Amano Shrimp, Copper Water Pipes

I bought 3 Amano shrimp yesterday for my 30 gallon tank, which us fully planted. I have 8 Pristella Tetras living in tank. Two shrimp seemed fine yesterday, one was circling every glass on the upper portion of tank most constantly. This morning they were all three on the upper edge of HOB just above where water tumbles out. I ran my water for several minutes when I filled tank weeks ago, it has cycled, (I seeded tank) parameters normal though my ph is 8 out of tap. Temp between 78-79. My water pipes are copper. Could the water still be toxic to shrimp? They are still bunched on the HOB now 8 hrs after I saw them early this AM. I used prime for all water also. I also have rwo small terra cotta pots planted and submerged in tank.
Thanks!

 

HI I’m in the Uk & most water pipes here are copper, I keep shrimp, although cherries not amano & have never had a problem with the water because of copper pipes so I’d suggest there is something else going on if you’re having a problem.
Hopefully our amano keepers can chime in with some ideas

 

Thanks for reassuring response. My house is 40+ yrs old so its not new water lines. I also wondered if feeding brine shrimp would hurt them? I fed some yesterday to my fish right after Amanos were released... and they ate it too.

 

Thanks for reassuring response. My house is 40+ yrs old so its not new water lines. I also wondered if feeding brine shrimp would hurt them? I fed some yesterday to my fish right after Amanos were released... and they ate it too.

It looks unlikely to mee that the brine shrimp would cause any trouble. However, medication used (even in the past) and wrong KH/GH parameters can result in illness or death. Did you use any medication in this tank in the past and do you know the KH/GH values of the water?

 

No medications. I used Prime, stability, flourish, root tabs and apI stress coat after water change last week. My apI master test doesn't break down total hardness, but test strips show high ph matching apI ph test between 8.0 and 8.2 while ago. Test strips show extreme hardness of water, which I knew, as all water in this area is. Imagitarium test strips peg out on total alkalinity and total hardness. They aren't eating today but crawling around some on their perch at edge of HOB. All 3 hovering together, normal coloration observed on them so far.

 

Actually Imagitarium test strip just now show total hardness at about 300+ and total alkalinity at between 300 and max of 720 if that helps any.

 

It appears I may have to get LFS water parameters to compare with mine. I will get them tomorrow and see if that answers my question about their behavior. Not sure what KH and GH they should have to be healthy. Or what I can do if my water, which is well water, is out of their needed parameters. I was only going by their range of needs for PH.

 

I tried to do my research on fishlore and a couple of internet sites. But in order to keep healthy shrimp am I going to have to buy a TDS tester, and a KH and GH test kit? I think I will not do shrimp if that's the case... I thought my only big thing to be careful of was copper...for shrimp health as long as other fish parameters were good. Thanks for all responses to each of you!

 

Hi,
I've just seen your post and thought I'd add a little bit of my experience. I've kept Amanos for a couple of years and they're generally pretty tough.

When I saw what you said about them all huddling together in one spot, it immediately put in my mind-did you drip acclimatise them to their new home?
The reason I mention this is, about a year ago, I upgraded my tank, took the Amanos out, put them in a bucket of old tank water along with the plants etc then proceeded to put a mix of old and (quite a lot of) new water into the bigger tank.

I planned to slowly acclimatise my shrimp to the new tank what all was finished.....

However! After putting the Cryptocoryne back into the tank, I noticed that three of the Amanos had been hiding in it so had been dropped straight into the new water!

Anyway, these three did that huddling in one bit of the tank-and were constantly cleaning themselves (totally uncharacteristic of them) for a few days. The ones that hadn't been dropped in were acclimatised slowly and didn't do this-just acted normally.

Luckily, Amanos are pretty tough, and, I'm hoping that in your case, like mine, they will get over it and begin to explore their new home.

Finally, just a quick mention of the TDS metre and test kits. They can be useful but, personally, I rarely test my Amano's water (unlike my Cherry tank) so, for now, I'd say, if they start to show normal behaviour-don't be put off by the idea of buying new testing bits.

Hope this helps!

 

Could it be that there's just an interesting food source for them around the hob? Algae build up maybe?

 

Thanks for your inputs, they were not acclimatized, that was, I believe, the problem. I didn't know about all the slow acclimatizing they need until it was too late. Yesterday, they were normal, down on bottom, still pretty much sticking together, but I watched them eat brine shrimp I fed the fish that floated down toward them. One still returns to HOB quite often, but other two are staying in same general area behind a big chunk of lava rock with two tunnels, plants, and deep gravel bed. I was very relieved. I noticed one is a bit more tan than translucent, and is half size of other two. I'm also noticing this tannish looking one is a little humped up at times, and I'm hoping "Tiny" as I call it, is just getting ready to molt. Tiny isn't the one that returns to HOB. That's a normal sized inch long translucent one, it also swims around tank quite a bit, But not near as much as first day or two.

Thanks very much to all who chimed in to help!

 

No problem!
I'm glad that they're settling down in their new home ☺

 

Just a quick one,
I had a read of your new post (I find all our various time zones mean that you don't always get an immediate response!)
I'm sure that everyone will say that you are doing EXACTLY the right thing in bringing the water into line nice and slowly.
When you get it to where you want, then it's just a question of maintaining that ratio of RO:tap water for your PWCs.
Good luck, and we'll done on the perseverance, a lot of people would've given up by now!

 

Thanks so much for your vote of confidence and all your helpful suggestions! I truly appreciate it.