Janel R

Thank you all for the help! It seems general consensus is that my GH is good for now. I'm planning to stop by the LFS tomorrow and ask my questions, and while I'm at it I'll try and ascertain where they're getting their shrimp/what parameters they are born in. If it's much higher than what I've got then I may add some additional minerals in slowly. I have to say though, in the last few days since I first posted they are doing well in my tank, and I have noticed a few fresh molts laying around with nothing having died, so they probably molted from stress but at least they were able to do so successfully. Thanks to all who commented and helped keep me from doing something drastic 🙏💗 I also found this video which explains the white line thing (with pictures) in relation to GH if anyone else wants to watch/share it. He doesn't really talk about matching parameters with what they were raised in, but otherwise quite helpful 🙂

@Matt B Thank you! I've heard Cory mention Wonder Shell. I've heard they can disintegrate too quickly though, ever had that problem?

Yes, I'll be trying that next if my current stock dies off again. For now I'll probably just let them be and hope I have some females that survive to be berried over the next couple months. I'm traveling internationally soon too so that should help me sit on my hands long enough to wait it out lol.

I would love to have that sort of relationship with my local stores 🙂 There's a couple of the aquarium co-op affiliated shops in my area, but they are all at least 40 minutes away. Definitely want to check them out though!

Thank you for the support! I was certainly disappointed that it happened like this and discouraged that I've already encountered this in a hobby that I love and also have just barely scraped the surface on so far. The encouragement makes a huge difference!💗 If I have time this week I'll go back, try to talk to the first person and let them know what's going on with the water, and if they turn me away similarly to their fellow employee then I'll wash my hands of it, only so much one customer can do.

@AllFishNoBrakes @Tony s Right, forgot to mention the temp, mine is lightly heated, around 75-76 degrees. I’d go no heater but I’m in the LA area and the apartments around here have zero insulation plus no heater here so I’m concerned about the temperature swinging in the tank every day. Also, I drip acclimated these for probably between three or four hours, not sure if that's long enough.

I'm concerned about the RO as well. I feel like I should try one more time to go back to the store and point that out to someone who will listen. Maybe the guy that was there when I bought the water, he at least is nice, even if he indeed misunderstood which shrimp I was buying water for. As for the shrimp, so do you think the water has anything to do with what's killing them then? It would be easy to up the gh a little with the Equilibrium I have, but if I do that, how many degrees would I be able to safely change at a time?

Thank you for the info, and for pointing this out also. I just checked and it is Seachem Equilibrium I have, not Stability so that was a typo on my part 🙂

Thank you for the reply! And glad to know I'm not just losing my mind haha😅 I had considered each of these things, and even wondered if they had remineralized the water in store, but that wouldn't make any sense not just because they said I had to remineralize it myself, but also since that wouldn't enable customers to customize their parameters, thus defeating the purpose of RO. As for the tests I have, they are all pretty much brand new, so that eliminates expiration issues. Also I too thought I may have done it wrong initially, but tested again with the same results.

I'm new to neocaridina shrimp, and I've been trying to start up a cherry shrimp colony, but I'm consistently losing the females to what seems to be a molt problem. They all have either shown up dead with the dreaded white ring around them, or had the ring for a couple days first and then died. Three females from my first batch passed over the course of about a month, leaving me with just one, a male. So I had one of my local fish stores test the water, expecting to find either a PH or hardness issue. The guy at the store said my PH was too high and recommended RO water, which they sell. So I bought some of the water from them, and tested it to know for sure what I was getting into, and... it's virtually the same as my tap water. The only sure difference is a small one: GH measures around 180 ppm in the RO, 195 in my tap. PH is at least 7.6, and KH is around 110 ppm. My tap tests the same on these, maybe I should buy a high PH test kit to know for sure since it's at the top of the regular scale? Oof, so many kits... I know the RO water isn't supposed to lower PH directly, but to my understanding it IS supposed to remove minerals from the water, thereby lowering KH and GH, and possibly PH as a consequence of the fewer minerals... right? So I called the store back to clarify this... and the employee (different guy this time) wouldn't explain it. In fact, he just insisted that their RO water comes out soft (so I just can't read a test) and that they keep their shrimp in 6.5 PH water... and then hung up on me. Decided to just try again and see if I could figure it out before they all die again, so when I bought replacement cherries from that store I took the opportunity to simply test their water myself. Lo' and behold... PH: 7.6+, KH: 110 ppm, GH: a whopping 358 ppm! At this point, I'm guessing both these guys thought I was talking about crystal shrimp the whole time even though I was very clear in asking about Neocaridinas, and I'm back where I started in terms of not knowing what to do with their water. So to summarize, the new cherries arrived four days ago in water that was very very hard, almost twice as hard as mine. One of them did die within the first 24 hours, and another is still alive and acting normal but has the white line (both females again I think). What do I do? Should I use the tap and add minerals, or just leave them alone? The remineralizer I have is Seachem Equilibrium. Also I should mention, I am doing a week quarantine trio on the tank for good measure since the fish were added recently as well. Anyone who can offer some sage wisdom after this ordeal is soooo appreciated, thank you! Ammonia: 0 Nitrite: 0 Nitrate: 5ppm PH: 7.6 or a little higher GH: 195ppm KH: 110ppm Tank: 10 gallons Planted: yes, medium-ish Tank mates: 5 endlers, 2 nerites Food: I've tried Hikari shrimp cuisine, blanched spinach, bacter AE, algae wafers and frozen brine shrimp but for the most part they've seemed very occupied just eating biofilm and algae which this tank has plenty of.

Thank you!! And absolutely, I’ve been checking on her constantly and continuing to test for ammonia just in case 🙂 She’s continuing to improve, keeps darkening up again little by little. She’s such a trooper!

Some good news, her colors are sloooowly starting to come back!😃 I have her in my small hospital tank with just the low level salt still. Probably not out of the woods yet but it’s so nice to see some noticeable progress in the right direction.

@Bigdog99 oof tumors are the worst, I feel for you, my previous betta had one too😥 Hope yours does ok even with the tumor if that’s what it is🙏🏻 And to answer your question, she’s not hiding, just sitting on the plants a lot and swimming kinda slow. I may move her to a smaller holding tank so I can increase the salt at least? Don’t want to crash the tank with more Maracyn 2 just yet.

Hi @Bigdog99 I was literally just writing an update haha😄 So Pidge is doing ok. You can see she’s lost more color, from her fins in particular. The fins have gotten very translucent. She’s been resting a lot and moving generally a little slower than usual I think. She also had some long stringy poop yesterday and today. The round of Maracyn 2 finished yesterday 2/07, and the water was a bit cloudy, so I checked ammonia again after a water change and I was reading a small amount (less than .25). It’s back to 0 today. Not sure if it was just the meds or the fact that my main filter somehow got partially clogged over the last couple days, or even the new root tabs I’m trying? Probably the meds I guess… With that said, I kept the same level of salt after the stringy poop, and haven’t started another round of Maracyn 2 yet.

@Bigdog99 Not really so far, today she was a little more timid and maybe sluggish than usual, kind of keeping to calm zones around middle of the water column. I just saw her flashing again as well. I don't have an airstone right now so I just popped in a spare sponge filter I have on hand.

@Colu @Bigdog99 Thank you both for the advice, I do have the API ammonia kit and actually just ordered an API Nitrate kit as well for my plants sake as I’m still showing 0 nitrate with the strips even immediately after adding fertilizer🤔 Anyway, Maracyn 2 is now in as well as the salt. I fear her health is declining however because this afternoon she started darting around frantically, smashing into things and then hiding between outbursts and breathing a little hard. She did this several times over about an hour and is back to behaving normal now. I’ll send updated pics.

Hi Colu! Thank you for the reply! I put in some salt today and my local fish shop is getting a restock of maracyn 2 tomorrow, so I’ll be picking that up as well. Also I found an ammonia kit and the water did test zero as I’d suspected. No updates on Pidge yet, she’s still doing fine other than continuing to turn white. Honestly she seems very pleased about it😅

Hello fish friends, Hoping someone here can shed some light on my situation, as I haven’t found anything that completely matches my fish’s symptoms on the internet so far. I have a female betta fish who’s been with me since I think May of 2022, and she currently lives alone in a 10 gallon tank with several plants. She was full grown when I got her. Health-wise this fish has been very solid for the most part, and I’ve never had a major issue with her up until this point. So earlier last week, I noticed something might be going on with her as she started out with a silvery look to the edge of her gills. By Friday 01/26 I knew something was up because she had developed pale patches on both sides of her body. I reinstalled a filter output modifier that day because I thought it may be stress from the water moving too fast, but the patches were not improving as of yesterday. I couldn’t find anything online that visually matches her symptoms (except maaayybe graphite disease which I read is incurable?). I caught her flashing once and twitching a few times yesterday, so with that and the pale patches, these are the only symptoms I have observed. She’s still swimming normally, no clamped fins, not laying on the bottom of the tank, coming to the glass when she sees me, and eagerly accepting food. She isn’t exhibiting her stress stripe either which shows up very quickly whenever she’s even a little bit distressed. My best guess was something bacterial given that I have a raging blue green algae problem right now despite months of trying bi-weekly adjustments like reducing light hours, and removing my two nerite snails in an effort to make it stop growing. That said, I used one packet of Erythromycin yesterday, thinking there may be more bacteria given the green algae. As of today her color loss has not slowed down, and it now covers more than half of her body. A note: The red splotch at about the center of her anal fin is normal, it has always been there. Ammonia: Used to have a long-term reader. I need to pick up a test kit tomorrow, but because this tank has been running since 2022, I'm guessing it'll be zero. Nitrite: 0 Nitrate: 0 Hardness: 300+ PPM (it has been this way since we got her) Buffer: 120-180 PPM pH: 7 ish Chlorine: 0 Temp: 79 degrees Fahrenheit Tank Size: 10 gallons Food: usually frozen blood worms or brine shrimp, once per day Water changes: a little less than 50% every two weeks This last one is how she would normally look😥

The latter two Ottos never came in contact with my betta, as he unfortunately passed away before I got them. He probably got in just a few nips on my first Otto when I tried to introduce them last month- since I could tell right away it wasn’t going to work out, I divided the tank immediately. I know Nimbus is beyond help now, but I included his part of the story to help try and diagnose if this is a contagious thing that has been in the tank for a long time, or if all this stuff with the Ottos is unrelated.

Thank you for the well-wishes! I’m hoping they turn around soon as well. Yea I’ve heard of that feeding method, and I’ll definitely try it if I need to. For now there’s plenty of brown algae around the tank, and even in quarantine they weren’t interested in anything except what was on the walls, which where spotless to my eyes, and yet the Ottos were plump and digesting well. They are amazing little critters. As for the assassin snails, I’ve never seen them anywhere near the Ottos, they are usually in completely different areas of the tank. My assassins are almost always on the substrate, and the ottos will hang out pretty much anywhere but there. Even if they were, I doubt the snails would be fast enough to get a bite out of one… These guys move like lightning!

Hello Aquarium coop community! This is my first time sharing anything here, and I probably should have done so earlier because my story has several facets at this point. I love this community and appreciate everything you do here❤️ I’m a pretty novice fish keeper. I have one 10 gallon tank that has been set up since after Christmas of 2021. It has all live plants with two filters since I’m keeping an extra going for the quarantine tub. The only inhabitants of the tank right now are three otocinclus catfish and two assassin snails (oh, and I’ve been fighting hydra in the tank but I think that’s probably unrelated to the other issues I’m having) The ottos eat algae exclusively- I’ve tried spinach, zucchini and algae wafers on them and they won’t touch it. Ammonia- 0 Nitrite- 0 Nitrate- 0-10 Hardness- very hard (off the chart) KH- 60-70 PH- between 6.4 and 6.8 Chlorine- 0 Lights on from 8am to 8 pm with an hour break in the middle Temp- normally kept at 78 but this is a 2nd floor LA apartment and it got up to 82 overnight, I realize that’s too hot, trying to get it down now. The ottos- Ok so back in the end of March I got three ottos to take over for my pond snails which were being eradicated by the assassins. I lost one of those on the first day of quarantine, and a second when I later medicated the display tank for my betta fish (I’ll get to him in a minute). I was left with one lonely Otto, who immediately started presenting with some fin rot and lethargy which I thought may be due to the stress of having no one to shoal with. I had to move apartments, so I let her be like that for a few weeks (no change whatsoever), and then after the move I bought three more. This time I was more cautious with acclimation, and introducing medications (again, used the aquarium co-op quarantine method). I used drip acclimation for everything. Once again, I lost one in quarantine, and two made it into the display tank. They were introduced Thursday, and OG Otto seemed to be loving having friends again. They swam around nonstop all day on Thursday grazing on diatoms, it was great. But come this morning (two days later) I was shocked to see that both the new ottos have chunks missing off their tail fins, just as bad or worse as the OG. Whatever this is, it takes over fast. They’re all just sitting around now, like OG was before they arrived. Not sure if it’s really visible in the video, but OG Otto also has some redness around her gills. I’m sorry the pictures aren’t so clear, my phone has a really hard time focusing on fish this tiny! The betta- Just to be clear off the bat, my Betta fish passed away after we moved into the new apartment. I got him on January 29th, and at that time he already had a small tumor (I didn’t realize it was a tumor until later), and what I thought looked like some mild fin rot, but I will never know for sure because it never wen’t away entirely. I treated him with salt, and then Maracyn during his quarantine. After he moved into the display tank (mid-February) he continued to present with pin-holes appearing on his tail, some of which healed on their own, but eventually they stopped healing back. At the same time his tumor continued to get bigger, and his colors became duller and muddy. He also flashed from time to time but would always stop on his own. I removed some decor, trying to eliminate physical hazards, but nothing helped. By the time it was time to add my first Otto’s to the tank, he wasn’t looking very good and I feel bad that I probably hastened his demise, because he DID NOT like sharing the tank and I had to separate them. Soon after the separator went in (first or second week of April), I treated the entire tank with Paracleanse and then Maracyn. Again, lost the second Otto at that time, and OG still had all of her tail. Nimbus perked up for a little bit, but soon turned for the worse again. By the week of the move, he was knocking on death’s door, and I feel very bad that I didn’t have any time to get supplies to put him down humanely before he had suffered so much, but that is just how it went. You can see in his pictures that in February he was a very beautiful fish, and he slipped so far so quickly after that, it breaks my heart. I wish I knew for sure what actually killed him, but with a fast-growing tumor in the mix, I’m thinking there’s every possibility that his body was too weak to fight anything off, with or without the help of medication. Very long story short, I need help. I’m confused, frustrated and weary of the perpetual fin rot. Should I try to medicate again? Leave it alone? If anyone has some tips, I’m all ears! ”OG” Otto, from side OG again the larger of my new ottos, both of these had perfectly formed tails going into the tank littler new Otto full tank view Nimbus, February 25th April 12th, I think during medication, RIP Nimbus