till about 4 months old. If they were sexually mature and you waited for 3 months for babies without any than you need a change.

If you waited two weeks and the shrimp were small, maybe you didnt give enough time.
I think that's the answer you need first before spending too much money.

 

I’ve never raised cherry shrimps before. I got all mine from my brother about two months ago, he called them culls because they weren’t pretty. I did have a ghost shrimp but that one was fully grown when my dad gave me that shrimp.

I was convinced that they were breeding but I didn’t see any new babies. I simply thought the water condition wasn’t right, and that sort of thinking messed the tank up big time. Roughly three weeks ago I started making changes, though I did have random deaths they didn’t die all at once till last week

I have seachem equilibrium, it’s supposed to raise GH level as well as adding calcium and some other vitamins. I will test the well water GH sometime in the afternoon

Edit: just tested the well water, it’s at 0 mg/L for GH? And it is 240 mg/L for KH. That’s odd, I always thought it was hard water

 

The 10 gal seems to be stabilized, I bought seachem replenish to help restore the hardness, levels before dose was between 60-120mg/L as expected. After I dosed once the levels are at or over 120mg/L.

How long should I wait to get more shrimps? I assume they are social so my only female would want company, right?

 

My last female shrimp just died, now I have no adults but I think I have some tiny shrimps. I also have a dozen or so bladder snail.

What can I do to keep the cycle going?

I’m waiting for the apI gh/KH testing kit to arrive by Wednesday