Shrimp turning inactive and dying

Hello again! Soo I prepared even more carefully for my new blue dream shrimp this time around, and still seem to be having issues of the shrimps starting to turn white/paler, getting sluggish, and then dying! I received a little over 20 on 8/22 and so far I have lost about 10 of those over the course of the past 9-10 days I can’t figure it out! They are in a 5g tank (pic attached) that has been cycled a long time (used to have one betta in it, now it has just the shrimp and bladder snails that snuck in but I don’t mind them lol) I have a ton of diff live plants and java moss, cholla, moss balls, etc that they seem to like and I verry slowly drip acclimated them over the course of several hours when I first got them ... my water parameters seem okay to me, and also have been remaining pretty stable since I got them

ammonia 0
nitrite 0
nitrate 0
GH : 6 (107.4)
KH : 3 (53.7)
PH : 7.6
TDS : 268-271

I have no heater in there , but my house is pretty warm and sometime the water temp does make it up to about 82.. maybe that is it? or do these water parameters look off?

Any advice would be much appreciated! I hate seeing my little adorable shrimps die when I’m trying so hard to do the right thing! (I’m also starting to wonder if I should have just tried with some cheaper cherry shrimp! ‍♀️ I just love that gorgeous blue! )

-Steph

 

Hi, sorry to hear about that
Your parameters look great. Where did you get them from?

 

Thanks -Mak- , I got them from SoShrimp, when I got them they looked great and were so active and healthy looking - some still look good, it’s so strange.. I have even found successful molts, so I know some of them have been able to molt with no problems, so don’t think that is what’s happening either !

 

Are you doing a slow drip acclimation, or plop and drop?

 

Hi steph not spoken for a while, I think what would help all following this would be some close up photos of your live and if any more die take some of them in the water, i agree with
-Mak- your water looks fine

 

Are you doing a slow drip acclimation, or plop and drop?

I did a very slow (less than a drop per second) drip acclimation.

 

Hi richiep ! I was hoping you’d chime in I will definitely take some pics today!

 

Okay here are my pics, hopefully I got most of them and the pics are okay!

 

A KH of only 3 . I have read that is not high enough to hold the PH stable. As my KH is over the recommended 6 I can’t say how much truth there is in the low KH and a changing PH. But something is wrong somewhere. What is your change water PH both straight out of the tap and after 24 hours.
The 7.6 PH in the test was that just before a water change? Or after a change?

When changing water do you do anything special to the new water?

 

Vendor water might have been very different
This is just my informed guess but I don't think a long drip acclimation is actually very helpful - the process is quite stressful. I plop and drop locals, and do a 2-ish hour drip on shipped.

A KH of only 3 . I have read that is not high enough to hold the PH stable. As my KH is over the recommended 6 I can’t say how much truth there is in the low KH and a changing PH. But something is wrong somewhere. What is your change water PH both straight out of the tap and after 24 hours.
The 7.6 PH in the test was that just before a water change? Or after a change?

When changing water do you do anything special to the new water?

KH of 3 should be enough

 

I can see nothing off with any of those shrimp whatsoever, a kh3 is well capable of holding off ph swings, the only thing that's not normal which
-Mak- mentioned is the less than one drop per second on acclamation, 2 drops per second over two hrs would be more like it, so begs the question did they all get acclimatised, out of all the information you have given this is the only thing that stands out,

 

A KH of only 3 . I have read that is not high enough to hold the PH stable. As my KH is over the recommended 6 I can’t say how much truth there is in the low KH and a changing PH. But something is wrong somewhere. What is your change water PH both straight out of the tap and after 24 hours.
The 7.6 PH in the test was that just before a water change? Or after a change?

When changing water do you do anything special to the new water?

The 7.6 PH has been consistent the whole time I’ve been testing (1 month now) even a after PWC.

For the water changes I prep the tap water with API stress coat to dechlorinate , let it sit for awhile until it is room temp (i leave some gallons of water set out so they are always at room temp to use right away) and then I used the Equilibium that says “Restores and maintains mineral balance and GH” to match the TDS of the water already in the tank .. hopefully not missing something there !

 

I can see nothing off with any of those shrimp whatsoever, a kh3 is well capable of holding off ph swings, the only thing that's not normal which
-Mak- mentioned is the less than one drop per second on acclamation, 2 drops per second over two hrs would be more like it, so begs the question did they all get acclimatised, out of all the information you have given this is the only thing that stands out,

So it’s possible that having a slower acclimation process could have been worse? I thought the slower the better so they could adjust better ‍

So today I found another successful molt , and then another molt that just had the top half, although not sure , someone might have already eaten the bottom, but suspiciously I also found another dead shrimp that was only That dead pink color on the bottom half , pic attached ...

 

So it’s possible that having a slower acclimation process could have been worse? I thought the slower the better so they could adjust better ‍

So today I found another successful molt , and then another molt that just had the top half, although not sure , someone might have already eaten the bottom, but suspiciously I also found another dead shrimp that was only That dead pink color on the bottom half , pic attached ...

Has the tank ever been treated with copper? I've heard that it never goes away once you dose a tank with it.

 

That pink is saying to me toxins so let's think about that a minute, think about what you use in the room,air spray,polish,putting your hands in the tank maybe after washing in soap using beech, anything like this can do it. Also check your tank for anything that maybe breaking down slowly,

Hopefully the ones that moulted are female so you should have Berried shrimp shortly, if there are no toxins then these are your future shrimp especially the new young so its mportant to watch things from her to make sure these new moults dont die.

This is now a process of elimination as none of us can come up with anything conclusive
As for the drip acclamation because it was so slow your shrimp may not have acclimatised as they should even though it was 7hrs

 

Has the tank ever been treated with copper? I've heard that it never goes away once you dose a tank with it.

Nope, the only thing it was treated with was kanaplex but that was awhile ago and I was running with carbon in there for some time as well to remove any traces of that...

 

That pink is saying to me toxins so let's think about that a minute, think about what you use in the room,air spray,polish,putting your hands in the tank maybe after washing in soap using beech, anything like this can do it. Also check your tank for anything that maybe breaking down slowly,

Hopefully the ones that moulted are female so you should have Berried shrimp shortly, if there are no toxins then these are your future shrimp especially the new young so its mportant to watch things from her to make sure these new moults dont die.

This is now a process of elimination as none of us can come up with anything conclusive
As for the drip acclamation because it was so slow your shrimp may not have acclimatised as they should even though it was 7hrs

Thanks Richie, I’m racking my brain over here- I have parrots too so I def don’t have any sprays or bleach etc , nothing with fumes, ... I wash my hands before putting in the tank but not with soap, just really hot water .
I did let more algae grow all over the tank than I would when I had the betta because I wanted to have it for the shrimp to eat but I do notice now that there are a lot more of those gravel worms in the bottom now .. could There be a thing as TOO much algae for them to have in the tank??

 

If your Nitrates are 0 your tank is not cycled.

 

If your Nitrates are 0 your tank is not cycled.

That’s odd though, I’ve been running this tank for years and it always tested that way.. 0’s across the board !

 

If your Nitrates are 0 your tank is not cycled.

Thats false. If the bio load is very low and the tank has plants it can very well be 0, mainly after a water change. Shrimp tanks are notorious for having 0-low Nitrates. Now if ammonia or nitrites are present and you have 0 Nitrates your tank isn't cycled.

 

That’s odd though, I’ve been running this tank for years and it always tested that way.. 0’s across the board !

The worms could be planaria and they kill shrimp im pretty sure. Can you get a pick of them? Its probably just detritus worms though but you never know. I honestly want you to get to the bottom of this because it's confusing me too.

 

I have tested nitrates in shrimp tanks and posted here on fishlore and my tsnks have zero nitrates so its very possible, anyway that's not the issue and wouldn't have any bearing on op problems

 

The worms could be planaria and they kill shrimp im pretty sure. Can you get a pick of them? Its probably just detritus worms though but you never know. I honestly want you to get to the bottom of this because it's confusing me too.

Yep, here is one from last night! They seem to be congregated more in the front of the tank where there is sunlight - when I check the gravel in the back of the tank there are none. (Maybe because there is also no algae in the back - the front has a lot that’s why the pics are not great quality )

 

Yep, here is one from last night! They seem to be congregated more in the front of the tank where there is sunlight - when I check the gravel in the back of the tank there are none. (Maybe because there is also no algae in the back - the front has a lot that’s why the pics are not great quality )

I wish I could tell you what type of worm they are but I can't tell. They look white and I'm pretty sure planaria are white too. Also planaria have an arrow shaped head while detritus worms just look like straight lines. I may be wrong though I have never seen the worms in person.

 

Sorry they are not planaria, in a way I wish they were

 

I wish I could tell you what type of worm they are but I can't tell. They look white and I'm pretty sure planaria are white too. Also planaria have an arrow shaped head while detritus worms just look like straight lines. I may be wrong though I have never seen the worms in person.

They definitely look just like straight things in the gravel when I examine them up close.

Ahhh just came upon this grisly sight now , another one gone with the same look !

 

Aaah oh no
If they all die then I think there may be something wrong with your water, perhaps something not easily detected? But that is an uncommon scenario.

See if you can locally source some blue dreams. If they do well, it may point to source water differences with this batch

 

Oh man, I hope not! I don’t think anyone even sells cherry shrimp local to me

Maybe this is a silly question - I thought they didn’t need to be fed daily like fish so I have actually only fed them shrimp food a few times since I got them since There was so much algae - I just did feed them though and noticed they were suddenly all congregated around the food and fighting over the pellets - could it be possible I was not feeding them enough shrimp food expecting them to eat the algae and biofilm? (I just counted 10 so it looks like I’ve lost little over half so bummed )

 

The only thing I know of that turns shrimp white like that is
Muscular Necrosis
Its contagious and a killer
You need to remove that shrimp before it gets eaten this is how its passed on

 

The only thing I know of that turns shrimp white like that is
Muscular Necrosis
Its contagious and a killer
You need to remove that shrimp before it gets eaten this is how its passed on

They do seem similar. Here's a picture I found of Muscular Necrosis

 

They do seem similar. Here's a picture I found of Muscular Necrosis

Oh darn, that does look really similar!! I have been removing the dead bodies anyway to avoid an ammonia spike but they def got to it before I found it ughhhh
Going to read up on this now! Thank you both!!

 

So I found this note in reading “
Muscle necrosis in shrimp is usually caused by high temps along with low dissolved oxygen”
That is one thing that did always worry me is my tank is the higher end of the temps they prefer - I do have a sponge filter in there so there are lots of bubbles but maybe this is not enough?? I’m thinking maybe I should try to add another air stone or bubbler type thing to increase the oxygen

 

So I found this note in reading “
Muscle necrosis in shrimp is usually caused by high temps along with low dissolved oxygen”
That is one thing that did always worry me is my tank is the higher end of the temps they prefer - I do have a sponge filter in there so there are lots of bubbles but maybe this is not enough?? I’m thinking maybe I should try to add another air stone or bubbler type thing to increase the oxygen

If they do have muscular necrosis, it came with them, not from your tank.
But from looking at your earlier photos, I don't think it's muscular necrosis

 

If they do have muscular necrosis, it came with them, not from your tank.
But from looking at your earlier photos, I don't think it's muscular necrosis

Ohh really? Man I am stumped - just found another successful molt and the remaining ones seem so active swimming around the past two nights , hard to believe they are likely to get the same thing

 

Actually they are going nuts in there tonight, I’ve never seen them swim so much!

 

Actually they are going nuts in there tonight, I’ve never seen them swim so much!

Happens a lot after water changes or when females are ready to breed!

 

Ohh I hope so, and that I figure out what’s going on soon!

 

Ohh I hope so, and that I figure out what’s going on soon!

Yeah! Any more deaths? Or is it tapering off, do you think?

 

I’m afraid to get my hopes up at this point! But so far no more deaths since that last one (At least none i can find without removing stuff!)

Totally random but I’ve noticed a huge diff in the bladder snails in my betta tank vs this one ! They are getting twice as big and so much healthier looking , I wonder if it is the higher TDS? (they are also doing really crazy things that look like fighting with each other that I’ve never seen them do in the other tank LOL)

 

I saw a video from a guy that has a you tube channel and he had gotten a bunch of the worms in the substrate and he started loosing a lot of shrimp. He had also neglected the tank for a while and it was one of the aquascaped tanks he did in a video. Sorry I can't think of his name but I know he lost about half his shrimp after getting over run with the worms.