Getting frustrated with shrimp

I'm starting to get more and more frustrated with my 20 gallon neocaridina shrimp tank but mostly stressed because I have both a pond snail invasion and my expensive shrimp have been disappearing and I'm not sure if they're dying or just hiding but so far I've had a confirmed death so as far as I know there should be 9 in there but what's odd is that I've been checking the water parameters almost constantly with an api test kit for ammonia, nitrates, nitrites, and ph and test strips for Gh and Kh. everything has come out fine ammonia at 0ppm nitrates at 5-10ppm the ph at 8.0 Gh at 300ppm and Kh 180ppm I even checked for planaria still nothing I can't think of why they're dying.

 

How often and how much do you change your water? I had a lot of deaths with good parameters. They don't need more than a 10% change every few weeks. Also, you need to make sure the water temps are similar. They can get shocked with a bunch of cold water coming into their warmer water. I eventually had to result to using RO/DI water to get mine to survive, along with a Mattenfilter.

 

How often and how much do you change your water? I had a lot of deaths with good parameters. They don't need more than a 10% change every few weeks. Also, you need to make sure the water temps are similar. They can get shocked with a bunch of cold water coming into their warmer water. I eventually had to result to using RO/DI water to get mine to survive, along with a Mattenfilter.

I change 25% of the water every week and I do bring the water up as close as I can to the tank temp so I'm usually off by a few degrees but nothing life threatening

 

You could put 100 shrimp in there and not see them, the chances are they are hiding,
One death doesn't constitute a problem so with your water as it is your next step is to take closeup photos of any you see to try and identify any disease,
A photograph of your tank as well,

 

You could put 100 shrimp in there and not see them, the chances are they are hiding,
One death doesn't constitute a problem so with your water as it is your next step is to take closeup photos of any you see to try and identify any disease,
A photograph of your tank as well,

I can't take any close ups as their surprisingly skittish with camera getting that close however I do have a older photo of my tank but it looks exactly same besides the floating leaf

 

You should be able to get photos its just time and patience and in this case is a must to identify disease
I don't find them skittish

 

How long has the tank been set up? Shrimp often struggle in new tanks.

 

How long has the tank been set up? Shrimp often struggle in new tanks.

The tanks been set up for almost 4 months now

The tanks been set up for almost 4 months now

I've had 7 rcs living in it for two months

 

Are you using active substrate?

 

Are you using active substrate?

No

 

No

Hmm Im curious where the nitrates are coming from. But this tank looks very bare, more algae, more java moss and more snails would help.

 

Hmm Im curious where the nitrates are coming from. But this tank looks very bare, more algae, more java moss and more snails would help.

Well I have two nerites in there as well

 

Well I have two nerites in there as well

You said you had a pond snail infestation? What happened to those snails? At 4 months there should be a lot more algae growth but everything seems spotless. Something is off here

 

You said you had a pond snail infestation? What happened to those snails? At 4 months there should be a lot more algae growth but everything seems spotless. Something is off here

Yeah there's algae growth lining the walls which the snails and shrimp graze on also here's some close up picts of the shrimp I took while they were eating

 

TDS? do you check TDS? anything you add to the tank increase TDS. in short, i found of all parameters, TDS is the one that affects them the most and changes the most also over time.
i use distilled water cos my is a relatively small tank at 4.5G. my tap is very inconsistent. previously TDS was abt 85..last week was 130. i use or fish cos there arent so affected by the little increase in TDS. Shrimps are very sensitive to TDS changes and its very hard to determine what or why the increase.
better to use RO or distilled water then add shrimp salt so that you know your TDS incrase is due to the calcium etc you add.
also yout tank mid and top layer is empty. can consider increase surface area with taller plants or bigger drift wood. nice to see them moving up and down too

 

TDS? do you check TDS? anything you add to the tank increase TDS. in short, i found of all parameters, TDS is the one that affects them the most and changes the most also over time.
i use distilled water cos my is a relatively small tank at 4.5G. my tap is very inconsistent. previously TDS was abt 85..last week was 130. i use or fish cos there arent so affected by the little increase in TDS. Shrimps are very sensitive to TDS changes and its very hard to determine what or why the increase.
better to use RO or distilled water then add shrimp salt so that you know your TDS incrase is due to the calcium etc you add.
also yout tank mid and top layer is empty. can consider increase surface area with taller plants or bigger drift wood. nice to see them moving up and down too

Unfortunately I don't have any way to test tds so it could be TDS

 

You can Order them on Amazon or the like for around £10/ $15 ish. Is this something you’re able to do? It’ll help you to be able to know what it is. As RichieP said , 1 death isn’t terrible.

 

You can Order them on Amazon or the like for around £10/ $15 ish. Is this something you’re able to do? It’ll help you to be able to know what it is. As RichieP said , 1 death isn’t terrible.

Yeah, but it's going to have to wait unfortunately because I'm going out to Vegas for a week and a half which is one of the reasons why I'm so stressed but also over the time this thread has been up I've had two other confirmed yellow deaths which is heavily worrying.

 

Ah I see. Did you take any pictures by any chance?

it could be that the shrimp’s that died are simply old, it could be something else, but it’s hard to guess over the Internet .

one thing I haven’t seen is what you’re feeding and how often?
What is the stone in your tank? I see 6 shrimps in the picture but very little biofilm like cherryshrimp420 said. Are the shrimps that have died only the yellows or the rcs have had losses too? Were they bought from the same place. Also, what was your acclimation process ?

 

enjoy your trip. dont worry about the shrimps. its a process. you and order the TDS pen and when you are back, it should be at your doorstep. then get a bottle of distilled water to test the initiate reading of the pen. it should read less than 10. if it reads 30, then when you test your tank, just minus 30.
as mentioned,if you want to keep shrimps, you need to check TDS. and this helps you determine when to change water. i have not tested PH,KH GH for months. but check TDS everyday or every other day.
sometimes it takes 10 days before it hits 180 and i change 20%water. sometimes 2 weeks. it depends on feeding, fertilizers etc that i add to the tank.

 

See, I was never able to use only TDS. My goal was to keep my shrimp tank TDS 200-250. I used Salty Shrimp GH/KH+ in RO/DI water per recommendations from multiple sites to achieve that… but when I got close, the KH would bottom out and my pH would drop to as low as 6.4. Raising the KH raised my TDS. So, while my shrimp tank has a pH of 7.2, KH of 4, and a GH of about 8-12, which is pretty ideal for my neocaridinas, my TDS is well over 500. There’s some kind of GH black hole in my tank. So my advice would be to continue monitoring your other parameters closely while you get your TDS to the level you want. If everything is good at that level, then you’re likely ok to just do a quick TDS check… but if not, keep running KH and GH.

 

See, I was never able to use only TDS. My goal was to keep my shrimp tank TDS 200-250. I used Salty Shrimp GH/KH+ in RO/DI water per recommendations from multiple sites to achieve that… but when I got close, the KH would bottom out and my pH would drop to as low as 6.4. Raising the KH raised my TDS. So, while my shrimp tank has a pH of 7.2, KH of 4, and a GH of about 8-12, which is pretty ideal for my neocaridinas, my TDS is well over 500. There’s some kind of GH black hole in my tank. So my advice would be to continue monitoring your other parameters closely while you get your TDS to the level you want. If everything is good at that level, then you’re likely ok to just do a quick TDS check… but if not, keep running KH and GH.

wow..you have had a very interesting(or frustrating) tank to deal with. parameters swing so wide!