Shrimp mass die off

What species is your problem related to? (e.g. Red Cherry Shrimp) Super red crystals (Caradina)

Water Parameters

Please give as many as possible
PH 6.5
GH 4
KH 1
Nitrites o
Nitrates 5
Ammonia 0
Copper 0
TDS 100
Temperature 23

Your Aquarium

Size? 10g
How long has this tank been set up? 2years
Are there any other inhabitants? no
What is your water change schedule and%? 15% weekly
What do you feed and how often? every two days multiple foods in small amounts
Do you add any chemicals? (water conditioner, fertiliser,meds etc) no
Filtration? Aquael Versamax Fzn-3
Substrate? Flora Base Pro Active

Introduction to the Tank (if applicable)

How long has the invert been in the tank?N/A
How did you acclimate them?N/A

Please explain your problem with as much information as possible and include pictures if you can

About a month ago i started loosing shrimp at an alarming rate, at least 5 a day and the odd day there were 9.
In 11 years ive never come up against anything like this and was so hard to watch these guys die, so i started scouring the tank for anything out of the norm but daily the deaths kept on and no sign of disease,water being tested daily with no fluctuations, so i took a few and put them under a microscope to see if i was missing anything and still nothing but deaths carried on, these are pretty sensitive shrimp at the best of times and i thought a mistake i made just before things went pear shape was the fact i realised there was a -2c difference in a water change and i had shocked them but there was no sign of failed moult. every shrimp was clean in every way.
two weeks ago i did a 80% water change hoping there was some unseen toxins in the tank, even before doing this i new it was a waist of time as all 9 tanks get the same water with same minerals at different doses, food is exactly the same for each tank yet the deaths continue, i then decide to treat with Dr shrimps Cure Nature this was sent to me from Germany and is a Bacterial and Fungus treatment, after a week still no change so another 80% water change, the med did nothing to help and there was no colour change in any of the dead,
I started randomly siphoning shrimp into clear pipe to see if there was anything that only stayed with the shrimp while they were alive again nothing but what did surprise me was i picked up a berried shrimp, this was strange as id not seen any new born for a few months.
Into my 4th week and yet another 80% water change and by now i had also done the odd 25% a few times.
yesterday i was down to a dozen shrimp, this morning i noticed one on his side kicking so decided to put an almost dead shrimp under the microscope after 10 minutes i was just about to give up and something caught my eye OMG the silent killer
i'm not going to tell you what i found yet but its in the first picture. I just cant believe how small this is and without the microscope id have never have spotted it and there's none bigger in the tank which makes this whole thing bizarre, i will post a few more photos if no one spots it but im sure you will

 

is that a tiny planaria or snail leech?

 

planaria I've seen is just an odd looking flatworm - I've even removed them by hand, yucky, but...

it's a low level evolution critter

 

I’ve never seen them aside from a search I just did. I still don’t see it if u could post a few more pics and possibly circle it that would be great. Sorry for your losses and glad you figured them out. Hopefully u didn’t move any of them to any of your other tanks to see if the water was the issue. That’s why your the shrimp guru.

 

What species is your problem related to? (e.g. Red Cherry Shrimp) Super red crystals (Caradina)

Water Parameters

Please give as many as possible
PH 6.5
GH 4
KH 1
Nitrites o
Nitrates 5
Ammonia 0
Copper 0
TDS 100
Temperature 23

Your Aquarium

Size? 10g
How long has this tank been set up? 2years
Are there any other inhabitants? no
What is your water change schedule and%? 15% weekly
What do you feed and how often? every two days multiple foods in small amounts
Do you add any chemicals? (water conditioner, fertiliser,meds etc) no
Filtration? Aquael Versamax Fzn-3
Substrate? Flora Base Pro Active

Introduction to the Tank (if applicable)

How long has the invert been in the tank?N/A
How did you acclimate them?N/A

Please explain your problem with as much information as possible and include pictures if you can

About a month ago i started loosing shrimp at an alarming rate, at least 5 a day and the odd day there were 9.
In 11 years ive never come up against anything like this and was so hard to watch these guys die, so i started scouring the tank for anything out of the norm but daily the deaths kept on and no sign of disease,water being tested daily with no fluctuations, so i took a few and put them under a microscope to see if i was missing anything and still nothing but deaths carried on, these are pretty sensitive shrimp at the best of times and i thought a mistake i made just before things went pear shape was the fact i realised there was a -2c difference in a water change and i had shocked them but there was no sign of failed moult. every shrimp was clean in every way.
two weeks ago i did a 80% water change hoping there was some unseen toxins in the tank, even before doing this i new it was a waist of time as all 9 tanks get the same water with same minerals at different doses, food is exactly the same for each tank yet the deaths continue, i then decide to treat with Dr shrimps Cure Nature this was sent to me from Germany and is a Bacterial and Fungus treatment, after a week still no change so another 80% water change, the med did nothing to help and there was no colour change in any of the dead,
I started randomly siphoning shrimp into clear pipe to see if there was anything that only stayed with the shrimp while they were alive again nothing but what did surprise me was i picked up a berried shrimp, this was strange as id not seen any new born for a few months.
Into my 4th week and yet another 80% water change and by now i had also done the odd 25% a few times.
yesterday i was down to a dozen shrimp, this morning i noticed one on his side kicking so decided to put an almost dead shrimp under the microscope after 10 minutes i was just about to give up and something caught my eye OMG the silent killer
i'm not going to tell you what i found yet but its in the first picture. I just cant believe how small this is and without the microscope id have never have spotted it and there's none bigger in the tank which makes this whole thing bizarre, i will post a few more photos if no one spots it but im sure you willView attachment 810843

Hola...you can go the natural way with the glass tube to catch the Planaria but I used PANACUR to get rid of them and it also eliminated a bunch of bladder snails for me. It will kill nerite snail too so pull those. 1 pouch to 50ml treated water. then I added 1ml of mix per 5gal of water. The Panacur will also kill Hydra which had tagged along on Amazon sword. Hydra can also kill baby shrimp. Panacur is a dog dewormer...it does not cure COVID but will make your water milky white for an hour. This product did not harm any fish and I used it on all six of my aquariums

is that a tiny planaria or snail leech?

It's a leach and it wraps itself around its food, their mouth is in the middle of their bodies, and is very hard to kill by squishing them...I got this problem buying moss on eBay

 

There you go kallililly1973 heres the next one

 

I think I spot a shrimp worm...and another one in the second image

 

There you go kallililly1973 heres the next one

So the first pic if I’m seeing it right it’s around the shrimps mouth area and the second is obviously on its back. So do they get under the “shell” of the shrimp and attack them that way?
P.S. awesome job on filling out the emergency template, investigating, finding the issue, and explaining everything.

 

If I didn't fill out the template correct all the work getting it up and running with other members would have been a waste of time
Look at the first photo again and loo where the two front legs hang straight, just behind them

So the first pic if I’m seeing it right it’s around the shrimps mouth area and the second is obviously on its back. So do they get under the “shell” of the shrimp and attack them that way?
P.S. awesome job on filling out the emergency template, investigating, finding the issue, and explaining everything.

 

I believe shrimp worms live on and not inside the shrimp and Im also not sure what makes them lethal.

kallilly1973 you might refer to something else on the images than what I think is a Holtodrilus (shrimp worm)

 

ruud I think you are referring to Scutarulia japonica that attach to the shrimps rostrum little leeches

 

I thought it was Holtodrilus truncate, not Scutariella Japonica

 

ruud
OK and can well be mixed up i believe they are mainly plankton eaters and dont really pose much of a threat,whereas planaria are out and out killers, I've not come across Holtodrilus truncate in any aquarium not to say that don't exist and pretty much invisible, I think your the first ever to mention these on fishlore thats how uncoman they are

 

I would have been surprised if you had em in the UK, could have been Asian imports...
I mentioned Holtodrilus because you could't find any parasites unless you took a closer look with the microscope. So I thought planaria was out of the question.

Anyways, good luck treating your tank. Too bad many got killed.

 

Active substrate have a lifespan of 2 years at most, so the water might have lost some buffering capacity. Hard to say if planaria caused the deaths because they are meat eaters and you'll naturally find them on carcasses....

 

Active substrate have a lifespan of 2 years at most, so the water might have lost some buffering capacity. Hard to say if planaria caused the deaths because they are meat eaters and you'll naturally find them on carcasses....

This planaria came out of the shrimp while it was alive I do change my substrate around the 2 year mark always have even though the perameters say its OK I've just never come across what I say is a miniature planaris
This may intrest you a live shrimp being eaten

 

This planaria came out of the shrimp while it was alive I do change my substrate around the 2 year mark always have even though the perameters say its OK I've just never come across what I say is a miniature planaris
This may intrest you a live shrimp being eaten

As devastating it is to watch it is also absolutely insane how nature is.

 

Hi Richie!
I've not posted for SO long, but thought I'd get going again after reading about your mass die-off.
Much as it's totally horrible for you, it's absolutely amazing that you've persisted endlessly until you've found an answer.
I'm saying this from personal experience because last year, exactly the same thing happened to the shrimp in my Community Tank. Just out of the blue, day after day, dead shrimp littered across the substrate. Other shrimps, alive and well, grazing away happily; next time I looked, another batch of dead ones....
Like you, I eliminated all the usual factors, the shrimp weren't getting sick, literally alive/dead.
It carried on for maybe a week, I must've lost 50+ shrimp, then suddenly stopped.
Up until reading your post, I've never discovered what it was...
Now, I'm sure this is what happened in my case too.
*How do you think the Planaria got into your tank? *
In my case, I'm now thinking it was maybe with some new otocinclus I'd bought? (they're virtually impossible to quarantine so are dripped + go straight in)
The halt in the deaths, I'm (possibly?) putting down to the Honey Gourami eating the Planaria faster than they could reproduce (?) Anyway, that's just a theory and I don't want to hijack your thread with my theories!
What I really wanted to say was THANK YOU so much for the amazing detective work and pictures! I think it's so helpful for unexplained die-offs when we know all our parameters etc etc are not the culprit.
Hope you're safe and well,
Best wishes,
Emma

 

Hi itsEmma so nice to here from you again hope your well.
Anyway don't worry about hijacking if people can learn from our problems that's fine with me
Honey gourami love planaria so will help to a point.
How did planaria get in my one tank????
The fact there's been nothing added to any of my tanks for over a 12 month give me a theory that the eggs have been in the substrate for a long time and something like the mistake i made of -2c in the water change set conditions right for a hatch, this is only a theory and you won't find any information relating to this as its unknown and possibly wrong but that's the only thing I can think of
I'm very particular with my tanks each one as its own nets to stop this sort of thing spreading I also stopped selling these from the first lot of deaths and got intouch with the last person to have shrimp from that tank which was over a month ago and he as had no problems.
As a precaution I've started treating all tanks and stopped selling for now
The other thing in 11 years ive never had a planaria outbreak this is why this is so strange
In the past any new plants are quarantined in planaria zero for a full course of 11 days

 

That certainly seems the most likely possibility. Do you think the eggs were maybe in the bag of substrate and lay dormant all that time?
I wonder if, being such a 'simple' organism, they/their eggs can survive freezing, drying out or whatever yet are ready and primed to just 'wake up' whenever conditions are right? (the temp change?)
I'm still so impressed that you got to the bottom of it and it'll be so helpful to consider for future cases when all other avenues have been explored and eliminated.
Best wishes,
Emma

 

Planaria will appear from overfeeding. It's in every tank.

 

Planaria will appear from overfeeding. It's in every tank.

That's not totally accurate... same family, different beast... detritus worms are different... and even with detritus I've seen them appear far more often in cases of newly cycled tanks that have higher organic load... they just take over the breakdown of waste until the heterotrophs that we can't see start to grow and balance out... imo if you see anything appear because of overfeeding then you are WAY overfeeding, to the point of madness

Anyways Richie sorry to hear about this, I was surprised to see this thread... goes to show that even seasoned experts run into problems from time to time... you never really know with this hobby

Glad to see that you figured it out. Crazy stuff finding something so specific like that!

 

That's not totally accurate... same family, different beast... detritus worms are different... and even with detritus I've seen them appear far more often in cases of newly cycled tanks that have higher organic load... they just take over the breakdown of waste until the heterotrophs that we can't see start to grow and balance out... imo if you see anything appear because of overfeeding then you are WAY overfeeding, to the point of madness

Anyways Richie sorry to hear about this, I was surprised to see this thread... goes to show that even seasoned experts run into problems from time to time... you never really know with this hobby

Glad to see that you figured it out. Crazy stuff finding something so specific like that!

Yes Im talking about planaria. Detritus worms feed on any organic matter, planaria are more meat eaters. When there's overfeeding, detritus worm usually appear first, followed by planaria once fish/snails/shrimp start dying off.

 

If you've seen my feeding videos on fishlore there's no one comes even close to my feeding pattern here, I get all my food consumed within an hour of it going in and no one can dispute that, if anything I've tought many here how to do it right and that's without having any sign of an infestation of any type of worm, I dont have to blow my own trumpet when and how to do things right it stands out and when I get it wrong I don't hide it .
I put this very sad and personal episode on here so others not only learn but see that even the best of us can have problems and its not from overfeeding
As it stands its over 24hrs since the meds went in and there's no deaths to this point

 

Although not posting until now I have been following this thread. If this can happen to you it can happen to anyone. Just goes to show we can do everything in our power to do everything right and something like this can still happen.

I am very happy to read that you got to the bottom of what was happening. You may never know how it happened to begin with but I am glad you were able to get it taken care of before even more shrimp were lost.

 

richiep
This thread just showed up for me, I never saw it last year when it happened. I talked to you so much last year with my first ventures into raising shrimp. I couldn't get them started and you analyzed everything I was doing, and we just couldn't win. Then I started a new tank with a few small fish, had so much algae I had to do it once more. This time success, I can't believe how I've gone from 17 to 100+ so quickly. Every day I still hold my breath half afraid of something like this happening and not knowing why. Other shrimp-keepers have lost tanks, I don't know of anyone else with a microscope, or how we'd see what you finally did - it was all just timing for you to see it on a still-living shrimp. I'm among so many who've owed so much success to you, and I still hear your words telling me little things. Sometimes I have questions and want to reach out and call you, but the questions are probably silly and I don't! One day, my friend, we must catch up!